Fallout 3 [spoilers, etc]

[schild]

Windows Live is so hamfisted. It's a real step backwards from everything MS has done with their OS and the 360. Well, maybe not the 360. They went from bad to worse recently, imo.

[Yegolev]

This is what you people get for buying PC versions of console games.

Also the 360 is garbage.  Every day of my life brings another sampling of its hideous nature.  The most recent one is that I cannot use the wireless interface (which is also garbage) when an ethernet cable is plugged into the unit.  I love my PS3 so much.

[Lantyssa]

This is what you people get for buying PC versions of console games. .

What, free expansions because we can't be arsed to bother figuring out ham-fisted downloadable content methods which don't want to take our money?  Yeah, sucks to be us.

[Sky]

I agree with Yeg. The more mainstream gaming moves to the consoles with pc gaming as an afterthought, the less I'll be gaming.

I'll stick with Civ4 plus the amazing FfH2. Right now I've got a stack of about eight 360 games, and I only play Madden, and I'll probably lay off that soon as the Pro Bowl airs.

But I think that 'consolization' is pretty firmly entrenched, from user interfaces to textures to shitty fucking ports of AAA titles that are fucked up so badly as to be almost unplayable. I'm almost happy about it, because I have more free time and money thanks to the gaming industry's race to the LCD.

[Rasix]

Boo fucking hoo.

I don't see MMOs, major strategy titles (RTS and otherwise), Diablo and it's ilk, a sizable chunk of competitive the FPS market, or The Sims ($$$$) going anywhere soon.  There's your PC market.  Not a bad niche, but the PC isn't likely going to be the one system to rule them all ever again.

Only reason I've chosen to go with the 360 over another platform lately is that the controller feels better for certain games. 

[Prospero]

It seems to me the industry is actually becoming more PC friendly recently. I think a couple years ago we would have never seen Mirror's Edge or Dead Space on the PC. However, with the popularity of the 360 leading to easy PC ports and the wide availability of decent middleware which makes porting less painful, we are starting to see most AAA console titles show up on the PC fairly quickly. While some of the ports have been utter ass( GTA 4, I'm looking at you ) ME and Dead Space seem to be a bit better than their console brethren.

I think the sticking point comes from the fact that MS would like to be able to monetize the PC the way they do the 360. They're ignoring the fact that on the PC we have access to tons of free content via modders, not to mention companies like Valve who give expansions away for free. If they are going to charge us for shit, it better be easy to use and worth the money.

[eldaec]

Am I right in thinking I have to sign up to some MS steam abortion to play this? In which case, no thanks.


Also, how much does it fucking cost, everything I read goes on about some points bullshit, I assume you buy points with, you know, money. In which case, note to MS assholes:


Hey assholes, we already invented a highly liquid store of value that can be easily expressed in numeric form, it is called fucking money. Stop being dickheads.


EDIT: Ok, $12, you covered this already. The whole thing is still retarded.

[Sky]

Only reason I've chosen to go with the 360 over another platform lately is that the controller feels better for certain games. 

You mean like the PC using a 360 controller?  

I'm very interested where all this pocket-picking is going to lead with the economy going into the shitter.

[Rasix]

Well to be specific, the game I'm mentioning isn't out for PC. 

Genre, system requirements, UI, knowledge of the platform version quirks, preference on where I play (YES, WE KNOW), controller preference, etc all go into deciding which version of a multiplaform game I purchase. 

And the whole points system is just a scam.  They rarely sell you just the amount you need for a small game or whatever.  Things always cost like 1200 or 800 points, and you purchase in increments of 500.  They want you using those left over points to pay for something incredibly useless like a new theme or gamer pictures (Pipboy being the exception).  It's a nice (read insidious) way to get you to pay $2-3 more than what you intended for something.

[MisterNoisy]

And the whole points system is just a scam.  They rarely sell you just the amount you need for a small game or whatever.  Things always cost like 1200 or 800 points, and you purchase in increments of 500.

I don't much care for the 'points' thing either - PSN handles it much more elegantly by using real currency.  That said, if you have a Zune account (or just register your Windows/XBox Live tag at Zune.net), you can buy points in other increments - most notably 400- and 1200-point chunks, both of which line up more evenly with the pricing of XBL titles.

[Yegolev]

This is what you people get for buying PC versions of console games. .

What, free expansions because we can't be arsed to bother figuring out ham-fisted downloadable content methods which don't want to take our money?  Yeah, sucks to be us.

OK, I didn't know you got some free Alaska.  In that case, you win.  Enjoy your console port.

If it was just the interface and other bothersome things we usually see, it would not be a big deal.  Doing crazy tech shit because MS doesn't really care to help you buy the PC expansion via download is stupid.  It's another insult on top of their money-grubbing ways.  I'm basically just rephrasing what Sky said, although I wanted to add that I love my PS3 and the PSN.

[Yegolev]

Also, about the controller for PC:

[SnakeCharmer]

Clean up that desk!

[Jimbo]

Call of Duty 4 was more fun for me on the Xbox than on the PC.  Battlefield 2 & 2142 was way better than Battlefield Modern Combat.  I had both KNOTR II somehow for pc and Xbox, and the Xbox was easier to get into for some reason.  But I have to admit I've not played "mods" for a while, used to love to tinker with TOEE, Diablo II, and Baldurs Gate II, but have given up on even trying to mod Battlefield games.

Each has it's own +'s and -'s, and it usually works out, well except the pay for it part.

So how is the download content?  It looks cool, but I'm still making diffrent builds and finding stuff to blow up on the regular game.

I do wish I had the pc ability to make my dog not die, but I'll just have to work around it :)

[shiznitz]

It's stupid you can't get the content through Steam, since many of us purchased the game that way.

Just be patient. Microsoft is getting its pound of flesh first. Once the mad rush is over it will move to Steam.

[Zzulo]

Well I just finished the game, or rather, the main storyline. It was kind of underwhelming.

[Prospero]

I just started playing this a week or so ago. I'm enjoying it, but the world is pissing me off. Didn't the war happen 200 years ago? How the hell is it that I am finding salisbury steak in long abandoned buildings that is still edible? In a world that lacks any manufacturing capacity, how is it I'm find weapons and ammo in easy to access abandoned buildings. Am I the first person in the world to ever get level 25 lock picking? All this shit should have long since been scrounged by other people.

[Lantyssa]

Other people who stashed it there then died.  The salsbury steak has preservatives.  Those food purists were right.

[Sky]

Apparently all the carpenters and masons got wiped out in the war, too.

[Prospero]

Yeah, don't get me started on that. I'm not saying we'd have chip fab plants back up and running, but it seems like some sort of factories would have been re-developed in 200 years. Also, where's the agriculture? What do these people eat? Is there tha big a surplus of ancient steaks and Fancy Lads cakes?

[Tebonas]

Not only the Carpenters and Masons died, everybody that knows how to read a Calendar died as well. A postwar year is actually a prewar week.

Only explanation there is.

[Zzulo]

I guess civilization didn't manage to spur up as well because of the smaller wars after the big one. And then there's the super mutants/hostile wildlife/pseudo vampires/iirradiated areas and slavers/bandits/raiders/enclave who constantly ruin shit for those who try to rebuild. 


As for what they eat, i think they eat the mutated cows. Tons of cow farms in the game 

[Lantyssa]

Building things attracts attention.  The game does show how that tends to get you raided.  A lack of trees also makes it difficult to do anything but re-use lumber.  I'm surprised there is any left after 200 years.  Unless you want to use Bob.

[Wasted]

Theres plenty that can be picked at if you wanted to.  I found the lack of paint annoying, surely a few shack-proud people could have scavenged up the odd tin and covered up the rust.

As for the main storyline, for me, nearly everything after the point where your father dies just so the enclave can't be the one to purify the water was just frustrating/annoying.  It took way too long to establish just why it really would have mattered had your father started the purifier while at enclave gunpoint, it certainly didn't seem worth dying for.  You are supposed to just accept that the enclave are bad and they can't be the ones to purify the water, by the time they did establish a valid reason it was too far gone to make up.  They really tried to inject too much forced drama into the storyline and it really didn't work.

I'm having some fun now though on my second playthrough as a unarmed psycho chick with my gangsta hangout in tenpenny towers.

[Sky]

Building things attracts attention.  The game does show how that tends to get you raided.  A lack of trees also makes it difficult to do anything but re-use lumber.  I'm surprised there is any left after 200 years.  Unless you want to use Bob.

Apparently raiders and super-mutants are completely stymied by a robot, a sniper, and some corrugated metal siding, though. Wouldn't you just start building with real materials after a few generations living in Fred Sanford's backyard?

[Lantyssa]

That assumes educational levels capable of doing so after a few generations out there in a super hostile environment.  Vaults were the only source of continuing normalicy, but then the story turns them into little mini-horror movies.  Even the few which are doing fine suffer from some break-down that causes them to crater.

Yeah, you'd think some enclaves would manage it (like the Brotherhood), but then that's part of the Mad Max charm.  Everyone you encounter is barely eking by, and one radscorpion encounter from a horrible fate.

[Rishathra]

As for the food being edible, I look at it as a joke about preservatives.  As for there still being food around to scrounge after two hundred years, remember that before the war, you had a few hundred million people around.  One day's worth of food needed to feed those numbers would be more than enough to feed a handful of straggling remnants for decades.

The general level of wreckage still around centuries after the bombs fell was explained by Bethesda by the fact that the DC area was bombed even more to shit than the rest of the country, so it's only been relatively recently that people have been able to inhabit it again.

Are they perfect explanations?  No, but it's enough to keep me enjoying the game and not be too bothered by all the strange little anachronisms littered around.

[Ingmar]

Yeah, story-wise some of the stuff people are saying should have happened by now HAVE happened by the time of Fallout 3, they just haven't happened in the DC area. California is the NCR, apparently up in Massachusetts they are advanced enough to be making androids, etc.

[Khaldun]

Theres plenty that can be picked at if you wanted to.  I found the lack of paint annoying, surely a few shack-proud people could have scavenged up the odd tin and covered up the rust.

As for the main storyline, for me, nearly everything after the point where your father dies just so the enclave can't be the one to purify the water was just frustrating/annoying.  It took way too long to establish just why it really would have mattered had your father started the purifier while at enclave gunpoint, it certainly didn't seem worth dying for.  You are supposed to just accept that the enclave are bad and they can't be the ones to purify the water, by the time they did establish a valid reason it was too far gone to make up.  They really tried to inject too much forced drama into the storyline and it really didn't work.

I'm having some fun now though on my second playthrough as a unarmed psycho chick with my gangsta hangout in tenpenny towers.

Playing psycho is fun in its own right, for sure. I just offed my third sidekick because I just fucking felt like doing it. Plus my psycho chick is wearing a dress and a bonnet along with bike goggles while she murders her way around the world, which is often extremely cool looking.