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Fallout 3 (Patreon)

Published:
2024-05-06 19:53:13
Imported:
2026-06
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Content

I think I played Fallout 3 for about 6 hours one night while house-sitting for someone, maybe about 15 years ago. I remember thinking it was ugly, and that Megaton was a dumb place, but that was about it. I've changed a lot since then, and now I'm playing it again. Here are a few quick observations so far:

1. They say "bitch" a lot

Especially compared to Skyrim, but also compared to Fallout 4 and 76, the writing in 3 is way more down-and-dirty. The mean dialogue options are legitimately mean! I think I like it, but I did grow up in the era that this released in, so that might just be a sign of my aging brain.

2. Leveling up

Skyrim's choice to have your skills level up as you use them is a great idea for retention, but not as much of a good idea for role playing. Fallout 3 is old school, where you gain XP, level up, then put points into skills. What this means is that you're intentionally railroading yourself, and possibly making your life harder down the line if you don't end up liking those choices. Two very different philosophies of design. Someone should make a Youtube video about it where the thesis isn't "I hate one and I like the other", but instead "how does each change our relationship with the game, the world, the characters, and ourselves". (You can have that for free. Just link me when you finish it.)

3. Lots of walking, and fewer fast-travel points

I'm generally anti-fast travel, because I don't like how it changes my relationship with the space of a game. Fallout 3 has fewer points to fast travel than I remember from 4 and 76, which is cool. The overworld is really boring and if you don't fast travel it's just a lot of walking and walking and walking.

4. Only clouds on the horizon

This is a cool one: the skybox only has clouds off on the horizon. Almost never above you. I don't know if there's a reason for this but it does give the game a cool vibe. I was also wondering if the sunrise/sunset times change from day to day or if it's the same, and if so, could we figure out what month the game is set in? Probably. Maybe I could make this a Youtube short.

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On a side note, I bought a 12-pack of Celsius from TikTok for $8 and it actually showed up. I'm not sure what to make of that. The world is changing.

See you guys later!

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Comments

Novel

Fallout 3 is so ugly I literally cannot play it. It's not the art design, but the actual graphics tech itself. I know I can mod it to make it look how I want it to look, but that feels so wrong in a way I can't even explain. It would be like if you were watching a movie and before it started it asked "would you like to replace all the male characters with women, who also have big tits and barely any clothes?" What is the line between experiencing the game as the developers intended and trying to warp their vision into my vision? (I'm not saying my vision is big titted ladies, I'm just saying that when it comes to alot of mods for Bethesda games, that seems to be what a lot of gamers want). I don't look at a piece of art and think "this would be awesome if I could change basically everything about it" Usually I just find art that resonates with me without the need to butcher it.

Austin

The modding conversation is something I think about a lot. I generally agree with you that I'd rather not invoke my will on something I'm consuming, but the line is blurry. Fallout 3 is an extremely ugly game.

Veronica Sipe

I took a class in college that was called something like "literacy and narrative in gaming" and the echoes have made me think about the topic of leveling systems and how they add to the experience of RPGs whenever I play one. I do love Skyrim's system, I admire how seamless it is and how you learn a skill by doing it, but I also think a more gamey level system has its place. In some cases, it's just very vibey in a video game kind of way. Dark Souls and other FromSoft games are a good example. The first one especially kind of feels like a cursed artifact you find in an attic where a fantasy world was transmuted into an old-school RPG game (one of the few where build feels truly deep in customization). Other times the more menu-driven leveling feels more tactical, and that vibes with the themes or mechanics of the game as well. Any turn based or squad based systems I think work well with a more abstract leveling system because tactics. The lock-in is a different matter. If a game is super long, I think universally it's a better quality of life to be able to re-spec. Sometimes a shorter game that anticipates more replay (I almost never replay a long RPG, I play one hyper-completion run and that's it, that's my character) can support its themes by having you dedicate that run to a build. I also really appreciate a more interesting one-off system, like the card-based perk leveling in Fallout 76. It was fun itself, shuffling through and building your character in a limited system (although I would also appreciate the same thing in a more expansive system). In general, Skyrim and Fallout 4 and 76 were very pleasing to me with their focus on perks rather than skill points, even if the skill points still existed. Despite being crunchier RPGs, it makes them a little more palatable, like an action RPG like the Batman: Arkham games. Me and my players also tend to take feats instead of ASI in DnD. We're more into features than maxing. Feature creep is hard there, though, because you have to remember what you have. I'm playing Jedi Survivor and a lot of the leveling is new moves, which I then have to remember button combos for. T_T So difficult.

Austin

Okay now get a video camera and put this to paper so I can watch it while I do my dishes.

Veronica Sipe

I have very fond memories of Fallout 3 but yeah I don't think I could play it today. Mostly it's dated, but also it came out in the era where everything was gray anyway. Overall, the landscape is boring compared to newer games. At the time, thought, I loved it just for being so big and didn't mind the grayness. It was somewhat of a vibe.

Veronica Sipe

Wish I'd played more RPGs at the time I was in the class, then I could have written the paper ten years ago and only have to read it to the camera now. Also I updated the above essay twice cause I kept forgetting that enter posts instead of doing a line break, so there's more to read now lol.

Novel

It's incredible what good art design can do. Because you remember the game as 'gray' (which it is mostly is) and then you have a game like Return of the Obra Dinn which is literally monochrome and I don't think anyone would say in 10 years 'yeah that game aged poorly graphically, it's just all one colour'.

Veronica Sipe

It's definitely at least thematic because I for sure think of it as a post-apocalyptic wasteland. Literally a gravel pit. Glad they realized by 4 that not every inch of the map needed to be visually devastated into rubble. 76 is (or was, haven't played it since the human NPCs season update) a gorgeous map that still gives you a wonderful feeling of devastation and isolation, not to mention scale and space without being so empty.

The Bread Pirate

Wow, I guess I'm in the minority that liked the graphics of Fallout 3. I'm a sucker for the graphics from the 2000s.