Another update, another game getting a lukewarm review and score. Some games you know are going to be a bit turdy but when you expect something more and are disappointed, well – it’s rubbish, frankly.
Much as I enjoy squelching through games of all standards and writing about them, it’s nice to be able to eulogise enthusiastically about something once in a while.
The recent release of Fallout 3 has prompted a few retrospectives with gamers and journalists doing just that about the first two games in the series. By all accounts they’re the type of deep, rich and affecting games that prompt people to set up fansites and write retro reviews in the first place.
Unfortunately, my own progress through the first game has stalled. I might go back to it, but my experiences thus far make me fear I just don’t “get it”.
Now, where did I put my copy of Max Payne 2?
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First, Fallout is a very slow game. Slow to get around, slow to develop, combat’s reeeeeal slow. Combat takes a while in any situation, and you’re not that good at it to begin with. But this helps:
1) Run from rats, or anything you don’t feel like fighting. You don’t have to kill anything that can’t catch up to you. Use all your time pips to move away. After enough distance, you’ll be able to close out of combat. You can get XP elsewhere, all XP is general, and so you can apply it combat until combat becomes effortless.
2) Small guns. Ignore the rest (or look into them after you’re a small guns guru). Unarmed is generally worthless as there are no dodge/disarm kinds of moves. Large guns require a lot of points to get much "bang" out of, and ammo is scarce. Small guns are everywhere, and precision targeting means you can kill just about anything with well-placed bullets to the eyes.
3) Raid the vault. There’s storerooms downstairs. Doesn’t matter how you get past the guard – take. that. shit. All of it. Make trips if you have to. First, it will kit you out quite nicely. Second, you can sell everything you don’t need, and that money will make the rest of the game much more enjoyable.
4) Get a base of operations. Same kind of idea as raiding the vault. Find a settlement, house, whatever’s abandoned that you can get back to easily and store your extra stuff there. I don’t believe it can ever get stolen, so store what you can’t sell and wait until you can (your vendors get more money, or you find a new vendor). I recall there being a raider camp near the beginning (between shady sands and junktown?) I killed everyone there as part of a quest, filled iceboxes with guns and money, and sold the clothes off their corpses.
5) You’re in it for the freedom of choice and the "role-playing." Put yourself in the situation and do what you would do normally (or want to do if you’re taking the evil route). The story will come to you. Don’t go looking for the story, and entering every town expecting to be blown away by "THE BEST WRITING YOU’VE EVER SEEN (TM)."
If I had any complaints about the original [checks review to make sure he didn’t have others] it would be that the combat system is SO slow. Since you frequently run into enemies, it makes just getting around slow, and I would groan when that "WRRRRR-CHA!" of the opening combat controls would start. But, once you get in the thick of tactical combat, you’ll appreciate the level of control you have.
Those would be my suggestions. If you’re still not "getting it" or the slow combat isn’t the problem, maybe Fallout’s just not for you. Like fantasy games for me – I can tolerate them enough to play them, I can even appreciate what they do, but I can’t say I’ve ever been truly excited about one.
November 2, 2008 @ 10:28 pm
Thanks for the tips JMan. I think I made a mistake in earmarking it for review and thinking that if I spent a couple of weeks playing it on and off I’d be done.
And possibly I was naive to think it wouldn’t be quite as RPG-y as most RPGs, but the absence of beards doesn’t mean that there aren’t statistics and dices rolling all over the place.
I think I’ll go back to it but take a more relaxed attitude to things without the goal of reviewing it necessarily (or at least not any time soon). I think the world can cope without hearing my opinions on Fallout!
November 3, 2008 @ 6:47 pm
I saw a poster ad for Fallout 3. It had 5-star ratings from various publications listed across the top… Empire and then four lads’ mags!
Does that sell better than actual gaming mag reviews? Do the publishers feel they can do better than "nerdy" publications?
November 4, 2008 @ 1:43 am
My guess is they’re trying to expand their market. Someone looking foward to Fallout 3 already knows about it. Someone familiar with gaming has probably already heard about it, or knows where to look for more info. So the poster would be targeted at guys who aren’t really gamers, and to whom Eurogamer’s score probably doesn’t mean much.
I think it’s ridiculous myself, but marketers frequently see these kinds of ads as "wasted" on the group that would already be interested, and a better value to try and expand into new demographics.
I mean, if I could sell tampons to men, I’d probably make a lot of extra money too. But I wouldn’t waste money on trying.
November 4, 2008 @ 5:53 pm
I’ve been used to seeing their comments on football games for a little while now – as I write this I can see a recommendation from Zoo ‘magazine’ adorning the back of the PES 2008 box ("An unspeakably ace upgrade!") – but with sports games it’s slightly more understandable I guess. I can’t see anyone who gets gaming advice from a boobs-and-cars magazine having the patience for the likes of Fallout.
Given that reviews in non-gaming publications normally amount to a fewer number of words than I’ve put in this comment, I’d be surprised if they even bothered playing the game and just went onto gamerankings to see what the general consensus was.
(obvious joke) Or is that all games journalists?
November 4, 2008 @ 9:10 pm