Fallout series -

[The handsome tard]

Desert Ranger armor seems to be based on prewar riot armor, as seen in Honest Hearts, so you could make it look pretty damn close.

Another interesting thing I could see them adding is a random post main quest encounter. You find a supermutant wandering on his own when maybe a deathclaw attacks him and you have the option to help out or not, if you do, the supermutant actually talks to you, thanks you for the help. It would turn out his name is Marcus and he finishes the short conversation by saying "Hopefully I can return the favor someday" before running into the wastes.

It would be a nice way to tie Fallout 1 and 2 together, especially since Marcus does return the favor unintentionally by helping out the VD's grandkid in the future.

 

[Exceptionally Exceptional]

You know what I always found interesting was the nod in New Vegas to the first Wasteland game with the Desert Rangers of Arizona being driven from Arizona by the Legion and setting up in Nevada before being incorporated into the NCR, which is what the Ranger Unification Monument at Mojave Outpost was.

 

[Mnutu]

I’ll admit I’ve played the original Fallout and Fallout 2 once each time. I don’t think they’ve aged gracefully and both need a proper remake as they’re pretty barren (no, a tribal becoming a porn star for the Mafia is silly, not interesting). In their current state, however, Bethesda shouldn’t bother touching them. They’d just fuck it up in some way

 

[LORD IMPERATOR]

I’ll admit I’ve played the original Fallout and Fallout 2 once each time. I don’t think they’ve aged gracefully and both need a proper remake as they’re pretty barren (no, a tribal becoming a porn star for the Mafia is silly, not interesting). In their current state, however, Bethesda shouldn’t bother touching them. They’d just fuck it up in some way

I'd recommend Obsidian to do it, but I've seen Outer Worlds. Maybe some other company in Microsoft can do it.

People seem to think that having those quirks makes Fallout 2 a superior game when compared to say, Fallout 3 or New Vegas. I'm sure there are those that get their jollies from having their character get raped by a drug chemist or be made into a Super Mutant's gimp, but those are just odd quirks. In New Vegas, my Courier can be a bisexual whore who has sex with A) a man who runs a casino who shot her in the head, and B) a woman who runs an underground coliseum who sent her to collect the eggs of the most dangerous animals in the Mojave. But that's not what made New Vegas great. It's a cool add-on, but I can choose to eschew those completely, and it would still be a great game.

Heck, the way the Enclave plotline wrapped up in Fallout 2 was very much just as railroaded as Fallout 3's. Why people condemn the latter but not the former is an eternal mystery to me, since I can't come up with any answer outside of nostalgia goggles. It didn't even offer the same freedom of choice as say, KOTOR or Jedi Knight did. Those games allowed you to usurp the big bad or destroy him. You can either be a good guy who destroys the Star Forge and frees all the souls of the Valley of the Jedi, or you can be the dickhead who uses the power of the Star Forge or the power of the Valley of the Jedi to dominate the galaxy as its new Emperor.

If Fallout 2 had that, the fact that the Chosen One could infiltrate the Enclave should at least given them the choice to work for them, climb the ranks, then find a way to get the Enclave leaders into an "accident" so you can take over and become the new President of the United States.

 

[Exceptionally Exceptional]

Honestly, Fallout 1 and 2 are incredibly overrated these days. Not saying they're bad, but you legit have people defend the game as having aged well despite the fact that it really hasn't. The game systems were often kinda broken. In the first one I actually ended up raising my barter skill so high I could sell something then buy it back for half the price I sold it for., an exploit that can be used to get a merchants entire inventory for pretty much free. That's broken.

Fallout 2 started off on a terrible foot by deciding that melee skills would be almost completely necessary to begin the game and get through the starting temple without dying 2-3 times. And then not letting you somehow join the Enclave despite Fallout 1 letting you say "Fuck it, make mine mutant!" was absolutely baffling. And don't tell me they couldn't, they easily could given the fact that they gave themselves an out: You're the son of the original Vault Dweller and so have acceptably clean genetics.

 

[Slap47]

I thought that the stories of Fallout 1 and Fallout 2 aged very well despite not being like New Vegas People play New Vegas and expect a very ambiguous story from the games that inspired it. However, the first two games are pretty black and white in their morality for the most part. Fallout 1 is obviously black and white as every town basically has two choices. Fallout 2 has more choices but overall you see stuff like the Enclave basically being American neo conservatives taken to the extreme and Vault City failing for being xenophobic. I don't see an issue with a developer asserting that their views are right if it comes out good. I think a game can have less choice and a less morally ambiguous story and still be good.

Pretty much every game is broken if we're going to be honest and stuff like the barter glitch is not really a problem. Morrowind and old shooter games have much worse glitches and are still considered great.

 

[Overcast]

I personally never minded how black and white Fallout 1 in particular was. You either helped people or become the same kind of scum that made life miserable for people in an already harsh wasteland. Anything to make it so that you could save your Vault. Looking back, it's not that different from Fallout 3, but the difference was that the writing was generally a lot better and the antagonist was someone who was generally nuanced. Someone who reacted to how the world was and decided the only course was to basically commit genocide.

A little touch I liked is that if you beat the game with Negative Karma, the Vault Dweller shoots the Overseer in the back after he gets told he can't come back. (Or if you have the Bloody Mess perk). It doesn't change the ending much, but it's a good way of indicating what kind of person your character has become over the course of their journey. Something that was missing in Fallout 2 unfortunately.

People seem to not realize that games were a bit more limited back in the day, so you go in with high expectations only to be let down.

Based on its own merits, I think Fallout 1 is a masterpiece. Although you might wanna play with Fallout FIXT to get the best overall experience.

Honestly, Fallout 1 and 2 are incredibly overrated these days. Not saying they're bad, but you legit have people defend the game as having aged well despite the fact that it really hasn't. The game systems were often kinda broken. In the first one I actually ended up raising my barter skill so high I could sell something then buy it back for half the price I sold it for., an exploit that can be used to get a merchants entire inventory for pretty much free. That's broken.

Fallout 2 started off on a terrible foot by deciding that melee skills would be almost completely necessary to begin the game and get through the starting temple without dying 2-3 times. And then not letting you somehow join the Enclave despite Fallout 1 letting you say "Fuck it, make mine mutant!" was absolutely baffling. And don't tell me they couldn't, they easily could given the fact that they gave themselves an out: You're the son of the original Vault Dweller and so have acceptably clean genetics.

You don't actually need to use melee skills at all in the temple. You can just run past everything. Still really obnoxious how you can't have a gun until Klammath or The Den. Like, I get you're in a village with Tribals, but the intro cutscene clearly shows the Elder has a gun on her fucking table in her hut.

 

[LORD IMPERATOR]

Honestly, Fallout 1 and 2 are incredibly overrated these days. Not saying they're bad, but you legit have people defend the game as having aged well despite the fact that it really hasn't. The game systems were often kinda broken. In the first one I actually ended up raising my barter skill so high I could sell something then buy it back for half the price I sold it for., an exploit that can be used to get a merchants entire inventory for pretty much free. That's broken.

Gameplay-mechanics wise, Fallout 1 and 2 aged like milk. It's not as smooth as say, other turn-based games like KOTOR, Paper Mario, or Final Fantasy, and it's not as flexible as real-time RPG combat in games like Mass Effect, Oblivion, or Skyrim. As much as some people would have wanted Black Isle to come out with Fallout: Van Buren instead of Bethesda making their Fallout 3, if Van Buren did come out, it would have been laughed off as primitive and not that many people would buy it. It probably won't even make its money back, because at the time, people were going blood-crazy over shooter games like Halo and Call of Duty, so making Fallout into Elder Scrolls with guns allowed it to keep its RPG stats while making it fit in with the times where the average gamer was playing three or more shooter games. Especially when Fallout 3 came out in 2008, Mass Effect came out previously in 2007, and that game showed everyone that FPS-RPG hybrids are not only feasible, they can become great games, as well. So the change was actually a good evolution from one game to another.

Fallout 2 started off on a terrible foot by deciding that melee skills would be almost completely necessary to begin the game and get through the starting temple without dying 2-3 times. And then not letting you somehow join the Enclave despite Fallout 1 letting you say "Fuck it, make mine mutant!" was absolutely baffling. And don't tell me they couldn't, they easily could given the fact that they gave themselves an out: You're the son of the original Vault Dweller and so have acceptably clean genetics.

That, and the Chosen One can easily take the inoculation against the FEV, which means that aside from being already capable of passing themselves off as an Enclave soldier, they can also pass off as a pure human that can't be affected by the FEV. So at that point, I can't see why the Chosen One can't just work for the Enclave, rise up the ranks, and either use their oratory skills to convince President Richardson to abandon his genocidal aims, or cause an "accident" to kill off enough Enclave top dogs so that the Chosen One can just swoop in and become the Enclave's acting president by virtue of being the highest-ranking officer in the chain of command.

 

[Exceptionally Exceptional]

Pretty much every game is broken if we're going to be honest and stuff like the barter glitch is not really a problem. Morrowind and old shooter games have much worse glitches and are still considered great.

Except this wasn't a glitch, it was how the barter system was designed to work because nobody thought to implement any sort of system that would set a max sell vs min buy cap and vice versa. It's working exactly how it was coded to work. I'm wondering if the ability to expand the skill cap above 100 was what did it because I remember my barter was over 100 when I noticed that the shotgun in my inventory was about 200 cap more than the exact same shotgun in a merchant's inventory.

 

[BlerdBjern]

Hmm, that raises the question if the stuff Bethesda adds the these games (again, going with the best case scenario that they havent screwed up anything yet) would be considered "more" canon than the Interplay originals. An example would be Ian, a very simple companion in F1, he is pretty useful early game but really difficult to keep alive late game (ironically the sequel sort of adknowledges that by saying in the Vault Dweller's memories that Ian was burned to death by a flamethrower wielding supermutant), if he was in this theorical remake, while he could still work just a very simple early game companion, it would feel kind of a bit too basic, you know? So I wonder if the best move would be expanding his character and dialogue so he feels like a more complex character.

Or hell Tycho too, he says he is from Nevada, in the original game, New Vegas was obviously not a thing yet but how cool could it be if Tycho mentions New Vegas and Mr House? "There are some places with their lights still flashing with glamour back where I came from, New Vegas is what they call it now...". Would be nice to see it getting adknowledged it in the first two games even if briefly (the settings are meant to be relatively close by).

Would people be okay with Bethesda adding details to Interplay's vision?

if they kept the same overall plot, but switched over to the post FO3 style, and fleshed out the map and characters with stuff to do, side quests and more details... yeah.

I'd be okay with them doing that.

 

[Keystone]

What are the odds of Fallout 4: New Vegas getting torpedoed by a troon? I would very much like for that mod to come out and not go up in flames.

Not insignificant I suspect.

 

[Snekposter]

Not insignificant I suspect.

All it takes is one errant pronoun and we'll have weeks of articles about him being a raging transphobe. Or its said by a woman. In which case we'll have weeks of articles on the TERF menace.

 

[LORD IMPERATOR]

Is it just me, or is the moralizing against Cold War America done by Fallouts 1 and 2 seem rather pedestrian when you take a look at real-world history? I mean, sure, they did a lot of stupid things, like when the CIA spiked people with LSD, or when they thought MLK was a closet Commie, or when they sent a bunch of middle-aged Cubans on an ill-fated assault to retake their country, but when you look at the cultural, economic, and human cost of Communism's attempts in creating a utopia on Earth, one suddenly realizes that there was a good reason why America and many nations across the world were so paranoid about Communism. Communists lure people in with false promises of equality and utopia, only to create dictatorships far more absolute than any absolute monarchies, abusing workers in ways far worse than American slavery, and committing the kind of crimes that would make Adolf Hitler look like a schoolyard bully by comparison.

Fallouts 1 and 2 seem to focus too much on demonizing Cold War America, without even looking at how bad their enemies were, even making the erroneous statement that American exceptionalism and anti-Communist rhetoric leads to nuclear holocaust. So what was America supposed to do? Flatline and bend over so the Commies can plow them in the backside? Give away their last reserve of oil to the Commies when the world was running out of it? (Judging by all the nuclear-powered cars you run across in the wasteland, they were on their way to replacing that shit with nuclear energy.) All this moralizing about how bad Cold War America is ignores the fact that as bad as they were, their enemies were far worse, and yet there was no criticism of Communism at all in the first two Fallout games. Only by the time of Fallout 3 and New Vegas did you have icons of patriotism like John Henry Eden and Liberty Prime be available, or have positive examples of American capitalism like Robert Edwin House. If they showed up in the first two games, Liberty Prime would have been an enemy unit who thinks you're a Communist, and Robert Edwin House would have been demonized as an evil symbol of American capitalism.

 

[Vault Boy]

I'd say that remakes of the original two Fallouts are a possibility now that Bethesda belongs to Microsoft. Trying to make them in the style of modern Fallout would be difficult due to the way they were structured (and the large distances between locations), so I'd be leaning towards inXile making them in the style of Wasteland 2 & 3 (the combat might have to be different though, due to companions not being as integral in the originals).

Simple remasters are off the table, since Interplay lost the source code for those games many years ago.

 

[Overcast]

Is it just me, or is the moralizing against Cold War America done by Fallouts 1 and 2 seem rather pedestrian when you take a look at real-world history? I mean, sure, they did a lot of stupid things, like when the CIA spiked people with LSD, or when they thought MLK was a closet Commie, or when they sent a bunch of middle-aged Cubans on an ill-fated assault to retake their country, but when you look at the cultural, economic, and human cost of Communism's attempts in creating a utopia on Earth, one suddenly realizes that there was a good reason why America and many nations across the world were so paranoid about Communism. Communists lure people in with false promises of equality and utopia, only to create dictatorships far more absolute than any absolute monarchies, abusing workers in ways far worse than American slavery, and committing the kind of crimes that would make Adolf Hitler look like a schoolyard bully by comparison.

Fallouts 1 and 2 seem to focus too much on demonizing Cold War America, without even looking at how bad their enemies were, even making the erroneous statement that American exceptionalism and anti-Communist rhetoric leads to nuclear holocaust. So what was America supposed to do? Flatline and bend over so the Commies can plow them in the backside? Give away their last reserve of oil to the Commies when the world was running out of it? (Judging by all the nuclear-powered cars you run across in the wasteland, they were on their way to replacing that shit with nuclear energy.) All this moralizing about how bad Cold War America is ignores the fact that as bad as they were, their enemies were far worse, and yet there was no criticism of Communism at all in the first two Fallout games. Only by the time of Fallout 3 and New Vegas did you have icons of patriotism like John Henry Eden and Liberty Prime be available, or have positive examples of American capitalism like Robert Edwin House. If they showed up in the first two games, Liberty Prime would have been an enemy unit who thinks you're a Communist, and Robert Edwin House would have been demonized as an evil symbol of American capitalism.

I don't really recall 1 being that for or against that sort of thing. You had China invading Alaska and America annexing Canada, ect.

You had America making FEV which was a response to China making use of biological weapons.

Overall, I think the game held a neutral stance on the whole thing. After all, the message isn't about whose fault it was that the bombs dropped, it was what happens if that sort of thing happened at all.

2 on the other hand, I can definitely see seeing what the Enclave are like. I think at that point, people like Chris Avellone started to insert their personal politics which probably colored the final product. As mentioned in a previous post, you have the Vice President character mentioning he's a Republican, and the Chosen One having the option to say he's part of the problem. It's meant to be a joke, I'm sure, but considering the state of video games as they are now, hindsight is 20/20.

New Vegas I feel did try and bring everything back to a more neutral stance which I appreciate, but good luck seeing something like that again anytime soon.

 

[Mola Ram]

2 on the other hand, I can definitely see seeing what the Enclave are like. I think at that point, people like Chris Avellone started to insert their personal politics which probably colored the final product. As mentioned in a previous post, you have the Vice President character mentioning he's a Republican, and the Chosen One having the option to say he's part of the problem. It's meant to be a joke, I'm sure, but considering the state of video games as they are now, hindsight is 20/20.

The Vice President is explicitly a gag on Dan Quayle. All of his quotes came from Quayle (or were attributed to him; I think some of them are apocryphal). Bear in mind the man had been out of office 6 years by the time Fallout 2 hit the shelves. It's the sort of trite, unimaginative, anti-Republican ribbing you saw everywhere in media back then, which was admittedly irritating but orders of magnitude less vicious than things are today.

EDIT: Oh, and lest we forget, for the sake of fairness the President's secretary kinda sorta resembles Monica Lewinsky. "Balance," I guess, but she doesn't get nearly as much focus as the Quayle stand-in.

 

[Cheese-Loving Citizen]

So there's this new DLC-sized mod that was announced a few days ago called Fallout: Broken City.

From the description:
"(This is currently a work-in-progress) Fallout: Broken City is an all-new DLC. After tracking a distress call, "The Courier" must fly to what remains of San Francisco. Featuring 3+ main questlines, 30+ side quests, hundreds of new armours, weapons and items, and thousands of new lines of dialogue! Can You Endure The Broken City?"

It's made by a "Dead Shock Studios" (youtube). Never heard of them, nor have they made anything else before this it seems.

So, you guys think this will go the Frontier route or be actually decent? I have huge doubts this will go well considering there's no history on the dev team I can find, but you never know.

 

[LORD IMPERATOR]

I don't really recall 1 being that for or against that sort of thing. You had China invading Alaska and America annexing Canada, ect.

You had America making FEV which was a response to China making use of biological weapons.

Overall, I think the game held a neutral stance on the whole thing. After all, the message isn't about whose fault it was that the bombs dropped, it was what happens if that sort of thing happened at all.

Fallout 1 still had a healthy dose of demonizing old America, most notably with the formation of the Brotherhood of Steel. They formed because some US Army regiment was disgusted to learn that America was experimenting with the FEV against Chinese prisoners of war. The very founding of the Brotherhood of Steel was due to the fact that old America was immoral enough to experiment with human captives to create mutant super-soldiers, as if they became just as bad as Josef Mengele.

And of course, the US annexing Canada was them not caring about the rights of other nations so long as they win the war, while China's invasion of Alaska was due to America's greed for oil and not wanting to share it. So again, it was all "AMERICA BAD" from there on in.

2 on the other hand, I can definitely see seeing what the Enclave are like. I think at that point, people like Chris Avellone started to insert their personal politics which probably colored the final product. As mentioned in a previous post, you have the Vice President character mentioning he's a Republican, and the Chosen One having the option to say he's part of the problem. It's meant to be a joke, I'm sure, but considering the state of video games as they are now, hindsight is 20/20.

The Vice President is explicitly a gag on Dan Quayle. All of his quotes came from Quayle (or were attributed to him; I think some of them are apocryphal). Bear in mind the man had been out of office 6 years by the time Fallout 2 hit the shelves. It's the sort of trite, unimaginative, anti-Republican ribbing you saw everywhere in media back then, which was admittedly irritating but orders of magnitude less vicious than things are today.

In Fallout 2, not only did they turn the remnant of the Cold War American government into a shallow facsimile of the Nazis, they outright linked right-wingers in the NCR with the Enclave villains, showing how the authors of that game detested right-wing politics:

"Shaken by the assassination of Vice-President Carlson, right-wing elements seize control of the Congress and set the New California Republic on a path to military rule. Eventually the survivors of the Enclave found a new home in the ranks of the NCR."

So basically, not only are the American patriots in the Enclave the bad guys, not only can you not join them or talk them down like Fallout 1 did with the Master, but the right-wingers in the NCR are also evil, and when you give the latter their chance to seize power, the former joins them and takes over the NCR government.

You can't get any more partisan than that.

New Vegas I feel did try and bring everything back to a more neutral stance which I appreciate, but good luck seeing something like that again anytime soon.

Fallout 3 and New Vegas actually shifted more to the right. Fallout 3 had the good guys be a military force of altruistic Brotherhood heretics based in the Pentagon being led in battle by a robot who talks about how bad Communism is, with symbols of American patriotism like the Lincoln Memorial and the Declaration of Independence being available for the player to take or restore.

Fallout New Vegas shifted even farther to the right, portraying an unapologetic capitalist as the most level-headed of all the faction leaders while the liberal democracy is an inefficient mess when compared to a fascist regime assembled by a Roman Otaku. However, it's not like they rib on leftism outright, in the same way Fallout 2 shits on the right, they just show you that the realities of the world might not be the most favorable towards liberal democracy.

I suppose that's why I like them both so much.

 

[CWCissey]

So there's this new DLC-sized mod that was announced a few days ago called Fallout: Broken City.

From the description:
"(This is currently a work-in-progress) Fallout: Broken City is an all-new DLC. After tracking a distress call, "The Courier" must fly to what remains of San Francisco. Featuring 3+ main questlines, 30+ side quests, hundreds of new armours, weapons and items, and thousands of new lines of dialogue! Can You Endure The Broken City?"

It's made by a "Dead Shock Studios" (youtube). Never heard of them, nor have they made anything else before this it seems.

So, you guys think this will go the Frontier route or be actually decent? I have huge doubts this will go well considering there's no history on the dev team I can find, but you never know.

Why is it always leftist shitholes? The Frontier was in Portland no? Now San Francisco?

Also, wasn't San Francisco a major part of Fallout 2?

 

[Overcast]

Fallout 1 still had a healthy dose of demonizing old America, most notably with the formation of the Brotherhood of Steel. They formed because some US Army regiment was disgusted to learn that America was experimenting with the FEV against Chinese prisoners of war. The very founding of the Brotherhood of Steel was due to the fact that old America was immoral enough to experiment with human captives to create mutant super-soldiers, as if they became just as bad as Josef Mengele.

And of course, the US annexing Canada was them not caring about the rights of other nations so long as they win the war, while China's invasion of Alaska was due to America's greed for oil and not wanting to share it. So again, it was all "AMERICA BAD" from there on in.




In Fallout 2, not only did they turn the remnant of the Cold War American government unto a shallow facsimile of the Nazis, they outright linked right-wingers in the NCR with the Enclave villains, showing how the authors of that game detested right-wing politics:

"Shaken by the assassination of Vice-President Carlson, right-wing elements seize control of the Congress and set the New California Republic on a path to military rule. Eventually the survivors of the Enclave found a new home in the ranks of the NCR."

So basically, not only are the American patriots in the Enclave the bad guys, not only can you not join them or talk them down like Fallout 1 did with the Master, but the right-wingers in the NCR are also evil, and when you give the latter their chance to seize power, the former joins them and takes over the NCR government.

You can't get any more partisan than that.


Fallout 3 and New Vegas actually shifted more to the right. Fallout 3 had the good guys be a military force of altruistic Brotherhood heretics based in the Pentagon being led in battle by a robot who talks about how bad Communism is, with symbols of American patriotism like the Lincoln Memorial and the Declaration of Independence being available for the player to take or restore.

Fallout New Vegas shifted even farther to the right, portraying an unapologetic capitalist as the most level-headed of all the faction leaders while the liberal democracy is an inefficient mess when compared to a fascist regime assembled by a Roman Otaku. However, it's not like they rib on leftism outright, in the same way Fallout 2 shits on the right, they just show you that the realities of the world might not be the most favorable towards liberal democracy.

I suppose that's why I like them both so much.

To be fair, experimenting with human captives and turning them to mutants is kinda fucked up. Even if they were our enemies. Plus, the Brotherhood isn't portrayed in a good light either. They ended up pushing away outsiders and even sending them to their death and chose to hole up in their bunker instead of using their technology to help the Wasteland. Even if you ask for their help against the Super Mutants, they'll only ever give you three Paladins. Many of them were even forgetting their founder's name as well. All of which led to their decline in 2 and NV.

Nobody in that game was really portrayed as the hero or villain in that scenario. Everyone did horrible things in a fight to claim Earth's dwindling resources and it led to the everyone getting nuked.

I sympathize with your views, but I'm not sure if I agree with you with how 1 portrays America and Communism.