i'm leaving WATMM

Don't get me wrong, I love exploring as well but part of the fun exploring wears off when you're forced into buildings or trainstations whereas in Oblivion you could go anywhere you wanted. One of the things that sums of the GREATNESS of Oblivion was at one point I found a waterfall and I spent so long exploring that area and of course I tried going through the waterfall in hope of finding a secret door or something. Obviously, the clever guys behind Bethesda hadn't thought of this because I there were no doors behind the waterfall, but the fact that I actually took time exploring the area says a lot. I haven't really bumped into any areas quite like the waterfall one in Fallout3. But I took a look at the map last night and it turned out that I actually haven't explored much of the south west and north east part of Washington DC.

I'm in complete agreement with Lumpenprol.

  Squee said:

Don't get me wrong, I love exploring as well but part of the fun exploring wears off when you're forced into buildings or trainstations whereas in Oblivion you could go anywhere you wanted. One of the things that sums of the GREATNESS of Oblivion was at one point I found a waterfall and I spent so long exploring that area and of course I tried going through the waterfall in hope of finding a secret door or something. Obviously, the clever guys behind Bethesda hadn't thought of this because I there were no doors behind the waterfall, but the fact that I actually took time exploring the area says a lot. I haven't really bumped into any areas quite like the waterfall one in Fallout3. But I took a look at the map last night and it turned out that I actually haven't explored much of the south west and north east part of Washington DC.

Also, I can't believe I wasn't the only one who spent ages around the waterfall looking for a door!

I dunno, I find Fallout more fun to wander in. In Oblivion you knew wherever you went, you'd just find an oblivion gate, or one of three kinds of dungeon, or a shrine, or some such. I guess i don't think they're that different. The only part of Fallout that's restricted like that is some of the downtown travel. If you don't like it, go out into the wastes for a while.

They are both gorgeous games, with moments where a particular view will make your jaw drop, usually at sunset or sunrise.

Okay - I take a lot of what I said back. I don't know how this slipped me, but I noticed that I had only explored about 30% of the map. I had not visited the north nor the south, so I went on a hike last night and went north to Vault 92, where I picked up a faint signal on my PipBoy, which was a really distorted voice that kept looping. Cool. So I ran around trying to pick up a better signal, went up into the mountain and had a look at the area I had been running around in. Then something caught my eye...

It's obvious that I hadn't explored much of the map when I wrote my last couple of posts, because it's things like these that I was looking for in Fallout. I also found

Brilliant!

But I still agree with you, lumpenprol, that the game lacks depth. There aren't enough unique characters to interact with and the ones there are don't have anything interesting to tell you and the audio logs do not really add anything to the story or gives you enough side quests.

i still haven't found the UFO in two play-throughs for some reason. Oasis (the green place) is fairly well done, and revealed quite well - on my first playthrough I found and audiolog with map marker on some guy who attacked me near a church; on the second I came across a band of outlaws looking for the place to loot it. There's also the radio broadcast from "3 dog" you mentioned.

I love the pure exploration element and there were some indelible memories for me - working my way through the satellite arrays, to get to the dish at the top and watch the sunrise; calling in the nuke drop from another array; approaching Tenpenny tower for the first time and having the guy selling robots pass by in front of me as the sun set (this really felt like a snapshot from another reality, and not just a video game)...

It's funny how in the end, the most moving piece of language in the whole game is the audiotape from the Grisly Diner (Keller family tape #2 or something like that). It's a completely harrowing clip of a woman freaking out as the bombs are being dropped. Nothing else in the game comes close for emotional intensity, which just shows how leaden all the other interactions are (especially the forced "tear jerker" moments with your dad). The overall feel is it's "teen fiction"-fied: apart from the gore, most of the grisly, macabre, and sick edges have been rounded off for a more cuddly "all ages" experience. Too bad. It's still a superb game.

I need another playthrough where I drop the nuke. I just have to.

Yeah, that's what I'm gearing up for. Want to finish up all of Moira's quests before I push the button...though I hear she comes back in ghoul form, lol

agree with most of the criticism

* main quest too short but still better than oblivion's which i didnt even bother to finish

* good that you always seem to find shit when you wander around

* train station = dungeon = lazy level designers

* it felt like 50% oblivion and 50% fallout. i've played both. needed a touch of something new as well.

* needed more "x-factor", like weird boss characters, plot twists or sthng

One of the things I find annoying is the fact that if you spot something in the horizon at Washington D.C. then there'll most likely be a bunch of broken bricks in your way preventing you from going through not one, not two but a LOT of the streets leading to your destination. Instead you'll have to go through the train stations.

I started a new game, as a girl (a really sexy 50s inspired girl with thick nerdy glasses) and I was a mean son of a bitch who killed pretty much I came in contact with. It was pretty fun and it actually led to a whole fame and fortune, but killing everyone get a bit boring and left a lot of the missions with an unfinished feel to it. So I continued playing with my old character and lately I've been stumbling into a couple of interesting missions and people. I just completed the Agatha's Song mission. Great one.

Spirit. Spirit of Poison.

Howling Spirit. Killing Spirit That Walks.

Spirit Creature Not Wearing The Shape Of A Man.

(have fun!)

i did every side quest and visited every area after getting the explorer perk and got all but 3 of the achievements (didn't want to do a neutral playthrough) and it was fun but i kind of wish i had done it on my own. i used an online guide for pretty much all the extra shit just cause i'm an achievement whore, and now i feel like i missed out on that sense of exploration kind of. then again i don't have that kind of patience to just wander around and hope i find shit so whatever.

lol. Guides suck. It did ruin it for you. Most of this game is exploration.

Just keep an eye out for the unexplored "triangles" on your compass. Do that sometimes you'll find something extremely uninteresting and other times you'll find a sidequest which will award you with an achievement.

I thought Oblivion's main quest was better than F3's. F3's was an uninspired mish-mash of the first two games' plots. Only part that stood out was Tranquility Lane. They totally fucked the Enclave "revelation", and the clumsiness of the climax nearly ruined the game for me. Side quests were better in Oblivion, too. The Assassin's guild quests were better than any questline in F3 imo.

F3 is still a sweet game though. I love wandering the wastes and exploring. Plus, the first 20 hours or so of gameplay was fantastic, before the limitations became apparent.

  lumpenprol said:

I thought Oblivion's main quest was better than F3's.

No wai. It was longer, but it was pretty much: go to "Oblivion" (Hell), look at thre same textures, kill the same 15 demons and climb the same tower 14 times to finish the game. Oh and the "Hell" thing has already been done in a million other games including Doom and (almost identically) in Ultima 8.

I think it was a bit more involved than that - it had the Kvatch siege, getting martin to cloud top, oblivion gate closing, some fed-ex quests, stopping the juggernaut from coming through the huge gate, the trip to Kamoran's Paradise (derivative of Logan's Run and other sources, but still fairly well done), and the final battle at the imperial city.

Kind of a toss-up I suppose. I felt the F3 one was disjointed and didn't make a whole lot of sense.

As an aside, I like the Oblivion plane design. Thought it was really well done. The only problem was the repetition.

  lumpenprol said:

I think it was a bit more involved than that - it had the Kvatch siege, getting martin to cloud top, oblivion gate closing, some fed-ex quests, stopping the juggernaut from coming through the huge gate, the trip to Kamoran's Paradise (derivative of Logan's Run and other sources, but still fairly well done), and the final battle at the imperial city.

lol i wasnt as close to the end as i thought. oh well.

i've been playing through fallout 2 again and i've realized that the main difference between these two games is the fact that fallout 3 focuses a lot on pre-war stuff while fallout 2 is more like the harsh realities of the wasteland after the apocalypse.

fallout 3 basically could've been a stand-alone game without any attachment to the fallout franchise, which probably would've been for the better. i think what the designers were going for was a bit more bioshock and a little less mad max.

still, it's an awesome game, even if it doesn't completely fit into the fallout formula.

i've still got resistance 2 for the ps3 sitting unplayed on the coffee table ... maybe after i get through that i'll install my brothers copy of fallout onto the living room comp. ...

(reason i'm not playing resistance yet is that i was watching my bro play the first ffew sections whilst he bitched about the simple unnecessary water traps .. and nodding my head along with the sentiment in disgust) ..

i just started this tonight, so i'm going to be ignoring this thread for a long time.

i'm just up to leaving vault 101, pretty much. fuck me this game is deep, even so far. well done bethesda.

Who is getting the DLC? The first one came out today... !

  Echo said:

Who is getting the DLC? The first one came out today... !

is this for PC or just consoles?

cos i looked on African American electronic music.com and i didnt see nothing

I watched a preview of it on Gametrailers.com and it didn't really spark my interest. From the looks of it I'm not sure if you can actually walk about and explore the new city in the simulation? Also my friend has borrowed my copy of Fallout3, so I can't even try the DLC.

has anyone created any good custom campaigns with GECK yet? i don't really browse any fallout fansites so i wouldn't know...

I just read about it. it looks like more "hay we can make Fallout act like Company Of Brothers" like the last scene of the main game.

which my compy didnt really like very much