Fallout 3

[Stuie]

I'm about half way through, and I'm enjoying it. It is only a few hours of new material, but it's a good three hours. It adds a nice bit to the background of the story, and it finally lets you use a Gauss rifle.

Can the new content (gauss rifle, stealth armor, etc.) be modded into the regular game? If so, that might make me shell out ten bucks.

[Felch]

I got it for the 360, but I'd assume you can access the new stuff through G.E.C.K.

[Alinestra Covelia]

That in itself would make me want to get it for PC. From what I heard the add on is fun as a shooter but doesn't have any real role playing depth to it. I've got some Chinese friends who are willing to do voice acting and some modding work.

[Felch]

I don't think they wanted a role playing mod. This is one of those situations where they show the versatility of the game. Fallout is not a great shooter, but combining the role-playing elements with the shooting elements does hold up. It's a little too easy at level 20, but that's adjustable. Once you get into the mod, the fights keep you going. The core campaign was full of walking down hallways, blowing enemies away at point blank using VATS. I've been having better luck here hiding and manually using the sniper rifle, because most fights are over huge areas - even indoor fights are at longer than usual ranges.

On the downside it is weak on the non-combat aspects. There's a very limited amount of peaceful interaction with other people, and skill challenges are essentially non-existent. However, you do spend more time fighting beside allied NPCs.

If you're looking for a role-playing mod, definitely pass on this one. The next two scheduled should be more up your alley. And I'm guessing that you can get whatever new G.E.C.K. content there is another way.

[N35t0r]

I walked out of Raven Rock with 1600 weight units of equipment

[Alinestra Covelia]

One thing I did like about the main game is that it treated the Chinese in a fairly matter-of-fact light. True, there were the Chinese Remnant ghouls and the (simulated) Commandos in Tranquility, but by and large they weren't demonized. If you go to the overpass from Raven Rock, you can even see a truck with a note about rounding up Chinese-American families and sending them to internment camps, just like the infamous Japanese-American internment camps in WW2. That scene was very poignant for me and convinced me that Bethesda decided not to wave the jingoistic flag. Liberty Prime spouts a lot of anti-communist and anti-Chinese slogans, but that's more for comedy value. (Especially given that his mission opponents are neither communist nor Chinese.)

One thing I'm a bit concerned about is how the Chinese are portrayed in Anchorage. If they're portrayed as a worthy battlefield enemy, then that's one thing. If they're portrayed as inept, incompetent, or outlandishly evil, then that's going to be a problem for me.

Nobody denies that nations can and will go to a shooting conflict for all sorts of political reasons. But I'm half Chinese myself and while I can play a game that will say "Okay, in this simulation they're opponents in a shooting war", I might find it hard to play a game that says "they're complete failures at everything they do and we're going to win, rah rah rah".

[Felch]

Well it's a simulation made by the army. So it's not meant to be a realistic and balanced portrayal of the Chinese. It's more for propaganda value. Does that make sense?

They are portrayed as a worthy enemy, if that's all you're worried about. Lots of pro-American agitprop is tossed in, but the Reds are definitely a worthy foe.

[Unimatrix11]

I just recently unpacked the sounds of FallOut3 and stumbled upon the folder containing the liberty prime slogans - it´s awesome. I think FO3 goes against jingoism by pure virtue of its scenario alone, kinda. I mean the title song pretty much sums it up. Nobody wants to set the world on fire, but if it has to be done, in order to achieve the desired outcome, most people will, maybe without even realizing it. Liberty prime just fits in there. It (thinks it) fights for democracy, while it is hurling mini-nukes... It ties recent US-poltics neatly with the 50´s-theme. ´To communism, death is an acceptable alternative.´

[Felch]

´To communism, death is an acceptable alternative.´

That was the theme of my fifth birthday party.

[Alinestra Covelia]

I just got my roommate to shell out for the DLC on XBox.

The scenario is really good. I stand by my earlier impression that Bethesda wanted to handle this in a businesslike manner.

The Chinese propaganda posters are so close to historical Communist posters that it's uncanny. They really outdid themselves there. All of them say "Long live the People's Liberation Army" (literally "Chinese People's Liberation Army will last 10,000 years"), which made me smile because 1950s-1970s slogans in China were exactly like that.

There is also a pretty interesting terminal in the Outcast outpost where a simulation technician is expressing his fears that General Chase is losing his mind. He also says that Chase's desired simulation bears only passing resemblances to the reality in Alaska. Good of Bethesda to leave that sort of escape valve about the canonicity of this simulation.


Finally, the Chinese forces have some really cool tech on their side. So although the Americans have their mighty Power Armor units, the Chinese also have the Gauss Gun and the Stealth Armor to make the balance of power almost symmetrical.

The anti-Chinese slogans I don't mind. After all, the Chinese also taunt the player with anti-American slogans (and although the voice acting is just a tad off, the actual words they speak are well-translated and the voice acting is already very close to standard Putonghua).

A big thumbs up to Bethesda for this. There are too many game companies who'll just throw a foreign culture into the enemy seat in a game without any real effort at accuracy. While this scenario isn't the sort of deep probing moral exercise that Deus Ex was, it's still neutral in its portrayal of the Communist Chinese, down to a lot of historical research and accuracy.

Also, I can think of some very interesting game modding possibilities here.

[DrSpike]

I think the DLC looks ok but is overpriced. I doubt I'll get it any time soon.

[Felch]

The Chinese propaganda posters are so close to historical Communist posters that it's uncanny. They really outdid themselves there. All of them say "Long live the People's Liberation Army" (literally "Chinese People's Liberation Army will last 10,000 years"), which made me smile because 1950s-1970s slogans in China were exactly like that.

There is also a pretty interesting terminal in the Outcast outpost where a simulation technician is expressing his fears that General Chase is losing his mind. He also says that Chase's desired simulation bears only passing resemblances to the reality in Alaska. Good of Bethesda to leave that sort of escape valve about the canonicity of this simulation.

I didn't take a second look at the posters, but it's cool to know that they're legit. I did catch that bit in the outpost where the developer for the sim was talking about how crazy the General was getting.

It seemed to me though that the Gauss rifle was American.

Spoiler:

I found the first under a dead paratrooper, and in the second part I was issued one after beating a speech skill challenge in the camp.

Still the stealth armor freaked me out. It's cool how it made it impossible to VATS the dragoons.

DrSpike, the price is a little high. I'd have felt better if it were $5 instead of $10. But it's not as bad as the horse armor from Oblivion.

[Pinchak]

If you guys enjoy the fallout series you may want to checkout a little game called Wasteland.

It was made in 1988, and has the Bards Tale engine (for you old school PC gamers).

Now... a little warning... the graphics SUCK by today's standards. Actually, suck is putting it mildly. Lets just say they are 8-bit.

However, (and some may find this hard to believe), the story is MUCH better then any of the fallout games, and yes i have played them. Trust me, if you like the whole non-linear, black humor, post apocalyptic genera.... YOU MUST TRY WASTELAND. Load it up, choke back the urge to vomit when you see the graphics, and force yourself to play it for 6 hours... you will be addicted. It still shows up on "best video games of all time" lists... 20 years later.

Now, speaking of loading it up...

Home of the Underdogs used to have it for free download, but it hasn't been available there for awhile (EA probably cracked down on them for giving it away for free since they still own the license... bastards). You also had to run a DOS emulator so it would work with Windows. But it is so worth it.

You still might be able to find a free download on the net, or on a peer to peer site, or even ebay.

Such an awesome game... if you can get over the graphics.

[Unimatrix11]

In any case you could use a c64/appleII emulator and get the game for that. I know that this is still avaiable.

http://www.lemon64.com/

urabutln

EDIT: Careful, though: The game came with a textbook and asks you to read passages of it, in order to tell you the story. Make sure you get that book as well, and only read the passages the game tells you to read...

EDIT II: And be warned: The graphics really do look like fallout - not the game though...

[Alinestra Covelia]

It seemed to me though that the Gauss rifle was American.

That's an intriguing possibility. Both your points are very true. One reason why I think the Chinese must have had access to it (even if it's not proprietary and exclusive access) is that it appears in the Chinese People's Liberation Army posters. The snowtrooper on the right is carrying a Gauss rifle.

The Gauss rifle you get from the speech test I got the impression was one of very very few that the Americans had captured from the Chinese, so they didn't want to send it back into the field unless absolutely necessary.

Also Fallout's wiki has several Gauss/energy weapons listed under the "China" entry that implies that the Chinese were at least the equal of, and possibly slightly superior to, the Americans in energy weapons.

http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/MEC_Gauss_MiniGun

and

http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Scoped_Gauss_Rifle

It seems that in 2066, the Chinese also had the same "retro low, future high" tech level that America did. The Chinese had a Plasma field that made them completely invulnerable to US Power Armor, and they had a mastery of the Stealth Armor that was better than US Stealth Boys. But look at the propaganda posters, and you'll see that the airplanes in them are way back from the 1940s, with twin-tail design. Also, their tanks look futuristic but apparently are jerry-rigged together from mining drill vehicles.

All in all, another creative and intriguing addition from Bethesda.

It strikes me that Bethesda, being located in western Montgomery County, is probably aware of the large number of ethnic Chinese even in its own community. I'm impressed with their work, unlike other projects (Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell comes to mind) which are not as sensitive in handling other cultures including the Chinese.

Hopefully this will spur other design studios to raise the bar.