Fallout 3

[ZEE]

SOMETIMES I STOP BY EVERGREEN MILLS TO SAY WHATS UP TO MY 'CREW' LOL

(ok ill seriously try to stop now)

[snoopy369]

Of course. But some cinematic elements would still be well appropriate for Fallout, don't you think? As in, if during dialogue you could see people moving in the background or if the NPCs talking to you had Mass Effect quality animations.

I certainly wouldn't mind seeing better character animations, but Mass Effect's cinematics would feel out of place in Fallout, and would be WAY, WAY too hard to code, I'd think, given the variety in F3...

[Solver]

I'm not so sure. Fallout 3 has some pretty good character animations outside of dialogue, letting them be in dialogue probably wouldn't have been too hard. Now, the frozen background during dialogue is, I guess, in some way deeply hardcoded and difficult to change because otherwise they would have changed it between Oblivion and Fallout.

[Solver]

Very interesting tidbit: the third Fallout DLC to be released will alter the game's ending and allow you to continue playing after you've finished the main quest, like in Elder Scrolls, allegedly letting you see the effect of some of what you've done in the game world.

[Solver]

I'm thinking of taking these mods right now:

Amplified Cripple Effects for making crippled limbs more punishing on enemies and your char. Crippled arms dramatically reduce accuracy, crippled legs slow you down to half normal speed.

Ammo Weight, making ammunition have some weight.

Fallout 3 Balance Overhaul, which includes a ton of optional components. I'm thinking of going with slower leveling, more rare (and expensive) ammo and meds and the enemy rebalance component (tougher Enclave and mercs, slightly weaker but more diverse Raiders, supermutant changes). And, of course, radiation changes, which considerably increases radiation amounts, in water in particular. Huge kudos to the author for splitting it up!

[DaShi]

Mass Effect > Fallout, but they're just different. Didn't bother me about the dialog, but i'm less anal-retentive than certain people.

Does Mass Effect still have its DRM? I'd like to play it, but I refuse to buy it with DRM.

[Solver]

Mass Effect is now available on Steam, without SecuROM.

[DaShi]

Ooh, I'll check that out then. Thanks.

[Solver]

Be warned though that, AFAIK, Mass Effect DLC isn't on Steam yet. There's only one DLC package, but at least around Christmas it wasn't available for Steam. Although I guess it soon will be, it's just that Mass Effect is a recent addition.

[Quillan]

To my thinking, Solver, the lack of "Bring Down the Sky" isn't a drawback, it's a benefit. I tried it 3 times, both the original version and the supposedly fixed version and both screwed up the sound in the game. Every time I had to uninstall ME, clean the registry and do a complete reinstall.

[Solver]

I haven't had it that bad, although it did also introduce new bugs for me. Vanilla ME was free of issues, with BDtS I had broken sound in some areas (fixed in ini files) and some new minor bugs. But at least the content is good enough.

[Quillan]

With me, every time I installed it, the ambient sound went up in volume so high that the game conversations were impossible to hear. Footsteps were drowned out by all the noise the Normandy made while aboard. No volume controls were able to fix it for me. The second release of the DLC supposedly fixed this issue, but not for me anyway.

[DrSpike]

I've got Mass Effect as next on my list to play. So you'd say I got them in the right order then?

I think Mass Effect, whilst very good, is not as strong a game as Fallout 3. It starts really well and has fun combat (better than Fallout 3), but the side quests are not really that interesting. It's not a big deal to me but the game is also more linear, and much smaller (20-25 hours with all side quests versus 50-60 for Fallout).

It's finely balanced but I think that the world that Fallout 3 creates pips Mass Effect. My prediction based on your posts is that when you've played both you will reach the same conclusion.

[Solver]

Length is one area where you just shouldn't be comparing Mass Effect and Fallout. Linear games are always shorter than open games, in fact, for open games any length estimate may be far off. How quickly people complete a game really depends on their style a lot.

For Mass Effect, I actually loved the world they created. Well, I am a big sci-fi fan after all. While the side quests in Mass Effect are either short or less interesting, I still enjoyed those a lot, particularly due to the presentation. And of course, the game's dialogue is top notch. Too many funny lines.

[Guynemer]

Mass Effect is brilliant. I love both games, both very well written with terrific characters and plots, very immersive, great gameplay. Can't go wrong with either.