The Shandification of Fallout

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Sander

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Do you want to watch a sixteen-minute video of a semi-famous internet reviewer talking about the narrative and world-building in games in general, and Fallout 3 and New Vegas in particular? Well then you're in luck, because Tasteful, Understated Nerdrage has just that sort of video.

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MrBtongue invents a whole new word to describe the kind of narrative he enjoys, and he rails against the cinematic movement in video games for good measure. It's worth a watch if you're interested in the differences in worldbuilding between Bethesda's Fallout 3 and Obsidian's Fallout: New Vegas. Be warned, though: the first mention of Fallout doesn't occur until 9:22.
 
That was damn good. Worth watching the entire thing IMO. I hope Obsidian sees it and pats themselves on the back. I hope bethesda sees it and learns something.
 
Interesting stuff, but Bethesda is already aware of the shortcomings of their games. They haven't changed and won't change their formula because, by and large, their fans consider flavor and a detailed setting to be meaningless crud. Their focus is exploration of large areas, which would be fine in their own franchise.
 
He's a little droning, yeah, but it's a good video, and it's such an important core difference between Bethesda and Obsidian.

Bethesda doesn't care about setting plausibility, or thinking about why and how things happen. They just shove in whatever is "cool" and hope you get distracted enough not to think much.

Obsidian understands setting is story, not just a place *where* the story takes place. Even with New Vegas' plot holes and setting feel problems, it feels much more real and high-quality because it pays attention to its narrative and setting, rather than just being a rollercoaster ride of COOL STUFF MAN.
 
Agree from beginning to end, not only with Fallout, but with Mass Effect as well. Just as Goodsprings sold me on Obsidian's world building, the walk around the Citadel, in all its info-dumping glory, sold me on Mass Effect as a solid, detailled, enjoyable setting.
 
Yea, makes it all the more disappointing they went with the cinematic style for the next two ME games.
 
Ilosar said:
Agree from beginning to end, not only with Fallout, but with Mass Effect as well. Just as Goodsprings sold me on Obsidian's world building, the walk around the Citadel, in all its info-dumping glory, sold me on Mass Effect as a solid, detailled, enjoyable setting.
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I put many hours into Mass Effect, even though I actively *disliked* Mass Effect's gameplay. (Tedious shopping, the frantic grab for the "pause" button any time combat was initiated, etc.) I didn't care much about the "main" story, to the point that I can't remember what it was. Saving something, or somebody, or something. It was just an excuse to explore new locations, as far as I was concerned...I eventually got distracted by something new and shiny, but that was only after a lot of play time.

Point is, even though I never "finished" the "story", I got dozens of hours out of the game before I personally was finished with *it*. And think it was a good game in spite of its flaws. Making it more cinematic would have eliminated any appeal.
 
Funny how he mentions ADD. It's laughable to me how some people will try to project some sort of mental illness on people who like certain modern game elements (constant leveling is one of them), when in reality, the things they enjoy are probably just as friendly to ADD and OCD, respectively.
 
gumbarrel said:
Funny how he mentions ADD. It's laughable to me how some people will try to project some sort of mental illness on people who like certain modern game elements (constant leveling is one of them), when in reality, the things they enjoy are probably just as friendly to ADD and OCD, respectively.
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Yep. Part of the human condition :)
 
Alphadrop said:
Yea, makes it all the more disappointing they went with the cinematic style for the next two ME games.
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That was certainly my main beef with both ME 2 and 3 (albeit 3 was better about it). But they also improved the gameplay (again, 3 even more), so I called it even in the end. The setting had already hooked me anyhow. But a ME discussion this ain't.

I will however say Bethesda has been getting better at this. Skyrim shows farmlands outside of most cities, marketplaces, ports, people on the road, the province makes way more sense than the Capital Wasteland. Hopefully they will have learned a bit more if/when they do FO4.
 
Ilosar said:
I will however say Bethesda has been getting better at this. Skyrim shows farmlands outside of most cities, marketplaces, ports, people on the road, the province makes way more sense than the Capital Wasteland. Hopefully they will have learned a bit more if/when they do FO4.
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IIRC Morrowind and Oblivion had farms, ports and marketplaces, so I wouldn't say that they're getting better at it. They just seems to like to place that stuff around in TES games but not in Fallout 3.
 
TES is medieval, of course there are farms.
Can't get medieval fantasy without farms.
 
Oblivion barely had any farm that I remember, and I don't recall marketplaces either. At least they made them more visibles, with mills and such. Also cottages, small villages, breweries abound, while IIRC Oblivion barely had any life beyond city walls.
 
Skyrim definitely has an better layout and somewhat a much more believable world. I have to give Bethesda that.

But the same issue you had with Oblivion is also visible in Skyrim.

The world is just to damn small, the game wants to give you a feeling of epicness, but how to achieve that with fast travel and using your horse to get from town to town in less then 5 min.? The game is about war, the uprising of the north etc. yet all you see are just a handful of people crawling around. An epic tale about this civil war in the north looks different ...

There is no sense of scale or size in that game. Not to mention after you did a few interesting quests its pretty much over and its back to "oh look another random ruined cave/castle/hidden dwemer ruin with nothing inside!"

Skyrim is A LOT better then Oblivion though and as far as hiking simulators go its entertaining. But Oblivion is pretty much the lowest RPG that is out there ... so to beat that isn't hard.
 
Ilosar said:
Oblivion barely had any farm that I remember, and I don't recall marketplaces either. At least they made them more visibles, with mills and such. Also cottages, small villages, breweries abound, while IIRC Oblivion barely had any life beyond city walls.
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North of the skingrad city there was a farm, think they also produced wine.

Then right outside of the vampire lord's city there was another farm.

Then there was a farm which two families had which a daedra lord wants you to screw up.

I don't remember all of the locations but there was definitely life going on beyond city walls.

Mines, farms, smaller settlements, breweries, monestaries.

As to marketplaces, the main city had one, I think, more of a shop district than a marketplace I suppose.

Been a while since I played it so I don't remember everything but I do remember that it had a lot of life going on beyond the cities. So just saying, what Skyrim had isn't new.
 
I don't feel like he did a very good job of making his point. The biggest problem with FO3's interactive narrative isn't the setting or even the story per se (although that gets pretty bad). It's the interaction.

If I had to chose between farms and an end-game that didn't corral me into fighting along side the Brotherhood, I'd take the latter every time, because it's more important. Which is not to say that they couldn't do both (the other FO games did), but I think this guy trivialized the point that he seemed to be leading up to.
 
Crni Vuk said:
Skyrim definitely has an better layout and somewhat a much more believable world. I have to give Bethesda that.

But the same issue you had with Oblivion is also visible in Skyrim.

The world is just to damn small, the game wants to give you a feeling of epicness, but how to achieve that with fast travel and using your horse to get from town to town in less then 5 min.? The game is about war, the uprising of the north etc. yet all you see are just a handful of people crawling around. An epic tale about this civil war in the north looks different ...

There is no sense of scale or size in that game. Not to mention after you did a few interesting quests its pretty much over and its back to "oh look another random ruined cave/castle/hidden dwemer ruin with nothing inside!"

Skyrim is A LOT better then Oblivion though and as far as hiking simulators go its entertaining. But Oblivion is pretty much the lowest RPG that is out there ... so to beat that isn't hard.
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True. ''big cities'' with 40-50 NPCs tops stretches disbelief, as well as the mighty, province-taking armies of the Empire numbering... 10-15 goons. Oh, and Winterhold, the ''capital'' of 4 houses. I say, less generic dungeons and bigger cities would make their world much better.

North of the skingrad city there was a farm, think they also produced wine.

Then right outside of the vampire lord's city there was another farm.

Then there was a farm which two families had which a daedra lord wants you to screw up.

I don't remember all of the locations but there was definitely life going on beyond city walls.

Mines, farms, smaller settlements, breweries, monestaries.

As to marketplaces, the main city had one, I think, more of a shop district than a marketplace I suppose.

Been a while since I played it so I don't remember everything but I do remember that it had a lot of life going on beyond the cities. So just saying, what Skyrim had isn't new.
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Not new certainly, but it was more visible. Apart from Winterhold, every single city has farmlands outside of it, and I recall at least 8 small villages while Oblivion has 4 tops, some forts actually held by guards (imagine that!), that sort of things. I'm not saying they didn't do it, they just got better is all.

I don't feel like he did a very good job of making his point. The biggest problem with FO3's interactive narrative isn't the setting or even the story per se (although that gets pretty bad). It's the interaction.
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Except he was talking about setting and world building, not narrative and choice. He could have, it's another big difference between FO3 and New Vegas and even more important IMO, but it's not the point of the video.
 
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