Fallout 3 Launches Amidst Controversy 397
Earlier this week, Bethesda released Fallout 3 after a long campaign of defending and protecting the game's reputation from claims that it contained inappropriate content. Ads for the game in Washington DC's subway system were pulled after they upset some touchy travelers over the depiction of post-apocalyptic Washington landmarks. Shortly before the game's release, early trailers were removed as well. Earlier this year, the game was banned in Australia for its in-game use of morphine, causing the drug's name to be changed to Med-X. On the issue of sensitive content, Bethesda's Emil Pagliarulo wrote in Edge Magazine about the design decision to disallow the killing of children in the game. Gamasutra ran an opinion piece on the same subject, and the Washington Post discusses the role of Washington DC in Fallout 3. On the DRM front, the game does come with SecuROM, but Bethesda says it's only used for a disc check. Reviews for the game have been overwhelmingly positive so far, despite reports of bugs with the save system and occasional lock-ups.
Re:I really love Fallout. (Score:2, Informative)
ads pulled? (Score:5, Informative)
Whoa whoa whoa, who said the ads were pulled? I was just in Metro Center yesterday and I can assure you, the Red line platform is still decked out with "Vault Life" and pictures of the Capitol and Washington Monument in apocalyptic splendor.
Even the article quoted only references a letter to the editor saying the ads should be pulled, nothing says they were.
I agree there is some controversy, but lets not go too far.
Re:Morphine changed to Med-X (Score:3, Informative)
"Major fracture detected. Morphine administered."
I hear that morphine is also used as a painkiller in Half Life 1 and 2! Apparently it allows the player to function normally even when injured. BAN THIS FILTH!
Re:SecuROM? Fail. (Score:5, Informative)
Funny thing. The SecuRom is only on the launcher. You can instead use the setup.exe on the DVD, which is clean, to install the game. Then use Fallout3.exe instead of FalloutLauncher.exe to run the game. You don't even need to have the disc in the drive that way.
Bethesda hasn't been evil so much as plain silly on this one...
Re:I really love Fallout. (Score:3, Informative)
That should have been "and Fallout 3 is definitely shaping up to give me a not completely dissimilar experience."
I really dig this game and have had no problems whatsoever with it. The whole save game issue is overblown and I haven't had a single crash either.
The bigger controversy (Score:5, Informative)
should be, why didn't they finish the game?
For an RPG it has huge immersion breaking holes in it. You can shoot someone's bodyguard right in front of their eyes, strip their store of everything not nailed down, and they'll still greet you with "Oh, hi, you're the new guy! So nice to meet you!" less than a second later.
Save a guy's life? He'll be eternally grateful during the scripted conversation afterwards. Talk to him again immediately after the event ends and he might go "Speak punk, before I put a bullet in you".
It's almost as if Bethesda never made one of these games before. Or never thought of a concept like a state machine for the conversation/reaction trees. I find it quite baffling.
This thing is begging for an enhanced edition like Witcher got. I bet it won't get it though :(
Re:What the crap?! (Score:2, Informative)
According to posts in Bethesda forums (see http://www.bethsoft.com/bgsforums/index.php?showforum=36 [bethsoft.com] ), some people have got their game not to crash by tinkering with ffdshow settings, installing codec packs, (un)installing seemingly random programs. Some people have reported the game not working when a not-so-common sound card is installed.
Just for reference, the game doesn't work in Wine either. See
http://bugs.winehq.org/show_bug.cgi?id=15839 [winehq.org]
Re:How's it different from Fallout 1 and 2? (Score:5, Informative)
Fallout 1 and 2 didn't have real weapon names, everything was "10mm pistol", "assault rifle", "sniper rifle" and so on. The full description of the weapons did have the precise model name for the guns, but the 10mm pistol was a "Colt 6520", the assault rifle was an "AK-112" and the sniper was a "DKS-501", none of which exist in real life.
The Desert Eagle .44 was an exception, as was the Mauser M/96. Fallout 2 did add a few other real-life guns such as the M3 Grease Gun, Tommy Gun, H&K G11, FN FAL and the H&K CAWS. Every other weapon was fictional. And honestly, who cares if the guns have real-life names? I'm rocking a chinese assault rifle that looks suspiciously like a cheaply-manufactured AK-47 and the only difference it makes to me is which starting letter I have to look for in my inventory when I want to equip it.
Re:Bah! (Score:5, Informative)
My friend had frequent lockups and discovered that it was a missing codec. As I understand it, there's threads about this fix on the official forum. It may not fix your problem, but it's well worth looking into.
As for me, I've had little problem overall. I did manage to have one corrupted save, but it was early on and no trouble since. Otherwise, it only crashes when I tab out and back in too fast, and it's not the only game that suffers from that issue.
Regarding the SecuROM, I'm not against all forms of copy protection. It doesn't limit my installation count, and it doesn't install a rootkit. I can live with a disk check.
On the other hand, I did buy the Steam version but that's just because I like not having to keep track of disks or CD keys... which also says I'm cool with auth checks.
Honestly, my entire issue with SecuROM (especially from EA) is as described above... Install limits sound like an attempt to get more money out of the customer, and rootkits are just dangerous - especially when Sony writes them.
Re:I really love Fallout. (Score:3, Informative)
This game is Oblivion with guns and radiation. Not that that is a bad thing in any way.
I have to say the opening 20-30 minutes of the game are incredibly innovative in its narrative structure. Usually tutorials are horrible, but this one was really fun.
Sadly as soon as I hit the wasteland, the VATS system made the game crash and I've not reloaded it since.
Less button pressing. (Score:3, Informative)
I just ran down next to the nuke, and then went and made a sandwich.
So I saved about 30 extra button-presses, and I got a sammich.
Vulturism (Score:5, Informative)
So, since I got Fallout on the 28th, I've been doing damn-near nothing but playing it. There are a lot of criticisms I have for it - many of which have been brought up in the comments - and even more praise, but there's one thing that I really, really love about this game.
You're a scavenger. Nothing more, nothing less. My character is currently level 15 (out of 20), and I still scavenge everything. Guns, tin cans, nuka-cola, everything! Why? The steady degradation of weaponry/armor (and not just in a broke/not broke way, the guns get less accurate/do less damage), along with the scarcity of resources (not only in the world, but at the shops, too!) really prevent you from getting a gun and saying "hey, I'm set!". Bethesda made an absolutely brilliant decision when they decided to force you to use similar equipment to repair one piece of equipment. It forces you to loot everything, and constantly puts the player in a state of apprehension ("shit, I really need to find a shotgun, or I'm gonna be up a creek soon").
This isn't Oblivion, where by level 50, you're the biggest, baddest mofo in town, and you're rollin' in dough (and presumably bitches). You're a bottom-feeder, and that really creates almost a sense of urgency, even when you're not fighting. Fallout isn't just about fighting Super Mutants - you're fighting the environment. You're a vulture, and I'll be damned if that doesn't make this game one of my favorite games of all time.
Re:SecuROM? Fail. (Score:2, Informative)
Seriously, if what you said about the launcher-vs-installer is true, someone at Bethesda's not being silly, they're being brilliant.
It is true. My legally purchased game runs fine from fallout3.exe without the DVD in the drive. Personally, I expect that some of the more clever people at Bethesda planned it like that. Why? SecuROM is pretty twitchy, and if someone has a bad experience, they will blame Bethesda. This gives these people a simple way of getting on with the game. As you said, it is brilliant.
Re:I really love Fallout. (Score:5, Informative)
I'll second that. The best way to describe the game, IMO, is Oblivion with guns that tries to pretend to be Fallout stylistically (palette, fonts, music etc). A lot of major annoyances come straight from Oblivion - very inconvenient, console-centric UI, particuraly inventory (they did mask it as a Pip-Boy, but it's easy to spot that in terms of layout and active elements it's essentially identical to Oblivion inventory, except it's in monochrome to drive you completely mad). Slow walking and slow jumping. Ugly animations on all characters, including PC (don't ever try to enable 3rd person view, lest you hurt your eyes). Skills redone TES-style with ranges from 0 to 100, and magical step values of 25-50-75 required to perform specific actions (it is very upfront about it - "you need 50 lockpicking to open this"). Real-time combat as crappy as it always was in TES: do you remember how you could swing the sword at an enemy at your arm's length and not hit anything because your skill is not high enough? Well, now imagine the same with a shotgun! Weapons get damaged when used, once again a la Oblivion, only they do it very, very quickly - you only need to go through several clips on a pistol for it to break. Stealing things decreases karma, even if noone was there to see you (and yes, all NPCs in the game magically know your karma) - so it's really more like renamed reputation from TES. Unkillable key NPCs (they get knocked out rather than killed, and then just get up again... and again... and again... you might also remember where you've seen that before).
On the whole, it is very obvious all the time that not only the game is made using the Oblivion engine, but also a lot of the original mechanics is carried over as is, or only slightly draped.
On to other, unique problems, VATS has annoying slo-mo which cannot be disabled at all, and becomes very tiresome quickly; also, forget about sniping the way you could in F1/2 - even with a sniper rifle, you'll have a hard time hitting the enemy's head at 30+ meters even with full 100 in Small Arms skill. End result: the most efficient way to use any gun is to use cover to run up to the enemy at point-blank range, shove your gun into their face, enter VATS, and do as many headshots as your APs allow (which will be 80-95% hit chance at this range no matter what your skill). Anything else is less efficient overall, and also a waste of ammo, which is very scarce on any difficulty level. Oh yes, forget about all-out burst fire killing sprees you could do in F2 with Vindicator or Bozar: you'll never have enough ammo for anything like that!
NPC dialogs are pretty bland compared to F2. Typically, you get the "standard" predictable set of choices: straightforward good / straightforward bad / lie a lot / lie a bit.
Re:Washington, DC (Score:3, Informative)
Re:SecuROM? Fail. (Score:4, Informative)
People like SanityInAnarchy bitch about what they want, but if you never support things financially, then no one cares. I watched major PC game development houses fold one after the other, and suddenly I realized that if I want these products to continue, then I need to purchase them.
Ah, but here's the fun part: You're financially supporting their decision to intentionally make these games defective. Look at EA. Big successful company, right? What do they do when they make a highly anticipated game? They use a restriction system that even Microsoft isn't bold enough to implement with Windows. So what happens? The game gets pirated anyway, lots of people bitch, and they end up reducing the severity of the restrictions.
I don't agree with your point of view. Not because I want to get games for free, but because I want to purchase games and enjoy them. I have heaps of hard-drive space. One of the things I routinely do when I purchase apps is to copy the installs to my HD. When I rebuild, I can reinstall them without having a mountain of discs to sift through. Heck, you should see how often I raid PortableApps.com to simplify things even further. I don't even need to install then, just copy. I can't do that with most of my games. One time I even managed to scratch one of my discs. Oops, it happens. I tried to copy a friend of mine's, but it got complicated real quick. I called the company about getting a replacement disc, they wanted $25. Grr. I ended up buying a $10 used copy to finish it. Of course, with the implementation EA used on Spore, if that becomes a thing of the future, used games will become a thing of the past. It didn't get this far, but 'piracy' would have been my last resort. My download would have been counted as a lost sale even though I had paid full price for this game the day it was released. Cute.
You can accuse people of thievery all you want, but reality is nowhere near as black and white as you're making it out to be. You as a legitimate customer should not get burned. That's the important bit of the discussion. Ignore it and you'll never reach resolution.
Re:I really love Fallout. (Score:1, Informative)
Fallout 3 is definitely Fallout, but it isn't Fallout 3. Fallout 3 was canceled when Black Isle went under, and now we're never, ever going to be able to play it. The game that's currently being sold as Fallout 3 is an excellent game, to be sure, but it is not the real Fallout 3.
Re:Washington, DC (Score:3, Informative)
Considering this, why would anyone expect to find the ruins of their house or some other prominent landmark in the Capital Wasteland is beyond me
That wasn't exactly what I said. Nobody expects to see the ruins of their house, but they might have hopes that they could make a guess based on the maps and other info provided in the game and then go there. Unfortunately, though, the geography of the area are profoundly different from that in real life.
For example, the Lincoln Memorial is on the west end of the National Mall, not too far from the east bank of the Potomac River. If you're standing in a building on the National Mall and you ask where the Lincoln Memorial is, you would expect them to say "west", but instead, they say "east".
Also, the Metro map layout makes it nearly impossible to figure out how to get there from here, regardless of where here and there are. Simple concepts of direction and distance are twisted into unrecognizable form. While it's nice that you can navigate most places in the game's DC area by hiking through the Metro tunnels, attempting to figure out how the locations of the surface exits correspond to the Metro system map is futile.
None of this is to say that it's a bad game, because it isn't. Yes, it's a lot like Oblivion with guns, but with slightly better rails for those who don't like open-ended RPGs.