Why Fallout 3 is Overrated

"I don't know what it was about Fallout 3, but nearly everything about the game turned me off. Ugly environments, disgusting animations, and some of the most mind-numbingly boring combat I've ever experienced made my time with the game headache-inducing. While the scope of Fallout 3 is admirable, ultimately, it ends up hurting the game. Such wonderful features as repetitive scenery, game-killing bugs, and a whole lot of frustration with the "survival" aspect that Bethesda implemented had me wondering what all the fuss was about. While Fallout 3 isn't bad, there is far too much credit being given to what is undoubtedly an overrated game."

[Hellsvacancy]

I dont care, i loved Fallout 3 then hated it then loved it again

The first time i played it (which was when i loved it) was great up until i leveled up 2 20xp, i realized i could get any more perks or anythin it just seemed rather pointless (so that was when i hated it)

But then the trophy patch came out so i thought ill give Fallout 3 another go and i must say adding trophy support made playin Fallout 3 that bit more satisfying so i ended up gettin the Platinum trophy in the end

Its a game that shouldnt b missed - althought i am very bitter about not gettin the Dlc :-(

[KenAdamsNSA]

I've been hearing the DLC has been pretty buggy/lackluster. You're probably not missing out on much.

[gaffyh]

I love Fallout 3, it is the best WRPG this gen imo. And it is better and more RPG-like than Mass Effect imo (although Mass Effect is still a great game).

I think the guy who wrote this article just doesn't like RPGs.

[KenAdamsNSA]

I'm actually a big RPG fan. Oblivion is one of my favorite games of all time, easily.

[TheRealSpy]

to "Why i'm not smart enough to understand vats, leveling up, gear choice, combat efficiency, and the after math of nuclear war."

in fact, why is this even an article? it's just some noob who got a game without knowing at all what to expect because he failed to research anything about bethesda or previous fallout titles.

i think fallout 3 was last year's bioshock and should have been goty.
i like the one comment at the bottom of the article.

[poopsack]

or maybe he didnt like it plain and simple :D

[harrisk954]

One of the BEST games from last year. It is the only game that I am upset about not getting DLC for on my PS3.

[iAmPS3]

You know what makes me sick?

The FU*&^%NG INTERNET... they hype the sh!1t out of every major game, than they write articles about why those games are overrated, the same F(*&îng games they made overrated.

You can all go to hell.

[ulath666]

@gaffyh
Bethesda doesnt make RPGs anymore. Altough F3 was "more" rpg:ish than oblivion which was an adventure game.
And F3 is a joke roleplaying wise compared to the first to game.
Bethesda gets enourmous amounts of hype and when they release everyone goes apefeces. "OMG BESTEST GAME EVAR!"
Than after a few month people realise that meh, this isnt really as good as it looked when i first saw it, and stuff like this pops up. MAny of the mayor gaming sites/gamingmags have said that in hindsight their reviewscores for Oblivion was way to high. It was a game that had a polished surface but suffered from many little annoying things and no real depth, sympathy for characters and/or the story.

I played F3 for ~30h and dont want to play it again in the forseeable future. It was kinda fun somtimes but many of the weapons were lackluster, the voiceovers were probably the worst we have seen this side of year 2000 (Take a look at the 16 year old dude in the gang in the vault that is voiced by the same fifty year old that do 50% of all the male chars), the combat got stale and Bethesda cant model humans for crap.
It got quite BORING towards the end since the story is quite bad and it just doesnt feel like fallout.
All in all its a 70-80% game imho

Bethesda is a good developer, but they take to many shortcuts, they say "screw it we will take that one", when many other devs would have continued working. They should send their devs for an internship at Bioware, a company that goes out of its way to deliver something extraordinary every time...

[TheAntiFanboy]

No game is perfect, and both Fallout and Oblivion suffer from a lot of fundamentally flawed design choices (most of which are focused on the presentation) that set it back immensely and make it feel like a very incomplete game.

But I still enjoy the hell out of it and consider it my Game of the Year.

[JeffGUNZ]

The textures where pathetic. The game wasn't awful, but not what I expected. A lot of people love this game, but I can see what the author means.

[gaffyh]

@1.8 - Yeah not everyone is going to love the game, but I still like it. I haven't gone back to play it once after completing it, as I did almost all the sidequests. But still it was a really good game from a single-player perspective.

The graphics could have been better, but I'd prefer slightly worse graphics and ~80 hours gameplay, than better graphics and only 25 hours gameplay (i.e. Mass Effect, and I did EVERY sidequest).

[LastDance]

I was playing fallout last night and am always wowed by the graphics and draw distance. He says that GTA4 looked better. I cant agree with that at all.

Bethesda are worst at animations though. Ill give him that.

I guess i shouldn't have even bothered with this write up because one of his complaints was that it was a depressing and brown landscape.
Apparently he thinks nuclear bombs are filled with flowers and opium.

[pain777pas]

I was a first day purchaser and took it back as trade in a week later. I did not like it at all. I just couldn't get into the game at all. I Ran everywhere on the map hoping that my feeling would go away and it did not. Fallout 3 should have a been about the possible threat of a Nuclear bomb and the world is not yet decimated and looks beautiful and you choose whether you want to nuke the world or not or something. I just hated the game. Love GOTY edition Oblivion and will continue to play that. Now that game is a masterpiece and to me the most bang for your buck game out this gen that is quality from top to bottom. Bethesda reps I hope you read this (ELDERS SCROLLS 5 PLEASE).

[Kakkoii]

@KenAdamsNSA: You must not have read the news about the DLC very well, or at all.

It's not that it was buggy, it's that for the consoles peoples downloads were being corrupted. Leading to glitched up DLC for people. It wasn't the content they created that was buggy.

[morganfell]

I'll have to agree. The game could have been so much more than a bunch of tunnels, rubble, and 8 foot mutants. Boring is the word that comes to mind. Especially when cast against it's predecessor.

[KenAdamsNSA]

Half the fun of Oblivion was finding that cool, unique part of the world that was hidden away from the rest of the game. It was this search and reward system that made Oblivion's presentation so much more effective than Fallout 3.

[jmare]

I think the biggest missed opportunity was not having faction quests. The best part of Oblivion was the Dark Brotherhood quests, especially the one where you were locked in a house and had to kill everyone without anyone noticing. The only good mission like that in Fallout was the tranquility lane quest.

[lord_of_balrogs]

I find myself agreeing with Morganfell,

Compared to Fallout 1 and Fallout 2, Fallout 3 is nothing special. The biggest downfall Fallout 3 was for me was the story. I personally felt it sucked.

[Baka-akaB]

I can only agree here . thus i'd add that i dislike oblivion much more to begin with . Fallout 3 at least got some decent plotting and narration .

I always disliked how bethesda could do such amazing story in the books from library and bookshelves of it's elderscrolls games , yet cant code a proper dialogue system and decent quests .

I also was never fan of the forced fps trend . Ok then you can switch to a 3rd person view , but it's never the same , with the way the game is designed . I much prefer titles such as Baldur's gate or the Witcher .
baldur's gate gave you pretty much as much freedom , without crappy random dungeon generated on the map , and with a good plot and quest system .

[mastiffchild]

The article's a bit scattershot(prolly to tne down what he really felt which as he liked Oblivion so much was almost definitely huge disappointment)but between it and Morganfells comment I have to kind of agree.

I was really eager to see what Bethesda would do with what was one of the best, imo, franchises ever. I was , even as a fan of F1 and 2, even looking forward to the hybrid RPG/shooter combat we'd get. In short I was really desperate for this game to be a real GOTY contender.

When it dropped my disappointment was almost physical. The third person view and animations are the worst things(visually)that I've seen from Bethesda and the environments were really unconvincing and repetitive(despite it being a wasteland wherever you get people you get some colour)and both combat systems are pretty broken. The FPS part of the game is pure frustration even when you get a decent gun with aiming seemingly arbitrary compared to what you actually hit while VATS seems to be way out on it's % points.

What they ended up with was buggy(as we all expect from them and on all formates that I saw), a big let down for Fallout fans and not really "Onlivion with guns" as Bethesda wanted as the action adventure had way more personality than F3 plus you couldn't take all the same actors seriously in their new roles when they just reminded you of the old ones.

Whatever, I played the first two games to death way back when and did about 200 hours on Oblivion as well. In Fallout3 it was an effort to finish the story arc(which I did)due to poor combat and frustration with recycled scenery and unconvincing characters and actors.

So yeah, was it bad? No. Was it GOTY? No.Was it as good as Oblivion? No. Was it in any way like it's frabchise predecessors? No. It's a brave attempt at livening up the RPG genre and deepening the FPS one which just isn't as good as it could have been and disappoints a few as they wished, like I did, that it could , indeed, convincingly weld the two game types together AND keep the atmoshere of the original games. That it fails to live up to pre release hype for me is true but why is more important and though I didn't really enjoy it I do appreciate what they tried to do.

Just never got why people loved it so much with the failings I saw AND the usual slap dash buggy product from Bethesda(seriously, when will they pay us something for doing their damn QA?).
EDIT:sorry for any typos I have a big keyboard issue today(sticky keys due to soda disaster) and sorry for going on so long.

[Johnny Rotten]

I thought the art style was really cool and other than it freezing everything worked well.

I wouldn't call it overrated but I would say it received a little more credit than it deserved. I traded it while it was still worth something, after putting 100 hours into it the DLC didn't really interest me.

@ Dirty below: I bought it for the 360 and it froze up mainly on the loading screens.

[OGharryjoysticks]

but there wasn't any DLC either so

[BlackRaven85]

Blaming DLC? Well I must have a good version of the game because I have not experienced freezing on my 360 copy. And it's not everyone's cup of tea, but don't go bashing it because you don't like it. If you don't then you don't.

[Seferoth75]

@blackraven,
You are at N4G. B!tching is what the majority does best. Doesnt matter what it is you'll always find the same people running around hating on anything they can. I often wonder how they find any time to game.

[devilhunterx]

and so it starts. just like gta4.

[DrJones]

Yeah, spoiled brats who is complaining about great titles because the animations are a little stiff .. pffffft.. really?
Is there no better thing to complain about?
Fallout 3 is a better game than the majority of games being released on consoles, PERIOD.
It was the same squabble over gta4.
Spoiled brats.

And you get disagrees for stating a very true observation, in these peoples minds.
Can it be some sort off inferiority complex they are having?

They can't have much insight, confidence or guts can they.

[OGharryjoysticks]

The AI in Far Cry 2 was better. Actually I might say the AI could have been the best ever. I don't know if it was glitch or just genious but I remember ambushing a group of guards at a bridge and killed them all except one (who was injured) but that injured guard somehow crawled over to a wall and continued to fire at me while he sat there until he died. I was shocked and still haven't seen anything like that elsewhere. I just wish there wasn't all that screen tearing in that game...I HATE screen tearing. At least Fallout 3 didn't have any.

[Hellsvacancy]

Its constant runnin around and gettin killed and then runnin 4 another 3 days, i feel like ive been playin that game for half of my life and havnt seemed 2 of gotten very far (Chapter 1 - 13%) ive done loads of missions

I play it every now and then but i find it a bit slow a sluggish although 1 thing i do like is when u throw a genade it sound well realisitc (not that ive ever thrown a grenade b4)

[RH06]

But after completing the game, I played Oblivion again and had a better time...Just the color in Fallout was washed, yes it was after a nuclear war but geez. One thing in Fallout that I would like to have seen is more Oasis like area's, or some rain/snow. Overall great game, just could of had more variety!

[Brixxer600]

I think it's a fantastic game that's well worth at least a 2nd playthrough , while i'd agree that some of the areas and the combat can get repetitive , i don't think it detracts anything from my overall enjoyment.

Like many others i am very disappointed that PS3 will not be getting any dlc.

[984984]

I don't rly disagree or agree with your review and to each his own opinion. But personally, I rly enjoyed Fallout 3 and thoguht it was extremely fun, although the Pitt DLC was kind of disappointing

[Eiffel]

I enjoyed Fallout 3, Hell I'm still enjoying it (Currently playing The Pitt). I won't agree to this or disagree. Everyone has an opinion over a game. Still a sad day when people try to pass of their views as facts.

[strotee]

The monsters and textures got a tad repetitive. I want a Fallout-like game that uses Blu-ray to its potential, now that would be interesting to see.

[RageofReaper]

i've racked up a character with 150 hours into it. i defy any single player next gen game, oblivion aside, to have me that interested for that long. i love it. if i could, id smear it on a sandwhich and eat it. its that good. and yet, i could list a hundred faults, just like i could in oblivion, but it doesnt matter. it sucks me in. i almost feel bad for those who wont/cant play it. it should be part of the NHS.

funny thing though, i got it the day before release, uber excited. put it on, got out of the vault, wondered to megaton, turned it off, and went meh. and i didnt play it for another month. the greys!! the opressive 'doom round every corner' feeling, i just didnt prepare for it, and didnt like it. put it back in when i was bored, started moira's quest, and have barely taken it out of my 360 since.

epic game.

[Tykis]

Its proberly a little bit overrated, but its still a gd game.

[Sir Ken_Kutaragi]

...that game gives me a Thumping headache(and that is nothing to do with the RPG bits!!! ;-D Not a RPG Fan really) Can't play it + Can't play Unreal 3 to??? 30 minutes on it and i feel ill(bad head)??? Thank GOD i can play KillZone 2 for hours and feel ok. Was the same with DOOM on PS1 + Red Faction 2 + Half Life on PS2.
Oh well...i'm talking to myself again... ;-D

[zagibu]

Maybe your problem is the view angle. HL2 and other games have it at 75°, which induces sickness/headache in a lot of people. Some games (like HL2) let you set the angle yourself, and for some of my friends, the sickness disappears if they set it at 90°. Thankfully, I am not stronlgy affected by this, but HL2 also made me uneasy, somehow...it wasn't as pleasant an experience as it should have been, and I guess this could be why.

[Sangria]

Yes, Fallout 3 is full of defaults. I've never played a Fallout game before, and i agree there are much things wrong with the game, especially its reviews. A game with so much technical problems (aliasing, clipping, low animations, etc...) can't have a 9 or 10/10.

As i've already said before, a review score must include 75% of technical and artistic aspects, and 25% of fun aspects. But Fallout 3 may be not a technical powerhouse, i've never passed so much time on a game since TimeSplitters 2 and Final Fantasy VII. I had an incredible pleasure playing the game, whatever its defaults.

So yes, Fallout 3 has been overrated, just like GTA IV or Resident Evil 5, but it's still worth the buy. It's a very good experience.

[Hooby]

I severely disagree. The entire point of playing games is fun, and thus that should be the most important factor in a score.

Bugs and glitches suck, but if you have fun regardless then those are just minor setbacks, not something you should base the entire review around.

[MrJack]

Played for a month, whilst it was admirable, it was very drab.

There was just no variety. But my vote goes for London to be where the next Fallout takes place, I feel the series needs refreshing.

[Timesplitter14]

I believe this man should shut his mouth

[BlackRaven85]

Agreed.

[LiLTich92]

i played this game over any other for about a month straight << no life :D
and i enjoyed it as you can tell,
but i was dissapointed at the ending.
why couldent we stay on after the main quest to do all the side quests
and just see how high (lvl) you can get your player
and why no DLC for ps3 :( they was the really bad points
i found the survival and combat part to be entertaining tho
not all pepole would agree :(
but yeahh i dont think it was overrated.
just could of been done better :)

[Hooby]

gta4 a more expansive world than fallout 3?

Okay, consider that every square foot of fallout 3 has about 10x the detail of gta4....

[KenAdamsNSA]

I'd challenge that. Fallout 3, while bigger, is not nearly as well-rendered as Liberty City. Not even remotely close.

[Superted2007]

Mass Effect/Oblivion > Fallout 3 > Far Cry > GTA 4

I know there very different games but what the hell someone else brought them up!

[somekindofmike]

They are very different games, but what the hell,

My opinion is

Oblivion > GTA4 > Fallout 3 > Far Cry 2

I haven't played mass effect, so I don't know.

[Campy da Camper]

But, to each your own.

I appreciated the story, quests, colors, battle sequences, underground (caves vs. subway tracts) and enemies in Oblivion more so than F3.

And once I could cast invisibility and burn through the Oblivion gates and do some serious treasure hunting in caverns and caves without being detected, man, I could not stop playing.

However, Bethesda needs to do better QC on DLC. The bugs are simply unacceptable from a company that puts out AAA titles.

[Hooby]

My main gripe with fallout and oblivion is how despite having these massive and beautiful worlds, the main nitty gritty goes down underground.

[JOEdANGEL]

Different strokes for different folks. I respect the author's opinion, but I don't think he should state his case as if everyone should feel the same way he does. I loved Fallout 3 personally, even after having played the classic games on PC.

[Thoreau]

and i have not played it in months. my only gripe with fallout 3 is that it controls and plays almost exactly like oblivion plus the overall depressing lonely feel of the game. other than that i love the game. actually i might play a little today. this article has ignited my interest in f3. i have not downloaded any dlc so i still believe the game has life left in it.

[jack who]

sum one mad cause they not getting any Dlc?

[likedamaster]

You are correct sir.

[Superted2007]

When people compare Fallout to Oblivion here they seem to talk about the DLC alot and that Fallout should up thier game to be better than Oblivion but does anyone remember...

HORSE ARMOUR?

[DreamcastFanboy]

I loved Fallout 3 but i disliked that it was much shorter compared to Oblivion honestly one faction quest from Oblivion was longer then all the quests in Fallout 3 or maybe it was the fact i played the game during my whole Xmas break.

[AngryTypingGuy]

I'm a big fan of Bethesda. I can't wait for the next Elder Scrolls and now I'm a huge Fallout fan as well. If I have to nitpic, I'd say do a bit better of a job of getting bugs out of the games. But then again, games that huge are always going to have bugs at release, or else it would take 20 years to release them.

[Vip3r]

Fallout 3 was great. But Oblivion was better.

[felidae]

170 hours and counting .. i don't think it's overrated!

[ASSASSYN 36o]

108hrs.16min.15sec I don't either.

[likedamaster]

1200 saves...I third that. ;)

[A LIVING LEGEND]

While i found it marginally better than Oblivion,it was yet another formula rpg from Bethesda.20hrs in and you know how the next 60hrs will unfold.Its not a bad game but it isn't deserving of the accolades it has recieved.unfortunately,with nothing to measure it against,save perhaps mass effect(which i have not played)only serves to ensure its apparent greatness.In the end,i suppose it doesn't matter alot,if you enjoyed it then thats all that actually matters.My opinion,that is all.

[Hallucinate]

fallout 3 is more grey then killzone 2, killzone 2 gets bashed for being grey, yet with fallout 3 its okay

[ASSASSYN 36o]

Just in case anyone was wondering...an area hit by multiple nuclear blasts looks like hell.

[TwistedMetal]

for gimping fallout 3. you wonder why it doesnt compare to the first games? because the dlc was suppose to come on the game disc but guess what x360 dvd is not big enough. there were tons of othere stuff taken out as well that would of made it on par with the first 2 games . thanks guys for messing this gen up by supportin the x360 instead of choosing the better console. the ps3

[durran3]

I am playing it Right now..I have to go to the Radio station :D.. love the game. . love the environment.. love the music and sound.. Love the game period.. and i LOOOVE oblivion while i am at it :)

[killzone2ownsallfps]

um.... kill zone 2 surpasses this crap garbage game.

[Shepherd 214]

I guess it makes sense to compare a linear FPS action shooter to an open-world RPG.

[W S K]

everyone has a different taste
but for me fallout was "one" of the best Games last Year

though i was a liitle bit dissapointet with the short main story (it was so good that i just focused on it and ignored the side quests)
the DLC was okey (but nothing special)...again a little bit to short (especially "The Pitt") but i appreciate the effort in doing it and pushing DLC forward!

i cant wait for the upcoming DLC´s... even more when they increase the level limit

this game is in my Top Games of all time list (in my head)

P.S:
186 hours... and still playing

[jBat17]

no, i understand what the theme of the game is; it's the animation, the character models, the combat system. those are a lot of misses.

not really sure why it got goty. the sidequests were boring. the guns lacking, the level cap limiting, some skills useless, and the narrative not interesting. and it's BUGGY.

in terms of atmosphere, story and gameplay, deadspace is way better than this crap.

[Don_Frappucino]

So it did actually get the overall GOTY? Please say your joking. This repetitive crap got GOTY, whilst MGS4 and LBP got shafted. It's not even the best open world game that came out this year, and as far as offline games go Mirrors Edge was better in my opinion.

[mochi]

PS3 version was the severe result.
http://yoda.dip.jp/Game/Fal...
http://yoda.dip.jp/Game/Fal...

[mochi]

PS3 version was a very bad work.
http://yoda.dip.jp/Game/Fal...
http://yoda.dip.jp/Game/Fal...

GOTY is 360 and PC only.

[GamerPS360]

fallout 2 sucked hard. Played for 3 hours and sold it off on craigelist.

[Gun_Senshi]

-

[Bumpmapping]

game is garbage :)

[SprayandPreycom]

have a nice day

[MrChow666]

fall out 3 is an awful game imo

[JasonPC360PS3Wii]

He must have played the PS3 version.

[JasonPC360PS3Wii]

He should have got the 360 version.

[Motorhead]

this is the worst game I played ... definitely ... totally crap ... uneventful and with players who walk like they have brooms in the ass

[BobbySaget]

Hindsight is always 20/20 right? Its easy to take ANY game and say what "could have been in it". Does ANY game ever have every single feature we WISH it would have had? Does any game NOT have a few things that bug us? So Vat's was effective, and way to boring. Due to ammo constraints, it made VAT's necessary to use. But who cares really?

This game has probably gotten the MOST play-time out of every game in my library. I have about 34 games, so that's impressive. So in this sense i don't really see how its overrated. It was somehow able to suck me in, and keep me playing, better than any of my other games could. I loved all the quests, incredibly fun, and after level 14 i realized ammo wasnt really a problem. I didnt even do the main-quest-line straight away, i was having far more fun doing the sidequests. What i did was i would do 2-3 sidequests, then a main quest, 2-3 sidequests, then a main quest. The result was an EPIC.

Civilization had been locked underground for years after a nuclear holocaust(reminded me of "blast from the past", and City of Ember"). I journeyed out into the world to find my dad. All i found was a barren wasteland full of raiders, and Washington DC attempting to rebuild itself. I start traveling to Cities where i meet tons of people, all whom have their own story and troubles. They even ask me to help out. While attempting to find my father, i help these citizens with their problems. Each citizen leads me on a quest that makes me truly feel like i'm helping or hurtin the entire world. On each of the quests, i discover new places, learn new things, find new items, and improve myself. Granted.... the ending wasnt great.
But The whole 50's atmosphere, especially the part when you are plugged into the simulation machine, MADE THE GAME.

It has been a long time since i truly got lost in a game. Even oblivion didnt have the same effect on me. Likewise, it is stupid to compare this to oblivion. Sure they use the same engine, and are both RPG's, but they are vastly different. Several "shooting" games use the Unreal 3 engine, but we DONT consider them the "Same game with different skins". The same goes for the Source engine. Any RPG will have inventory, fighting, characters, dialogue, stats, etc. Why would Bethesda create and entirely new engine, when their current engine NOT ONLY DID all of the necessary things, but it did them WELL. They even attempted to change things as much as possible with the inclusions of the pipboy Vat's and Perks. There wasn't a SINGLE moment of DEJA VU (of oblivion) in this entire game.

[PeeKnuckle]

Fallout 3 does not use the same exact engine as Oblivion did. It used a version of Gamebryo.

Author cites GTA IV in comparison to Fallout 3. GTA IV's character models were ugly as sin, too. Open world sandbox games are never going to be drop dead beautiful this generation. There's simply too many things to render at one time.

Did you mention Oblivion enough times? Morrowind is superior to Oblivion in so many ways. Doubt you'd see it that way though, since it'd be too ugly for you to care about.

Your opinion is fine. It's yours. However, I personally don't think it belongs on a gaming news site. This is blog material.