Jeff Gardiner on aliens

[TheWesDude]

And yes, Todd and Pete have played them. Why do you insist on making this random claimings "No they haven't because I say so!" They've obviously played them, Todd even wrote how his encounter with the Master went in the first game. Something along these lines:

"I managed to kill the Master, but he unfortunately crippled my legs so I couldn't escape in time."

ok seriously guy...

have you been on this forum long? how about every time they had an interview somewhere and talked about something in the previous games, and got it wrong like 90% of the time.


hell, my FAVORITE thing they got wrong was an interview shortly after release and people were bitching about the game ending arbitrarily... and i think it was hines or pag talked about how people were mad that the game ended saying that it ended like that in the previous fallouts when it was absolutely not true for the 2nd one. hell, some quests could only be completed AFTER you "beat" the game...

 

[IMissLark]

Still, getting crippled limbs from gatling lasers is extremely rare. Criticals from that weapon normally bypass armor/instant death, so the story seems implausible.

Critical hits don't care what type of weapon you're using.

True, but since you can't call shots with a burst fire weapon, the chances of a leg specific critical is unlikely.

 

[Dragula]

 

[Stanislao Moulinsky]

heehee. i love how this alien shite is so ridiculous new members are registering just to say "wtf'ingf?"

hell, some quests could only be completed AFTER you "beat" the game...

Wait, what? I never bothered to play after the eding, what am I missing?

 

[TwinkieGorilla]

Wait, what? I never bothered to play after the eding, what am I missing?

FO2? some pretty interesting stuff, nothing really that mind-blowing though. [spoiler:d6265c9635]i can't remember everything...but i know there's the date with the whore who says "come back after you save the world" and some interaction with Father Tully, i believe, who gives you this cheat book. or something. fuck. it's been awhile since i've actually done the post-game stuff.[/spoiler:d6265c9635]

 

[your evil twin]

Perhaps you know of some reoccuring "easter eggs" that appear throughout a game franchise and yet are obviously not canon parts of that game's universe. Please, enlighten me.

Aliens in Silent Hill. I guess they are the same that appear in Fallout because you can lay your hands on Alien Blasters and even a Tesla Rifle.

Also, hello everyone. First post.

LMAO! Just checked those UFO endins out: http://silenthill.wikia.com/wiki/UFO_Ending

I knew that Silent Hill 1 had a UFO ending, and I knew that Silent Hill 2 had a dog ending, but didn't know that they put UFO endings in ALL the Silent Hill games!

Kudos, didn't know any game series had done something like that.

For me those zany Silent Hill endings aren't the same thing as Fallout 1's special encounters. Silent Hill's a supernatural/psychological survival horror game, while Fallout is a an alternate sci-fi universe with plasma guns, and computers that have artificial intelligence despite using tape reels and having a capacity of a few megabytes. It is already an "unrealistic" sci-fi setting like a 50s comic book, so the appearence of aliens is just that taken to the logical extreme. While the appearence of aliens in Silent Hill is a "lol wut" moment.

The alien encounters in Silent Hill would obviously not be taken seriously by anyone playing the game... especially thanks to the very silly nature of the alien encounters. They are drawn pictures/paintings rather than in-game graphics or FMV movie sequences, and they've got stuff like aliens giving thumbs up to the camera, and dead characters springing back to life.

In the first game, to get the alien encounter, you have to activate a special item at various different locations in the game, which you'd only know thanks to a walkthrough or guide. (A normal player would just try activating the item once or twice after finding it and found that it did nothing.) A player experiencing the game "normally" would never encounter the aliens.

In the second game the alien ending is only in there if it is the re-released director's cut, and you can only unlock it if you have already beaten the game, AND it requires you to do crazy stuff you'd only know about from a guide or walkthrough.

In Silent Hill you use it by replaying the game with an unlockable anime girl costume (!), and by repeatedly use a "sexy beam" attack. (!!!)

And the alien blasters, tesla rifle, laser pistol etc can only be obtained when replaying the game, after having already gotten the secret alien endings. They are infinite ammo cheat weapons.

That's rather different to Fallout. It's not like when searching various deserted houses and shops of Silent Hill you have a chance of randomly coming across a bunch of aliens and a tesla rifle!

I've played Fallout 1 twice, firstly many years ago, and also quite recently, and both times I randomly had the alien encounter and got the alien blaster. Thanks to the retro sci-fi nature of the game, it fitted in to the setting and story just fine. Didn't seem easter eggish to me at all.

Other special encounters in Fallout include a tipped over Nuka Cola truck that you can get thousands of bottlecaps from. Is that non-canon? Is there debate as to whether Nuka Cola trucks existed? In Fallout 2 there is a ghoul that describes that same accident.

There's also that guy that sings that can increase you charisma - any reason why a wandering guy that likes to sing is non-canon? The fact that something is in a special encounter doesn't automatically mean it can't be canon.

Fallout 2 made the special encounters far more silly (talking brahmin, three Monty Python sketches, two Star Trek encounters...) but in Fallout 1 they all fit the setting.

Godzilla's footprint? Daft, but Godzilla was a creature brought to life by radiation, so somewhat fits. I guess it is sensible to dismiss it as non-canon - the encounter doesn't even make sense thanks to there being only one footprint, and no reports of a giant monster rampaging through the wasteland. But given the crazy science of Fallout's setting (Giant scoprions! Giant rats!) something like Godzilla isn't too implausible.

Doctor's Who's TARDIS? A very retro bit of British science fiction (which probably wouldn't be recognised by that many American gamers in the 90s) about a guy that travels in time, space and between different universes. Again, a bit silly, but reasonably the Doctor could travel to the Fallout universe. (Something like the TARDIS means unlimited fanfiction crossover potential.) Probably not canon, but not absurd and obviously out-of-place either.

In any case, I think the alien encounter and the blaster fit more into the "nuka cola truck" category of special encounter, since it isn't a reference to any particular movie or TV show, and blaster-wielding aliens fit fine into the 50s comic book theme of the game.

Aliens were supposed to be a very small part of the game, a fun bonus for those that had high luck/explored the wasteland alot/took the explorer perk. It was crazy for Bethesda to make them into a big part of the franchise by having a 5 hour adventure on an alien spaceship. That's dumb. But I'll never call the existance of aliens in Fallout "just" an easter egg.

 

[TwinkieGorilla]

Aliens were supposed to be a very small part of the game

umm...

a fun bonus for those that had high luck/explored the wasteland alot/took the explorer perk.

yeah, as an easter egg. not as a part of the game.

It was crazy for Bethesda to make them into a big part of the franchise by having a 5 hour adventure on an alien spaceship.

yep.

That's dumb.

yep.

But I'll never call the existance of aliens in Fallout "just" an easter egg.

ok, well...i'll force you to then:

the existance of aliens in Fallout is "just" an easter egg.

 

[AskWazzup]

Godzilla's footprint? Daft, but Godzilla was a creature brought to life by radiation, so somewhat fits. I guess it is sensible to dismiss it as non-canon - the encounter doesn't even make sense thanks to there being only one footprint, and no reports of a giant monster rampaging through the wasteland. But given the crazy science of Fallout's setting (Giant scoprions! Giant rats!) something like Godzilla isn't too implausible.

Now you're really pushing it

 

[Ixyroth]

Godzilla's footprint? Daft, but Godzilla was a creature brought to life by radiation, so somewhat fits. I guess it is sensible to dismiss it as non-canon - the encounter doesn't even make sense thanks to there being only one footprint, and no reports of a giant monster rampaging through the wasteland. But given the crazy science of Fallout's setting (Giant scoprions! Giant rats!) something like Godzilla isn't too implausible.

Now you're really pushing it

Replace Jet Jaguar with Optimus, err... Liberty Prime, and I think you've got a winner.

 

[UncannyGarlic]

For me those zany Silent Hill endings aren't the same thing as Fallout 1's special encounters.

You asked for other games with reoccurring easter eggs that are not canon, it was provided. You lost the argument and moving the goalpost is a logical fallacy. Now that you've lost you're stretching things more and more in order to make your argument work, even contradicting earlier statements about what qualifies something as a non-canon easter egg and a canon easter egg (no TV/movie references).

Discussion over.

 

[Crni Vuk]

It was crazy for Bethesda to make them into a big part of the franchise by having a 5 hour adventure on an alien spaceship.

5 ours? If its in any tradition with the usual Bethesda DLC proably 2 ours. If you dont rush it ...

 

[TwinkieGorilla]

HEY I DIDN'T SAY THAT!

 

[your evil twin]

Discussion over.

Sure, you are welcome to stop discussing things. Are you the new Speaker of the House in the UK's parliament?

I challenged someone to find an example, because I was GENUINELY UNAWARE of any game franchises that had the same reoccuring easter eggs. Stanislao Moulinsky was able to surprise me by giving an example of a franchise that re-uses similar easter eggs in each game. That does not automatically invalidate everything that I said. I proceeded to explain how the easter eggs in Silent Hill are very different to the special encounteres in Fallout.

In Silent Hill they are obviously sign posted as easter eggs. Silent Hill takes easter eggs to the extreme by having crazy unlockables like anime costumes and "sexy beams" and joke endings featuring UFOs or evil scheming dogs, and it's all stuff you unlock after beating the actual real normal game.

The Silent Hill's UFO endings are obviously not canon thanks to the fact that they make no damn sense, the art style totally shifts, and they give unlimited ammo cheat weapons. And in every game from Silent Hill 2 onwards you need to have already beaten the game normally before you have the option to get the crazy alien endings, and you need a guide or walkthrough to know to do the bizarre prerequisites that unlock them.

That means despite the fact that they reoccur every game (and the fans expect them) they are not a canon part of the story. They could only be less canon if they had "CONGRATULATIONS ON UNLOCKING THE ALIEN EASTER EGG" in flashing red letters.

That's quite different to Fallout, where while playing the game normally for the first time you can stumble upon the alien encounter and get the alien blaster. And unlike godzilla or the TARDIS it's not a one-off, because Fallout 2 lets you buy the same alien blaster. (Plus, the fact that you can use the alien blaster throughout the game means it's not a one-off in Fallout either, the alien stuff sticks without you throughout the whole game.) And since Fallout 2 has other references to aliens (such as Skynet), it seems quite reasonable that the developers expected you to think "wow, an alien ray gun!", not "Haha, those funny guys with their silly jokes".

Silent Hill's easter eggs are unusual since they are especially elaborate. Usually an "easter egg" in a game is just something of a few moments amusement. Like the moon saying "ow!" if you shoot it in Terminator: Future Shock. Or finding the Predator's skull trophy room in the sewers of Blood II: The Chosen. Or finding a corpse in STALKER named "Gordon Freeman", with a PDA log that mentions Black Mesa facility from Half-Life. They don't change the rest of the game, they don't give you any advantages or disadvantages, they have no affect on the story or the setting, they are just one minute's amusement and then forgotten about.

Similarly, Godzilla's footprint, or the Doctor's TARDIS, or the talking brahmin, provide a minute's amusement and are then over and done with and have no impact on the game whatsoever.

The alien encounter does not fit into that usual easter egg definition, because it gives you a powerful and useful weapon that you are likely to repeatedly use throughout the game. And if it was just a "cheat weapon" or a "bonus unlockable" like the alien weapons in Silent Hill then they wouldn't give it to you half way through your first playthough of the game!

 

[Per]

Fallout has special encounters, which are handled by the engine and signalled on the world map with a flashing cross. Normal encounters, including the singing trader you mentioned before, are handled by a script. In Fallout 2, all encounters are defined in a single file, but special encounters are still marked differently when they happen. The crashed UFO is a special encounter, this is not in question.

 

[TwinkieGorilla]

The alien encounter does not fit into that usual easter egg definition, because it gives you a powerful and useful weapon that you are likely to repeatedly use throughout the game. And if it was just a "cheat weapon" or a "bonus unlockable" like the alien weapons in Silent Hill then they wouldn't give it to you half way through your first playthough of the game!

BZZZZZZZZZT!!!! wrong again!

pretty much every easter egg gives you something which you can keep throughout the game (Red Ryder LE, Motion Sensor, Stealth Boy, Bottle Caps, Holy Hand Grenade, Dogmeat, Solar Scorcher, Monument Chunk, Bridgekeeper's Robes, and on and on). you still wanna keep doing this, partner?

the whole idea of the special encounters (aside from the lulz) were rewarding bonuses for people with high Luck and who chose the perks which enhanced your chances of seeing such encounters.

 

[patriot_41]

This discussion went off the track.
Aliens were never part of the story. There is not a single quest involving aliens and the appearance of that alien blaster is quite the same as the appearance of the pot of daisies. You can keep it through the rest of the game, in memory of what you saw (encountered) but it's quite possible to never even find an alien blaster. How come is it canon then, when it's possible to never encounter it?

Same shit in FO2. I've never encountered the singing trader, even tho I've been playing for over 8 years now. And I've never been to Sierra Army Depot too. To me, aliens do not exist. Apart from those you encounter in the wasteland, which are no different than deathclaws - weird, deadly and unexplained.

 

[frosty_theaussie]

Jeff Gardiner: The Doctor's essence--err, presence--has been hinted at throughout the history of Fallout. In Fallout 3, there is a 1960s-era Police Box hidden deep in the Capital Ruins. With the Mothership TARDIS DLC, the player will pick up a radio beacon broadcasting a signal with a very foreign accent, which will lead the player to this site and start their new (time) adventure.

 

[Serge 13]

They are studying humanity to see if we're a threat...

oh god! oh god! oh god!...

 

[Crni Vuk]

...
The alien encounter does not fit into that usual easter egg definition, because it gives you a powerful and useful weapon that you are likely to repeatedly use throughout the game. And if it was just a "cheat weapon" or a "bonus unlockable" like the alien weapons in Silent Hill then they wouldn't give it to you half way through your first playthough of the game!

Would you say the same then about the Solar Scorcher or the Bridge Keepers robe? Not super powerfull items. But still a part of the game for you.

Ok. If we go further means that we should set Monty Python next time in Fallout 4 or give them some DLC cause its from your definition Canon now? Seriously. Not everything can be used as excuse and its pretty clear that "aliens" do not fitt in Fallout as the setting was not meant to have them in the first place with such a heavy focus on it. (not more then one would expect from a realistic situation like as someone saw a UFO yesterday which might or might not be real aliens but probably "not")

You might reconsider again what some easter egg is in Fallout and what not. The "alien blaster" in your game was purely in connection with your stats in luck (and somewhat manipulable by the outdoorsman skill). Meaning that some might have the chance to get it early in the game while others very late depending on the character they play.
---------------------

HEY I DIDN'T SAY THAT!

Sorry my mistake. I corrected it.

 

[your evil twin]

These are pretty fair points, I think you've got me. The alien blaster thing was just an easter egg.

(I do still believe Skynet's story about being built with alien technology, though. It's been said that Skynet is unreliable, but as far as I'm aware that's because of giving bad dates, which seems more a case of developer error than Skynet error. I can't imagine the developers wanted us to think the computer was making up stuff about aliens.)

I never killed the Bridge Keeper, so I didn't realise his robes were so useful. (Resistances of Combat Armor but half the weight? Heh.) It would indeed be absurd to suggest that the whole Monty Python thing was canon!

I'm pretty sure the Solar Scorcher really is supposed to be a bit of canon technology, as originally it was going to be in the Environmental Protection Agency, and then when the EPA was scrapped they stuck it in the Guardian of Forever encounter instead. Killaps's restoration mod moves it back to the original intended EPA location.

It was also quite balanced, as for some unfathomable reason in Fallout 2 laser weapons were pathetic against most armor types, which meant that even though it had infinite ammo during daytime, it was only useful as a means of saving ammo when fighting weak enemies. When up against actual dangerous foes you'd want to pull out a REAL gun. And at early levels of the game you were likely to have very low energy weapons skill, so you'd often miss with the thing, even with its 20% accuracy bonus.

pretty much every easter egg gives you something which you can keep throughout the game (Red Ryder LE, Motion Sensor, Stealth Boy, Bottle Caps, Holy Hand Grenade, Dogmeat, Solar Scorcher, Monument Chunk, Bridgekeeper's Robes, and on and on). you still wanna keep doing this, partner

Good point, especially when it comes to Fallout 2 things, I had primarily been thinking about Fallout 1. It's worth noting that most of the Fallout 1 items - Stealth Boy, Bottle Caps - can be obtained "normally" from other locations in the game. (I'm not sure about the Motion Sensor - can you get that anywhere other than the encounter?) And in Fallout 2 you can get the Red Ryder LE from a body in the Sierra Army Depot, so that's yet another thing that isn't exclusively a special-encounter-only item.

But it's true that most encounters in Fallout 2 give you crazy unique special items, some of which are very useful. I didn't take that into account cause I've always been more of a Fallout 1 guy than a Fallout 2 guy, and whie I remembered the encounters I didn't remember their special items. (I only recently started replaying Fallout 2, previously I only played it once, back in 2002 or something.)

So I conceed. You guys are right. It's an easter egg. An easter egg that didn't feel out of keeping with the Fallout setting, mind you.

(Not like that Monty Python nonsense. I like Monty Python, but those kinds of things took me "out of the game". The Fallout 1 encounters actually fit the setting. It's depressing that many of Fallout 1's easter eggs actually fit Fallout's setting better than some of the quests in Bethesda's Fallout 3.)

I expect I'll enjoy Bethesda's crazy alien DLC simply cause I like retro Mars Attacks aliens and rayguns, and since I consider Fallout 3 to just be a game "inspired" by Fallout rather than a proper Fallout game anyway.