Thoughts on the Fallout Games?

[StodgyAyatollah]

11 hours ago, Rudolph said:

Kind ironic for a series that is literally about how capitalism brought about the end of the world...

Good to see your bad takes are coming from others who have projected their politics onto something where it does not fit. It explains a lot comrade.

[dasho]

12 hours ago, Rudolph said:

 Kind ironic for a series that is literally about how capitalism brought about the end of the world... :S

 

I'm also convinced you skipped the intro video as well, which in plain English details how the fact that mankind wages war and the reasons for which they do so have gone unchanged for centuries. It also mentions a Chinese incursion into the United States as one of the initial events of the war.

[Rudolph]

6 hours ago, StodgyAyatollah said:

Good to see your bad takes are coming from others who have projected their politics onto something where it does not fit.

I am not projecting anything:

 

 

[StodgyAyatollah]

9 minutes ago, Rudolph said:

I am not projecting anything

 

You may not be but whoever you picked up the idea from is. We have the manuals, promo material, the FO bible and interviews with the devs to reference. It's a basic premise of dwindling resources, human inclination towards conflict and the ever looming threat of nuclear annihilation used as a backdrop to build it's setting on. Common among media of the time and what it drew influences from. The typical messages shared in that media, when there even was one is that nuclear war is bad and running out of oil or other resources would destabilize the world. Anyone who sees a clear anti-capitalist message is only looking at it like a rorschach inkblot and not because it was intended.

[Rudolph]

Fallout draws its imagery and themes directly from the Cold War, a conflict that was explicitly about preserving global capitalist hegemony. The game's opening cutscene shows footage of American troops committing a war crime followed by a car commercial and then an ad for a robotic servant. The whole "War Never Changes" opening narration literally draws attention to the fact that conflicts tend to be motivated by the accumulation of wealth:

 

The Romans waged war to gather slaves and wealth.
Spain built an empire from its lust for gold and territory.
Hitler shaped a battered Germany into an economic superpower.

 

Fallout 1's plot in particular might not be about capitalism, but its very premise - that the world would be destroyed because of greed and that, rather than learning lessons from it, humanity would for the most part be content with recreating the same flawed systems and beliefs that led to its near annihilation - is undeniably anti-capitalist in itself. Now, Black Isle Studios being American, they most likely were not communists themselves, but you do not need to be a communist to sharply criticize capitalism. 

[StodgyAyatollah]

15 minutes ago, Rudolph said:

Fallout draws its imagery and themes directly from the Cold War, a conflict that was explicitly about preserving global capitalist hegemony.

I suggest you take the time to actually play both games a few times and look at the reference material I mentioned before trying to convince people who've actually done so that they are wrong. The opening scene displays the horrors of war in a post-civil setting contrasted with some imagery influenced by 50's idealism that also displays the level of advancement achieved pre-war. You're reading into it a bit more than it warrants. In the FO bible there is a rudimentary timeline of the various geo-political events that led to the war. It's a basic "resources ran out and nations started fighting each other" story. Capitalists being no more guilty than the communists. The citation of Rome (republic) Spain (monarchy) and Germany (socialist) is just to demonstrate an innate characteristic of all mankind that causes repeated conflict. If anything it's a critique of the human condition itself.

[lazygecko]

There's a universal trend towards short-sighted greed in post-agricultural civilization that transcends capitalism as an ideology. The Romans regressed from a republic into an authoritarian state and eventually collapsed precisely because of an upwards transfer of collective wealth to a class of elites who just kept taking more and more for themselves. And it was that kind of vibe and historical thread the Fallout narrative was tapping into.

[Rudolph]

Under capitalism, short-sighted greed is very much the name of the game. I read that later Fallout installments would flesh out Vault Tec, revealing how as a business it was perfectly happy to profit off the incoming nuclear apocalypse, very much mirroring the role of real-life industries in starting and exacerbating crises of all kinds. As such, I believe it is absolutely fair to call Fallout's premise anti-capitalist.

 

Anyway, I have successfully finished my first Fallout playthrough ever! What a ride, phew! I did not get to max my character out, but I was still able to create a robust melee fighter (ST, EN and AG at 10, PE at 7) that could punch his way through the wasteland, although I eventually started stocking up on throwing weapons to deal with ranged enemies or to lure them into narrowing the distance between them and my fist. I picked Heavy-Handed and Fast Shot as perks, and then Bonus HtH Damage, Bonus HtH Attacks and Bonus Move (3). I picked Unarmed, Melee Weapons and Throwing Weapons as my tag skills, and my only real regrets are investing points in First Aid (crappy skill) and neglecting Intelligence (greatly reduced my ability to communicate with NPCs). Still, the quest to deal with the Super Mutant threat went much better than expected (I was brimming with supplies), even if the Mariposa Military Base proved to be a bit of a pain to navigate with all the force fields.

 

Spoiler

Also, and I might be reading a bit too much into it, but I thought it was interesting that the Master's lair was itself a Vault and the Master was sitting in a command chair just like the Vault 13 Overseer's. It might have just been Black Isle just reusing assets, but still, it felt to me like it was mirroring the beginning of the Vault Dweller's quest. Again, it's like poetry, so that they rhyme...

 

All in all, it was a good experience and I do not regret pushing myself to play the game to completion. The Fallout Fixt mod also helped, not just because it allowed me to disable the time limit, but also because it appears to have quashed most of the game's vanilla bugs - with the exception of the rare crashes on the world map, when I clicked on an unexplored square of the map.

Edited October 23, 2022 by Rudolph

[StodgyAyatollah]

3 minutes ago, Rudolph said:

I read that later Fallout installments would flesh out Vault Tec, revealing how as a business it was perfectly happy to profit off the incoming nuclear apocalypse, very much mirroring the role of real-life industries in starting and exacerbating crises of all kinds. So yes, it is absolutely fair to call Fallout's premise anti-capitalist.

The first concepts of the game involved goofy time travel scenarios and aliens so I think you're looking way deeper than they intended. They were just copying from movies, books or whatever from the time and being familiar with the bulk of what they copied from there isn't any underlying anti-capitalist message. As your personal head cannon sure whatever, just don't expect others to see it. You could say it's a critique of trans-humanism or religion with just as much validity. Hell, judging by the design documents of the unreleased third game it could have been claimed to be anti-communist if it had ever hit shelves. 

[Rudolph]

5 hours ago, StodgyAyatollah said:

They were just copying from movies, books or whatever from the time and being familiar with the bulk of what they copied from there isn't any underlying anti-capitalist message.

Frankly, I do not think you would know an anti-capitalist message if it hit you in the face, judging by your absurdly hostile reaction to the mere suggestion that Fallout's premise is anti-capitalist, as if that would be a bad thing in itself. And no, it is not my "personal headcanon": you are actually the very first person I encounter to vehemently push back against such notion.

 

Either way, it does not look like you are interested in having a good-faith discussion here and as such I see no point in further interacting with you.

[RDETalus]

1 hour ago, Rudolph said:

Fallout's premise is anti-capitalist

Fallout 1 and 2 aren't explicitly anti-capitalist. After all, communist China was just as much an aggressor in the events preceding Fallout 1 as the US was.

 

Fallout 3 and 4 lean more heavily into anti-capitalism, mostly through back story on the ridiculous antics of the various companies and corporations in the pre-war US. Also an encounter with a chinese sailor.

[Gez]

The setting in Fallout is a caricature of Cold War America, with zeerusted sci-fi and after a nuclear apocalypse. So, since it's a caricature of Cold War America, it can easily be seen as anti-everything that made up Cold War America. That includes capitalism, but also militarism (war, after all, is the reason everything turned into a wasteland), statism (more so in Fallout 2, where the enemy is the remnants of the US Government), patriotism, etc.

[Rudolph]

5 hours ago, RDETalus said:

Fallout 1 and 2 aren't explicitly anti-capitalist.

Once again, I did not say that.

 

I do not mean to come across as condescending here, but in the very sentence you chose to quote, I said Fallout 1's premise is anti-capitalist. In a previous post, I even acknowledged that Fallout 1's story itself was not anti-capitalist, as it focuses more on, well, the fallout of the nuclear apocalypse.

 

What annoys me about StodgyAyatollah reacting so aggressively to my comment - other than the uncalled-for personal attacks - is that I made it in passing to lament Bethesda's mismanagement of the franchise: at no point did I challenge anyone to prove me wrong on Fallout being anticapitalist, I merely pointed out the irony of the current intellectual property owner's sketchy behavior, which I would expect from a villain in the Fallout universe.

 

4 hours ago, Gez said:

That includes capitalism, but also militarism (war, after all, is the reason everything turned into a wasteland), statism (more so in Fallout 2, where the enemy is the remnants of the US Government), patriotism, etc.

Sure, but I would argue that all those elements are ultimately connected, as the United States' explicit goal in the Cold War was a capitalist one. Heck, I would even go as far as to say that the country itself a capitalist project from its very inception and its militarism and patriotism are very much means to that end, but that is a whole different conversation, which I can see that this forum is not the place to have.

 

Bottomline: Fallout is good and deserves better than to be bastardized by a video game industry that does not care.

 

I think we can all agree with that statement and move on.

Edited October 23, 2022 by Rudolph

[TheMagicMushroomMan]

1 hour ago, Rudolph said:

the country itself a capitalist project from its very inception and its militarism and patriotism are very much means to that end, but that is a whole different conversation, which I can see that this forum is not the place to have.

So why bring it up?

 

Let's look at this little exchange for some insight as to why people tend to respond to you with "personal attacks" and "aggressiveness":

 

@Rudolph

Quote

it is absolutely fair to call Fallout's premise anti-capitalist.

 

@RDETalus

Quote

Fallout 1 and 2 aren't explicitly anti-capitalist.

 

@Rudolph

Quote

I did not say that

Huh.

 

 

1 hour ago, Rudolph said:

Bottomline: Fallout is good and deserves better than to be bastardized by a video game industry that does not care.

Haven't you said you've never even played anything other than the first one?! The only game in the series that could count as an actual bastardization is Fallout 76, and even that game is in much better shape now, as @Redneckerz pointed out.

Edited October 23, 2022 by TheMagicMushroomMan

[StodgyAyatollah]

9 hours ago, Rudolph said:

Either way, it does not look like you are interested in having a good-faith discussion here and as such I see no point in further interacting with you.

Telling someone they're wrong about something is not bad faith. Being disingenuous about your own argument is. I may be a little rough with my words but it's hard to be incredibly civil considering these factors. 

1. Playing a game one time and acting like you know more than others is annoying.
2. Interjecting personal politics where they don't belong is annoying.
3. Acting as if you've never made claims when you clearly have in a conversation is annoying.
4. Hijacking a thread to repeatedly complain about aspects of a game that were already explained to you is annoying. 

3 hours ago, Rudolph said:

at no point did I challenge anyone to prove me wrong on Fallout being anticapitalist

You made a wild claim about something you're not terribly familiar with. If I had done the same someone would have come along and gave me grief for saying something dumb. Same as in RL. 

3 hours ago, Rudolph said:

Bottomline: Fallout is good and deserves better than to be bastardized by a video game industry that does not care.

 

I think we can all agree with that statement and move on.

 

I agree myself but some enjoy the new ones so I'm fine with never getting a "true" FO ever again. They are also the games where you will actually find an anti-capitalist message and the true irony, as subtle as it may be. 

[SilverMiner]

On 10/21/2022 at 10:04 PM, CittyKat112 said:

Bro wtf, did you not use Chrysalis Highwayman? This car makes exploring the map much more fun.

Not in my first playthrough. Maybe in like 3rd-4th. It was fun until I discovered the way to play the game without hires patch, using fixed DirectDraw.dll.

But I'm getting tired of playing this way, so I'm going back to the "fair" way of playing.

[CittyKat112]

6 minutes ago, SilverMiner said:

Not in my first playthrough. Maybe in like 3rd-4th. It was fun until I discovered the way to play the game without hires patch, using fixed DirectDraw.dll.

But I'm getting tired of playing this way, so I'm going back to the "fair" way of playing.

I discovered it on my first playthrough (had to read a guide to learn where to get the parts for it) and every time I started a new game my first objective was to buy that car and get it to work.

[StodgyAyatollah]

22 minutes ago, SilverMiner said:

Not in my first playthrough. Maybe in like 3rd-4th. It was fun until I discovered the way to play the game without hires patch, using fixed DirectDraw.dll.

But I'm getting tired of playing this way, so I'm going back to the "fair" way of playing.

Any actual benefits to going without it or is it just a preference? Out of all my playthroughs I've never considered not using it but I may have to try it at least once.

[Redneckerz]

On 10/22/2022 at 12:07 AM, TheMagicMushroomMan said:

 

@Rudolph What did you do to spend so much time? Do you realize that you eventually get virtually-unlimited time?

 

 

That's an easy one.

• Helping to understand things said by DoomWorld that he could have googled
• Waging in a me against DoomWorld contest
• Blurbing two dozen complaints in eparate posts while refusing to acknowledge anyone else even if they're responding to him

How could you walk right into that one? Ill add another:

• Being surprised at obvious things

On 10/22/2022 at 5:44 AM, Rudolph said:

Anywaaay, I must say, as a newcomer discovering the Fallout franchise, I find it really fascinating. For such an iconic series, it is weird how much it has struggled over the years between the cancelled titles and the spin-offs.

A lot of it went into going for what direction Fallout had to take into. There was the Van Buren project, and making Fallout 3 a first person endeavor, essentially The Elder Scrolls with guns, was uncharted territory. V.A.T.S in that regard was a fantastic mechanic that helped translate an isometric 2D game into the 3D realms (no pun intended).

 

Since then, Fallout has essentially followed the formula, with Fallout Shelter being a great spin off that made the franchise mobile-friendly. Admittely, Fallout 76 was quite a turd, but what can be expected if you want to mix id Soft's netcode with an engine woefully incapable of network play? Let alone the indoors in Fallout 76 were hilariously bad.

 

The support it has gotten since is remarkable, not quite No Man's Sky levels, but still, very respectable. Its a great cautionary tale that games that obviously need more polish, need to be avoided for atleast a year or so after release.

Quote

It is also infuriating to read about how Bethesda screwed over Obsidian despite the latter making what appears to be the most beloved entry in the franchise since the original Fallout. It honestly makes me a bit wary about buying New Vegas, knowing that my money is going to Bethesda, a company that visibly does not know nor really care what it is doing to the franchise.

This is such a bullshit argument, especially if you make praise for Obsidian. ''I don't buy a game from a well respected studio because i don't like the publisher.'' Especially when these days it isn't Bethesda but rather Zenimax that takes charge.

 

And ''Nor really care what it is doing to the franchise''? Like, what? There is Fallout 76 that, especially these days, is pretty alright as a Fallout title. Plus they (Bethesda) are now working on Starfield, essentially Fallout in Space. All it's efforts are there.

 

Again Obsidian is also working on Elder Scrolls like titles (Avowed) and another Elder Scrolls Dev is working on The Axis Unseen:

 

 

Quote

Kind ironic for a series that is literally about how capitalism brought about the end of the world... :S

In what universe is this ironic? If anything, this is more you - once again - trying to make a political angle where its totally unnecessary.

 

5 hours ago, Rudolph said:

Bottomline: Fallout is good and deserves better than to be bastardized by a video game industry that does not care.

 

I think we can all agree with that statement and move on.

Except yeah no. You keep on saying that either Bethesda, or the industry as a whole (Nice generalization!) does not care, without bringing anything that actually elaborates this stance.

 

But once again you drew attention to your cause for absolutely zero reason other than trying to display rather concerning levels of naivety, so congrats.

Edited October 23, 2022 by Redneckerz

[PsychEyeball]

2 hours ago, StodgyAyatollah said:

Any actual benefits to going without it or is it just a preference? Out of all my playthroughs I've never considered not using it but I may have to try it at least once.

The car allows you to zoom through the world map in a matter of seconds, plus it comes with a trunk that allows you to easily drag whatever items you want across the world with ease. It's really fun.

 

It also was buggy as all hell in either unpatched or patched official Fallout 2, as the car could disappear without any warning at any moment. Carrying stuff in the trunk was nice, but sometimes the trunk would literally come off your car and stop existing, or you could corrupt your save file if you put too many items on the screen at once. I'm not 100% sure if fan patches fix the "too may items" bug but I believe they do fix the car mishaps at the very least.

[Capellan]

21 hours ago, StodgyAyatollah said:

Germany (socialist)

 

Whatever the name of the Nazi party, they were not in any way socialists in their policies - quite the opposite, in fact.

 

[StodgyAyatollah]

3 minutes ago, Capellan said:

 

Whatever the name of the Nazi party, they were not in any way socialists in their policies - quite the opposite, in fact.

 

While they did vehemently oppose communism as well as capitalism they did have a socialist foundation. They may not fall in line with what we think of as socialism in contemporary terms but it doesn't make the label fit any less just because they were also ethno-nationalists. I'm not on doomworld for politics and history though.

[Rudolph]

33 minutes ago, PsychEyeball said:

I'm not 100% sure if fan patches fix the "too may items" bug but I believe they do fix the car mishaps at the very least.

Well, I have just bought Fallout 2 and installed the Unofficial Patch, so I will let you know if I experience it.

 

As for Fallout 2 itself, the beginning reminds me a lot of Oddworld's Abe Oddysee, weirdly enough: maybe it is the whole tribal rite of passage setting the look of the armor-clad character on the main menu screen, which reminds me of the Slig, I am not sure. However, since I intend to do a continuation of my F1 melee-focused character (using Narg as a template), my playthrough might very well end up looking like this:

 

 

Already, Fallout 2's Unarmed combat system looks like an improvement over its predecessor: I get to choose to punch or kick! :D

Edited October 23, 2022 by Rudolph

[Ozcar]

Alright since there drama in this thread, im going to change conversation.

Edited October 23, 2022 by Ozcar

[Ozcar]

Anyway, What fallout i need to start?

I want to play another game beside doom.

[StodgyAyatollah]

6 minutes ago, Ozcar said:

Anyway, What fallout i need to start?

I want to play another game beside doom.

You can play any of them without missing out. 1 and 2 are awesome but dated. If you're okay with clunky controls and turn based combat they're worth looking into. There's a bit of a learning curve so looking up a guide to start out until you're comfortable is probably a good idea. If you want something more modern that still has a lot of RPG stuff New Vegas is considered the best by a lot of people. It's clunky but still pretty good. You'll probably want to look into community patches for this one. If you want smoother gunplay and don't care for story or RPG stuff 4 is the best for that. It feels more like an FPS than the others. Not a lot of reason to play 3 unless you really like the others and just want more imo. There is 76 if you want something multiplayer but I've never played that one.

[Rudolph]

1 hour ago, Ozcar said:

Anyway, What fallout i need to start?

I want to play another game beside doom.

Why, the first one, of course. ;)

 

Fallout 3: GOTY is also being given away on Epic Games Store right now, if you want a more modern, FPS/RPG experience. However, from what I understand, it is definitely not the best entry in the franchise, but it might be easier to get into than Fallout 1 and I see there are plenty of mods out there. It also served as a basis for Fallout: New Vegas, which is reportedly a considerable improvement as well as one of the best games of the series.

 

As for me, I just made it past the Temple of Trials in Fallout 2 and it was... fine? Sure, having to disarm traps can be a bit tedious if your Traps skill is low, but overall, it feels like a better way to test the viability of your build than Fallout 1's Vault 13 cavern. My only sort-of disappointment so far is that the map reuses the track "Underground Troubles" from Fallout 1; I guess Mark Morgan did not have enough time to compose more new tracks.

Edited October 24, 2022 by Rudolph

[PsychEyeball]

4 hours ago, Ozcar said:

Anyway, What fallout i need to start?

I want to play another game beside doom.

Here's my summary on the Fallout games.

 

Fallout: Classic but also verily outdated. It has the best setting and atmosphere out of all games in the series. Gameplay can be very clunky though. Playing it after Fallout 2 is especially tough because of all QOL options that the successor has (like allies having green outlines in combat, "pick all" option, being able to trade freely with allies, etc). Still my overall favorite in spite of its shortcomings, and probably the most stable game of the series as far as bugs and crashes go.

 

Fallout 2: Many consider it the best game of the series. Gameplay is a little more full and involving, but it sorts of comes at the expense of the world not feeling as full and a little more wacky in general. Overall progression through the game is not very smooth; you'll feel very weak in the beginning, then out of a sudden you'll get good gear and items and things will spontaneously go on the upside for you. Overall vibe of the game: bigger and badder, but also full of bugs because the game was rushed beyond all belief (make sure you go for community patches to lessen the suffering). My personal favorite aspect of the game are the NPC companions you can tag along, who make much more of an impact gameplay-wise than they did in Fallout.

 

Fallout 3: Having Fallout being in 3D was a huge novelty back when it came out, but I find this game has aged the worst out of them all. The world has some interesting things going for it, but other parts feel really dumb and done for the purpose of shock value. Hey, there's a town founded around a nuclear bomb and some guy in a distant building will want you to blow it because... it could be fun maybe! Morality system leaves very much to be desired and the overall story is pretty shallow and not in line with the other games. You go from saving your vault and your village... to finding your dad who's lost somewhere. And finally, the end of the game was so dumb and contrived the writers of the game had to retcon it to allow the DLC campaigns to occur. My personal feeling for it: it's Oblivion with guns and less janky, but still pretty much so. But don't get me wrong, while I'm not a fan today, I loved it when it first came out.

 

Fallout New Vegas: Most people consider this the real Fallout 3. You get the writing expertise of the first 2 games with the jank of 3D Fallout, but multiplied by 10. Despite the shortcomings of the Gamebryo engine, Obsidian does manage to craft a really interesting and convincing world to explore. The premise also starts in an interesting way; you go from saving your vault/village/dad to an actual revenge story to retrieve stolen goods you had to deliver as a courier. This in turns leads you in the middle of a power struggle between various factions who all wish to control the Mojave desert region, all with their pros and cons to not make the expedition a complete good vs. evil scenario (although one faction is very clearly all evil). The only real con of this game is how overly buggy the game is.

 

Fallout 4: So pretty looking, but so very stupid as well. I won't go deep in the details of the plot to not spoil anyone but... this is the worst plot they ever made with the series, filled with plot contrivances, nonsense and complete mischaracterization of people and factions. Remember Fallout 3? Now you must locate your son, who got abducted while you and your spouse barely outran the end of the world (thanks to being invited to a Vault mere minutes before the bombs drop) and got put in cryosleep as part of your Vault experiment. The new features include base building, where you can make your own turf and build generators, homes and defenses to keep intruders away. A big culprit in this game is its insanely fast pacing: you get a power armor and fight a deathclaw within the first 30 minutes of the game. That doesn't leave as much to look forward to in the future now, does it? The faction system of New Vegas is back, but every group you can ally with are very shallow, unlikeable and unidimensional.

 

Fallout 76: MMOFG. Massive Multiplayer Online Fallout Game. Was initially perceived as a huge laughing stock because the game obviously was not close to being finished when it came out. The game gave you the keys to a big world void of anything interesting to do since quests were all given through robots, scraps of paper and computers. I played it about 2 months after its initial release and overly hated it. I heard it's much better now, but I'm still not interested in checking it out.

[Sonikkumania]

This Russian mod for Fallout 2 is worth checking out if you want your Fallout to be more grimm and Metro like.

I tried it out and it wasn't really my cup of tea. One thing is that it's more challenging.

According to Youtube commentors, Fallout 1 and 2 were a big deal in the Post-Soviet countries at the time.

 

[StodgyAyatollah]

13 minutes ago, Sonikkumania said:

This Russian mod for Fallout 2 is worth checking out if you want your Fallout to be more grimm and Metro like.

Most major FO mods are from Russia like sonora and nevada.  I played a fair amount of this one quite a while back. The writing/story isn't amazing but it's incredibly atmospheric, has some really good sprite work and is, to the best of my knowledge the only full total conversion that exists for Fallout 2. Zero assets from the original game. Very bleak so it's not for everyone but every classic fallout fan should at least check it out. 

 

1 hour ago, PsychEyeball said:

Fallout: Classic but also verily outdated. It has the best setting and atmosphere out of all games in the series. Gameplay can be very clunky though. Playing it after Fallout 2 is especially tough because of all QOL options that the successor has (like allies having green outlines in combat, "pick all" option, being able to trade freely with allies, etc). Still my overall favorite in spite of its shortcomings, and probably the most stable game of the series as far as bugs and crashes go.

Fortunately existing mods allow all the qol stuff from 2. I'd have a hard time playing without those these days.