Discussion about the Fallout games

[TheMagicMushroomMan]

4 hours ago, Mr. Freeze said:

At the risk of sounding like a Twitter user, FO4's start is way too heteronormative. What if I don't want to be married? Or a straight character? Alternative start mods are a godsend. 

It is a problem indeed. Roleplaying is murdered from the start:

 

>Player is forced to play as a married guy.

>With a son.

>"Please interact with your son for ten seconds so you'll care when he goes missing five minutes from now, thanks"

>Wife has no personality beyond "generic housewife" and we know nothing about her.

>Wife dies.

>Main character doesn't even care.

>Player doesn't care either.

>Main character has to find son.

>Player has no reason to actually care about the son.

 

This is besides all of the convenient coincidences, the cheesy script, and the forced acting. It's a terrible intro.

[Rudolph]

46 minutes ago, june gloom said:

No, The Glow is a massive lab owned by West-Tek, and the LA Vault was a fully-functional demonstration vault with no number of its own. It worked as advertised and the disparate groups around the Boneyard are descended from the survivors.

Bummer. I guess the locations were merely reusing the same terrain assets as the Vaults, then.

 

That lack of Vault 14 is still weird. Given how much the Fallout sequels love to reference the original game, I would have expected Vault 14 to show up eventually, especially in Fallout 2 where your main quest explicitly requires you to return to Vault 13.

Edited November 1, 2022 by Rudolph

[Wyrmwood]

14 minutes ago, TheMagicMushroomMan said:

>Player has no reason to actually care about the son.

 

I agree totally about the the forced storyline being at odds with the open role playing gameplay but we just had a baby boy 2 days ago and he rarely has any meaningful dialogue but I still care about him! Can't really blame that one on Bethesda, it's a genetic thing I think.

[TheMagicMushroomMan]

1 hour ago, Wyrmwood said:

I agree totally about the the forced storyline being at odds with the open role playing gameplay but we just had a baby boy 2 days ago and he rarely has any meaningful dialogue but I still care about him! Can't really blame that one on Bethesda, it's a genetic thing I think.

That's wonderful to hear, Wyrmwood! If you ever want to change your baby's appearance, there are plenty of options available at Nexus Mods. Rest assured you can always revert back to his default look, but be sure to keep a backup!

 

Yeah, it is a genetic thing, and it can be used well with good writing. The problem is that "OMG it's a baby, you have to care about it!" ends up becoming a lazy scapegoat in most stories like this. Instead of giving us a well-written character that we learn to care about because of their development, personality, or even just the actor playing the character, they just plop in a baby and call it a day because you have to care about it because it's a baby. Movies are just as bad when it comes to that. Even though a baby can't have any dialogue, you can still use good writing to establish a relationship between the parent and the child. In Fallout 4, it doesn't even feel like a family, just a bunch of NPC's used as convenient plot devices. There's a difference between appealing to a viewer's emotions and exploiting their emotions.

[TheMagicMushroomMan]

Sorry for the double post, edit button isn't working. But I just wanted to say that I really am happy for you and your family.

[Murdoch]

"Who's Sean again?" -- Epic Voice Guy, Fallout 4 Honest Trailer.

 

1 hour ago, Wyrmwood said:

we just had a baby boy 2 days ago and he rarely has any meaningful dialogue but I still care about him!

 

Congratulations!

Edited November 1, 2022 by Murdoch

[Wyrmwood]

Thanks @TheMagicMushroomMan, he does have a little hair and I prefer bald babies so great to hear I change his appearance with mods, I was thinking of getting the clippers out ;) 

[Mr. Freeze]

Holly just went "goo goo ga ga" and cried in Breaking Bad but when Walt kidnapped her you felt angry as shit. You can have kids mean something in games but Bethsoft took the lazy way out, alas. 

[RDETalus]

6 hours ago, Rudolph said:

Heck, a better writing team could have deliberately played on the fact you actually do not know much about your spouse, and a character with high Intelligence or Perception would even be able to pick up on that and start questioning their marriage early on, much to the spouse's confusion.

 

Think back about this idea whenever you get to playing Fallout 4 and progressing through its main storyline. There were definitely some missed writing opportunities

Edited November 1, 2022 by RDETalus

[Chezza]

On 10/31/2022 at 7:46 AM, TheMagicMushroomMan said:

Fallout 4 is the worst offender: awkward husband and wife talks, awkward animations, awkward writing, an awkward set-up with awkward coincidences, an awkward baby... and the fact that the dude doesn't even seem bothered by the fact that his wife is dead is somewhat awkward too.

 

Heh, you're right. I think I'll add that to my vocabulary for describing Bethesda's Fallout games. A constant sense of awkwardness in nearly all dialogue. Can be subtle, but it's there.

[Rudolph]

17 minutes ago, RDETalus said:

Think back about this idea whenever you get to playing Fallout 4 and progressing through its main storyline. There were definitely some missed writing opportunities

Hopefully, Obsidian is taking note for The Outer Worlds 2.

[Wyrmwood]

11 minutes ago, Rudolph said:

Hopefully, Obsidian is taking note for The Outer Worlds 2.

 

Like I said I only played a little of the first one but your character doesn't seem to have any back-story other than they woke up from a missing colony ship and kinda of a "would you kindly" mind getting some missing power coupling deal to get you started off. No long tutorial neither unless you count jumping up a step or ducking under a tree branch with some control prompts.

[Rudolph]

Ah, bummer. People have been making hilarious memes out of Jordan Peterson's infamous "Up Yours" rant lately, so I reckon a character like that would have been a perfect antagonist for my Fallout pitch. "Up yours, Vault Dweller! We'll see who cancels who." :P

 

And naturally, a high Intelligence character would have the option to reply "Who cancels whom." XD

Edited November 2, 2022 by Rudolph

[TheMagicMushroomMan]

A high intelligence character would activate VATS from two feet away for a 95% headshot.

[june gloom]

5 hours ago, Rudolph said:

Bummer. I guess the locations were merely reusing the same terrain assets as the Vaults, then.

 

That lack of Vault 14 is still weird. Given how much the Fallout sequels love to reference the original game, I would have expected Vault 14 to show up eventually, especially in Fallout 2 where your main quest explicitly requires you to return to Vault 13.

 

Vault-Tech built 122 numbered vaults known to the public. This is not counting the LA Vault, "Vault 0" (a vast expansion of the former NORAD complex at Cheyenne Mountain, intended to serve as the central command for all vaults nationwide) or the "Secret Vault," Vault-Tec's private research lab. It also doesn't include any demonstration vaults like the exhibit at the museum in Fallout 3. You can't show them all.

[Rudolph]

I guess so, but it still feels weird that Fallout 1 would skip over Vault 14 like that, going as far as to even omit it from the holodisk on Vault locations you get from the Hub librarian. I understand it is a very minor detail, but I still cannot help but puzzled by how specific it feels from a worldbuilding standpoint, especially when they could have simply made Vault 15 be Vault 14 in the first place.

 

I wonder if it is some kind of joke from the original writers in regard to that old building design tradition of omitting the 13th floor.

Edited November 2, 2022 by Rudolph

[reflex17]

Vault 14 being missing is significant for a number of reasons. When they were making the first game they had no other reference point so why would they choose to skip a number like this? First, vault 13 must be a reference to that number being thought of as unlucky, so that's more of a joke. To skip ahead to Vault 15 is strong from a worldbuilding standpoint in this case because it would indicate that there are other vaults out there, maybe it's outside of the game map, or maybe it exists but it's never found by the player. It strengthens the point that after the doors were closed each vault was a self-contained unit. Their access to information in the outside world was limited and data found in the Hub reflects that. It says that there are unknown vaults out there that might have very little impact on the overall storyline for that game in particular while simultaneously creating an air of mystery and open-endedness which has only served to benefit narrative in the later titles.

Edited November 2, 2022 by reflex17

[Apprentice]

17 hours ago, Mr. Freeze said:

Holly just went "goo goo ga ga" and cried in Breaking Bad but when Walt kidnapped her you felt angry as shit. You can have kids mean something in games but Bethsoft took the lazy way out, alas. 

It doesn't need to be a kid, baby Yoda anyone ?? :D

[Rudolph]

LOL! I stumbled upon the "Bridge of Death" event in Fallout 2 and now I am very glad that I sat through Monty Python and the Holy Grail! XD

[Wyrmwood]

Yeah pretty dated movie but still essential viewing for the purpose for understanding a load of pop culture references. I'm sure you've come across  holy hand grenades before now!

[Rudolph]

Well, the problem I have with the movie - and every Monty Python skit, for that matter - is that the delivery of the jokes just does not make me laugh, even if most of them are actually really funny and clever on paper. Case in point: the solution to the Bridge of Death riddle!

 

I do remember the game Arthurian Legends featuring Holy Hand Grenades; are there in Fallout 2 as well?

Edited November 2, 2022 by Rudolph

[Wyrmwood]

1 hour ago, Rudolph said:

Well, the problem I have with the movie - and every Monty Python skit, for that matter - is that the delivery of the jokes just does not make me laugh, even if most of them are actually really funny and clever on paper. Case in point: the solution to the Bridge of Death riddle!

 

I do remember the game Arthurian Legends featuring Holy Hand Grenades; are there in Fallout 2 as well?

 

Nah don't think so, Worms has them and there's one in the movie Ready Player One but that whole movies basically one big pop culture reference.

 

Yeah I loved Python when I was 14 or so but kind of outgrew it. Still like this one though

 

 

Edit: by the way Arthurian Legends was pretty good, glad at least one other person has played it.

Edited November 3, 2022 by Wyrmwood

[Rudolph]

2 hours ago, Wyrmwood said:

glad at least one other person has played it.

I have only played the demo, to be more accurate. I just did not feel like it was for me.

 

Anyway, I completed the quests in Gecko. It was nice to see Harold again! However, the Gecko Power Plant's level design is really strange: the Ghouls were practically begging me to help them fix the reactor, yet I had to hunt for keycards just to get to the reactor control room and the game would not even allow me to ask about them. I had to use a walkthrough there, which is kind of annoying.

Edited November 3, 2022 by Rudolph

[Chezza]

On the note of monty python, yeah the skits aren't delivered well enough to appreciate them during the first viewing. After digesting them and watching a second time round the humour kicks in (for me anyway).

 

I think people tend to find the skits more funny when reflecting and impersonating the jokes. Odd that, usually jokes are funnier to begin with and then lose their flame.

[Rudolph]

Yeah, pretty much. As I mentioned elsewhere, Yu-Gi-Oh! Abridged references Monty Python a lot and I feel like it works better in that context.

[HeatedChocolate]

13 hours ago, Rudolph said:

featuring Holy Hand Grenades; are there in Fallout 2 as well?

New Vegas has 'em in Camp Searchlight with Wild Wasteland. Also has a Life of Brian reference (Romanes eunt domus at Cottonwood Cove) with the same perk

[Rudolph]

Hey, cool! I finally got my hands on the part that was required to run the Highwayman. So that is where the song H.Bomberguy used for the credits of his Fallout 3 video comes from... I was worried that Fallout 2 did not feature any new music, but I guess Black Isle saved it all for later locations.

 

EDIT: Did it. Brought the GECK back to Arroyo. Man, Fallout 2 sure does know how to raise the stakes. A bit cliché, I reckon, but still more effective than the way Fallout 1 introduced the Super Mutant threat. 

Edited November 4, 2022 by Rudolph

[Rudolph]

Question: is it actually possible to shoot your way through the final level? I hate to admit it, but I seem to have hit a wall here, as despite wearing an Enclave Power Armor Mark II and using a Gauss Pistol, my Level 27 character (Finesse/One-Hander/Better Crits (2)/Sniper/Critical Chance 27%) struggles to leave the Presidential Office without cheesing all the enemies that rush in to intercept me after I acquire the Presidential Security Card. EMP Grenades can make short work of the Security Robots, but unlike previous enemies, it takes forever to kill one Enclave Soldier - even if I shoot them in the eyes - and they can easily fry me in a handful of shots. I have a companion (Goris), but I had to leave him at the start of the level because of his mere presence was enough to trigger the Automated Turrets, which can kill me in one shot.

 

Can I salvage this run or do I have no choice but to restart from the beginning?

Edited November 6, 2022 by Rudolph

[Rudolph]

I guess not... Oh well.

 

I figured I might as well take this opportunity to give the Restoration Project a shot and, oh my god you guys, you need to try it yourselves! For those who do not know, not only does it restore/reimagine cut content, but it also adds a fan-made talking head for John Cassidy, complete with voice acting!

 

Seriously, it is so well done, it looks very much like it has always been part of the game! It also makes me wonder why not all permanent companions were given talking heads and voice acting, given how you spend more time with them than most of characters in the game. 

 

 

Edited November 9, 2022 by Rudolph

[Rudolph]

So I made it back to the Enclave Oil Rig, this time at Level 39 and with many companions, but I am still getting my ass kicked. I tried looking up a few walkthroughs, but those I came across are either for a high Speech character or highly dependent on cheesing tactics.

 

As such, I have to ask the people around here who played Fallout 2: how did you beat that level? Is my run doomed once again?