Escapist Magazine calls Bethesda killers of Fallout

The_Proletarian

The_Proletarian

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A little late on the ball here but I just came across this excellent piece in the Escapist Magazine on how Bethesda misunderstood and twisted the Fallout setting. As a consequence they ruined the franchise.

We all know NMA already pointed this out way back when Bethesda first revealed their attempt at a sequel to Fallout 2. However it's always nice to find other people who have reached the same conclusion, albeit a bit late. Have a read!
 
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Well, I call it progress. The game crash can't come soon enough. Still, seeing how much of dumpster fire shitout 76 is I can understand even biggest fanboys having second thoughts. Still, nice to hear.
 
Solid summary of a lot of the tonal issues with every Bethesda Fallout. Especially that "I've found only a bobblehead" line.
 
I, of course, agree that Bethesda killed Fallout but for different reasons. I think people unnecessarily credit the first Fallout with philosophical depth
 
No one claims Fallout 1 was this deep philosophic game that you could only understand with an universe sized brain, but the game had messages. Criticism to nuclear war, consumerism, how humanity is prone to repeating some of the same mistakes after a nuclear war and so on.

Bethesda's only message from what i gathered was "America Fuck Yeah! Communism Fuck No!" when you have a stupid Transformers robot spouting cliched nonsense.
 
Norzan said:
No one claims Fallout 1 was this deep philosophic game that you could only understand with an universe sized brain, but the game had messages. Criticism to nuclear war, consumerism, how humanity is prone to repeating some of the same mistakes after a nuclear war and so on.

Bethesda's only message from what i gathered was "America Fuck Yeah! Communism Fuck No!" when you have a stupid Transformers robot spouting cliched nonsense.
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Yep. I wouldn't call F1 deep, but I would call it capable of satire. Whereas Bethesda seems to think the Cold War propaganda is mostly for lolz. [When it isn't actively celebrating the Pre-War era...]
 
Norzan said:
Criticism to nuclear war, consumerism, how humanity is prone to repeating some of the same mistakes after a nuclear war and so on.
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where?

Norzan said:
Bethesda's only message from what i gathered was "America Fuck Yeah! Communism Fuck No!"
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okay, when it comes to having a message, then F3 is the one that does it. i saw it as a satire of the american ballsiness and blind patriotism. of course, it was a very poor satire because bethesda just isn't good at making games, but even if it was good, why should having a message make a game better? i don't need messages in my video games
 
I usually don't care about anything related to Escapist (with maybe Yahtzee being the exception) because of its pretentious journalists and forum-goers, but it's nice to see that people are waking up and realizing that Beth$oft isn't interested in making quality games.

This dead horse's been beating many times, but we have to keep beating it until it becomes nothing but dust.
 
mef said:
where?
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The Glow? The fact nuclear bombs are treated with such severity when an entire DLC is made around a guy wanting to launch nukes? How the NCR is making the same exact mistakes the old world did by being this big, expansive nation that has no way to deal with corruption? Same with the Master having a single race rule over the world? C'mon, these are obvious.

mef said:
why should having a message make a game better?
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It technically doesn't but it enriches the game. It makes the game feel like it wants to get a point across. Make the player think. I don't know what this mentality is of "video games aren't supposed to make you think and if you want that, go read or book or something", but it's a mentality that needs to die. Video games are just as valid as books and TVs as a vehicle to transmit messages to whoever is playing.

And Fallout 3 message is not sattire. It's played fucking straight. It's not a message on how being a blind patriot is a bad thing, it's a good thing according to Fallout 3. When you have a robot aiding you on an assault against the "enemies of America" and the good guys win in the end, it can't be sattire anymore. Fallout 2 is actually the one that satirize the blind patriot correctly with the whole Enclave faction.
 
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Norzan said:
The Glow? The fact nuclear bombs are treated with such severity when an entire DLC is made around a guy wanting to launch nukes? How the NCR is making the same exact mistakes the old world did by being this big, expansive nation that has no way to deal with corruption? Same with the Master having a single race rule over the world? C'mon, these are obvious.
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Two of these are about New Vegas (and I still disagree) and I really don't think that The Glow and the Master's plan were supposed to do that. Of course, if you're looking for a message, you will find any message anywhere, just like these people saying that Toy Story is about fascism.

Norzan said:
I don't know what this mentality is of "video games aren't supposed to make you think and if you want that, go read or book or something", but it's a mentality that needs to die.
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And I think that the mentality of requiring a deeper meaning from every piece of art needs to die.

Norzan said:
And Fallout 3 message is not sattire. It's played fucking straight. It's not a message on how being a blind patriot is a bad thing, it's a good thing according to Fallout 3. When you have a robot aiding you on an assault against the "enemies of America" and the good guys win in the end, it can't be sattire anymore.
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It was a satire and you'd really have to be blind not to see it. You yourself have mentioned the good guys winning while the bad guys were basically fanatical USA-cultists.
 
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This article is like 10 years late to the conclusion. Todd directly said it himself why they bought the franchise. They wanted the retro-futuristic, Americana theme. All that surface level shit because they didn't want to spend extra time coming up with their own ideas, as if Americana is this holy grail that only Fallout can drink from.

Pump and dump.
 
The only merit of Bethesda was making the franchise fully 3D and creating some pretty interesting urban exploration and good emotional stories. They dumped the core of the franchise in favor of a theme park/full sattire approach. It's sad...
 
I'd say better late than never, but the damage has been done. It only took Beth reaming their asses for the past few months for them to see through their Bethdrone haze. Well too little, too late. I've watched too many of my hobbies and interests go to shit while these kind of people party it up over the corpse. Their moment of clarity means nothing to me.
 
mef said:
where?
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The "repeat the mistakes of the past" is; as you know; the main thing of NV, where you can find this theme everywere.

NCR, Legion and House are the main ones, but also Great Khans, Think Tank, Dean Domino, Tabitha, Joshua Graham (this case is subtle. I do not like how we can not say to him: "I will not give you a second chance to command a tribal LEGION") etc

But FO1 also have this, don't you think? what about the Unity and their plan to create a perfect unified race without diversity? Where we see this before?

Brotherhood regulating technology just to prevent these errors?

but yes, Fallout 1 is more about discovering new societies and see how they work in a world after the apocalypse than anything else. To me.

Boneyard is actually my favorite part. I love how at first I was fooled into believing that the Blades were a gang of thugs that just did not detonate everything there, because the good Regulators kept them under control.

more interesting than fighting an army of green monsters with laser weapons, imho.
 
R.Graves said:
>bethesda
>good emotional stories
pic one and only one.
me, 2015:


feels like everyone's 3 years late to the party.


nah its about the inability to let go and what that does to people.
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Keller Family, Agatha's Song, Blood Ties are some good examples of emotional stories that I can remember now, you don't like them? Pre-war notes and holotapes are also heartbreaking too. I realize this debate is very subjective though.
 
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AmericanRed said:
Blood Ties are some good examples of emotional stories that I can remember now
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lol. vampires in fallout? plus you cant even tell what's her face about her brother. also there are no characters to empathize with in that story.
AmericanRed said:
Keller Family
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literally who?
AmericanRed said:
Agatha's Song
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old lady wants a violin. not exactly a tear jerker.
AmericanRed said:
I realize this debate is very subjective though.
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nah fam you're just flat out wrong :V
 
Blood ties is so shitty that I even had a bad mood just remembering.

I like the notes left by some ex enclave soldier. In that place full of fire ants. I like the kid in the same place too, poor kid.
 
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