Fallout 3: So apparently the neighborhood I work in is destined to be overrun by firebreathing ants in the distant future. Hard to be 100% sure since the Fallout 3 Metro map matches up with the real one only as far as it's convenient to do so (real one has several more lines and vastly more stops, but hardly asking for more Metro tunnels in-game because oh god it's so boring walking through those) but a bit west of Falls Church station sounds right.
Anyway, I finished this. Lack of postage regarding the game between original "I'm playing this now" post and this one should say a good deal about my opinion of the game, but still, let's break down the myriad problems here. In fairness, I do really enjoy running around a huge, open world map just to see what's out there, and I was pretty damn thorough finding exactly what's out there because I'm obsessive and that's just my style. But once I had no choice but to actually do plot stuff, interested plummeted and I ignored the game for a couple weeks. Because the actual plot? Pretty much impossible to care about on any level.
I'm not really capable of not comparing this to New Vegas, which is probably unfair since New Vegas is fucking awesome and used the same mechanics but had the benefit of experience and the chance to make some refinements, but it really does highlight what's wrong with Fallout 3. The Capital Wasteland never really feels like a coherent setting. Most of the various towns and groups around the wasteland don't seem to have any tangible connections to the others, there's no real sense of conflict around you (except for slavers being dicks to people, I guess, but who are they selling all these slaves to, anyway? No locale you visit seems widely engaged in this particular economy), and more than any other time in the series you feel like you're wandering through an unrelated series of places and events. Sure, Three Dog's radio program will mention stuff that happens in various places, but largely just as a result of your actions. New Vegas, on the other hand, you know who the factions are and get suggestions of what they're about early on, even if it might be some time before you actually meet them. It makes a world of difference for making the player feel involved in a living, functioning alternate reality.
Reusing the Enclave and FEV is really the biggest misstep in Fallout 3's setup. They recycled the antagonists from the second game in the series with almost the same plan as they had in the second game in the series. There's no possible way it could have the same impact as they did in their previous appearance, especially since they are in a way kind of massive joke (sure, they have decent tech and a scary plan in FO2, but you guys still act like you run the world when you're all hiding out on a shitty little oil rig? Really?) Bringing them back as an ostensible threat ignores that and the fact that honestly they don't do much here (okay, sure, they kill your dad, but that's just Liam Neason phoning it in and letting his majestic voice do the work for him as usual. I was more upset about the deathclaws and your BoS buddy getting gunned down in FO2). You do get the eyebots roaming around spouting propaganda, but that's not the same as having an enemy force that's obviously trying to accomplish things (though in fairness, props to Malcolm McDowell here, he does nail a politician's vocal mannerisms). They're too placid and reactive to be taken seriously--they can't get any part of their plan accomplished without you, which I know could be said about plenty of other RPG villains, but in this case they apparently can't even hack a goddamn computer--and they just don't work as a source of tension.
This and the general blandness of your apparent goals (purifying the basin? I guess that's...a good thing. Are you also purifying the river that feeds it, though? Well, are you? Because I'd think that's kind of important) mean that my level of caring about the plot is nil. Which is possibly a good thing since I would've been more annoyed about the ending if I actually felt invested in things in any way. Spoiler tags for that, I guess. So I guess the writers really, really wanted to hammer you into a Heroic Sacrifice scenario. Nice job setting that up in advance guys oh wait you didn't do that at all you just manufactured a menace at the literal last minute and bullied the player into taking it. Bad form. "It's your destiny to get melted by radiation even though I'm immune to it and could totally save you." Thanks a LOT, Fawkes. Fallout games aren't principally plot-driven enterprises, I know--it's often at least as much about the world it happens in. But lack of the typical ending rolecall to show the consequences of your actions in various locations only serves to reinforce that we don't care about any of these places.
Mechanically, well, in most regards it's not that different from New Vegas, and I do still think it's fundamentally a pretty elegant fusion of traditional Fallout mechanics with shooter gameplay. Except for being stupidly easy, which is pretty glaring. I guess I could've notched it up to Hard mode, but eh, I feel like that shouldn't be necessary for a balanced game. Weapon degradation of course is stupider here. Didn't max your repair skill? Sorry, you don't get weapons in top condition. Doesn't matter a ton because see stupidly easy difficulty, but still annoying.
Dungeons, though? So tedious. As much as I like strolling about the overworld looking for things, actually exploring those things once found can be abject drudgery at times. The game's interior spaces are often just so dreary and monotonous. I don't remember this being a problem in New Vegas despite that game reusing the same wallpapers, largely because they generally had the sense to keep things brief there (there are exceptions to that, of course, but those generally benefited from atmosphere much more than any FO3 dungeon can boast). Fallout 3 locations just ramble on and on. Statesman Hotel I think was the most glaring offender. Jesus that must have been, what, two hours of crawling through the same ruined hallways fighting the same enemies? This is how not to design a dungeon.
Vaults, for example? Really disappointingly dull. There's a lot of potential for freakiness with these, but what we get is generally just "Yeah, it's a ruined place where people used to live but they're all dead now." You do get a few logs in some of the Fallout 3 vaults, but they largely just serve to make the same basic point of "Yeah, Vault-Tec is the most pointlessly dickish fictional corporation this side of Umbrella." The bit where you hallucinate the Vault 101 overseer for a split second got a jump out of me (since I beat the dude to death with a baseball bat), but that's about the only part of them that showed any character. New Vegas had a good variety of atmospheres with its vaults even if they all used the same basic design (34 was ridiculously tense with its constant radiation and ghoul attacks, another had ohshit ninja plant monsters...two were openly used as showcases for human malice, but in drastically different ways).
So I don't have too much positive to say about it in the end. I didn't hate it, because hey exploration and punching people's heads off, there is some fun to be had there or I wouldn't have scoured the map, which is worth something like an average rating. It's just so fundamentally broken on a storytelling level that nothing about the events that transpire within it are compelling. They inserted all the big-name Fallout presences and indicators they could think of because apparently the game just wouldn't feel Fallout enough if they didn't copy everything they possibly could, but they do it without either the flair or style otherwise exhibited in the series. Meh.
Random other stuff:
-Too many super mutants.
-Also super mutants are apparently cannibals now. Um...okay, why?
-Why was the G.E.C.K. in Vault 87? What possible use could it conceivably serve there? This isn't a vault that was meant to open up and repopulate the world. The only purpose of the site was to turn people into monsters. How does a G.E.C.K. tie into that research in any way? Presumably the developers just wanted it to be hard to find.
-A subterranean town of children holding back a horde of super mutants. I disbelieve.
-I hate that sickly green color that dominates the game's palette. New Vegas's bleached desert yellow is so much nicer to look at.
-Too many fucking super mutants.
-Did the Enclave even call itself the Enclave in Fallout 2? I didn't think they did. I thought they just referred to themselves as the government of the fucking United States of America, because that's what they thought they were. Enclave I thought was just a way for the game to refer to them or where they lived, a word the definition of which fits what they are physically and also highlights what a bunch of delusional megalomaniacs they are. Hearing them constantly self-reference as "The Enclave" only makes them seem that much sillier and nonthreatening for apparently not realizing either of those details.
