Susan Arendt:

Tiamat666:
This is something that turned me off about STALKER. Exploration is not rewarded as the only things you will find are the usual assortment of ammo, medikits and tin cans.

Sometimes you are "rewarded" by finding, er, "interesting" scenery, like a bunch of soldiers that were torn apart and mutilated by wild dogs. But I agree with the author that in a world were almost everything is a grey, radioactive wasteland there is only so much you can do to keep exploration interesting without including some special loot every once in a while.

I ran into a tiny grocery last night in which some clever wastelander with homicidal intent had set up a Rube Goldberg-style apparatus meant to set off a cluster of grenades. It was amusing, but there are only so many of those moments in the game.

I just couldn't get that thing to work properly. The first time I stepped on the pressure plate, they all fell the wrong way. About five tries later they did fall the right way, but didn't activate the next part of the chain. The seventh time around a couple of the boxes in the middle fell onto the floor in some odd clipping issue. Eventually I did get it to go through the sequence, but the explosion at the end wasn't triggered. I was at this point that I got impatient and just took all the Sugar Bombs I could get my hands to Murphy.

Oh Havok, where won't you glitch so reliably?

Also, you've got a little typo in that last paragraph :)

I agree with those that say they played fallout 3 just to explore the nooks and grannies. To find those vaults, those weird arse towns, those quirky side quests. Also, after a while, you get freaking BUFF (which was enough for me). I virtually owned the entire cap economy =P

that said, I respected the review for the most part, except one thing though: she seems a little over-obsessed with the fact that Fallout3's world was 'depressing' or 'gloomy' or something. I..dunno. I mean, did she want it to be HAPPIER IN POSTAPOCALYPTICA?! IMMERSION people.immersion!

I am enjoying FO3 but I agree with Susan in that the "loot" or items that you find are a little lack lustre. In an age of excessive consumption and materialism in which WWIII was said to have commenced, you'd think that there'd be a bit more variety in the items than say a .32 calibre pistol or a "hunting rifle".

Right now there is a enormous amount of weaponary availble to a firearms enthusiast in the US of A and I'd have imagined a great deal of it would have survived the 200+ years since the bombs fell which finds us in the FO3 universe.

I am hoping that further patches, mods or modules will rectify this. The FO universe has that wonderful quirky '50's feel about it. Why not translate that flavouring as well, such as a variety of weapons by a mocked up gun maker - Filly instead of Colt for example? Each weapon would be different than the others, some would be rarer and better etc while there'd be others that are cheap and nasty.

This would also go for the other non-weapon like items for the game.

antipunt:
I agree with those that say they played fallout 3 just to explore the nooks and grannies. To find those vaults, those weird arse towns, those quirky side quests. Also, after a while, you get freaking BUFF (which was enough for me). I virtually owned the entire cap economy =P

that said, I respected the review for the most part, except one thing though: she seems a little over-obsessed with the fact that Fallout3's world was 'depressing' or 'gloomy' or something. I..dunno. I mean, did she want it to be HAPPIER IN POSTAPOCALYPTICA?! IMMERSION people.immersion!

It's not a review, and I never said the dismal vibe wasn't utterly appropriate to the game. I simply observed that it's not exactly what you'd call inviting.

I usually don't notice the stories in the towns and whatnot. I'm just going "what's here I can use and can I sleep here?". Today I was in Yao Guai Tunnels and one dead dude had a note saying he preferred to the tunnels to everywhere else and instead of being sad about him being yao guai lunch, I just said "too bad you became a bear snack"

I find exploring the Capitol Wasteland great I think partly because there isnt that much super awsome phat lewt to find. Theres more to the rpg acronym than grindquests for +1 stat items. Though I suppose it boils down to if ur idea of a good rpg is Deus-Ex/Fallout or Dungeon Siege/Diablo

While I too expected "Oblivion with a different coat of paint," my immersion and gameplay were uncomfortable for another reason. When you leave Vault 101, you don't have a class to roleplay from.

That drove me insane! After (role)playing in Oblivion for such a long time, I became dependent on developing my character through an archetypal view. Wizards, rogues, warriors, paladins etc. all had defining qualities which I would embellish and tweak as my adventures continued.

Fallout 3 doesn't quite have that ability. You can become a paladin or a ranger, but you don't actually label yourself with a custom-tailored story and profession. The game does that for you. It's not necessarily a crime but a factor which required my adaptation.

Even when I did adapt it was extremely difficult to roleplay anything but a scavenger. Good scavenger, bad scavenger, poor scavenger; you practically bark the same tune twice, whereas Oblivion was approachable as several different creatures.

That doesn't make Fallout 3 a bad game. Fallout 3 is an extraordinary game in my opinion. But I'm not playing it again.

Yet another problem with the loot, when you find unique weapons or armor, how the hell can you repair them? The repair system is in dire need of an overhaul as the power armor becomes less and less useful as you use it. You cant repair it yourself and instead need to invest around 700-1700 caps into a travelling merchant, find the merchant, and spend more caps to get it repaired! It makes the T-51b armor near-useless and many other weapons that are hard to find (Plasma rifle, sniper rifle, tesla armor, most power armor, etc.) near impossible to repair.

*blushes* sigh.. sry Ms. Arendt. You have to forgive my unprofessional tone. It's just that I'm not used to editors actually READING what I write about their articles. It's like talking about someone not knowing they were listening to you from the other room...

But if I was to redeliver what I said knowing you were to read it, it'd be more along the lines of the poster below (I quoted it for convenience). Essentially, I DID find the wasteland inviting (apparently Yahtzee did as well). I think it might just be personal taste on this level, however, because I find myself drawn to dark environments usually in all cases, Fallout 3 aside [and Yahtzee hates all of mankind]. So personal bias finds a role in here I suppose..

I usually only find environments overly depressing when I'm in a situation where I CAN'T do anything. See the solution for Fallout 3 is to be up the wazoo Saint. By the end of the game, I was like Jesus (the game even portrayed an image of jesus next to my karma). Here's the ultimate anti-depressant: get strong enough to SAVE EVERYONE. Like, everyone. Maximum level, full loaded combat shotgun. Man...like when I took out the slave camp single-handed. Yeaup...I'm one of those weirdos that gets a 'kick' out of doing good things....my other friend gets a kick out of blowing up megaton like most normal people...

Their Quote: "And I also must disagree with your dislike of the aesthetic of the world of Fallout 3, Ms. Arendt. I think the Capital Wasteland is very beautiful in it's own way. The deserted suburbs, hills dotted with blasted, withered trees, and the faded glory of Washington, DC, are locales that I'm sure I'll visit time and again."

Do yourself a favour and play it with a mod. There are some cool mods that make the game challenging and you won't have to worry about PHAT LOOT becuase any stimpack or ammo you find is better than anything you can imagine!

It's a shame that games are so dumbed down these days. I blame it on consoles!

Some good points in the article there. I never really noticed but it's really quite distant from the Diablo style loot system.
There are occasional "improved" items like Lincoln's Repeater but not a whole lot of them.
It's understandable though, and they tried to do what they could to push it as close as possible without compromising the "reality" of the items.
Things such as having to repair your weapons and armour mean that you're not leaving hundreds of useless weapons littering the landscape, and then there are the crafted weapons (though I only built one of each and kept them in my house) which have you picking up scraps and keeping a lookout for certain things. Those treasure hunts for collectables and craftables didn't appeal to me, but it was good to have included.

Is there any more they could have done to increase itemisation in the game?

I found the same problem in Fallout 2, long dungeons with little rewards as I was already flooded with ammo and caps but interestingly that did not seem to be the case in Fallout 1.

There are quite a few speciality weapons, the fat man, the knee-capper, old' reliable, Lincoln's repeater. But what you're saying is essentially true, although I enjoyed Fallout 3 more than I enjoyed oblivion (because i had a computer that I had to play it with minimum graphics and epic FPS lag) I still didn't &love* Fallout 3, and this is probably the reason :(

Well you gotta remember Fall Out isn't some enchanted world filled with magical creatures. It based off an alternate version of our world in the future. So just like in real life you're not gonna find enchanted items. This is a world where everything has been scavenged so there's gonna very little left for anybody. So looking for health and ammo makes alot of sense, it's about surviving. You gotta picture this game in a real world scenario.

You're in a Post Apocalyptic Wasteland . . .
This is not Oblivion with AK-47's. The whole premise behind the game is that resources are scarce and people are barely surviving. The so called "finer things in life" were left behind when water became irradiated and cockroaches became the size of coffee tables.

ccesarano, explore different areas. The subways are a blight of the middle of the game but then you get to very interesting levels later on. Like Vault-Tec HQ, Oasis, Paradise Falls, none of which are near the downtown ruins which (though rich in atmosphere) are pretty samey.
Every game is bound to repetition; Doom, Psychonauts, Tetris. But given your expressed preference I'd say you need to double your Ritalin intake to enjoy this game.
Mirror's Edge = lots of shiny objects
L4D y Gears 2 = ridiculous amount of enemies.

Don't blame you, I enjoy L4D as much as anyone. However, Fallout 3 is a different genre called RPG. Where a twitchy trigger finger can only take you to the door you need level 50 lockpick to get past.

Personally I thought interesting characters, a good plot, good voiceacting, a decent movement scheme and character models that didn't look like zombies was what the game lacked.

I am saddened to discover that you feel that way about the loot, and I must disagree. The unique weapons and clothing items in fallout feel truly unique, as they are always as powerful as they are at any level, something that ruined oblivion for me. Maybe it's only good in the way that it feels awesome when something painful goes away, but I loved every dungeon I entered in fallout 3, they gave me something more to look for than gold and daedric armor, and looked different from each other in the process of doing so.

I rather liked fallout 3, because it was set in a wasteland where a broken people were easily manipulated. For example, when you're in Seward square, you can convince some idiot to run into a minefield where he blows himself and some mad nutter up, thereby leaving you with safe passage.

Where else can you wipe an entire town of the face of the earth or enslave helpless children. Good times

Susan Arendt:
Fallout 3: A Different Kind of Treasure

Susan Arendt has finally figured out why she didn't love Fallout 3 at first: It's missing one incredibly important element.

Read Full Article

I don't really get where you are coming from. This is not your average fantasy title, it's a peculiar reason not to like the game.

I don't see how, while playing, you didn't pick up that the games' genius lies in its consistency. It's a bleak post-apocalyptic society where living is a struggle and the constant threat of being killed either by mutated animals or radiated food and water weighs on every person's mind. The lack of resources make you feel and engage with the struggle of survival in the Capital Wasteland.

You did read the "at first" bit?

RAKtheUndead:

Now, "No Mutants Allowed"-style rambling aside, I found that there was actually even more "loot collection" in Fallout, with the unique weapons, which were mostly not a part of the original games, and yet, there was less satisfaction in collecting it. I felt (and still feel) impetus to collect everything I can carry in Fallout or Fallout 2, while with Fallout 3, there is simply too much dropped from enemies. I don't want to collect a dozen Leather Armours or more recently, Talon Combat Armours in one go, and the original Fallout games felt more realistic in the amount of equipment dropped. Yes, I realise that you don't have to repair weapons or armour in the original games, but there's still too much dropped from a single enemy in Fallout 3.

You do realise that to be realistic every kill should drop everything the person or mutant had on them right? That would mean that everybody in armour should drop armour etc. So even Fallout 3 is no where near realistic in what is dropped, still too few items...

I personally found that the loot gained from exploring the wastes was great for the setting, the idea of scavenging for survival, repairing your weapons and creating weapons and ammo from junk was fun imo. I'm presuming that was the point Bethesda had in mind, that the gameplay was focused on survival, where Oblivion was more like a traditional RPG. You cant exactly expect to find shiny new loot in a post nuclear war landscape. I am thankful that the caves and interiors are a bit more varied than those in Oblivion.

PS. I believe you can repair the T-51b armour with the prototype medic armour.

It's so strange that there are so many people who actually haven't played the original Fallout series. It's like beer compared to the piss version of Bethesda. I still remember when there was hope for Van Buren... Sad.

NewClassic:
Being a major in English Lit, I often come at odds with myself wondering just why I had picked my major. Because I love writing is the obvious answer, but that doesn't explain why I'm in English. It certainly means I'll learn the technical aspect of writing better, and maybe even explore the creative and written parts to a more substantial degree. So, why did I spend so long at odds with the idea?

Analysis. I hate it. Something about slamming my face into a piece of media long enough to pull some meaning from it has never appealed to me. I'd often dismiss the discussion, always with the thought that there was something to it that I liked, that I was never able to put my finger on.

This article reminded me that there are more elements to analysis beyond seeking hidden meaning. How playfully exploring the surface and the details can be infinitely more full-filling than trawling the depths. Sometimes I miss a lot by staying light, but perhaps bogging myself down with too much. Atmosphere can create just as good a world as deep analysis.

Although, music did a lot to save the world some face.
I love those dear hearts, and gentle people...

I never thought I could agree with every single thing someone sais in a comment...
About the article: I'm not reallly that much of a weapon collector. I didn't even bother to pick up the somewhat better weapons you get sometimes (Like the TK-blabla plasma rifle), so the lack of loot was never a problem for me.
I'm an explorer and I love to soak a specific atmosphere in and that's exactly what Fallout does best.
Best RPG ever in my eyes.

Hmm...

@OP

If you would add MMORPG into it, I think you'd love it. But uh, it isn't an MMO.

Speaking about the loot!
I never read a single thing in an article that you can see a drawer is empty or not in a glimpse of an eye. I laughed a bit.

I think it would've been helpful if you could've crafted more items from the bits of junk you found lying around the Wasteland. Even if it was something frivolous, like a lamp for your house in Megaton. Maybe with enough scrap metal, Nuka Cola bottles, medical braces and conductors, you could make a Nuka Cola machine. That would've been a good compromise - satisfies those of us hungry for loot, but doesn't break the realism of the game world.

Susan Arendt:
I think it would've been helpful if you could've crafted more items from the bits of junk you found lying around the Wasteland. Even if it was something frivolous, like a lamp for your house in Megaton. Maybe with enough scrap metal, Nuka Cola bottles, medical braces and conductors, you could make a Nuka Cola machine. That would've been a good compromise - satisfies those of us hungry for loot, but doesn't break the realism of the game world.

There is like 7 weapons you can build from the scrap metal and junk You know Susan.

raxiv:

Susan Arendt:
I think it would've been helpful if you could've crafted more items from the bits of junk you found lying around the Wasteland. Even if it was something frivolous, like a lamp for your house in Megaton. Maybe with enough scrap metal, Nuka Cola bottles, medical braces and conductors, you could make a Nuka Cola machine. That would've been a good compromise - satisfies those of us hungry for loot, but doesn't break the realism of the game world.

There is like 7 weapons you can build from the scrap metal and junk You know Susan.

Hence her use of the word "more"

Lvl 64 Klutz:

Hence her use of the word "more"

Ehh, right, I need a nap. Thanks!

raxiv:
There is like 7 weapons you can build from the scrap metal and junk You know Susan.

Pursuit of which made for an epic quest of my own, trying to track down a pressure cooker in order to build the Railway Rifle. I searched high and low for one until stumbling on one in a lab, I think it was the one where the guy was making Mole Rat Wondermeat. It took ages, but I did eventually get to build my little tooting gun of death.

And then I broke into that army base's mess hall / kitchen and saw a wall with a dozen of the things. Argh.

-- Steve

I agree with the bit about how depressing the look of the game is, I've been playing Fable 2 over Fallout 3 for that exact reason.

Yes, but the lore is that there has been a nuclear world war.

*POSSIBLE SPOILER WARNING*
*POSSIBLE SPOILER WARNING*
*POSSIBLE SPOILER WARNING*

What would you do?

Rush for food, medical supplies (big bombs make shockwaves, reaching further than explosion, which would be a danger by glass)

Get a weapon (prehaps assuming the capital will be destroyed straight off), since theres the radio of the chinese propoganda about surrender, we can easily imagine the chinese went on American Soil.

Fall in morale would mean looting, murder, theft as people blame others (as predicted for world war II).

These are evident in the game world (almost).

It's sort of disappointing to explore the furthest reaches of the waste only to discover ammo, items, and weapons that you could have easily stolen from someone in Megaton. I hate picking a Very Hard level lock on an ammo container and being rewarded with a handful of 10mm rounds.

I understand the limits in the game as well as the story design. You're essentially picking through the leftovers of a world that's been looted about a dozen times over, but a few more untouched weapon caches would have been nice. The unique weapons and armor are hardly worth the effort to find. Some are picky about what you can use to repair them (making the T51-b the most useless armor in the game) and often a fully repaired generic equivalent is just as good if not better.

The game is great for what it is, it's just sad that those of us who played Oblivion have to keep reminding ourselves that we're not playing Oblivion. Actually, in a lot of ways I enjoy Fallout 3 more than I do Oblivion.