Arcade Berg aka. "Learning Game Design with Arcade Berg"

Fallout 3 is lacking appeal

I consider myself to be a big fan of the Fallout-franchise (Black Isle Studios) loving both Fallout and Fallout 2 while thinking Fallout Tactics was a more than decent strategy game. I haven't played Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel for the "last-gen consoles".

After only two play-sessions of Fallout 3 (Bethesda), I had played for about 15 hours. Today, almost two weeks later I have about 20-25 hours of play.

I haven't touched the game for over a week.

Somehow, I don't miss playing Fallout 3. I'm not intrigued to see what happens next or to discover new areas to venture.

As I said, I love Fallout and Fallout 2. Even today I enjoy playing them. When talking about the games with friends I get excited! I get happy! I'm thinking about how fun the games are, the quirky characters and the great sense of humor even though the game takes place in a all but happy setting.

When thinking of Fallout 3, I don't feel that at all. Somehow, it has very little appeal. Admittedly I've spent many hours on the game, especially when I just got it. If the game wasn't any good at all, I would never dedicate that much time for it.

Allow me to draw the conclusion that when playing the game, it's exciting enough and motivates me to keep on playing. So the gameplay isn't at fault here.

The problem with the game is therefore getting me to actually sit down and start the game. But when reminiscing about Fallout 3 I keep thinking about the unappealing aspects.

Instead of thinking about how fun VATS (the combat-system in the game) is (which it really is!) I think about how tedious the game often becomes when I haven't been in a fight for hours. How unexciting it is when I crawl through the sixth railway-station with nearly no lights.

Fallout 3 has its highlights.

The environments in Fallout 1 and 2 are quite bright but rugged and teared down. They also use some colors which makes the game a little easier on the eyes. Of course, by today's standards they aren't pretty.

In Fallout 3 however, mostly everything is dark. Way too dark if you ask me. And it's eerie; some places seems to come from a horror game like Alone in the Dark (Eden Games) or Silent Hill (Konami) with corpses laying around, bodies hanging from the ceiling with spikes through their torsos and stuff like that. That's doesn't resemble the original Fallout-world in any way!

On top of that the game uses only two colors with some shade-variations; brown and grey. It's so boring and uninteresting it kills me. I understand what they're trying to do with their run down world and everything but I can't respect a decision like that when the result is such a plain and dull esthetic style

Gears of War (Epic Games) only uses grey (not even brown!) and they manage to have it look good. Shame on you Bethesda.

Not only do I find the environments uninteresting (graphics-wise, the content is good) but also ugly. That's right, I said it; ugly. I don't think that quantity is ever an adequate excuse for having the game look less good. I understand that having huge worlds requires some serious optimization and the amount of time available for polishing for each square-inch decrease but for me as a player and not a developer, I shouldn't have to take that into consideration. Players don't care about the magic we call technology, they (we!) only care about what's presented.

I realize this is becoming a post majoring in bashing on the graphics in Fallout 3, so I'll stop now.

Laughter. I love it. I don't get much from Bethesda. Fallout 1 and 2, even though not perfect games in any way have some really funny stuff. Things that'll make you smile and show your teeth whether you want to or not. That's not the case with Fallout 3.

During my 20+ hours I've only found one really funny scenario and that's about 10 minutes into the game when I asked a kid if his mom had boozed up all of his family's food-coupons. Serves him right, stupid kid! Other than that, the game just isn't funny. It's just dark and gritty. Not very Falloutish according to me.

Maybe it's because I've somehow manage to miss and evade every funny thing in the game but if that's the case, that's a major flaw within the game.

It probably sounds like I hate the game. I really don't. I like it a lot. I intend to finish the game at least once, playing as evil of course. I just think it's sad that the game somehow manage to burn all the not so good things with the game right into my brain, making me lose the urge to play it.

If the LittleBigPlanet-release (a game I'm still playing everyday!) hadn't been just a few days away from Fallout's, causing me to leave Fallout for a while, then maybe I wouldn't feel this way about it. If Fallout had been the only game I got during a time span of a couple of weeks, then maybe I would love the game. Y'know, if I'd just kept playing it and playing it as I did in the beginning, not giving myself the chance to see if I actually miss playing it if I don't.

When thinking about the game, I don't smile. That's too bad really; I wanted it to be everything it could have been.

This has really made me realize presenting a steady stream of interesting scenarios and creating pleasant memories is a vital part of game design.

Brown.