It has been said that fans of the computer game series Fallout are the worst fans in the world. This I believe.
In 1997 and 1998, a new computer game series of role-playing genre emerged. Based on the idea of another role-playing game named Wasteland, the new series was called Fallout. It was set in a post-nuclear world. Many decades after a third World War had devastated the world—reducing it to irradiated ash, cinders and dust—those who survived (for better or worse) tried to eke out a living in a dystopian hell-hole. But, before the war, many underground nuclear shelters were built. Called “vaults”, these places were meant as time capsules wherein which civilisation could survive. It was from one of these vaults, Vault 13, that a Vault Dweller emerged into the wastelands of the American west coast and started a legend.
The game won over the hearts of many people with its story and its atmosphere. It had a distinct 50′s feel to it: as if America got stuck in the mid 20th century for more than a century, cherishing and striving for the ideal American dream in the face of growing international instability brought on by the exhaustion of most of the staple resources the Earth had to offer. The music, the clothes, the cars… everything from before the war had “that feel” and simply radiated optimism and patriotism. After the war, however, everything was simply irradiated. Not all the survivors had the luxury of being able to take shelter within the vaults. Many died. Others became ill and mutated. Others still survived, but was lost to savagery as in a particular William Golding novel. Social structures collapsed, slavery resurfaced and hate and vice ruled the land.
But it was more than a brilliantly laid out setting and finely and masterfully crafted story with which the game won favour. The game was the first to offer such a large degree of freedom to the player. Apart from following the main story arch when the felt so inclined, the player had near total freedom within the game. Whether it was getting addicted to chemicals, championing the poor, sleeping around, vanquishing the evil, enslaving the weak or trusting, negotiating peace between warring factions, murdering children, or saving a small settlement from the perils of the wastes, the player could do it all. In the second instalment of the series, the player even had the option of playing a “dumb” character, where his or her dialogue options would be reduced to grunts and painfully uttered syllables. When the games ended, a main story was told concluding the tale of your hero (or villain). But what was impressive was that the ending also included the fates of the peoples and places you encountered in our adventures, with you actions being the deciding factors. The replayability of those games is simply staggering: after many years and many times of playing through the games, there are still things I have yet to discover and things I want to try.
The game eventually achieved cult status. It didn’t make news headlines. Neither was it the highest grossing game ever or anything of the like. The games’ graphics weren’t the best. It featured turn-based combat, which raised a few eyebrows. But, years later, it would consistently rank on “Best Games Ever” lists compiled by various gamers and gaming websites. Years later, I would still meet Fallout fans, serendipitously finding them gems in the ground, and there would exist a sense of camaraderie between us. In fact, my own love affair with the series itself was sparked by a bit of serendipity (“Hmm, I’m looking for a new game to play… this looks interesting, guess I’ll try it out”).
It has been said that some people within the gaming industry wouldn’t wish Fallout fans on their worst enemies. This, I believe.
Fallout 2 was released shortly after Fallout 1. It used the same engine and even the same graphics, but sported a new, exciting chapter in the Fallout saga. Fallout fell quiet for a short while, but when Interplay became aware of the growing cult of Fallout, they decided to capitalise on it. They released a few spin-offs. These are considered non-canonical by most fans, who were not appreciative of the fact the jackals in charge of Interplay were trying to turn a quick buck with their beloved Fallout. Eventually, the fans were demanding Fallout 3. Fallout 3 seemed, however, as if it was never meant to be. I wont go into the drama that was the making of Fallout 3. If there ever was a difficult birth for a computer game, this is it. A book can be written on all that happened. In short: The creators of Fallout 1 and 2, Black Isle Studios, were owned by Interplay. In the early stages of development of Fallout 3 (code named “Van Buren”), the goons at Interplay managed to bankrupt their company. They disbanded Black Isle Studios and, in an effort to recover some revenue, most rights to the Fallout franchise was sold off the Bethesda Softworks (the people who made Oblivion). After the release of Oblivion, production on Fallout 3 was set to 110%. They promised the new Fallout would be ready by “Fall 2008”. The long wait was almost over.
But why are Fallout fans considered to be such awful people? Consider any mainstream franchise which has attained cult status: James Bond, Star Wars, whatever. The latest instalment of the James Bond franchise, Quantum of Solace, was released not long ago. From what I heard, it drew quite a bit of criticism because it was so “different”. It was not based on a complete Ian Fleming novel and featured a vengeful James Bond to the point where action completely overshadowed any inkling of a story. That is not to say that nobody liked it, but many people were let down. Fallout fans have an irrational fear of having their hopes and dreams for the new game to be squashed. And what are these hopes and dreams? Conceptionally its simple: to feel the way we did when we first played the game. To get the chill down our spine when Ron Perlman narrates the introduction, that awesome moment when you first “get” what the game is about and those intense moments when you learn of the dark secrets of the Fallout universe. (Hmm, perhaps its not so simple to summarise in a one sentence. Fallout fans: agree or disagree?) Recreating all these things for all the fans is, quite frankly, an impossible task. Imagine being placed in charge of creating the new James Bond film. You have an idea what it should be and appreciate the series and its heritage as much as the next person. But you also have your own ideas which you think might work and fit; your own innovations to keep it fresh, modern and contemporary. But, guess what, all these options are your own. At least a few people will share your views, but you are just as likely to be rebuked for your ideas by the fans at large as being praised. This can lead to a type of creative performance anxiety. You know that the fans are waiting and watching to see what you come up with. Fallout fans, however, are different in the sense that many are not passive in the waiting process, but active and very verbal. Every single design element and concept has been heatedly debated in forums across the internet. Bethesda Softworks would have been foolish if trying to do anything but minimise the flak the would receive for whatever they did. While everyone knew they were in charge of making Fallout 3 since they acquired the license, I wouldn’t have released any details about the game until a month before the release. Think about the greatest love you’ve ever had. You imagined it to be yours, but that isn’t so. The other person is still a person and an individual: any sense of ownership or control was their compassion dressed up as your illusion. These are the blinders we, the Fallout fans, walked around with.
After the first screenshots of Fallout 3 was released by Bethesda Softworks, I had mixed feelings about what I saw. The feelings leaned, however, towards disappointment and indecision and I decided to sequester myself from the impending flood of development news until the game actually being released. I would only make up my mind about the game once I had played it. On Friday 31st October 2008, the game was released and on the following Monday I played Fallout 3 for the first time (I had pre-ordered the game, but was unable to play it before the Monday). Yesterday I finished the game. Now, it is time to pass judgement.
Before I start, I want to make one thing clear. Fallout 1 and 2 were not perfect games. They were very good games for various reasons, but there is no such thing as a perfect game.
It seems as if Fallout 3 was doomed for me from the get-go. The reason for this was, however, an unfortunate setup with my speakers which meant that I was unable to hear certain audio channels (for a while I thought it was a bug in the game, but eventually I managed to fix the problem after fiddling with some of the cables—still, its a very strange thing to happen). I could hear speech, some sound effects and enemy gunfire, but music, some sound effects and my own gunfire was silent. On the radio stations, I could hear the speech, but not the music. Most crucially, the intro was silent. When running the game for the first time after years of agonising waiting, I was unable to listen to the iconic Fallout introduction. I proceeded to play the game, but decided to delay judgement yet further until the audio problem was sorted out.
The prologue of the game is interesting. It features crucial events in your life as you grew up in Vault 101, including your birth and 10th and 16th birthdays. During these events, you could customise your character. I still have mixed feelings about it, but it was a bold move on the developers’ part and I think they managed to pull it off rather well.
Being old games, Fallout 1 and 2 featured a very limited number of avatars for game characters. Fallout 3 thankfully remedied this. While obviously still featuring a limited number of combinations for the various aspects of the avatars, the selection was sufficiently large enough. Then again, do gamers expect anything else from modern-day games?
As I’ve already mentioned, all aspects of the game had been heatedly debated prior to its release. Everyone had an option about the game being 3D rather than 2D and the action being real-time rather than turn-based, each one energetically advocating their preference. But, playing the game, these aspects almost became a non-issue. Sure, Fallout 1 and 2 had a unique look and feel despite its poor graphics, but sometimes the 2D graphics got a bit annoying (for practical reasons, if nothing else). It was actually nice “being in 3D”. The combat system of the original Fallouts were also far from perfect. While Fallout 3 implements a completely different combat system, it too is far from perfect. The original combat system was based on traditional pen-and-paper role-playing combat systems, which reflected some of the influences to the series. This meant a whole lot was left up to chance. It could be quite fun, but it could also be rather difficult, especially in the early stages of the game. The new combat system, VATS, which is cinematics-based, makes combat tediously easy and one gets bored of the limit ways of killing enemies much quicker than in the original games. Then again, I am probably at fault for not turning up the game difficulty level yet. (At the risk of getting stoned, dare I say that I thought Fallout: Tactics had a good combat system?)
But graphics and combat systems are major elements of the game. Like I said, they became almost a non-issue and, recognising that Fallout 3 is a new game made by new developers, I accepted them. But I was surprised at what did disappoint me. It is something small and I wonder whether anyone had considered it in their campaign to “preserve Fallout”. In the original games, every single (type of) item you could carry with you had a unique icon and a detailed description. This lent an extra bit of depth to the game world. This is completely missing from Fallout 3. Inventory items have no descriptions whatsoever and many items are grouped under generic, mono-colour icons. This killed a piece of the game for me.
Truth be told, I was never a fan of the way you travelled in the “world” (i.e. between locations) in the original games. It was probably fitting to the era in which the games were created, but I like the approach Fallout 3 took much more.
The NPCs in Fallout 3 were rather uninteresting, as opposed to the likes of Sulik and Marcus in Fallout 2 (and even Dogmeat in Fallout 1 
). I don’t know if my character’s charisma simply was too low, but I could only recruit one NPC at a time, which was a bit of a let-down. It was good to see Harold (and Bob) again, al be it in a fantasy-esque setting hauntingly reminiscent of Oblivion (even though I’ve never played that game).
The game locations in Fallout 3 themselves were pleasing. They were well thought-out and were interesting. The game world itself was rather huge, which was also good to see.
There are way too many Buffout and Mentats available, but that is a minor. There is also an abundance of books which permanently increases your skills, but this is another matter which is a bit iffy. A tiny spoiler alert: the “treasures” hidden behind “very difficult” locks are always hopelessly disappointing.
The freedom within the game is severely limited. You cannot (directly) kill children. Think of me what you will, this should have been in the game.
Despite the misgivings of other people, I liked the music. But a friend of mine hit the nail on the head when he said that, something which does not fit within the universe at all, is apparel which modifies you character’s skills. In a fantasy game, its fine to pick up a clock which gives +5 to mêlée weapons, but not in Fallout. Still, I found it useful, but only because it was there, not because I thought it belongs.
During character creation, it was disheartening to see that the developers completely dropped the concept of traits. In the original games, traits were optional positive-negative trade-off attributes you could assign to your character. I was also furious when I reached level 20 with my character and found that you cannot level up any more. I think I know the reason for this, however. The game scales its difficulty according to your character’s abilities. If you are weak, the enemies are weak and easily killed. If you are strong, the enemies are strong and come at you with advanced weaponry. The catch, however, is that the damage dealt by weapons are not scaled. Were the scaling process allowed to continue indefinitely, you would eventually reach the point were you would have to stand against your enemy and fire 100 rounds into them before they die, while you yourself would be able to absorb thousands of points of damage. Conceptionally, scaling the difficulty is a good idea and it has worked in many games before. But, I don’t know, there was something to it in the original games for trying for hours to defeat enemies, only to eventually give up because they are too strong, but to later return when you are stronger and wreaking your revenge on them but utterly crushing them.
Another thing I really should have seen coming, but didn’t, was the over-powering amount of True Americanism which was inserted into the game. This is something which didn’t really feature in the previous games, but being set within Washington DC, everywhere you go you hear America being trumped up and glorified (at least, for what it was). There is a cult that worships Abraham Lincoln, a treasure hunter sends you to find relics such as the Declaration of Independence, and everywhere you meet old people who can’t shut up about the America-that-was. While having a definite American setting, the other games did flaunt it in your face. (Perhaps this is why it became so popular outside of America, especially in Eastern Europe?) Fallout 3, on the other hand, is laced with patriotism and and propaganda so hopelessly transparent it could only have been produced under the Bush administration. Even the Enclave’s take on old America was a bit strong, although, if anywhere in the game, it was fitting for them to be so.
My final critique of the game was the ending. It is definitely dynamic, but I had really high hopes about how it would discuss the consequences of your actions in the world. These hopes were shattered last evening when I finished the game. No mention is made about your microscopic actions. Did Big Town become a thriving and viable settlement? How did my actions at Oasis affect the rest of Capital Wasteland? Did the Wasteland become a better place after I eradicated Talon Company? What happened to Megaton? And Little Lamplight? And Vault 101? None of these questions were answered? If ever there was an anti-climax to a game I had spent so many hours playing, this is it. C’est la vie, right?
But, despite all I have said, one important thing remains to be noted: I played the game for many weeks. On a whole, I enjoyed playing the game. It was fun talking (not only complaining) to friends about it. It kept me busy and entertained, and that is what a computer game should be. I don’t think Fallout 3 will become a cult classic like its predecessors, but I have already started a new game with me actions different from last time planned to see how it plays out. Fallout 3 was money (and time) well spent and I can’t pretend that I would have done better had I been in charge of the project. Thanks for the game, Bethesda! At the very least you brought a chapter in history to a close.
Here’s hoping for the best for Fallout 4.
PS Visit http://www.nma-fallout.com for all you Fallout news!