Unpopular Opinions about Video Games

[X Prime]

Might I posit that the staff at Bethesda do give a fuck, but about things that are questionable to give a fuck about?

 

[Chuck McGill]

You can say I'm whining too much about realism. Maybe I am. But for me, that level of blatant nonsensical world building drags me out of the game. And it didn't have to happen. Look, if you took Fallout 3 or 4, and knocked 100 years off the calendar, or even 150, you could tell exactly the same story, it would work just as well, and make a lot more sense.

There's a gap of 200 years between the bombs dropping and the events of Fallout 3. For reference, I took a peek at what technology we were using 200 years ago. In 1823 the best rifle in the world fired by the best operator in the world could fire 15 shots per minute at a range of less than 1400 meters, far less than that if you hope to actually hit anything. The telegraph wasn't invented until 1837, so all your news traveled via horse since those fancy newfangled steam locomotives weren't widely used just yet. Germ theory was not yet widely accepted at this point and certainly not in America, so if an extremity got infected you were likely to lose it.

200 years in the Fallout universe? They're still eating cans of beans they found at the Super Duper Mart, wearing the fashions from 200 years ago and using the slang from 200 years ago. In the original Fallout the retro-future 50s was a feature of pre-war America that got blasted away by the bombs. In Bethesda Fallout it was something that just lingered around for some reason. And with the exception of the BoS and the Institute, technological progress has arrested entirely. People use pre-war guns, pre-war radios, pre-war medical supplies. In the Pitt it's considered a big deal that they have a means to press their own ammunition, even though that's a thing that gun nerds do in their basements in this world with a fairly modest investment. I'm willing to accept there's going to be a bit of a learning curve what with the radiation and civil unrest, but 200 years with no new technology is ridiculous, especially when you take into account the existence of Vaults, at least a few of which are bound to be control Vaults equipped with documentation on how the technology works.

I'd go as far as to say Fallout 3 could be set as early as 20 years after da boom, and I want to say I've heard it speculated that it was indeed intended to take place with a much smaller time gap earlier in development. I guess they really wanted those hi-larious segments where post-war people badly speculate what pre-war life was like. Cause those stupid-ass gags were totally worth it.

 

[Chuck McGill]

I'm convinced that people who haven't accepted that Bethesda worlds are meant to be simulation and not recreation (or as some like to call it, a theme park) by design are just being angry to be angry at this point.

Yeah, they kinda fall apart when you have earlier entries in the exact same franchise that somehow figure out these niggling little autistic details like "how are people feeding themselves?" Bethesda Fallout is literally everything wrong with modern gaming encapsulated in one game: overfocus on pretty graphics and spectacle at the expense of cohesive and consistent writing. We're not asking for Dwarf Fortress here you mong, we're asking for a setting that doesn't fall apart after five minutes of examination. The fact that a small handful of guys in the dark ages of 1997 could pull this off, but one of the best known developers somehow couldn't figure it out 10 years later just rubs salt in the wound.

 

[X Prime]

It's not so much that the devs can't figure it out, it's that they realize many players are consoomers who don't think, just consoom.

Why spend that dev effort when you don't have to? It's not rewarded in any way.

 

[LORD IMPERATOR]

View attachment 5590982

Yeah, they kinda fall apart when you have earlier entries in the exact same franchise that somehow figure out these niggling little autistic details like "how are people feeding themselves?" Bethesda Fallout is literally everything wrong with modern gaming encapsulated in one game: overfocus on pretty graphics and spectacle at the expense of cohesive and consistent writing. We're not asking for Dwarf Fortress here you mong, we're asking for a setting that doesn't fall apart after five minutes of examination. The fact that a small handful of guys in the dark ages of 1997 could pull this off, but one of the best known developers somehow couldn't figure it out 10 years later just rubs salt in the wound.

I'm pretty sure they're getting their food from local traders or something. Obviously, we see caravans pass through here and there, and later on, the BoS has their own caravans running around.

Nigga in Fallout 4 there is a bar which still has skeletons inside from 200 years ago and it's still in operation. This is the level of dissonance people are talking about. The owners haven't removed the skeletons from their store for 200 years... "Dark ages" doesn't justify this.

They probably left that there as decor. But then again, I don't really like Fallout 4, so I don't really care much.

It'd be a fun change of pace if F5 is set in a completely restored, but walled-off, mega-state, where the history of the bombs falling and the history of the country has been changed by a family descended from Overseers of the vault. Like a monarchy style family but not so real-world and gay.

I reckon it should be set in a place where vaults have opened up and people have established cities, then a new threat comes by, or perhaps several, and you have to pick a side between armies that have already conquered huge swathes of America. They show up in your hometown and start demanding loyalty.

@Shadfan666xxx000

Even with the BOS and the enclave being recent arrivals, it doesn't quite make sense that none of the communities gathered a full fledged response to an army of borderline retarded and genocidal mutants. There are plenty of settlements in the DC ruins and plenty of interconnectivity by the point of FO3. At some point, there should have been attempts to cull the mutants outside of Vault 87. You could retroactively say the institute is involved (somebody hires those Talon company mercs who try to kill you for good karma) but until Bethesda confirms it, then it's up in the air.

DC has local armies, but none are that big. You have the Talon Company and the Regulators, but they've got their hands full picking fights with raiders and mutants. Reilly's Rangers are too busy killing mutants, while Paradise Falls' troops are too busy rounding up slaves. The only organized settlement worth a damn seems to be Tenpenny Tower, and they've at least secured a skyscraper hotel and made it their base of operations. But they don't give a shit about what happens in the city. They're too far from the city to care.

As for Arizona, I can buy that society was a shithole. Arizona is a shithole today but you also have to remember that Arizona didn't have the innate advantages that California hads. California has a plentiful agricultural region, a strong tech base thanks to the Brotherhood of steel, a humanitarian effort led by the followers of the apocalypse and plentiful trade as the backbone of its economy. California has the eaay ingredients for supporting itself and expanding a nation-state but Arizona doesn't. Of course, Caesar took the wrong lessons from his visit and started sperging about Hegel but we have enough Legion vs. NCR debates.

DC doesn't have California's advantages either. It didn't have two heroes make it possible for a village to grow into a local power like the NCR. Nor did it have groups like the Legion that could've restored order. And the BoS and Enclave just got there, so sure, they may have cleaned up the place, but it would've taken them a while, just like how the Mojave was still a lawless shithole despite 5 years of NCR rule after they drove out Joshua Graham and his Legion troops.

Irrefutable proof already existed before, but you are explaining the game using batman and superman as examples so whatever.

Uh, no there did not. All you had was a lazy dockworker who said he saw one guy shoot the other, which the Council flatly rejected as evidence.

 

[xXx: State of the Union]

It's not so much that the devs can't figure it out, it's that they realize many players are consoomers who don't think, just consoom.

Not only that, but the players who do care *still* play Fallout.

 

[LORD IMPERATOR]

When it comes to my overall opinion about the Fallout franchise, I really can't give a shit about Fallouts 1, 2, and 4. FO3 is fine by me because it was just a dumb action boom-fiesta with some exploration elements, but FO4's factions are idiots, FO1 didn't live up to its potential of letting you play as a mutant, and FO2's story is just someone being butthurt at Cold War America. Only New Vegas gets to the point where it can compete with other games like KOTOR, Skyrim, and Paper Mario, which I played before getting to the Fallout franchise, and I used those games as a judging metric for Fallout.

FO3 is more like an action game than an RPG, there were times where I felt like the game was reaching Halo/CoD levels with the main character being a lot like Master Chief or Ramirez, and not just because the more advanced players walk around in power armor all the time, but because they can't get shit done without you. (Insert Ramirez joke here) Even the fucking big bad president can't get his ''poison the water supply'' mission done without you once his second-in-command started rebelling against him. So I judged FO3 as an action game, and in that regard, it's fun. You at least have a large enemy faction that's fun to fight with the Enclave, and dumpster-diving in the ruins of DC or the nearby vaults was always a fun time, especially when you're kitted out in power armor and heavy weapons for cool stuff, which I used to do in Metroid Prime where I'd just search every inch of the map while armed to the teeth.

The thing is, I approached the Fallout series as someone who played RPG games like Final Fantasy, KOTOR, Mass Effect, Paper Mario, Oblivion, and Skyrim. Hence why I'm not afraid to call out FO1 and FO2 for their flaws when I've played Final Fantasy 6 back in the old days and seen what a good RPG from the 90s should look like. Only New Vegas meets the criteria for a great RPG; FO3 belongs more with games like Halo 3 and Call of Duty, FO1 and FO2 were single-minded Diablo clones that failed to reach their full potential, FO4 was a clumsy attempt to copy FNV. And they all fell short of the standard set by other RPGs I once played, even older games like FF6 which came out in the 90s fucking decimate FO1 and FO2 in terms of combat and storytelling.

Hell, the only reason why I bothered with New Vegas in the first place was because I saw a video where Caesar was mumbling about Hegelian Dialectics and why he fights the NCR, which he saw as corrupt, and then I found out that the story was written by the same schmuck who did KOTOR 2, so I gave it a whirl and found myself having fun blasting people into giblets while listening to songs like Big Iron and Jingle, Jangle, Jingle. Especially with the DLC, where I had a really fun time with Honest Hearts and Old World Blues. I liked how both the Legion and House were persuasive about their sides and how their ideas fit the context of their bombed-out, radioactive world, they reminded me of the Stormcloaks and the Empire in Skyrim and how they both have a good reason to fight each other.

At the end, after being impressed by FNV's faction writing, which made role-playing as a character a blast, I thought that was how good all Fallout stories were, then I played the other games and was sorely disappointed to learn that not only was New Vegas the high point of the entire franchise, but the other factions in the other games were as dumb as a box of rocks. None of them were as complex or enjoyable as the factions in FNV, which sapped the fun out of things. I got into Fallout because of the clever writing, but both the Bethesda and Interplay Fallouts lacked that. The factions and leaders were all a bunch of morons. The Master and Richardson especially. One wants to commit senseless genocide even though he could've easily gone the Caesar route and enslaved the wasteland to rebuild America, another one blows his own brains out after learning his mutants were sterile, not caring about the fact that he has a cult of humans on standby that he could use as breeding stock for his mutants.

FO3 was just your standard good vs evil confrontation, with Colonel Autumn and Elder Lyons basically leading armies of power-armored goons in a gang war over the ruins of DC against each other. It was fun in the same way Halo 3 was fun; just explore, get cool shit, and shoot the enemy. At least it had the decency of not being as pretentious as FO2 blatantly making the enemy into a genocidal version of Cold War America because they were butthurt that some Americans are patriotic. Autumn's Enclave was just fighting for turf like any other gang in the wasteland, it's just that they have power armor and energy weapons, which made them fun to fight.

FO4's Institute could've easily taken the Commonwealth but choose instead to hide, while Artur Maxson's Brotherhood is trying to genocide a race of sapients for no good reason other than the plot wanting them to be close-minded assholes. They could've easily made it so that the Brotherhood wants to take the Institute's technology after finding out about the synths, and that would've fit their shtick so much better than them being genocidal assholes; being wannabe tech-bandits fits their FO1/FNV characterization, but that's not what they went with, even though it's the obvious choice for the story.

You have an organization that has a lot of good, pre-war tech, they're innovating their tech to the point where they can make life-like robots, they have energy weapons, that's the kind of shit that would've caused the FO1 Brotherhood to go on a crusade to take all that good tech. That should've been Arthur Maxson's goal. Have it so that the Railroad asks Maxson for help to ''liberate'' the synths from their cruel Institute masters, and they lure him to the Commonwealth with tales of the Institute's high tech. Arthur Maxson's Brotherhood forces arrive in Boston with the pretense of helping the Railroad freedom-fighters in freeing the synths and defeating the Institute, but behind closed doors, Maxson and his pals only care about stealing Institute tech, he doesn't really give a flying shit about helping the Railroad and the synths, outside of using them as a pretext for war.

So I stopped caring about these other games, when the writers for Interplay and Bethesda both obviously didn't give a fuck. Defenders of FO1 and FO2 try to say that the story is just a vehicle for the plot while the real meat is in the sidequests, that's just an excuse for bad storytelling. The very same people accuse FO3 of having a shit story, while ignoring the fact that the first two games also had shit stories; FNV was the exception that proved the rule.

But the reason why casual RPGs like Fallout 3, Skyrim, and Mass Effect 2 won over games like Fallout 1 and 2, and Ultima 1-9, was because the former could actually compete with games like Final Fantasy in terms of RPGs, whereas the latter could not. Games like Fallout 1 and 2 have around over a hundred thousand copies sold. Fallout 3 sold 12 million copies, Mass Effect 2 sold 6 million, and Skyrim sold 60 million copies. The numbers don't lie, which explains why the suits don't pursue CRPG-style games like Fallout 1 and 2 that much, so instead they turned Fallout and Mass Effect into Halo with experience points. And given the massive success of FO3 and ME2, it worked, for a time.

The biggest success with DnD-style RPGs in recent memory is Baldur's Gate 3, which is mocked in places like this as a bear-fucking simulator despite having over 21 million copies sold according to Steam. They decided to go full degenerate to appeal to the lowest common denominator, then most of the people who made that game got fired. So you can't expect a sequel to it in the coming years anytime soon.

 

[X Prime]

FF6? Beating Fallout 1 and 2 in combat?

I have seen some dumb takes but that's a new one.

 

[anustart76]

So uh on to something less autistic, Arkane is making a Blade video game. I'm expecting it to just be Redfall 2 with a Marvel skin and some extra soy slapped on.

 

[Chuck McGill]

Alright, last post and I'm gonna let the Fallout issue drop, promise. In spite of all I've said, I don't hate Fallout 3. It was my first introduction to the series, and I've lost more hours than I care to count on both FO3 and FO4. I'm probably gonna go boot it up once I'm done writing this shitpost. But I go back and see how much tighter the worldbuilding was in FO1 and FO2, combined with how clunky the core gameplay was, and I just wish there was a game that fused FO3's whiz-bang-shooty fun with the writing of the earlier entries in the franchise. It seemed like The Outer Worlds was trying to hit that vibe, but it just never quite landed for me. It seems like a problem emblematic to the industry in general, older titles have some really interesting concepts and story ideas that were hampered by the limitations of gaming at the time, or they just didn't quite have the budget or time to really make their vision work. Meanwhile newer titles have so much graphics fidelity and processing power at their fingertips it would make a 90s nerd's head spin, and it all goes into the most simplistic repetitive paint-by-numbers stories you could possibly imagine.

 

[LORD IMPERATOR]

FF6? Beating Fallout 1 and 2 in combat?

Combat AND story.
FO1 and 2 aren't as fun in combat as the later games; at least FF6 had a whole party fighting the enemy that was fun to experiment with by having different party members come in and out. Come back when FO1 or FO2 lets you suplex a train.

Alright, last post and I'm gonna let the Fallout issue drop, promise. In spite of all I've said, I don't hate Fallout 3. It was my first introduction to the series, and I've lost more hours than I care to count on both FO3 and FO4. I'm probably gonna go boot it up once I'm done writing this shitpost. But I go back and see how much tighter the worldbuilding was in FO1 and FO2, combined with how clunky the core gameplay was, and I just wish there was a game that fused FO3's whiz-bang-shooty fun with the writing of the earlier entries in the franchise. It seemed like The Outer Worlds was trying to hit that vibe, but it just never quite landed for me. It seems like a problem emblematic to the industry in general, older titles have some really interesting concepts and story ideas that were hampered by the limitations of gaming at the time, or they just didn't quite have the budget or time to really make their vision work. Meanwhile newer titles have so much graphics fidelity and processing power at their fingertips it would make a 90s nerd's head spin, and it all goes into the most simplistic repetitive paint-by-numbers stories you could possibly imagine.

I'd say KOTOR and ME1 actually did the whole 3D RPG concept justice. Especially since they looked good for their time, and ME1 still looks good now, and they had RPG mechanics, class systems, and exploration rewards.

The Outer Worlds felt like a cheap copy of FNV without the nuance. Especially since Mr. House is a central character of FNV, and he represented capitalism at its best and worst, whereas Outer Worlds is like what happens when you let a Communist write a Fallout game, where the capitalists aren't just evil, but stupid. House was an egotistical tyrant, but he's not that dumb.

If you want a new title with modern graphics and RPG mechanics, you've got Baldur's Gate 3. Granted, it has bear-fucking, but the CRPG crowd was always full of degenerates; one of FO2's sidequests literally has you get fucked in the ass by a mutant, so the whole bear-fucking thing isn't really that new. Especially when they're catering to people who were ass-mad they can't kill kids in FO3.

 

[X Prime]

So FF6 is good because of a dumb meme from years ago, suplexing the Phantom Train?

The game mostly boils down to spamming your strongest attack against enemies whose HP caps at 65535 because of the 16-bit integer limit, come on.

 

[LORD IMPERATOR]

So FF6 is good because of a dumb meme from years ago, suplexing the Phantom Train?

That's just a meme. But the team-based RPG combat shows that FF6 understands better than FO1 or FO2 what made DnD work as a system; having different party members work together and use their strengths in combat.

Not to mention that it had a better story, to boot. Kefka's motives make far more sense than Richardson's or the Master's. He's a fucking murderous lunatic whose mind is all fucked up, so it makes sense that he tries to fuck up the world.

 

[X Prime]

Uh, no.

Magic is a godstat and the only thing that beats just finding and spamming your strongest spell (read: Ultima) are multihit physicals from Offering or the Stray Cat Rage if you know about it.

Even Blitzes are actually somehow based off the Magic stat for the most part. To claim FF6 has any mechanical depth after you get Espers is sheer delusion.

 

[skykiii]

Uh, no.

Magic is a godstat and the only thing that beats just finding and spamming your strongest spell (read: Ultima) are multihit physicals from Offering or the Stray Cat Rage if you know about it.

Even Blitzes are actually somehow based off the Magic stat for the most part. To claim FF6 has any mechanical depth after you get Espers is sheer delusion.

But it has the greatest soundtrack and you can crash the game by telling a ten-year-old girl to paint.

Can you crash Fallout by telling a ten year old to paint?

No?

FF6 wins.

 

[LORD IMPERATOR]

Uh, no.

Magic is a godstat and the only thing that beats just finding and spamming your strongest spell (read: Ultima) are multihit physicals from Offering or the Stray Cat Rage if you know about it.

Even Blitzes are actually somehow based off the Magic stat for the most part. To claim FF6 has any mechanical depth after you get Espers is sheer delusion.

Getting OP later in an RPG isn't anything new. Shit, people who played games like Morrowind pride themselves in getting OP. That's just how some old-school RPGs worked. You aren't having fun until you turn into a god of destruction.

You're also not mentioning the fact that FF6's story is far better.

But it has the greatest soundtrack and you can crash the game by telling a ten-year-old girl to paint.

Can you crash Fallout by telling a ten year old to paint?

No?

FF6 wins.

Fallout didn't get a good soundtrack until FO3 and FNV with the radio.

 

[Forgotten Beast]

Fallout didn't get a good soundtrack until FO3 and FNV with the radio.

I've been able to ignore your bad takes because everyone is entitled to their opinion and all that but this is fucking heresy. Fallout 1 and 2 soundtrack is great, so great in fact that if you turn your noise bracelet for a fucking minute in New Vegas you'll hear several tracks from those games that fit the mood of the setting like a glove. Metallic monks is the very essence and mood of classic Fallout in sound form.
It's easy to miss because the radio is also great but I'd recommend anyone (re)playing New Vegas to play with the radio turned off from time to time and enjoy getting a more inmmersive experience. Not everything needs to be Nobuo Uematsu aggresively blasting easily recognizable tunes through midi trumpets directly to your ear canal (as much as I love him and specifically his work on FF6) but at this point I think you might be deathly allergic to subtlety.

 

[Raging Capybara]

I'm fully convinced here that most people have never heard about the concept of "show, don't tell".

If something is not included in the lore and codex dump, then it never happened.

 

[LORD IMPERATOR]

I've been able to ignore your bad takes because everyone is entitled to their opinion and all that but this is fucking heresy.

Dude, this is the forum for unpopular video game opinions. If I'm preaching to the choir and saying things that are popular, then I'm doing it wrong, because I'd be posting at the wrong forum.

Fallout 1 and 2 soundtrack is great, so great in fact that if you turn your noise bracelet for a fucking minute in New Vegas you'll hear several tracks from those games that fit the mood of the setting like a glove. Metallic monks is the very essence and mood of classic Fallout in sound form.
It's easy to miss because the radio is also great but I'd recommend anyone (re)playing New Vegas to play with the radio turned off from time to time and enjoy getting a more inmmersive experience. Not everything needs to be Nobuo Uematsu aggresively blasting easily recognizable tunes through midi trumpets directly to your ear canal (as much as I love him and specifically his work on FF6) but at this point I think you might be deathly allergic to subtlety.

I did. When I first played FNV with no radio, it wasn't as fun as when I later played it with the radio.

There's a time for subtlety, but if I have to listen to downer music like metallic monks 99 percent of the time, guess what, it's going to have the intended effect and make me feel depressed as fuck. There's a reason why games like Halo alternate between downer soundtracks and tracks that display the melancholy and depression of war, and rock tunes that are fun to listen to.

Face it, FO1 and FO2's soundtracks weren't that great. Good for atmosphere, but not for fun. That's why people remember the Radio New Vegas and Enclave Radio rather well from FNV and FO3; they livened up what was a depressingly downer series. Blowing people into giblets while listening to Big Iron or Jingle Jangle Jingle is practically one of the highlights of FNV.

I'm fully convinced here that most people have never heard about the concept of "show, don't tell".

If something is not included in the lore and codex dump, then it never happened.

Oh, like when the Council just tried to get the Saren case thrown out as soon as possible, while the politicians in the Council chamber mutter about how he's being protected by the Council?

 

[Whoopsie Daisy]

But the team-based RPG combat shows that FF6 understands better than FO1 or FO2 what made DnD work as a system

Fallout:Tactics would like a word