Where do you feel Fallout 3 falls short of the franchise

I played through most of the first two games (before working myself into a situation where I could not reach my preferred ending). Overall I think that Bethesda did a good job of emulating the style of the first game, but there are a two areas that I find a tad bit disappointing:


Descriptions: In the first game, most things that you could put in ur inventor had a description. You could learn everything from the marketing disaster that was Nuka Cola Yellow, to a weapons reputation. You'd think with the vast library of random books that Bethesda used to flesh out the game world in Oblivion they would have no problem filling this game with pointlessly entertaining flavor text.


Sexual themes: I know that, in this day and age, it's alot harder for a big time developer to get away with some of things that Black Isle put into fallout2 (whoring your wife out), but I really don't feel like they pushed the sexual themes to a limit that would have kept them out of the crosshairs of mainstream watchdogs. Part of what set the Fallout series apart from every other RPG was that they pushed explicit content to the socially acceptable limits. I think Nova needs alot more innuendo.

 

Agreed.

Also, at the risk of sounding like a sick, sick person...

You can't kill kids in Fallout 3. Seriously, what the hell?

 

I found the shotgun weddings to be the highlights. Fun times, unless you accidentally went and slept with the brother of your intended spouse.

True, there use to be no bounds to halting any psychopathic violence and now...

I wanna know what happened to the crotch-shot and the funny comments that came from killing someone. Even if they were Duke Nukem-lite. And what, no cadillac? Perhaps I'm just not that far in.

Other than that they've done a pretty decent job.

 

Censorship, though there's not too much they could've done about that without it being banned in Australia (though I've picked myself up an american copy while i'm in the states anyway)...

Lack of eye/crotch shots is very disappointing.

Lack of item descriptions...

As far as the transition from FO1/2 to 3D goes, I think they've done a superb job - the thing that threw me at first was that, because they haven't explained the game mechanics at all, I didn't know that increasing my weapons skills affected their damage/bullet spread/etc etc, and therefore their effectiveness outside of VATS, which meant that by level 8, the scaled encounters were just not dying realistically quickly.

But once you understand, the system makes a lot more sense...

 

I'm still playing the game, haven't beat it yet.

Why is the D.C area so underdeveloped especially since the game takes place a few decades after Fallout 2? The area looks like the bombs fell just a few years ago, though as the capital of the U.S, it was likely hit much harder than California.

I'm still enjoying the game very much and its come out at a very bad time in the semester, the hardest part of the semester.

I suppose before, in the first two games, they were simple sprites but now are fully featured 3D models here. Also, the controversy of violence in videogames has risen much since Fallout 1/2 were released. If you could kill children in this game, oh the lawmakers would be all over this game!!!

 

"I smell an ambulance!" /jack thompson

/derail

 

jack thompson might get disbarred, or w.e that makes it illegal to practice law. so yeah, but that was old news

 

just curious, how did you get eye/crotch shots on a 2D game? was it like an option or something, cause i was thinking like aiming for them but that wouldnt make sense on a 2D game, ive never played the Fallout games but i might try the first 2 if i decide to get 3

 

You had the option of an "aimed shot." In combat a screen similar to VATS would come up and you'd get the option of being able to aim at various body parts. VATS was the answer to this but as has already been said you can no longer shoot people in the eye nor the groin. Ahh, I missed those funny comments.

Oh and personally I liked Fallout 2 by far and above FO1 and FO3.

SPOILER:
You CAN actually kill kids you just have to WORK for it. Get the Sandman Perk at Lvl 10 (Req 60 Sneak) and you have the option of being able to murder any sleeping character.

As an added bonus because Beth tried to make kids unkillable if you kill them you will not lose any karma and they're basically and infinite experience pool

END SPOILER


I've clocked up hour 17 on this game and my biggest issues with where it falls short of the previous ones are:

1. Combat. We all used to love the hilarious comments made by people when you shot them in the groin or eye. I guess its okay to say f-word when you're in a conversation with someone but not after you've shot them in the head...

2. "MA rating." You can blow people's bodies up, set them on fire, drop live grenades in people's inventory, eat dead bodies, use a nuclear weapon on a town, collect people's ears as bounty's but you can't kill kids (at least noramlly), sleep with prostitutes or see yourself take drugs (also taken out)...

3. Combat. Its a FPS lite. Having to constantly use VATS degrades the game since basically firing weapons not in VATS is basically a waste of ammo.

4. Item description or lackthereof. Already talked about.

5. Combat. I shoot someone in the head with a high powered sniper rifle and they keep on coming...

6. NPCs. I miss having a party, exploring the wastelands together, their backstories, their quests and generally the entertainment they provided.

7. Combat. Scaled encounters...fricking ridiculous.


Oh and it makes me sad that a driving force behind the lack of drugs, prostitutes and child killing is my own home country not having an R18+ rating and the ridiculous South Australian Governor General refusing to even discuss the addition of an R18+ standard...

 

3. Combat. Its a FPS lite. Having to constantly use VATS degrades the game since basically firing weapons not in VATS is basically a waste of ammo.


I didn't like this at first but I've learned to love it. I would liken it to the slow motion in FEAR, except that it does everything for you while you watch a gloriously cinematic fire fight.

 

The sprite and zesty witticisms founds in the original titles are sorely and surely missing from this incarnation.

 

everything feels more sterile and mainstream in the 3rd one...i remember bumping into the sheriff for the first time in Redding...."im here to kick *** and chew bubblegum!!"

or finding boxes of Cheesy Poofs

the dialogue in fallout 2 is unmatched by any other game imo, your characters had real personalities, you could ask them where they're from, what they think about your current location, where they need to go, the people had much more creative personalities too like Flick in Den, Vic, Cassidy, Sulik, the drug store owner from New Reno, the drunken Priest, the farmer guy from Modoc etc.... there are literally hundreds of them, they were all amazing imo

who can forget trying to **** off the tribe elder after the Temple of Trials...good times

IMO the series is better in 3D, and MMO is the only way to go with this

 

i hate the restrictions they made for this game, Fallout 2 featured more stuff to do, but overall, the game turns to be great.

 

Fallout 3 also suffers from serious fundamental issues in the continuum department.

 

You mean that if you want to you can finish the main quest (and therefore game) in 2ish hours? Or do you mean something else I'm totally missing?