Apocalypse Evolved: a Fallout rant

No surprise that i'm writing this since Fallout 3 went live several days ago, so i'm gonna cut it short on the intro. This is both a review, and an old gamer's perspective on Fallout 3 versus its predecessor.
Let's chill out a bit and go way back, to the era of games that didn't have million-dollar budgets, when consoles didn't each have their own code and when people made games because they had a passion for it rather than to gain popularity. That was the era in which i started gaming, and the time when i experienced some of the best moments of my life. Let's go back to when a tiny little company called Interplay got it into their heads to make a game about a post-nuclear dystopia where everything was ruined, desecrated and basically fucked up. But they did more than that: they added 2 of the most basic yet defining elements a game can have: violence and humor.
So take a really violent game with lots of humor set in the ruins of a post-apocalyptic universe, and you have something that kinda follows the idea of Fallout. Make that game have one of the best atmospheres, settings and feelings that ever graced the history of gaming and you have Fallout. Now i didn't play the first Fallout, and this is why i won't be talking about it here and now. However, its sequel, Fallout 2, i have finished a total of 4 times and still consider the best game ever made for the PC. Let's get this straight: it was not perfect. It was far from perfect, in fact it had craploads of bugs, the story wasn't the size of Legacy of Kain or even Baldur's Gate, but the game flowed on through all its problems. The bugs were more game-making than game-breaking(well if you saved a lot), to the point where you actually used some of them to have fun. The story was not the best there could be for its setting, but because of that very setting it was perfectly balanced. And the universe sucked you in, it dragged you down to the point that it was no longer a game. It was beyond a game. And that oppinion has been shared by countless people who have waited for a sequel ever since.
Enter Fallout 3. At first, everyone was dismayed that Interplay had dropped its own F3 project, but people continued to hope. Not until the license was brought by Bethesda did people start to fear: fear that Fallout would not in fact be Fallout, but rather a cheap Elder Scrolls copy. But you know what, The Elder Scrolls was a nice series, which proves they aren't totally idiots when it comes to games, and if they keep the Fallout essence intact, there's a nice chance it will be Fallout. So up until i finally got to play it, there was this burning question in my gut: will it, or will it not be Fallout?
So is it a cheap Elder Scrolls copy, in the end? Yes, and no. More like an incredibly well-done Elder Scrolls copy, because it's better than Oblivion, but NOT better than Fallout.
Let's start with the basics of what makes Fallout Fallout: mechanics. I think everyone who's played Fallout 1 or 2 remembers the interface's ease of use (when you mastered it) and the useful, fun options you had to customize your char. Well, how about Fallout 3? I can't possibly explain this without writing a wall of text so let's make a list.
Fallout 2:

1. Skills can be raised up to 300% and get more expensive to raise starting at 100%
   
2. Skills can be used frequently in a variety of unconventional situations
3. Tag skills get raised twice as fast and a tag increases the base skill by 20 points.
4. Background traits can drastically modify the way you play
5. Each point in a stat contributes to a very important aspect
6. Perks are gained once every 3 levels (by default) and offer unique, powerful and game-changing bonuses
7. There is no maximum level, and you can still play the game as you like after finishing the main quest
8. Weapons/armor don't degrade, and you can get your own travelling "stash" in the form of a car.
   

Fallout 3:

1. Skills can be raised to 100, after that, fuck you.
2. Skills are rarely used in dialogue, and very rarely used outside of dialogue with the exception of using them exactly for what they're supposed to do. If Fallout 3 was Fallout 2, you could not repair the well in the first village.
3. Tag skills are a 15 point bonus for that particular skill and nothing else.
4. Background traits do not exist
5. Each point in a stat gives a measly contribution to 2 or 3 skills and a non-skill feature (like weight limit)
   
6. Perks are gained every level and 90% of them offer either a skill bonus, stat bonus, exp bonus, more dialogue options, accuracy bonus, money bonus, damage bonus (both situational and usual), action point bonus or a combination/variation of the above. The only truly unique perk is Explorer, but getting that means throwing away other good perks.
7. The maximum level is 20 and it's only attainable if you stray far, far away from the main quest for a long time and no apparent reason. After the game ends, you can go fuck yourself because you're not going back, no matter what ending you chose.
8. Weapons break themselves like you were hammering them with a super sledge instead of pulling a trigger. Not much different from Oblivion, that is. This wouldn't be so bad if you didn't need copies of the same weapon to repair them. The car is gone, replaced by Oblivion's fast travel. Surprisingly, fast travel doesn't have a fucking trunk.

There are lots more i could add, but we're talking about game mechanics here. Bethesda has changed Fallout's skill and stat system to a state which would have been unrecognisable if the game didn't throw the word S.P.E.C.I.A.L. on our heads every fucking time, and if the game didn't make use of the same names for perks/skills. Which leads me to the next bit: if you ever play F3 after F2, you'll clearly see that Bethesda has tried hard to keep the Fallout humor and atmosphere. Sometimes, i think, too hard. First off, F2 never told us anything about SPECIAL, i remember discovering that the stats make up that word by myself. Second, some things seem exaggerated. For instance, the sound. Fallout 1 and 2 each had (if i'm not mistaken) ONE single old-school Jazz song attached to them. One GOOD song, which made sense in their given setting and were right on the spot where they should have been: the intro. In Fallout 3, you can choose to listen to a radio station that plays a crapload of these songs. And while i've been watching the Fallout 2 intro over and over just to listen to Armstrong's "a kiss to build a dream on" one more time, there's only SO many raiders i can kill while i'm "hackin' and whackin' and smackin'". So eventually i really feel the need to turn that shit off because it actually cripples the atmosphere instead of making it more integrating. And that's just an example... there's vaults everywhere, you use the same drugs (even though Jet was invented by the Mordino family far away on the west coast), but it just doesn't do it as good as Fallout did.
Then there's VATS. Vault-tec Automated blah blah. Basically, a very cheap re-enactment of the old turn-based action-point-based system. It's overpowered enough to make you use it (how i was able to shoot a gun 16 fucking times with pinpoint accuracy in what could qualify as half a second is beyond me), it feels awkward, it looks awkward, and it pretty much takes you away from the FPS experience and into the RPG. It completely eliminates all idea of tactics and using your action points in a smart way, making the game a "click the body part and shoot" thing, but at least it's entertaining in the form of violent slow-motion deaths.
I remember one particular pattern i used to follow in Oblivion: ride around, find dungeon, enter dungeon, kill everything in dungeon, loot dungeon, exit dungeon, find more dungeon. Then i played Fallout 3: walk around, find dungeon (cave/factory/office building), enter dungeon, kill everything in dungeon, loot dungeon, exit dungeon, find more dungeon. To the point where it's becoming pretty clear that they only put those dungeons there to extend the playtime. There's only 3 vaults of any significance in this game, the 3-4 remaining ones don't have any story to them and aren't related to the main story in ANY way. Sure, one is full of clones while the other is messing with your brain but overall it's just the same sequence i outlined earlier.
Which makes it kinda sad since that was the element that alienated me from Oblivion in the first place, and it's coincidentally also why i got bored of Mass Effect. Are people losing inspiration so much that they have to take simplistic MMORPG elements (aka the dungeon with no soul) and insert them into single player games as a way of extending playtime? Well, wake the fuck up and stop calling yourself game designers. Get a new name, like FAIL designers.
Ok, i've nitpicked the bad parts of the game long enough, and i think we can all agree that it ain't Fallout by now. Yet the fact that it ain't Fallout doesn't mean it can't be a good game, all things considered. Let's start with the obvious: the game is gorgeous. I've looked closely at the details and they've recreated the game pretty close to its predecessor. The first-person view is fine when you get used to it, and it doesn't obstruct the morbid beauty of the Wasteland. The soundtrack is good despite what i said about the old songs (well, as good as depressing music can get, i guess). The dialogue is nothing compared to Fallout 2, but it's vastly improved over Oblivion, as is much of the storyline and many of the quests. I finished the game, but reloaded and went back into the waste to see what i've missed, and i'm still not bored with it yet. At one point while i was exploding ghoul heads with my shitgun, i suddenly realised something: i was actually having fun. And i had as much fun during the robot sequence near the end of the game: you know what i'm talking about if you got there, and i dare say it's one of the most exhilarating experiences ever felt in gaming. So as non-fallout as it is, the game will still be worth a shot, especially if you have no idea what fallout is and/or played fallout but didn't like it (in which case i welcome you to the museum of rare people). So that's mostly it... i hope they don't decide to push the franchise further because i really don't want a Fallout 4 now. And if they do make Fallout 4, then let it be this. Take a look at it and see what the true Fallout 3 looked like. This, with all its ancient and fucked up graphics, is Fallout.
And despite what's happened to the game, it wasn't the worst thing that could have happened. Fallout, no matter what happens, will still live on in our hearts and in our minds as the game that gave us one of the best adventures in gaming. Because even if Fallout itself may change, we all know war... war never changes.

Dead Fantasy

So there i was working when a friend showed me this, i just love it :D




It`s not that bad, but then again, there`s more :




Thank the gods of gaming for GT and their good video quality.

Call of grenades !!

So there i was, minding my own business, trying to aim for the head, when all of a sudden the grenade indicator appeared, and then, just like a motherfucker, it doubled ... tripled. Just before i realized what happened i found myself blown up into the stratosphere by the vast number of frag explosions.

Moments earlier :
Bored of EVE i decided to try out some action, my nationalism was low so i tried some Call of Duty , what better way to throw away that boredom, other than filling the enemy with led >:) I installed the game, configured it, and VOILA, i entered the realm of Modern Warfare. Unlike other games i know, Call of Duty decided to play some SPORE, and evolution managed to grab it and threw it out into the real world. Now we`re not fighting blue blooded nazies, now we`re fighting emo terrorists, and radioactive dogs, and rabid dogs, and radiation, and helicopters, and best of all, at some point you actually find and capture the emo leader, enjoy a nuke blowing up in your ass and even a few "stealth" moments.
Generally, this game is ok, somewhere above ok even. As i went through the single player i was mostly amazed, i was even enjoying the game, though there were some moments when i wanted to throw the fucking PC out the window. I never managed to figure out why all potential good games have big good bugs and glitches. For starters, i never figured out why the hell do i have to wait for a team mate to open up a door for me, sure sometimes that`s a good thing, but try to picture yourself near the fucking and the fucking objective point is after the fucking door. Not having an "open fucking door" button really sucks, i thought the dev team figured that out by now. One of the most possible reasons for not having the magical "open door" button may be the stick to the storyline idea, but let me say just this, if your team mates have a few path finding problems or need to be triggered by the player to do something, then the player is knee deep in an ocean of shit. In most of the team misions i found myself somewhere deep in the battlefield and my fucking team was near the start zone, probably because i rushed ahead, but let`s be real here, all was great but apparently, i skipped out on the storyline and the mission wouldn`t continue/door would not open unless a specific team member would be there open the door.
The singleplayer missions are the clasic ones : go there kill that/ protect something/ run like hell/run like hell after a nigger and capture him/ go there kill that, but this time using a sniper. Most of them are okay, but when i had to look for the emo leader in each and every house in a sad little village, it all seemed like a big fucking cliche. Of course the emo leader will be in the house surrounded by blades/blood/and guards, of course the other houses are a waste of time, and of course going straight for the house would be the fastest way in, but no, I had to check out each and every mother fucking house before i reached the one that really mattered. One thing kept bugging me though, throught the campaign you keep switching from one character to another, both fighting on the same side however but they have nothing to do one with each other, so why not just ask the player at the beginning the simple yet marvelous questions : On which side do you wanna be? PUNK! Another sad yet annoying part were the dog fights, this is just sad to be honest, out of all the battles all the possibilities, when a dog attacks it seems that the ocean of shittynes is being poured on me, they just had to add it, the worlds most fucked up moment in all action games, the one, the only, the "press X button NOT DO DIE", if you don`t press it, you die, if you press it too late or too soon, you die, le fuck.

Overall, the single player was quite ok, the soundtracks did their job high above ok, and the graphics are strong enough to make the player feel as if he is really participating in the blood bath.
The multiplayer however turned out be more than simple fun, for a few straight days i found myself addicted to it. The mods are pretty much standard, except for the hardcore, but the gameplay itself is simply fantastic. The more you kill the more xp you gather and from time to time you might actually level up, in military ranks, unlocking better and better weapons and some interesting perks, like bullet penetration, damage, grenade blast. The fights are usually fast, the ways to kill are fun and the potential drama is almost divine, the death cam exists ( after you die it shows the possition of your killer) and after a few straight kills (without dying) you can use the recon chopper to show your enemies on the radar, a useful tool indeed, but after even more straight kills you can actually call in an air strike to blow the motherfuckers sky high.
Best of all i loved the multiplayer maps, from cities to hangars and straight on the field, they were simply great, with plenty of potential sniper locations, best suited for various perks and let`s not forget, the potential drama.