Current Events > What are the big non spoilery criticisms about Fallout 3 (no main spoilies)

(+) Yeah! (+)

I'm really late to the Fallout 3 party

I hear there's a lot of criticism. What are the main criticisms other than story?

I bought the GOTY for pretty cheap, like $4. It's pretty laggy at times. *Shrug*

Is that it? Are there more criticisms other than lagginess/bugginess?
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Lack of Feargus
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its nothing like a fallout game
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Buggyness is to be expected, it's a Bethesda game. If you got it on PC, expect frequent crashes, and it apparently doesn't run very well on some Windows 10 PCs. If you play it as a FPS, it will play as a very poor FPS.
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metralo posted...

its nothing like a fallout game

What about for someone that never played a pre Fallout 3 game? (I've only played Fallout 4)

008Zulu posted...

Buggyness is to be expected, it's a Bethesda game. If you got it on PC, expect frequent crashes, and it apparently doesn't run very well on some Windows 10 PCs. If you play it as a FPS, it will play as a very poor FPS.

Got it for PS3. I'm from the DC area so I like that I'm roaming around the make believe DC metro map
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IIRC, there were some real problems with extremely badly-timed crashes in the Point Lookout DLC.

So many frustrated reloads...
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I dunno, but Tunnel Snakes rule.
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AlCalavicci posted...

What about for someone that never played a pre Fallout 3 game? (I've only played Fallout 4)

You'lll be fine as long as you don't touch New Vegas then.
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buggy engine
poor writing (well, baseline bethesda writing, which is poor)
supposedly doesn't follow the spirit of previous fallout games well
some people dont like the factions
some people dont like the karma system
etc
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AlCalavicci posted...

Is that it? Are there more criticisms other than lagginess/bugginess?

It crashes pretty often. Cant run for most people on Windows 10.

The story has a bunch of plotholes and they for whatever reason moved away from an already established great fallout lore.

but i liked the game overall. Its still a great game to play and i sank hours into it
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The most broken PS3 game ever conceived. They should've paid you to play it and even then it wouldn't have been enough.

YOUHAVENOHOPE posted...

buggy engine
poor writing (well, baseline bethesda writing, which is poor)
supposedly doesn't follow the spirit of previous fallout games well
some people dont like the factions
some people dont like the karma system
etc

To reiterate on the writing, the vanilla ending was bad. Not as hyped and hated as mass effect 3 but only because it was the first fallout game for most players. Even with a dlc that adds more to the story afterwards, it still had some serious issues.
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ArchangelBaruch posted...

AlCalavicci posted...

What about for someone that never played a pre Fallout 3 game? (I've only played Fallout 4)

You'lll be fine as long as you don't touch New Vegas then.

New Vegas is next, I got that for cheap too.
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Not a great role playing game, not a good fallout game

Fairly enjoyable post apocalyptic murder sim
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- the writing and worldbuilding isn't just bad, it's constantly self-contradictory and actually intelligence-insulting at times. This is especially glaring during the main quest, where the focal point of your quest is something that has no actual relevance to the gameworld, despite key characters trying to convince you otherwise with used-car-saleman determination.

- the non-comedic characters are thoroughly bland and forgettable. James might have turned out okay if the main quest to which he is so heavily tied didn't drag him down into the muck; even Liam Neeson's pipes can't salvage this subtly selfish asshole of a character after that. John Henry Eden might have been passable without that infamous speech check option.

- elements from past Fallout games are recycled simply to put the franchise stamp on the game, resulting in a very bland imitation

- your character is, at any given time during the main quest, merely playing second fiddle to 3 other actual main characters in terms of both importance to the game world and player agency (4 if you count Liberty Prime).

- the ending is just a slap in the face; for me personally, the game's flimsy veneer came crashing down hard when I reached that point. The Broken Steel DLC may have fixed this from a gameplay standpoint, but from a narrative standpoint it's still pure shit.

- the gameplay world is a turd-brown slapdash of dark humor kooky shit thrown together without any sense of design. People who rip on New Vegas for having a boring overworld clearly don't recognize how logically the Mojave is set up through settlements, travel / supply routes, pockets of similar enemies / wildlife, etc. I suppose you can still find some fun traipsing through the monuments of DC, which are inexplicably still standing despite DC having been 'hit harder' during the Great War (an excuse that is often and unsuccessfully used to defend FO3's plot and worldbuilding inconsistences).

- Ranged non-VATS combat is Morrowind-esque combo of FPS skills and stat-based die rolls that should have died with Morrowind. You can actually watch a sniper bullet travel through an enemy's body and have it not register as a hit.

- by contrast, VATS is beyond broken, especially when enhanced by a particular equally-broken perk. This is amplified by the fact that you are completely invulnerable during a VATS cutscene. This wouldn't be so bad on its own, but when non-VATS combat is so atrocious, you are heavily encouraged to rely on it.

- the karma system is a laughable way of applying morality to your actions, and is incredibly easy to exploit. Furthermore, the moral choices in this game are so lacking in subtlety that the karma system is completely redundant. Most of the bigger moral choices in the game - particularly in the MQ - can't even be boiled down to 'good or evil' - 'idiot or dick' is more appropriate.

- and fucking Little Lamplight

But that atmosphere, man...
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How is it that nobody ever heard of Fallout before 3, and only a decade after its release does anyone care how similar it is to 1 and 2?
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DevsBro posted...

How is it that nobody ever heard of Fallout before 3, and only a decade after its release does anyone care how similar it is to 1 and 2?

This is not a new criticism
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YOUHAVENOHOPE posted...

poor writing

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VATS is overpowered
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DevsBro posted...

How is it that nobody ever heard of Fallout before 3, and only a decade after its release does anyone care how similar it is to 1 and 2?

Make no mistake, FO3 is just barely less a bad game in its own right than it is a bad game compared to its predecessors. I'd barely even heard of the first two games when I was raging over 3's ending (and feeling the sense of story collapse said ending triggered) way back in '08.
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Sure, the ending sucked. Hard. Always did. I didn't say otherwise.
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I will always have a soft spot for 3 for introducing me to Fallout. Not that everything said in this topic isn't true. Thankfully I found the better games.
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Southernfatman posted...

I will always have a soft spot for 3 for introducing me to Fallout. Not that everything said in this topic isn't true. Thankfully I found the better games.

Minus having a soft spot for it myself, I agree. Just because Fallout 3 is a fundamentally bad game doesn't mean it isn't still fun; or rather, there's pockets of fun to be found if you know where to look. And I might not personally be so hard on the game if it didn't still have a noteworthy number of cultists who will talk in maddeningly nonsensical circles unto their dying breaths that it's actually a high-quality game (not to mention that the fucker still manages to score high on game review top RPG lists based on nothing more than sorely-misplaced nostalgia).

But I can't think of a game that's been made more thoroughly obsolete by its descendants. Fallout 4, for all its shortcomings, added better combat, much better worldbuilding, settlement-building, and an overall more fun and finely-crafted overworld in which to fart around; and New Vegas of course does just about everything worlds better than 3. I've tried to go back to 3 twice since NV came out, and I couldn't even muster the motivation to make it to some of my favorite segments, such as 3's standout DLC The Pitt. Apart from maybe listening to the radio long enough to catch an adventure of Herbert 'Daring' Dashwood (which I'm sure can be done easier on Youtube), there's just nothing left of value in that game for me.
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masterpug53 posted...

And I might not personally be so hard on the game if it didn't still have a noteworthy number of cultists who will talk in maddeningly nonsensical circles unto their dying breaths that it's actually a high-quality game (not to mention that the fucker still manages to score high on game review top RPG lists based on nothing more than sorely-misplaced nostalgia).

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