I am extremely surprised right now. Never in my wildest imaginings did I ever think my post on Fallout 3 would generate so much traffic – and quite a bit of dislike, it seems.
So, in order to clarify myself (because I realize that a lot of stuff I left out of the original post was clear to me but not exactly clear to other people) I’ll address a few comments that have been made here and elsewhere.
First off, I know that gamers everywhere will scream blasphemy and curse me for ever calling myself a gamer for saying this, but I’d never even heard of the Fallout series until I saw the teaser trailer for Fallout 3 last year and started reading up on it. And I’ll give you the same reason I’ve already given elsewhere: I’m purely a console gamer and have been for most of my life. Any computer games I played were games that my dad bought and, sadly, he never brought home Fallout. Also, keep in mind we come from a fairly small city in the western US and at the time the Fallout games came out it wasn’t exactly hopping with electronics and game stores. Then I ended up overseas for a few years which meant I had to deal with the selection at my base BX (if you have any military experience at all you know exactly why that’s a significant factor here).
Second, because I’m pretty much just a console gamer I’m very much used to the structure of console games which, I gather from people who play more of both computer and console games than I do, have a different general structure than computer games. I realize that computers can run more complex games than a console can so my amazement at Fallout 3 having so many endings, even if they are just permutations, is due almost entirely to the fact that I’m used to console games with only about 10 endings or so – max. The way things are done in the Fallout universe is completely new ground for me. Yet another reason I find this new game so intriguing (and why it’s my most anticipated game coming up this year).
I would also like to point out that I’m not judging this game solely by the teaser trailer. It was enough to get my attention, which is what teaser trailers do. If it hadn’t been as cool as it is I would probably not have been quite so interested. By this point I really just want to see a new trailer with gameplay video. I’m getting a bit tired of drooling over screenshots.
If you’ve got anything to say about this series feel free to comment. I want to hear more about it and the more I hear from people who’ve played it, the more I want to play. I welcome your insight and, you never know, you may just be turning somebody else on to the series. I’m all for spreading the gaming love.
6 Comments
Comments RSS TrackBack Identifier URI
Visual Crack with Dee 'n Mac 
[…] post by Visual Crack with Dee ‘n Mac […]
Um how bout playing the originals now?
I’ve actually started playing the first one. It’s taken some getting used to (posted briefly about it over at Into the Trenches), but overall I’m enjoying myself. At the risk of having a bounty put out on my head by all Fallout faithful I’m not sure if I’ll ever become quite as fanatical about the game as many, but I can totally understand why people who love it range from up-in-arms to cautiously optimistic about Fallout 3.
For everybody concerned I hope the newest game turns out awesome.
Fallout 2 was the best of the originals. What made fallout great in my mind was the completeness of the campy post-apocalyptic 50’s style, which lended well to the humorous elements in those original games. You were’nt playing in a totally serious, post-decline of civilization . The atmostphere was gritty, and the Fallout inhabitants outside of the vaults cobbled together towns in a way that made some sense where as some games just use dirt textures on otherwise advanced technology, Fallout doesn’t do that, instead throughout the games you have the everpresent concept that there aren’t any readily-available advanced manufacturing facilities but the people arent ONLY reliant on scavanged pre-war technology, they make due with cleverly piecing together tech from found parts. War never changes. Life goes on.
Excuse the ridiculous run-on sentence 🙂
I personally don’t blame you for not having played (or heard of) Fallout until the announcement of Fallout 3. Growing up, all I’d ever seen of Fallout was the double-jewel case of Fallout 1 & 2, thinking it looked interesting, but, not having the money to buy it (or being the age to play it, being M-rated), passed it aside. Since then, i had heard of Fallout Tactics… and never played that either. Then, after Xbox came out, heard of another Fallout game for it which turn out to be as inspiring as E.T. for the Atari 2600, but with scantily-clad chicks and bad humor.
It wasn’t until after Fallout 3 was announced that I had bought Fallout 1 & 2. And I love the series. I am probably more of a fan of the first two than I ever will be of Fallout 3, but I am definitely not critical of this newest offering. It’s about time the series got a bit more of the public eye. Without Fallout 3, less people would ever THINK of playing the earlier games. That, in itself is enough to thank Bethesda for.
And they’re keeping the spirit of the originals, which makes me excited. I don’t care as much for minor details, as long as it’s genuinely Fallout, and they don’t make deathclaws furry, talking allies, like I heard was done in Tactics. As a prospective game designer, I hold this series in high regard, and I will always respect it for inspiration of the innovative games I plan to make in the future.