Chris Avellone on Fallout 3 likes and dislikes

[King of Creation]

<strong>[ Person -> Interview ]</strong> - More info on <a href="http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Avellone, Chris">Person: Avellone, Chris</a> | More info on <a href="http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Obsidian Entertainment">Company: Obsidian Entertainment</a> | More info on <a href="http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Fallout 3">Game: Fallout 3</a>

<p><strong>Chris Avellone</strong> <a href="http://forums.obsidian.net/index.php?s= ... y=127">has answered another fan question</a> over at the Obsidian forums. This one deals with his thoughts on aspects of <em>Fallout 3</em>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p><em>[Question from] Alex Nistor:

<strong>Concerning Fallout 3 , I really was curious to hear your more in-depth opinion about it.

So you said you had a similiar opinion on it to Sawyer, but what was missing from that, in my opinion, was a breakdown of your pro's and Con's for Fallout 3.

Considering Bethesda made it in a similiar style to Oblivion, I just wanted to know specifically, how was the transition?

And like I said in the above comment, what did you like and not like.</strong>

:: Floodgates open ::

It's a testament to the game that for every thing that initially bothered me, there was a solution or a tool to counterbalance it. For example, I was exploring Hubris Comics, dropped my Power Fist so I could haul some extra loot, then came back and couldn't find it on the floor. Pissed. And then I remembered Dogmeat has the dialogue option to go "fetch" existing weapons in the environment and bring them back - so I asked him to go hunt down the Power Fist for me, and he found it in 5 seconds. Awesome. The game had enough options and tools at my disposal to insure I was having fun no matter what the challenges, so I can't ask for much more.

So here's the list:

The negatives: Dogmeat's breathing if you don't adjust the sound sliders. The tiny model house in Minefield not containing anything special. Anyone armed with a flamer can kick my melee-specialized ass, and thus, can kiss my ass. It was confusing to find one's way around Megaton, although it had beautiful set pieces and I got used to it. I played with a 4 ST character and regretted it, but it made me appreciate the ST boost from alcohol more (1st time I've ever considered alcohol a viable drug in any game system, ever) and also made me appreciate Buffouts. I suck at the Science minigame, which is a horrible confession for an English major. Thought Hubris Comics should have had more Grognak issues, although I really liked the fan mail and the text adventure game in there. Didn't like not being able to kill Amata or Andy the Robot at the outset because I hated them both. I didn't like that the first potential companion was a bad karma companion and expensive, but then the twin goals of being an **** and scrounging up a thousand caps became bait and a challenge in trying to get him - when I got Jericho, I felt like I'd earned him as a companion. I think Repair became too valuable as a skill, but it's better than the special case it was in Fallout 1 and 2, so I'd rather that than it remain a broken skill (like Doctor in F2). Maybe because I'm approaching it from the development end, I didn't care, but I think the level cap turned a number of people off, as did not being able to play after and continue the game until Broken Steel came out. Some of the locations I think broke the 4th wall (Dunwich, which I actually enjoyed playing, just not the premise).

So that said...

Likes: Opening immersion and re-introducing you into the Fallout world. Fallout 1 and 2 had consistently broken or special case skills that were rectified in F3 (for example, Repair - and Doctor vs. First Aid in Fallout 2 became broken without a time limit, so Medicine was clearly an improvement). Fast Travel. Felt my skills mattered in general. The weed bell XP sound. I love radiation more in F3, it makes me pay close attention to the environment, I loved the Grognak text adventure game, I loved the Gutsy and Robobrain combat barkstrings, I liked the usage of the radio and the reactivity to the player's actions - that seemed an elegant way of reinforcing your actions in the world as well as introducing a bad guy you couldn't immediately shoot in the face, I liked a lot of the moments in the game, including suddenly being surrounded by the creepy Andale residents after entering the basement in town, I never thought a neighborhood filled with land mines would be a good adventure locale and I ate my words, loved the juxtaposition of real world mundane locations and their change into dungeons (Campgrounds, Springvale School, Super Duper Mart). Liked tracking down radio transmission signals for rewards. This is the first game I've ever played where I was excited to see barricades.* Nerd Rage surprised me as a Perk - chose it by default at one level only so I could drop grenades on myself to increase my carrying capacity and found it surprisingly useful at saving my ass when I walked into an ambush. The Pitt DLC, especially the opening vista crossing the bridge, is incredible. Liked the lockpick minigame. The Arlington Cemetery actually hit me pretty hard, and as a location it really drove home the futility of war to me - just seeing all those graves with Washington DC stretching out behind it made me feel really bad. Loved firing my combat shotgun into a bus with 5 ghouls trapped on the Dupont Circle freeway below and watching the whole screen erupt in fire. Consistently being rewarded for exploring the environment - there was always at least three things to see on the horizon that you wanted to go check out. I didn't think I would like Liberty Prime, but the Iron Giant aspect worked for me and made me do a 180. I liked the Brotherhood camping out at the Pentagon. The sign inside the portable bomb shelters made me smile. I liked the <em>Time Bandits</em> aspects of Mothership Zeta. Seeing Dogmeat on fire, and being so tough that he didn't even care that he was on fire. Liked playing as a Psycho-using alcoholic and murdering caravan folks for things I didn't even need. Thought beer was valuable as a ST enhancer to carry loot. Liked the Well-Rested Perk. Shiskebab rocks - tap and burn.

* Yes, barricades. I have never had anything but hate for barricades until this game. They block my progress. **** barricades. But in F3, they are filled with the equivalent of RPG candy - containers are usually embedded in the wreckage, which was a great way to turn something hated into a gaming loot opportunity.</em></p>
</blockquote>
<p>Thanks to <strong>Nye</strong> for the heads up!</p>

[Yonmanc]

"Anyone armed with a flamer can kick my melee-specialized ass, and thus, can kiss my ass"

Followed by

"I played with a 4 ST character and regretted it"

Yes, as would a blind man deciding to be a sniper. Well done.

[General Alexi]

You actually could play after the end before broken steel. You just had to convince the broken steel paladin to do it.

[King of Creation]

He means you can't play after the end when you don't have the DLCs.

[General Alexi]

I guess i did have the dlc when i did that...hmm i take that back.

[King of Creation]

Yeah. With the original Fallout 3 (sans DLC), as soon as you enter the code for the purifier, the game ends and that's it.

[Retlaw83]

You actually could play after the end before broken steel. You just had to convince the broken steel paladin to do it.

Your copy must have been bugged, because if you sent Lyons to do it, it was still game over.

Sure you weren't using some kind of mod?

[King of Creation]

I still want to know what the developers were thinking by not allowing Fawkes to be sent in to do it. Hmm...option A: You do it and die. option B: Send Lyons in and she dies. option C: don't do it and the purifier blows up.

Or the logical, yet absent, choice: send the guy in who isn't hurt by radiation at all!

Idiocy.

[Ausir]

They first wrote the ending, and recorded Perlman's lines for it, and only then designed the radiation-immune followers.

[King of Creation]

They first wrote the ending, and recorded Perlman's lines for it, and only then designed the radiation-immune followers.

Still a bad design aspect no matter which way you look at it.

[Kashluk]

I'm pretty worried about the way he's glorifying the game. That can't be good news... The title should be more like 'The Fallout 3 LIKES and some minor things that I disliked, but then again kinda liked'.

[King of Creation]

He wouldn't be able to actually say anything bad about the game. Bethesda's PR department had kill-switches installed in all the Obsidian devs.

[Dogmeatlives]

yeah, the dislikes are kinda silly and/or obvious. This is much more like a "things that made me love Fallout 3" list.

[Retlaw83]

Remember that one interview with Pete Hines shortly after release of Fallout 3, where the interviewer brought up problems with the game, and Hines' responses made them look like positive things?

This has had a run-through the Bethesda PR machine. Also, MCA can't be too detailed in his dislikes because New Vegas will most likely share a lot of the same gripes due to engine, budgetary and time limitations. He's going to fall into a trap if he goes, "I really hated X about Fallout 3," because if it's present in New Vegas people will feel lied to.

[Manoil]

No-win situations tend to be just that.

It's possible he just liked more of the game than what he disliked, and by average, enjoyed the experience. I've mentioned it before when addressing the SDFs who come in here to defend FO3; I had the same decent experience for long enough that I liked it. Either way, I'm gonna mod the fuck outta NV once the opportunity arises

[King of Creation]

If you take the Fallout name away from Fallout 3, then it would probably be a pretty enjoyable game. But the Fallout name brings so much baggage along with it, so many expectations for a high-quality PnP style RPG that Fallout 3 just didn't deliver on.

[SenisterDenister]

Amen brother.

[Retlaw83]

That's been my opinion all along, KoC. Fallout 3, despite the flaws, is a pleasant, mindless diversion - but not at full retail price, and it certainly isn't Fallout.

In the grand scheme of things though, it's leaps and bounds better than Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel.

[King of Creation]

That's been my opinion all along, KoC. Fallout 3, despite the flaws, is a pleasant, mindless diversion - but not at full retail price, and it certainly isn't Fallout.

It's only been my opinion for about a month or two (cause that's when I was actually able to play and finish Fallout 3 :facepalm:)

In the grand scheme of things though, it's leaps and bounds better than Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel.

QFE

[Caleb]

In the grand scheme of things though, it's leaps and bounds better than Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel.

QFE

Here's my issue with this idea. While I never played BOS...we got what we expected from it, it stayed true to the genre for the most part...and they never pandered to series fans telling us we would love it if we only gave it a chance.

Unless I'm massively forgetting something