Fallout

So when I got back from Iraq and picked up another 360 (Elite), I decided I wanted to get a game like Oblivion but not Oblivion and went with Fallout 3 which has become an addiction. It has also prompted me to get into the old Fallouts which are almost equally incredible (minus the graphics and turn-based combat).
I now have a little over a hundred hours into Fallout 3 with about 30 hours into my second play through. I've only put a couple hours into the other Fallouts so far though.
Oblivion was a bit more emersive but the Fallout series comes closer than anything else. I did start playing Oblivion again however and now I've probably put 200 or 300 hours into it since the first time I played it.
Anyone else ready for Fallout: New Vegas?

Fallout was cool, but it annoyed me that you can continue playing the game once you finsih it. But i still feel that you had a wider variety of skills and adventures available to you in Oblivion.

If only they could make a MMORPG of oblivion ^^

Yeah the trick was to just wait till you did everything else then finish. Or get Broken Steel which was pretty awesome.
Fallout 1 (or 2 I forget) was the same way.
I do love the SPECIAL system and use of skill points better than Oblivions system. I LOVED the gore in Fallout 3 much better.

Fallout 3 had a 30 level cap which was the most annoying part of the game. The actual game play was amazing and provided more hours of play time than any other game besides oblivion for me. When fallout new vegas comes out, I really hope that they fix the level cap.

Heh, stepping out of Vault 101 for the first time was something else. Though, I thought the plot was somewhat mediocre, especially if you compare it to the plots of past Fallout games. The side quests, on the other hand, were often more enjoyable than the main quests.

Either way, I enjoyed Fallout 3 and still play it from time to time.

With that said, I'm looking forward to Fallout: New Vegas.

Yes it was! That first view of the capital wasteland was AWESOME! But yeah the main plot line wasn't great, not terrible, but not great. I do agree the side quests were the better part. I just enjoyed the exploration. Broken Steel did improve on the main story a little but still nothing as deep as in the other Fallout games.
In those you feel like you NEED to get cracken on the main story and you don't feel like you can just do it whenever. I have to say though, the graphics and NPC realism helped make up for the slightly weak story. I also CANNOT STAND turn based combat so that's a plus. I really feel New Vegas is going to be far deeper, with more of the elements that made the origionals so phenomenal.
What kind of characters do you guys play?

The ending is particularly annoying if you have an immune-to-radiation NPC follower (you can have a robot, a ghoul, and a super mutant). He refuses to go into the chamber and flip the switch himself, even though it wouldn't kill him. Liberty Prime was AWESOME though. Embrace democracy or you will be eradicated!

I like Fallout 3, but it never held my attention enough to finish it.

For me, the post apocalyptic setting has never been truly successfully applied to a game. Borderlands, when in early development, looked like it was going to do it, but inexplicably got a code make-over halfway through dev. and became a cell shaded fail.
Metro 2033 was a total waste of time and a license.
STALKER i have not played, but shows no sign of coming to consoles anyway.

Maybe Fallout:new Vegas will be the one to 'get it', and I hope it does, but to be honest, I just want Rockstar to do a Dystopian Future game, because what they managed with Red Dead Redemption was miraculous, and they could work their magic to give us a homage to Mad Max, I would be a happy bunny

Fallout 1 and 2 imo, did a fatnastic job of presenting a post-apocalyptic playground with real depth. After awhile you get used to the graphics and mechanics enough to really enjoy them.
Fallout 3 was really good too but New Vegas is looking to be much, much better. As has been said before, the key to enjoying Fallout 3 is getting into the side-quests and expansions. That and getting into the character customization. Oblivion and Fallout 3 are by-far the best action RPG's made in recent years.
The best part of New Vegas is hardcore mode. I think You'll be able to appreciate that especially Cord.
I have a hard time enjoying RDR. I can't get the next quests after saving that guy riding the carriage and the quests seem to all be pretty similar. The graphics are astounding though.

Sounds like you have a glitch on your disk, or you have missed an essential mission somewhere and need to find it.

The missions are actually quite varied - especially when you open up Mexico and the Great Plains, but its the story and the depth of the world you are presented that impress me. So many truly great touches in the side missions that add to the character and your story. For me, it is more successfull than the more RPG oriented gaming of Fallout or oblivion, but each to their own.

A bonus to oblivion and fallout are the play times, with mods you can easily waste 300 or more hours on those games. but red dead (good as it was) i finished in 2 or 3 days, and after that theres nothing to do other than bounty's and stuff like that. 40 hours of fun isnt bad by any means. but bethesda makes games that last a lot longer

Well, like the bethesda games, expansion packs are in development for RDR, but its all down to what floats your boat more. I like the idea of the worlds in both Oblivion and Fallout, its just I dont think they manage to realise them to the extent that RDR does, so even with the added RPG-lite depth in the gameplay, they just aren't as immersive for me.

Yeah so I had missed the cattle drive mission. Once I hit that everything opened up.
Now back to the comparison of RDR vs FOT3 and Oblivion, RDR has equal or slightly better visuals imo (though the appearance is a little different) and the diologue is honestly quite a bit better. I also enjoyed the combat system a lot. That being said Crab is right, Bethesda games just offer a greater volume of stuff to find and quests to accomplish with pretty decent plot lines for the most part. The real strength I'd say is in the areas of chocie and character creation.
In RDR there are certainly a lot of quests and a little choice in the order in which you take them but the endings are all the same. You can't really mold the world the way you want to and your character is the same other than clothes and weapons (and there are few compared to Beth games).
In Fallout you can make a 1000 different kinds of characters with a 1000 different appearances whereas in RDR yo ucan make 1 character with 5 looks.
I'd say in terms of persentation, RDR wins and is a bit more immersive however in terms of options and replayability (as well as mechanics which I actually prefer over RDR) Fallout and Oblivion take the cake. The diologue and stories are still excellent in those games and you just can't stop playing. I have probably 200 or more hours into Oblivion and 120 or so in FOT3 and I'm still playing both. RDR will last to around 50 maybe (I stretch games to their limit by looking for every little hidden detail). It's really personal preference. I like RDR but I strongly prefer the sandbox style games of Beth.
I feel like in RDR the game is guiding me whereas in FOT3 or I feel like I guide the game. You really can't have the strengths of RDR AND Oblivion or FOT3, that would take an ungodly amount of time and resources.

What you are saying about the Bethesda games makes it sound as if the stories change dependant on your actions, and they dont really. The story arc from beginning to denoument is carved in stone, be you a white witch or an assassin orc, the actual plot remains constant. Sure, you might have to cure your vampirism one go-around, and not another, but again, the plot remains the same, so it is just as linear as RDR, it just distracts you better, and gives you a greater sense of freedom.
The only game that has truly explored variable plot in relation to game choice/performance is Heavy Rain on the PS3, and, whilst limited, when you experience that as a true mechanic, you come to see little distinction between Fallout/oblivion and RDR.

I must respectfully disagree. For example, in FOT3 you can either kill the ghouls trying to get into Tenpenny Tower, secretly let them in with their feral ghoul friends who then wipe out the humans, or you can make peace. Yo ucan blow up Megaton to get a suite in the tower or disarm the bomb saving the city and getting a place there. In the end of Broken Steel you can blow up the Enclave base or the Citadel (which is a pretty big change if you ask me).
Your speech and/or science skill level can completely alter how you handle various quests. It can also result in diolgue options you wouldn't have otherwise. In FOT3 You can choose at the end to sacrifice yourself to save everyone or make a BOS Paladin jump into the chaber, you can choose to place the poisoned FEV into it or not which changes the ending. Most quests are like this. Some parts are set in stone but many aren't. The origional FOT games were even more free.
The stories start the same but you can change a lot of them based on your actions.
Another good example is choosing to help the slavers against anti-slavers or vice versa which decides who ends up making the Lincoln memorial their base. Quests change according to that as well.

But despite all you cited, the game comes down to the same final situation.

All stories have a beginning, a middle and an end. No matter how much you get to fiddle with the middle, the fact that the climax is predestined, means that it is a linear game.
Compare it to a live rolled game, in the hands of an experienced 'god' , and it is on train tracks.

Its not that that is a bad thing, but being able to choose the colours of curtains on a cruise liner is not the same as being at the helm.

No it doesn't. I can just kill everyone, or wipe out the BOS and base my experience around all the side quests. In my mind a linear game MAKES you go to that final ending, and in a certain order of events. Take for instance the CODMW2 single player campaign. EVERY mission is done in a particular order, the exact route you take is often laid out for you, the answer to every question is the same, it's just boring. In games like FOT3 or Oblivion, you have almost all the freedom possible without being the game maker or a modder.
Every quests, including the main quest have a beginning middle and an end, but no one forces you to take on any quests, the beginning and middle is up to you and often the ending is completely up to you. The main quest has a few points set in stone but that's one of only a few parts of the game where that is the case. And the ending can always be tweaked a few different ways.
By your definition the only way to really have a non-linear game is by being the creater or a modder. Life isn't usually considered all that linear yet none of us are gods. By any reasonable definition Beth games are non-linear. You really have to stretch your idea of linear to apply that term.

Avoidance of the main story is not the same as having control over the events in that quest.

Let me ask you this: If you decide to ignore closing the portals in oblivion, in favour of just muddling about joining various guilds etc, does the evil spread in realtime to a point where the main quest becomes undoable? Does the evil ever get vanquished by an AI group that come together in an independant reaction to your lack of action? Does the world in which you have become head of the thieves guild ever come to an apocalyptic end due to your lack of attention to the main quest?

No. Because its a linear, predistined game, that merely waits for you to decide to attend to quests after getting bored by the distractions.



But once completed, I can then replay those levels in any order I choose. In so doing, the story itself does not change though. Thats all that action-RPG's offer you.



Exactly. You have restricted freedom, which is an oxymoron.




and I can chose not to complete any game in my collection, not just RPG's




So its linear.



No, you have to stretch to apply the term non linear to a game environment that has a predetermined quest, where you only choice is to complete it, or ignore it.

WHY must you remove the fun from my gaming experience?
I like the illusion of complete freedom! lol
But seriously though, Fallout and Oblivion are a lot less linear than RDR or MW2. They may be linear in many ways but less than those.

They are great games, and they offer a lot of distractions during the narrative, and they certainly offer more gameplay time, especially with the expansion packs

They are actually good examples of realistic games, as real life is largely a series of distractions and small insignificant choices afforded within a constricting and regimented world dictated by those who sell you an illusion of freedom.

Enjoy your gaming

I never thought gaming could be so deep.

Or life so shallow.

Life's only shallow in 1st world countries.
That's why I like serving in combat zones, people trying to kill you makes you forget all the BS back home (linsey lohan is soooo important!!!!).

Exactly my point - distractions. Fashions, what to do at the weekend, what car to buy, what job to do. All mid game choices, but only the mods and programmers can change the nature of the game. Day to day life is like a mirror in a budgie's cage - something to keep the bird from feeling frustrated enough to seek escape from its prison.
The illusion of freedom

You're so philosophical, you should right a book!

I think he left a book.