Kinda 'eh' in my opinionAfter getting caught up in the hype for Fallout 3 about a month before the game came out, I did some looking around for information about the game, just to get a general sense as to what it was. At first and at the end, while I held the game in my hands I was very apprehensive. The thing was, I never really enjoyed Oblivion. There just wasn't anything about the game that I found particularly enjoyable. I had spent probably around 40 hours or so with different characters just seeing if it was the character's playstyle that I didn't like, or if I got further that I might enjoy it more. Nope. So even with all this I preordered Fallout 3 and got it home and absolutely loved it, and still do.
Probably prefers OblivionBut the reviews from a lot of reviewers and a lot of blogs/forum posts complain about a lot of the stuff that I found to be wrong with Oblivion. Some of these reviews even state that they recognized these to be problems with Oblivion, but still loved the game anyway. So, I spent some time thinking about why I love Fallout even though it does have a lot of the same problems that Oblivion did, and why others don't like it. I could only really come up with two maybe three fairly good reasons.
The Setting and Playstyle. I think that these people might have just loved Oblivion for being a really good fantasy game, but don't really like the retro-futuristic post-apocalyptic genre. I think this certainly applies for me. I'm not a HUGE fan of the fantasy genre, but I don't dislike it either, I just don't think that I like to play a fantasy game in the first person, I'm not used to it and I don't think I ever got used to it. I think this is evidenced by my aversion to Melee weapons in Fallout. Which brings us to the other point: the style. Really damn fun. Fallout 3 had guns. I think that's the main point of contention between the groups of people who didn't like either game, but did the other. I think that either people just prefer to use either guns or swords/bows in a game, which harkens back to the setting, but ultimately menas that the games play completely differently. This is of course hightened by the VATS system which basically turns the the game into a turn-based strategy game, which was Bethesda's intention (a genre of which I am also a fan).
To sum up: I think that people either liked or didn't like the change in setting, the change of weapons, or the VATS system of play, thus leading to some contention between fans of Bethesda who prefer Oblivion and those who prefer Fallout 3.
Kinda 'eh' in my opinionAfter getting caught up in the hype for Fallout 3 about a month before the game came out, I did some looking around for information about the game, just to get a general sense as to what it was. At first and at the end, while I held the game in my hands I was very apprehensive. The thing was, I never really enjoyed Oblivion. There just wasn't anything about the game that I found particularly enjoyable. I had spent probably around 40 hours or so with different characters just seeing if it was the character's playstyle that I didn't like, or if I got further that I might enjoy it more. Nope. So even with all this I preordered Fallout 3 and got it home and absolutely loved it, and still do.
Probably prefers OblivionBut the reviews from a lot of reviewers and a lot of blogs/forum posts complain about a lot of the stuff that I found to be wrong with Oblivion. Some of these reviews even state that they recognized these to be problems with Oblivion, but still loved the game anyway. So, I spent some time thinking about why I love Fallout even though it does have a lot of the same problems that Oblivion did, and why others don't like it. I could only really come up with two maybe three fairly good reasons.
The Setting and Playstyle. I think that these people might have just loved Oblivion for being a really good fantasy game, but don't really like the retro-futuristic post-apocalyptic genre. I think this certainly applies for me. I'm not a HUGE fan of the fantasy genre, but I don't dislike it either, I just don't think that I like to play a fantasy game in the first person, I'm not used to it and I don't think I ever got used to it. I think this is evidenced by my aversion to Melee weapons in Fallout. Which brings us to the other point: the style. Really damn fun. Fallout 3 had guns. I think that's the main point of contention between the groups of people who didn't like either game, but did the other. I think that either people just prefer to use either guns or swords/bows in a game, which harkens back to the setting, but ultimately menas that the games play completely differently. This is of course hightened by the VATS system which basically turns the the game into a turn-based strategy game, which was Bethesda's intention (a genre of which I am also a fan).
To sum up: I think that people either liked or didn't like the change in setting, the change of weapons, or the VATS system of play, thus leading to some contention between fans of Bethesda who prefer Oblivion and those who prefer Fallout 3.
Keep in mind that a post-apocalyptic setting pretty much ensures that there won't be many guns around. Having to use swords & melee weapons is more likely a long time after a nuke war, than hi-tech or modern weapons, just because there isn't anything to maintain them (unless robots are doing it).
I guess I'm just not gonna ever understand these people who didn't enjoy Oblivion. It seemed like a nearly perfect game to me. (After all the patches of course. ;-) ) I never really cared for fantasy themed games, but it's expansiveness and sheer level of exploration led me to play through it with several different types of characters, and every time the gameplay has been different. It really was an amazing game and I'm upset that I got the expansion but have never really got to dive into it.
Well fast forward, I hear Bethesda is making Fallout 3 from the cover of a GameInformer magazine a while back. I'd never played anything Fallout but had heard of it's awesomeness, so I ebay up me a brand new copy that has all the original games in it. I play them and love them to this day as well, just like Oblivion. So I'm thinking, they can't screw this up too bad as long as there's no major bugs when they launch it.
So to make a long message board post short (too late, I know) I reserved Fallout 3 for 360 and got it launch day and I love it! It really blends the mood and setting and story ideas of the old Fallouts with the fast pace action and all of the style of Oblivion. Personally, I can't claim any game-ending glitches or bugs that I've come across. (as of this post anyway....) Overall it seems to work. My chief issue is I'm playing it on default difficulty, but the enemies go down pretty quick compared to all the hacking and slashing I had to do to even bring down a skeleton in Oblivion on default. lol I seem to be flying through some of the "tougher" stuff in the game. Maybe it's because this time around I was already accustomed to the control setup and didn't have to learn as much gameplay related stuff. Also want to throw in there, VATs is great. Really adds a lot to the fighting, and keeps the shooting portions from getting too boring and repetitive.
So that's my take. Fallout 3 is equal to or greater than both Oblivion and Fallouts 1&2.
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