Post by Steve Farrelly @ 05:30pm 11/11/08 | 80 Comments
At any rate, here it is - our Fallout 3 review. We've steered clear of any comparisons to the original Fallout games for a few reasons, but mostly because it's more than apparent there will be more people who've never played the previous Fallout games playing this.
It's not as perfect as some people are touting, and we're not afraid to point that out, but this is most definitely a game that must not be ignored. be sure to check our in-depth review for our full thoughts...
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Posted 05:34pm 11/11/08
Posted 05:38pm 11/11/08
i note that zero punctuation stated he was considering taping the fallout 3 disc into his console never to play anything else.
Posted 05:49pm 11/11/08
One of the first games I played was Wasteland on the old Apple 2e, and while this is really nothing like it apart from a few token throwbacks, it's a great game in its own right :)
Posted 06:07pm 11/11/08
I'm glad you ragged on about the unforgivable short comings such as the animations. Surly they could have done better. The 3rd person animations are terrible. I popped it into 3rd person when I first played it took a few steps and quickly changed to first, I didn't want to cry.
I also think that a major con to the game is the lack of a development kit, Oblivion came with one on release. There is a pretty strong modding community that want to fix some of the stuff you mentioned up. The conversations/dialogs, altering the dynamics a bit to fix up those silly mistakes such as rotting bodies in the middle of towns and whatnot.
There is a rumour that Bethesda haven't released the SDK for it because they plan to release downloadable content for $'s. Any mod that users create could potentially outshine the DC taking away from sales. The idea is that they milk for DC then release SDK when sales are dwindling. It would be OK if they simply said that.
EDIT: TweakGuides.Com has an extensive Fallout 3 tweak guide to alter the performance and looks among other things of Fallout 3.
last edited by Tollaz0r! at 18:07:06 11/Nov/08
Posted 06:14pm 11/11/08
Posted 06:31pm 11/11/08
Also infi, that quote should be posted here in full because I'm talking about their scope, not the entire game. And as far as the amount of stuff they've put in here and the depth of it all, it's borderline genius
last edited by Steve Farrelly at 18:31:10 11/Nov/08
Posted 06:33pm 11/11/08
Posted 06:33pm 11/11/08
/Off topic.
Every decent game gets a 9 or a 9.5 and the scoring seems to vary from game to game.
Example: GTA4 gets a 9.3 and Far Cry 2 (terrible) gets a 9? While GTA4 wasn't perfect it was worth more than a 0.3 difference.
Posted 06:52pm 11/11/08
as if fo3 isn't infinitely better than both of them. you should bump fallout3 to a 9.8. then drop the decimal point from *all* your review scores and subtract 90. that'll recalibrate your scores to be a better indication of where they should fit.
fo3 is game of the year. deadspace is doom 3 with a better lighting. and lol, far cry 2.
Posted 07:42pm 11/11/08
I've said this before and I'll say it again - not everyone is ever going to agree on review scores. I think Fallout is amazing, but not nearly as tightly designed as Dead Space (and it's only thing in common with Doom is scary monsters in space, it's a way better game).
Posted 08:10pm 11/11/08
It is almost as if the scoring isn't linear but closer to exponential.
So a score of 9.5 is HEAPS better then 9.0 which is HEAPS better then 8.5.
Which works, because Fallout 3 is HEAPS better then Far Cry 2. ;)
Posted 08:11pm 11/11/08
some guy in special armour but a s***** flashlight runs around killing monsters who jump out at him expectantly. the monsters as it happens are created by an evil scientist on some remote spaceship. sorry, i'm not even sure which game i'm describing anymore. advances the genre heh, the genre of flash light wielding space blokes shooting anatomically illogical space monsters, yeah sure it does.
fallout 3 on the other hand builds on what oblivion did well and fixes the s*** that oblivion failed hard at. for a start the combat is awesome, which ever way you want to play. its got more than 3 voice actors. the plot doesn't suck balls, its surprisingly not all that repetitive (except for respawning monsters).
fallout 3 isn't a copy + paste 100% linear "oh my god i just shat myself" shooter. its original, its compelling despite the non-linearishness of it (unlike oblivion), the plot can't be summarised in two dot points and its also f*****g awesome to look at. plus, and i refuse to believe you can disagree with this point: you can play it more than once. straight off the bat, you can either blow up a town or not.
the only possible reason i can see for playing deadspace twice is that you lost your save games before the end, and the second time around you'll be about as bored as a far cry 2 player.
deadspace < fallout 3
Posted 08:17pm 11/11/08
I like fallout 3, im getting a bit bogged down at the moment just spinning my wheels wandering about killing s*** and not doing many quests atm though, i was trying to find galaxy radio and the cities on the way were full of dead ends and s***, i gave up and went back west where it was all open and did a different quest.
Posted 08:21pm 11/11/08
Posted 08:22pm 11/11/08
i hate being able to pimp your home in megaton and that virtual level in the vault shat me to tears, but the frustration is part of the enjoyment.
as for that comment about not being able to sleep in owned beds. cmon gimme a break. there are plenty of beds to sleep in, esp with fast travel.
Posted 08:27pm 11/11/08
I go in the subway, go east, come out and find myself 100 miles west.
Posted 09:14pm 11/11/08
Posted 09:38pm 11/11/08
Dead Space is survival horror in space, thats all it wants to be, thats all I was expecting when I bought it, thats all the developers even say they wanted to make. Does it achieve its goals? In my opinion, hell yeah, its a fantastic survival horror game in a setting those games don't often get to explore. Its environments and atmosphere are beautifully realised, it looks great, it sounds amazing, its extremely well made and extremely solid with some really well designed, tight gameplay. So, it gets good scores, because its a good game. It isn't compared to Halo and Half-Life 2 and Mario Galaxy and GTA4 and every other game that has ever scored highly, because that would make no sense. Its judged on its own merits and rated accordingly.
Posted 09:43pm 11/11/08
Monsters you kill by cutting off their limbs instead of going for the typical head-shot is a pretty different mechanic, the fighting out in the vacuum of space and the zero-g is pretty original too. But so what if it isn't the pinnacle of innovation and originality? Theres plenty of room for games which just execute good, solid gameplay well. I would prefer a perfectly executed game any day to something which innovates and tries to be original purely for the sake of saying its innovative and original (I'm looking at you Peter Molyneux).
Posted 09:58pm 11/11/08
at the end of the day the point of a review is to say if the game is worth buying or not, not to judge it on its technical merits. not how well it meets the criteria of some arbitary genre. a review should tell the randoms who don't play games for a living, and who have to pay for games, if its worth buying and spending the time in. and the scores should reflect that in a relative way. you even said yourself that the game is nothing out of the ordinary, just well made. then why would it get the same score as a game which is out of the ordinary and is actually good to boot.
if your mate joe everygamer came along tomorrow and asked, "i just bought a brand new pc/xbox 360 whats a great game to buy at the moment with the left over cash i've got". if you said deadspace you're a terrible friend or a f*****g moron.
Posted 10:17pm 11/11/08
A review is still just an opinion and people have different ones, make your own call sure, but this trolling is uncalled for.
Posted 10:21pm 11/11/08
Posted 10:28pm 11/11/08
far cry 2: 60% (beneath the fancy exterior lies a very tedious and uninspiring game)
Posted 10:58pm 11/11/08
its not trolling. why else have threads tagged to reviews if not for randoms to express opinions? steve's a big boy he can take some negative feedback. and its on topic even. if you are just going to nuke every negative comment then just drop just drop the comments, or maybe reviewers shouldn't join the fray?
its ironic though if a game reviewer can't take a bit of negative feedback heh.
Posted 11:27pm 11/11/08
I tend to agree with Khel's comments about scoring being a per-game thing rather than a comparison thing, but I agree with you that a score is basically an indicator though of whether or not you should buy the game. Otherwise, why would you even read the review? (... heh, like most gamers have exhibited anything resembling discriminating tastes anyway)
I've been thinking for ages actually that maybe we should ditch scores entirely and replace it with a "buy this game/don't buy this game" thing. If anyone is interested in discussing the mechanics of scoring in any detail, then let's start another thread for it in the forums and talk about it some more!
Posted 11:40pm 11/11/08
far cry 2 got a mention only because i was talking about scaling scores. that and I didn't mention it first, but a lot of people had the same opinion as me of that game. to be fair. i could also mention spore. which i don't think you guys even reviewed.
Posted 11:49pm 11/11/08
And yeah, I like the idea of a simpler system which is just some generic indicator of "Its great, buy it", "Its average, you might like it, maybe rent it first", and "Its crap, avoid it", because thats all the score really boils down to. A game getting 9.5 doesn't mean its the best thing ever and it will single-handedly fulfill your survivor horror needs and you should not look at any other games, it just means hey, this is a really good game, you should check it out. Just like when Resident Evil 5 comes out, if it gets 9.5 I won't be thinking back and comparing it to Dead Space I'll just be thinking "Wow, 9.5, it must be a pretty good game, its worth checking out".
And yeah, all that stuff I just said probably doesn't belong in this thread, sorry :(
Posted 11:50pm 11/11/08
The buy this game/don't buy this game thing won't really work for us IMO because we don't have the resources for 100% review coverage and therefor we generally try to review the games that actually have a chance of being worthwhile, so they're pretty much all going to be "buy" it's just a matter of how much priority people should have on that.
Anyway, as trog said, this is a really a discussion for another thread. I haven't even had time to play Fallout 3. Damn baiting :/
Posted 11:59pm 11/11/08
What's your point? F*** all games out now do anything original, and even fewer can say that they've done a good job of it. I totally agree with Khel, who the hell cares if it's not dripping with originality? You said yourself that it's tightly designed, isn't that enough? Even pretty much everything Fallout 3 does has more or less been done before, but it did them well. You prefer Fallout 3 to Dead Space? That's fine, but saying that Dead Space sucks because it's not original is basically saying that almost every game that's come out in the past few years has been s*** for the same reason.
Posted 12:00am 12/11/08
as far s the review goes.. seemed pretty accurate.. i never look at scores personally.. pros and cons.. sure.. scores.. nah.. the review itself will tell me enough about it.. and player feedback (which is a plenty given the state of any gaming related forum these days) will confirm or dismiss my thoughts.
Posted 12:02am 12/11/08
Ditch the score completely and just have a fairly detailed Pros/Cons section.
Posted 12:15am 12/11/08
Posted 12:19am 12/11/08
If you reviewed every game against each other with a sliding scale you'd get nowehere because gaming and various concepts in gaming are so vast and different, something, somewhere would be misrepresented.
I reviewed dead space against the survival horror genre and third-person action games, not against RPGs or RTSs or FPSs. It's clear I did that because I reference Resi 4 a bit as DS borrowed a lot from that game. But it also enhanced the experience originally crafted with Resi 4 and broached a bunch of gameplay shortcomings so many other games and developers have looked over.
I reviewed Fallout 3 against other RPGs and sandbox titles. I didn't compare it to other fps games because despite its fps viewpoint, it doesn't follow most fps rules.
with that in mind I still think the scores are appropriate, and if you looked closely you'd see both games aren't "Game of the Year" they're "contenders" for the award.
Scores are misleading to many different people - that's invariably going to happen in an industry with so much to offer such a broad consumer-base. But they're a good indicator for what's good and what's not really worth bothering with. But scores are not entirely reflective of an overall viewpoint, which is why it's important to read the accompanying text...
Anyway - agree with Trog: active and constructive discussion of review systems overall in a dedicated thread would be a good idea.
Posted 12:43am 12/11/08
I only have a finite amount of money to spend on games, movies, books etc. Reviews are meant to help sort the wheat through the chaff. I don't say to myself, I really feel like buying a survival horror game I wonder which one scored the highest amongst themselves, I want to know which game out of the current crop that is being released is better.
I don't do this through a score, and to be honest I rarely take notice of it, but if you are going to buck the trend and only score against other games within the same genre you really should have something that states that in the review somewhere as I don't think it's the norm.
Anyway, I really don't mean to troll, and enjoy reading the reviews you do, but the whole 'lets score everything 7+ unless it's s***' really grates on me and I think that the score should in some shape reflect what you write about the game.
Posted 12:43am 12/11/08
thats the biggest cop out ever.
actually no that is.
thats buying into the whole games are art nonsense. they aren't, they are entertainment. at the end of the day it should come down to is it fun/entertaining/whatever. someone buying a game doesn't give a toss if its a technical marvel if its a dog to play. spore was in the final stage atleast innovative and pretty cool from a technical point of view. but the game sucked. fallout 3 is both really impressive and fun to play, but at the end of the day nobody would play it if all the game mechanics sucked. like say morrowind. developer intention was great, they probably met that too but the game was a real mess.
Posted 01:11am 12/11/08
Some games are art, and others are just summer blockbusters.
Posted 02:16am 12/11/08
Posted 06:20am 12/11/08
why?
Posted 07:22am 12/11/08
As for AGN reviews, just from reading comments it seems most people love the actual review content and agree with it and don't really care about the final score as much, so in that way a yes/no system would be better. But then for games it's standard throughout the world and media for there to be a rating system out of 10 or 100 or whatever.
And people who froth at the mouth and get all worked up and get nasty towards a reviewer because they don't agree with their opinion on something are douchebags. It's fine to disagree and have an opinion of your own about a game and to state it, but to attack somebody else's opinion on a game and say their opinion is wrong are silly and obviously can't handle that people are different.
I think Steve (and also Dan) do a great job with reviews and they pretty much always say and score what the majority of people think too (again, determined by reading comments for reviews). Occasionally there might be a review that more people don't agree with, but that's the nature of reviews and reviewers and personal opinions.
Posted 07:56am 12/11/08
What I didn't like about your review is that ... it's s***. All of the games you compare it against have a f*** load of problems that if any one of us harped on about for two thousand words would look like a d*** head.
Secondly, considering that Fallout 3 is such a good, fun game overall, bagging the s*** out of the game for the first half before starting on anything good isn't a positive way of reviewing the game.
Anybody who fails to read past the first 17 chapters of your novel sized article won't come out with any positive feel about the game. Even then it still feels a lot like "don't bother buying it, get it from the internetz".
Posted 08:00am 12/11/08
Asides from that and a few little bugs, I found it to be an exceptionally good single player game.
Spoiler:
Also, cannibalism made me laugh the first time I watched the animation, very zombie like.
last edited by icewyrm at 08:00:37 12/Nov/08
Posted 08:15am 12/11/08
That is total and utter crap (with all due respect). If you can't develop a consistent scoring system then you shouldn't be in the business of scoring.
Posted 08:15am 12/11/08
You're not confused with his Stalker:Clear Sky review are you? As he hasn't reviewed Fallout 3 yet
Posted 08:25am 12/11/08
Now THIS is a review. It is effusive in its praise but also highlights the weaknesses. Instead of being effusive in criticism and then throwing in some of the good things as well.
I also think a score is unnecessary. This is not IMDB, we want to know whether to buy the game.
last edited by infi at 08:25:36 12/Nov/08
Posted 09:56am 12/11/08
some games MIGHT be art, but you shouldn't review them based on that.
forgive the weak analogy but it'd be like reviewing a rollercoaster. it doesn't matter if the ride is the tallest in the world, or the fastest if its as boring as dogs balls. if its not fun its not worth bothering with.
games aren't movies, they aren't books, and they aren't hanging on walls (lcd tvs excluded). they are entertainment, or else we wouldn't play them. maybe its different when you make your living playing games, but for everyone else reading game reviews they buy games to be entertained not to wallow in the magnificence of some game devs techno extravaganza.
also as others have said you spent more time on this games negatives than any positives, as if you really didn't like the game at all, yet still gave it a 9.5. which is it?
Posted 10:22am 12/11/08
So you didn't find Far Cry 2 or Dead Space "entertaining". Just because you didn't, that means nobody else possibly can?
A review is just an opinion and while this one is obviously different from yours that fact alone doesn't make it any less valid.
Posted 10:28am 12/11/08
i can make up my own mind
i want to know what was good and bad about it, and generally what the reviewers experience was like
a single number out of 10 is meaningless and i generally ignore it
Posted 01:12pm 12/11/08
This game is evil only because its taken so much of my time & sleep, made my wife cranky, and sometimes food.
I did have some problems with constant crashing on my pc but after much searching on the net and trying different fixes I have managed to make it work and im loving this game, I owed the first 2 and loved them and really love 3.
Posted 01:22pm 12/11/08
Posted 01:28pm 12/11/08
Posted 01:31pm 12/11/08
Posted 01:38pm 12/11/08
uh
regardless, you need to stop taking what i'm saying as a personal attack. the far cry 2 thing was that a very flawed game got 90%, a lot of people agreed with me. thats not the same thing as what i'm talking about here. steve said games should be rated in isolation from both other recent games and other genres of games. which i don't agree with at all from the point of view of a gamer reading reviews to see what game to buy.
its as though steve is marking assignments. his reviews (or atleast he says) come from a technical or artistic point of view rather than from the view of a gamer. i'm just saying i think he has missed the point a bit.
thats just an opinion obviously.
Posted 01:42pm 12/11/08
I thought they would of abolished the whole "enemy is speed 100 so it can find the player" thing.
Posted 01:56pm 12/11/08
Yeah, though I didn't find that annoying so much as when they decided to run backwards faster than I could run forwards. Hard to punch them when they do that :/
Posted 02:23pm 12/11/08
People can find entertainment in many things. Just because someone considers a game to be art, whatever that may or may not mean (not gonna touch that argument here) it doesn't necessarily exclude it from being entertaining. Particularly since video games are such a multi-faceted media.
Yeah, and plenty of other publications gave Far Cry 2 90% or higher. http://www.gamerankings.com/htmlpages4/942192.asp
What's your point? That different people can have different opinions? Oh wait.
last edited by Dan at 14:27:37 12/Nov/08
Posted 03:01pm 12/11/08
Each and every game I review has an underlying review method (so there are relative things that could tie the latest Resident Evil game to the latest Pokemon game, because games are a stand-alone form of entertainment with a specific goal to reach as an interactive medium). It is something ALL games are considered with. The above line stuff then relates to genre etc as I said in another post. The bottom line is, I don't mark games as individual assignments. It's not like I specifically look at stuff in one game that ONLY relates to another game of the same nature - I would not be a games reviewer if that's how things were done.
There are elements that go into reviewing each and every game that are the same, and elements that are specific BECAUSE not every game is the same.
Some games are art, just like some movies are art. Some games are summer blockbusters you leave your brains at the door for, just like some movies do. Most movies aim to entertain, regardless of their ardent outreach or attempt at breaking box office dollars. The same can be said of games. Ultimately, it's all about making an accessible product for a fickle consumer-base that is massively wide-spread in taste and wants.
Posted 03:50pm 12/11/08
if you want to put yourselves in the same category as pc powerplay go right ahead. i notice that spore also got reviews in the 90s as well (and similar average), yet both games from what i've seen on this forum at least weren't exactly popular with players. half the time in far cry 2 it felt like drivnig to work on kessels rd. except everytime you'd hit a traffic light people would open fire. so probably more like logan rd. it was a chore. and spore was s***e.
you're comparing yourself to publications which as has been discussed in previous threads are over a barrel keeping publishers happy trying to get exclusives and advertising and all that. naturally the games with the bigger budgets will get better reviews, because they've got more dollars to throw around. as if the gamer buying the game matters.
if you're not subject to that then don't compare to that. and don't review like that.
Posted 03:53pm 12/11/08
I think the nitpicks in the review probably got too many words. The only one mentioned that I even care about is the 'cant sleep in owned bed even if they're dead'' thing, its an annoying limitation when free beds are in short supply at the start of the game.
On the game itself, I found it really difficult to get into at first - as someone mentioned earlier, getting to GNR radio is difficult if you dont 'get' the game. Eventually I did 'get' it and reached GNR and everything gameplay wise made sense, but for that first hour or so I just had no clue what I was doing or where I was going.
The VATS slow motion is great, blowing off a mutants head with the hunting rifle never gets old. It really is tempting to just wander off the main quest line and see what you can find. GOTY for me I think.
Posted 04:02pm 12/11/08
Posted 04:30pm 12/11/08
Posted 03:49am 14/11/08
You can't take away the review score and simply have detailed pros and cons though; that frustrates some readers like nothing else.
A lot of people don't read an entire review - people have limited time. They skip through the review, reading bits and pieces, and at the end of it want a clear representation of if overall it was actually considered a great game or not. Ie; "9.5" or "Buy this game".
Seeing a detailed pros and cons section, or a conclusion area that doesn't tell them if the game is worth buying or not, just means they have to go find another review that wont beat around the bush and give them the answer they're seeking.
Oh, and I agree on the point that reviewers shouldn't be engaging in public discussion threads about their reviews, especially if user comments are going to be getting censored in any fashion. It's great to be in touch with the community and all, but as a part of any editorial staff it's your duty to remain professional at all costs. Getting into arguments with readers about your reviews is hardly that, and removes both credibility from your own position, as well as the magazine or website you're writing for. It's best to sit back, take on board whatever can be, and aim to continually improve to suit your target audience. Spend less time defending your old reviews, and more time writing new ones.
Quite simply; there's no need for your opinion on someone elses opinion about your initial opinion (game review).... Leave that for the forum trolls.
Posted 06:06am 14/11/08
But will they actually read this review that won't 'beat around the bush'?
Your readers sound like complete idiots.
Posted 07:32am 14/11/08
If however the review result contradicts the decision they had almost already made, they might be inclined to read the review in depth - but if they're thinking they'll buy it, and then the review says it's good, they'll usually buy it and spend their time playing the game as opposed to reading full reviews on it.
Posted 02:12am 22/11/08
Posted 02:22am 22/11/08
Posted 02:26am 22/11/08
Posted 02:27am 22/11/08
Posted 02:32am 22/11/08
Posted 02:34am 22/11/08
Posted 02:36am 22/11/08
Posted 02:38am 22/11/08
(Unless you have a littleboy nuke.)
Posted 02:40am 22/11/08
Posted 02:42am 22/11/08
edit: Oh and enjoy the scenery :P
Posted 02:43am 22/11/08
Posted 02:44am 22/11/08
Posted 03:06am 22/11/08
The way the side missions work pisses me off. You can go clear a place only later to get a mission where you need to go back and fetch something that was not selectable when you first went through it. This serves no purpose as there is no bad guys when you go back so its just a pain in the ass running through an entire empty level again.
There is soo many glitches and bugs and absolutely retarded animations it makes me wonder how they can spend so much time and effort on something only to fall 2% short. So many times you will be fighting something only to see it float off or start climbing an invisible staircase. I also got stuck with my mutant buddy in places and had to reload where he was blocking a char from getting to a rally point it needed to be on for dialogue to continue.
The level cap is bollocks, the guns are bollocks, the enemies are bollocks the world itself makes no f*****g sense whatsoever. The engine looks ok until you get to the oasis and you are confronted with the poorest excuse for a forest I have ever seen. The dialogue is bollocks, the character reactions and comments are stupid and incongruent. There isn't enough side missions, there is a lot of pointless locations. Nothing makes sense at all really.
6/10 because I like the style of play and the effort to make a s***** game.
Oh hacking and lockpicking is also bollocks and the story as well is bollocks
last edited by Ross at 03:04:16 22/Nov/08
And the f*****g multiple endings is f*****g lazy
last edited by Ross at 03:06:07 22/Nov/08
Posted 03:05am 22/11/08
Posted 09:05am 22/11/08
Posted 03:18pm 22/11/08