Nikostallvic
Cold War is easily the best CoD game to come out post Black Ops II.
I totally understand why it got a ton of hate when it came out because of the fact that from a mechanical and technical standpoint, it was a complete stepdown from Modern Warfare (2019) but in terms of character and content, I think it's easily the most interesting and fully enjoyable package even with its complicated and rushed development during the height of COVID.
The obvious thing first, I am in love with this game's aesthetic. The 80's theme is so fucking cool and Cold War really takes it and runs with it, you can really tell when it comes to the design of a lot of the levels in all game modes of Cold War and also within the narrative of the campaign.
Despite the fact that it may be a bit short, I fucking LOVED the campaign. Each mission felt so distinct and unique, I loved making my own character with their own perks and having dialogue choices that change how events play out, similar to Black Ops II.
On top of that, the side content with the campaign where you had to decipher the codes to find Perseus was so fucking cool to me. I remember writing all these different strings of numbers and city names in my notebook physically to try and crack the code and it was genuinely such a memorable and engaging moment in any game I've ever played and it was totally optional. In general, doing different side stuff and replaying missions was so fun, I remember replaying the whole campaign twice to get all the Dark Ops challenges completed.
Most people would consider the multiplayer to be the weakest part of the game and to an extent I would agree. Cold War's movement system feels pretty similar to Black Ops 4, generally being pretty stiff and janky, especially compared to how buttery smooth movement was in MW2019. The gunplay, animations and overall polish wasn't as on point as the last game because of the older engine but I think despite all of this, mechanically, Cold War's multiplayer was really sound.
Besides Miami, Cartel and The Pines, there weren't really any offensively bad maps in the game, they all ranged from competent to being very good. I also really enjoyed the wildcard system in Cold War allowing players to really add more onto what kind of playstyle they wanted to rock with, even being able to do weird shit like have two secondary weapons.
The multiplayer had an actual working mini map, easily recognizable enemies, maps that weren't dogshit and DEAD SILENCE AS A PERK. I really can't say the same about MW2019 lol. Minus maybe the slightly longer time to kill, Cold War was the last classic feeling CoD game we ever got. I don't think that even games like CoD WW2 or Black Ops 3 matched that golden age CoD game feel as much as this game.
When Cold War first came out, I was really mixed on the zombies because I felt it was too easily and strayed too far from the original formula of Black Ops III which I thought and still think is the gold standard for zombies. However, over time I've come to accept that Cold War is totally its own thing and it does its own style of gameplay pretty well, I think all 4 maps in Zombies are really fun, especially Mauer Der Toten is my favorite, knowing everything in that map down to a T.
I would even argue that Cold War does some things better than previous zombies iterations. I really like how hectic late rounds are in cold war, zombies get super fast and they feel way less monotonous as late rounds in something like BO3 or BO2 zombies. The exfil system is a really nice alternative to end the game and get better rewards than having to die or do the Easter egg to complete the map and I also think Cold War has the best perk system by having no limit but having each perk you get become increasingly more and more expensive as you acquire more. This is just way more fun than choosing the same 4 perks every single game like in every single zombies game in the past, even BO4 because even that game had an obvious meta of what perks were the best.
Cold War was a bit of a mess at launch but in its final state, I think almost from an objective standpoint, it is the highest quality, most unique and offers the most amount of content compared to almost any other CoD game post 7th Gen.
I totally understand why it got a ton of hate when it came out because of the fact that from a mechanical and technical standpoint, it was a complete stepdown from Modern Warfare (2019) but in terms of character and content, I think it's easily the most interesting and fully enjoyable package even with its complicated and rushed development during the height of COVID.
The obvious thing first, I am in love with this game's aesthetic. The 80's theme is so fucking cool and Cold War really takes it and runs with it, you can really tell when it comes to the design of a lot of the levels in all game modes of Cold War and also within the narrative of the campaign.
Despite the fact that it may be a bit short, I fucking LOVED the campaign. Each mission felt so distinct and unique, I loved making my own character with their own perks and having dialogue choices that change how events play out, similar to Black Ops II.
On top of that, the side content with the campaign where you had to decipher the codes to find Perseus was so fucking cool to me. I remember writing all these different strings of numbers and city names in my notebook physically to try and crack the code and it was genuinely such a memorable and engaging moment in any game I've ever played and it was totally optional. In general, doing different side stuff and replaying missions was so fun, I remember replaying the whole campaign twice to get all the Dark Ops challenges completed.
Most people would consider the multiplayer to be the weakest part of the game and to an extent I would agree. Cold War's movement system feels pretty similar to Black Ops 4, generally being pretty stiff and janky, especially compared to how buttery smooth movement was in MW2019. The gunplay, animations and overall polish wasn't as on point as the last game because of the older engine but I think despite all of this, mechanically, Cold War's multiplayer was really sound.
Besides Miami, Cartel and The Pines, there weren't really any offensively bad maps in the game, they all ranged from competent to being very good. I also really enjoyed the wildcard system in Cold War allowing players to really add more onto what kind of playstyle they wanted to rock with, even being able to do weird shit like have two secondary weapons.
The multiplayer had an actual working mini map, easily recognizable enemies, maps that weren't dogshit and DEAD SILENCE AS A PERK. I really can't say the same about MW2019 lol. Minus maybe the slightly longer time to kill, Cold War was the last classic feeling CoD game we ever got. I don't think that even games like CoD WW2 or Black Ops 3 matched that golden age CoD game feel as much as this game.
When Cold War first came out, I was really mixed on the zombies because I felt it was too easily and strayed too far from the original formula of Black Ops III which I thought and still think is the gold standard for zombies. However, over time I've come to accept that Cold War is totally its own thing and it does its own style of gameplay pretty well, I think all 4 maps in Zombies are really fun, especially Mauer Der Toten is my favorite, knowing everything in that map down to a T.
I would even argue that Cold War does some things better than previous zombies iterations. I really like how hectic late rounds are in cold war, zombies get super fast and they feel way less monotonous as late rounds in something like BO3 or BO2 zombies. The exfil system is a really nice alternative to end the game and get better rewards than having to die or do the Easter egg to complete the map and I also think Cold War has the best perk system by having no limit but having each perk you get become increasingly more and more expensive as you acquire more. This is just way more fun than choosing the same 4 perks every single game like in every single zombies game in the past, even BO4 because even that game had an obvious meta of what perks were the best.
Cold War was a bit of a mess at launch but in its final state, I think almost from an objective standpoint, it is the highest quality, most unique and offers the most amount of content compared to almost any other CoD game post 7th Gen.
2015
I have a very complicated relationship with Fallout 4.
This statement has been jerked off countless times by the Fallout community but I think it's the best way to describe my feelings abut this game
"Fallout 4 is a good game but a terrible Fallout game"
While it is true that like many other people, I find the game immensely disappointing compared to its predecessors due to a myriad of poor design choices from Bethesda such as the large scale strip down of role playing elements and a gigantic oversimplification of general gameplay, I still enjoy the game quite a bit.
I absolutely adore the art direction of this game and its overall aesthetic. Not only are there plenty of unique environments in the game that range from the bronze, vegetated foothills filled with railyards, colonial houses and rural settlements to the highly stylized 1950's retro futuristic streets of downtown Boston, all the locations in this game look so unique and pretty even with the utilization of the Creation Engine that suffers from lacking graphical fidelity, the art style still holds up. This also goes for designs of different pieces of technology, items and enemies. Namely the power armor in this game is so bulky and sexy. Almost all the redesigns generally are much more expressive and unique than the past games with the only exception is that there are a lot of really ugly weapon designs in Fallout 4, obvious ones being every pipe weapon in the game and the "assault rifle".
To me, Fallout 4 is at its best when you're exploring The Commonwealth while engaging in encounters with enemies, side quests and various dungeons to explore. Things like combat, looting and traversing the map have all been improved significantly since New Vegas and 3.
The crafting system within Fallout 4 is a great addition too mainly because of the fact it finally gives the player a reason to pick up random shit so they can break it down and use it for settlement building or modifying their weapons, power armor or apparel. The way you modify weapons has been vastly improved from New Vegas as well, allowing the player to completely change almost every part of their weapons, the crafting system in Fallout 4 is fun and generally pretty unobtrusive and intuitive.
The settlement system however can be very obtrusive because there are plenty of quests in the game that require you to build or do things for settlements (especially for the Minutemen) but its a system that can allow the player to be creative with building and generally adds more variety to the game flow in terms of objectives but it is definitely not for everyone.
I also enjoy almost every companion in this game a lot, I think it may be one of the most underrated parts of the game that people seem to forget about. Funnily enough, I feel some of the only genuinely great writing in all of Fallout 4 is within the different companions, especially with Cait and Curie.
However...There's so much wrong with this game, so much so to the point where this review would be comically long if I listed all the issues I had with this game. Most people have already voiced all the big points of what makes Fallout 4 so flawed anyways. If there was anything that I could pinpoint to being the worst aspect of the game, it would definitely be BGS' general trend to be less and less interested in making RPG games and more interested in making adventure games. This has been an issue that has gotten increasingly worse and hit Fallout 4 arguably the worst, even when compared to games like Skyrim or Starfield.
The voiced protagonist, the vague, bootleg Mass Effect dialogue, the predictable and amateur writing for the story, the lack of agency over the main character's choices and background, lack of any sort of karma system with factions or in general...There's are just a few examples of big issues that plague Fallout 4.
Even despite all of that, I really like this game, similarly to New Vegas, I usually always see myself coming back to it while I try out new mods and walk through the same locations, shoot the same people and do the same quests I've done a million times before again, it is addicting to me.
Even with all the flaws, Fallout 4 is still generally a very competent game with a great game flow and a ton of content. I feel like this game's strengths are only exemplified after looking at Starfield and seeing how shit that game is, it makes you appreciate general aspects that were introduced in Fallout 4 that we all took for granted.
This statement has been jerked off countless times by the Fallout community but I think it's the best way to describe my feelings abut this game
"Fallout 4 is a good game but a terrible Fallout game"
While it is true that like many other people, I find the game immensely disappointing compared to its predecessors due to a myriad of poor design choices from Bethesda such as the large scale strip down of role playing elements and a gigantic oversimplification of general gameplay, I still enjoy the game quite a bit.
I absolutely adore the art direction of this game and its overall aesthetic. Not only are there plenty of unique environments in the game that range from the bronze, vegetated foothills filled with railyards, colonial houses and rural settlements to the highly stylized 1950's retro futuristic streets of downtown Boston, all the locations in this game look so unique and pretty even with the utilization of the Creation Engine that suffers from lacking graphical fidelity, the art style still holds up. This also goes for designs of different pieces of technology, items and enemies. Namely the power armor in this game is so bulky and sexy. Almost all the redesigns generally are much more expressive and unique than the past games with the only exception is that there are a lot of really ugly weapon designs in Fallout 4, obvious ones being every pipe weapon in the game and the "assault rifle".
To me, Fallout 4 is at its best when you're exploring The Commonwealth while engaging in encounters with enemies, side quests and various dungeons to explore. Things like combat, looting and traversing the map have all been improved significantly since New Vegas and 3.
The crafting system within Fallout 4 is a great addition too mainly because of the fact it finally gives the player a reason to pick up random shit so they can break it down and use it for settlement building or modifying their weapons, power armor or apparel. The way you modify weapons has been vastly improved from New Vegas as well, allowing the player to completely change almost every part of their weapons, the crafting system in Fallout 4 is fun and generally pretty unobtrusive and intuitive.
The settlement system however can be very obtrusive because there are plenty of quests in the game that require you to build or do things for settlements (especially for the Minutemen) but its a system that can allow the player to be creative with building and generally adds more variety to the game flow in terms of objectives but it is definitely not for everyone.
I also enjoy almost every companion in this game a lot, I think it may be one of the most underrated parts of the game that people seem to forget about. Funnily enough, I feel some of the only genuinely great writing in all of Fallout 4 is within the different companions, especially with Cait and Curie.
However...There's so much wrong with this game, so much so to the point where this review would be comically long if I listed all the issues I had with this game. Most people have already voiced all the big points of what makes Fallout 4 so flawed anyways. If there was anything that I could pinpoint to being the worst aspect of the game, it would definitely be BGS' general trend to be less and less interested in making RPG games and more interested in making adventure games. This has been an issue that has gotten increasingly worse and hit Fallout 4 arguably the worst, even when compared to games like Skyrim or Starfield.
The voiced protagonist, the vague, bootleg Mass Effect dialogue, the predictable and amateur writing for the story, the lack of agency over the main character's choices and background, lack of any sort of karma system with factions or in general...There's are just a few examples of big issues that plague Fallout 4.
Even despite all of that, I really like this game, similarly to New Vegas, I usually always see myself coming back to it while I try out new mods and walk through the same locations, shoot the same people and do the same quests I've done a million times before again, it is addicting to me.
Even with all the flaws, Fallout 4 is still generally a very competent game with a great game flow and a ton of content. I feel like this game's strengths are only exemplified after looking at Starfield and seeing how shit that game is, it makes you appreciate general aspects that were introduced in Fallout 4 that we all took for granted.
2011
Portal 2 is a great expansion upon the already rock solid mechanics and intriguing gameplay and level design of Portal 1 alongside just pretty much taking what Portal 1 did and cranking it up to 11.
Better levels, a better story, an even better soundtrack, a longer length with new mechanics added like all the different types of paint and generally a more challenging experience with a very fair and natural learning curve.
Also people who say that this game's writing is "Reddit" are lame. This game's writing is clever and funny as hell. Portal 2 did that "reddit" writing way before it became popular and overdone and even nowadays trying to equate Portal 2 to something like Forespoken or shitty Marvel movies is such a force.
Portal is a series that I think almost everyone plays at least once and I think everyone SHOULD beat it at least once, there's really no other games even remotely like it.
Better levels, a better story, an even better soundtrack, a longer length with new mechanics added like all the different types of paint and generally a more challenging experience with a very fair and natural learning curve.
Also people who say that this game's writing is "Reddit" are lame. This game's writing is clever and funny as hell. Portal 2 did that "reddit" writing way before it became popular and overdone and even nowadays trying to equate Portal 2 to something like Forespoken or shitty Marvel movies is such a force.
Portal is a series that I think almost everyone plays at least once and I think everyone SHOULD beat it at least once, there's really no other games even remotely like it.
1996
This game brought out some sort of primal, chimp rage within me.
It's pretty neat, the level design for most of the game is overall great until around the final level of the Egypt section where some sections are purely just super stretched out platforming sections with no other sauce to speak of. The Atlantis sections are some really cool set pieces though and I thought the boss fights were alright.
My biggest issue with Tomb Raider 1 is how wonky the tank controls are, especially when it comes to platforming, it can be insanely frustrating and can make the game artificially difficult at points, its a pretty big learning curve. The combat is also not one of the game's strongest aspects either.
Besides that, I love the environments, the music, most levels and I especially love Lara. She's so cool...(and hot).
It's pretty neat, the level design for most of the game is overall great until around the final level of the Egypt section where some sections are purely just super stretched out platforming sections with no other sauce to speak of. The Atlantis sections are some really cool set pieces though and I thought the boss fights were alright.
My biggest issue with Tomb Raider 1 is how wonky the tank controls are, especially when it comes to platforming, it can be insanely frustrating and can make the game artificially difficult at points, its a pretty big learning curve. The combat is also not one of the game's strongest aspects either.
Besides that, I love the environments, the music, most levels and I especially love Lara. She's so cool...(and hot).
This port is so bad.
It's already bad enough the file size for the collection is 60 gigs because of the uncompressed ai upscaled textures but the multiplayer barely works at all.
Instantly there's already audio bugs with BF2 being much quieter than 1 even at max volume settings as well as the loading screen sound from BF1 when loading into a map being incorrect (which is a sin.)
First few experiences of me playing this game started with me in BF1 doing quick join and joining a server requiring a password, next match directly after that has me join a match and the game instantly crashes.
Then I try BF2 quick match and end up on a match in Utapau on Conquest. The hit reg is terrible despite having my ping only being around 40 on the server and there was a glitch that me and several other people in the server experienced where when we on a respawn timer, it would just be stuck at 1 and never would go down.
The new textures and graphical changes don't look very bad and I like the upscaled hud and everything but the background cut scenes on Battlefront 2's menu that are upscaled look so horrible.
It's so disappointing because I love these two games but I'm gonna have to refund it because this is ridiculous for a +$30 dollar collection that really doesn't have anything better than the original games on PC. I'll probably only pick it up again on discount if the biggest issues are fixed.
It's already bad enough the file size for the collection is 60 gigs because of the uncompressed ai upscaled textures but the multiplayer barely works at all.
Instantly there's already audio bugs with BF2 being much quieter than 1 even at max volume settings as well as the loading screen sound from BF1 when loading into a map being incorrect (which is a sin.)
First few experiences of me playing this game started with me in BF1 doing quick join and joining a server requiring a password, next match directly after that has me join a match and the game instantly crashes.
Then I try BF2 quick match and end up on a match in Utapau on Conquest. The hit reg is terrible despite having my ping only being around 40 on the server and there was a glitch that me and several other people in the server experienced where when we on a respawn timer, it would just be stuck at 1 and never would go down.
The new textures and graphical changes don't look very bad and I like the upscaled hud and everything but the background cut scenes on Battlefront 2's menu that are upscaled look so horrible.
It's so disappointing because I love these two games but I'm gonna have to refund it because this is ridiculous for a +$30 dollar collection that really doesn't have anything better than the original games on PC. I'll probably only pick it up again on discount if the biggest issues are fixed.
2019
I think this may be my new favorite retro shooter.
I love everything about this game, the art, weapons, levels and sfx, etc. Everything is so tight and refined, I feel like this game really is the peak of Build Engine. (This or Blood. It's hard to decide which one I like more lol)
Unlike a common issue in a lot of boomer shooters, there wasn't really any low points within this game I feel, like the entire playthrough I was completely engaged and had so much fun.
I love everything about this game, the art, weapons, levels and sfx, etc. Everything is so tight and refined, I feel like this game really is the peak of Build Engine. (This or Blood. It's hard to decide which one I like more lol)
Unlike a common issue in a lot of boomer shooters, there wasn't really any low points within this game I feel, like the entire playthrough I was completely engaged and had so much fun.
1996
I liked Duke 3D, I thought it was really fun but from what I can tell, it definitely seems like the weakest of the iconic build engine games, at the same time it was kind of the first big one so its forgivable.
The biggest issue that plagues this entire game is the enemy design. Some of the enemies are so much of a chore to fight, specifically the sentry drones, assault commanders, battle lords, turrets and octabrains (kinda).
The sentry drones are the worst, absolutely unbearable. They tank a fuck ton of damage, spawn in the dumbest spots, ear rape you and blow up in your face constantly. To make these guys bearable to fight you have to do the door glitch or just unload into them because they dodge rockets for some reason. Hitler ass enemy, they're up there with the Quake shamblers and the Blood gargoyles.
Assault commanders and battle lords have the same spongy enemy issue, which is normally fine because they're higher tier enemies, however their danger is completely negated by just using the shrink ray and one shoting them which is more efficient and more enjoyable to do because they're not very fun to fight. Especially the battlelords because they're basically just Doom chaingunners that have a fuck ton of health.
The turrets are annoying as fuck because they have a pixel big hitbox and the octabrains are completely harmless because of the fact the devastator one shots them, but I feel like they're not nearly as annoying as the other enemies I listed.
I generally really liked most of the levels but there were a few misses. All of Ep 1 was pretty good tbh, Ep 2 I think is a bit too overhated but it does have some pretty ass levels like Fusion Station and Occupied Station but most of the rest are pretty fine, their biggest issue is all kind of blending in together aesthetically.
Episode 3 is consistently great. Better than 2 imo but there's still some levels I don't care for like Flood Zone which is cool conceptually but its pretty one note and it overly relies on the jetpack as a mechanic which is lame. LA Rumble also jerks off the jetpack a lot but I can forgive it cuz its a pretty cool level. In general, I'll say that all the episode 3 levels are quite varied and unique, which is great.
Everything else about the game is pretty nice, the soundtrack is pretty good, most of the guns are fun (Ice ray is really underutilized though) and Duke Nukem is Duke Nukem so all is good in the world.
The biggest issue that plagues this entire game is the enemy design. Some of the enemies are so much of a chore to fight, specifically the sentry drones, assault commanders, battle lords, turrets and octabrains (kinda).
The sentry drones are the worst, absolutely unbearable. They tank a fuck ton of damage, spawn in the dumbest spots, ear rape you and blow up in your face constantly. To make these guys bearable to fight you have to do the door glitch or just unload into them because they dodge rockets for some reason. Hitler ass enemy, they're up there with the Quake shamblers and the Blood gargoyles.
Assault commanders and battle lords have the same spongy enemy issue, which is normally fine because they're higher tier enemies, however their danger is completely negated by just using the shrink ray and one shoting them which is more efficient and more enjoyable to do because they're not very fun to fight. Especially the battlelords because they're basically just Doom chaingunners that have a fuck ton of health.
The turrets are annoying as fuck because they have a pixel big hitbox and the octabrains are completely harmless because of the fact the devastator one shots them, but I feel like they're not nearly as annoying as the other enemies I listed.
I generally really liked most of the levels but there were a few misses. All of Ep 1 was pretty good tbh, Ep 2 I think is a bit too overhated but it does have some pretty ass levels like Fusion Station and Occupied Station but most of the rest are pretty fine, their biggest issue is all kind of blending in together aesthetically.
Episode 3 is consistently great. Better than 2 imo but there's still some levels I don't care for like Flood Zone which is cool conceptually but its pretty one note and it overly relies on the jetpack as a mechanic which is lame. LA Rumble also jerks off the jetpack a lot but I can forgive it cuz its a pretty cool level. In general, I'll say that all the episode 3 levels are quite varied and unique, which is great.
Everything else about the game is pretty nice, the soundtrack is pretty good, most of the guns are fun (Ice ray is really underutilized though) and Duke Nukem is Duke Nukem so all is good in the world.
This entire DLC is two hours of you killing aliens while walking through a bunch of different hallways that all look the same LOL
That is pretty much all I have to say about it, there's like two different enemies which are aliens and the abominations near the end and that's it pretty much besides some poorly written interactions between other people that are captive.
Alien spaceship aesthetic is cool and novel at first but it gets nauseating fast as you see the same hallways that all look the same over and over again with nothing but the sounds of blaster shots and buzzing noises because this DLC also has no music.
That is pretty much all I have to say about it, there's like two different enemies which are aliens and the abominations near the end and that's it pretty much besides some poorly written interactions between other people that are captive.
Alien spaceship aesthetic is cool and novel at first but it gets nauseating fast as you see the same hallways that all look the same over and over again with nothing but the sounds of blaster shots and buzzing noises because this DLC also has no music.
2009
Pretty cool aesthetically and narrative wise it is interesting enough but the execution falls flat, especially near the end and the I literally beat it all in a little bit more than a singular hour, which is inexcusable.
You don't really learn a lot of the motives well enough to have a strong enough opinion to help the slaves or Ashur. They both claim to be able to use the cure The Pitt but they just kinda say each opposing side is lying and leave it at that. It's lazy as fuck writing in typical Bethesda faction.
What made me the most irrationally annoyed was I decided to side with Ashur because I hadn't before and afterwards the game literally said
"Medical research from The Pitt has improved your life. Just try not to think what it costs others."
Like are you fucking kidding me? LOL. That's some Fallout: Frontier level writing but the whole binary good vs bad karma is an entirely different can of worms of why it hurts Fallout 3 so bad.
You don't really learn a lot of the motives well enough to have a strong enough opinion to help the slaves or Ashur. They both claim to be able to use the cure The Pitt but they just kinda say each opposing side is lying and leave it at that. It's lazy as fuck writing in typical Bethesda faction.
What made me the most irrationally annoyed was I decided to side with Ashur because I hadn't before and afterwards the game literally said
"Medical research from The Pitt has improved your life. Just try not to think what it costs others."
Like are you fucking kidding me? LOL. That's some Fallout: Frontier level writing but the whole binary good vs bad karma is an entirely different can of worms of why it hurts Fallout 3 so bad.
A lot of the same issues as Mothership Zeta, except I think I liked this one 2% more because instead of being just corridors, there's some outside areas. At the same time, this felt like the shortest DLC yet, even more so than The Pitt or Zeta.
Setting is unique and cool as is with all of FO3's dlcs but its too short and not very fun.
The Gauss Rifle is fucking awesome tho.
Setting is unique and cool as is with all of FO3's dlcs but its too short and not very fun.
The Gauss Rifle is fucking awesome tho.
It's objectively pretty good and the narrative is intriguing but I started to get burnt out very quickly after like 5 hours but I still enjoyed it.
The metroidvania styled level design is fun as well as all the different options of powers that you can utilize can make combat pretty enjoyable.
Idk it just felt like it started to get stale, I can't exactly formulate why but it was still pretty cool.
The metroidvania styled level design is fun as well as all the different options of powers that you can utilize can make combat pretty enjoyable.
Idk it just felt like it started to get stale, I can't exactly formulate why but it was still pretty cool.
For sure, the best DLC for Fallout 3.
It definitely has more stuff to do than most of the other DLCs despite being really short but the biggest selling point of the DLC for me is the vibes and the environment.
If the gamebryo engine wasn't so dogshit, I feel like this is what a lot of the rural areas in The Capital Wasteland should've looked like. Even in the dlc which is a pretty small landscape, the framerate tanks a lot because of the engine, regardless of what hardware you're playing on. Too much foliage and trees.
But this DLC's environment is much closer to what it could've been and its really cool to see. Instead in the base game we just get a desert devoid of any life to make the game run better and to try and capitalize on the aesthetic of the first two fallout games.
Anyways, this DLC also has a lot more weapons that are actually useful like the lever action and the double barrel. The enemies are very unique too and the fact there's a side quest that connects to a location in The Capital Wasteland is pretty awesome.
This DLC still suffers from the issues that every other Fallout 3 DLC has with shit writing and being way too short but I feel this one is definitely more enjoyable than the rest.
It definitely has more stuff to do than most of the other DLCs despite being really short but the biggest selling point of the DLC for me is the vibes and the environment.
If the gamebryo engine wasn't so dogshit, I feel like this is what a lot of the rural areas in The Capital Wasteland should've looked like. Even in the dlc which is a pretty small landscape, the framerate tanks a lot because of the engine, regardless of what hardware you're playing on. Too much foliage and trees.
But this DLC's environment is much closer to what it could've been and its really cool to see. Instead in the base game we just get a desert devoid of any life to make the game run better and to try and capitalize on the aesthetic of the first two fallout games.
Anyways, this DLC also has a lot more weapons that are actually useful like the lever action and the double barrel. The enemies are very unique too and the fact there's a side quest that connects to a location in The Capital Wasteland is pretty awesome.
This DLC still suffers from the issues that every other Fallout 3 DLC has with shit writing and being way too short but I feel this one is definitely more enjoyable than the rest.
2008
I really wanted to AT LEAST give this game 3 stars but I'd honestly just be being disingenuous.
This is probably going to be the longest review I've ever written on Backloggd. After playing through this game and all the DLCs and doing pretty much almost every major side quest I can safely say that this easily the weakest mainline Fallout game, IMO even weaker than 4 and 76.
However, I don't really hate or completely dislike FO3. Before I complain for a while, I wanna at least talk about things I like about it.
-The art style is pretty cool. I like the art deco/retro futuristic industrial look of downtown DC and I actually like the green tint the game has, it’s iconic and sells DC a bit more as being fucked by tons of nukes.
-I think a lot of sound design is really good. A lot of the guns sound super crunchy and loud like the Chinese assault rifle, combat shotgun and sniper rifle to name a few.
-Both the licensed soundtrack and OST is really good.
-There aren’t a lot of side quests but the ones that are there are usually pretty neat. Even some of the parts of the main story like Tranquility Lane can be fun. The Superhuman Gambit, Oasis, Blood Ties and Replicated Man are some of the highlights of the game because they’re the only quests I’ve found that give you more options to solve than just “be irrationally evil for no reason or be a good guy” They have multiple ways of solving them and aren’t just shooting galleries.
-Fallout 3 captures the gritty, desolate vibe of the first two fallout games the best out of any of the sequels (arguably)
-Like most other BGS games, the gameplay loop can be pretty addicting.
I genuinely couldn't think of a lot of other great things to say about the game though.
So many people have already torn this game apart so I don't wanna just repeat stuff that everyone has said but I still wanna bring up parts of the game that really bug me. I'm probably just gonna list a ton of stuff that comes to mind in no real order.
The world's map design is so weird and I don’t like it. Several times, I’ve felt like I had to look up where to find cool side quests because they’re so out of the way and blend in with the rest of the game because every area looks the same and anytime there’s a new POI, I discover I assume it's gonna have dogshit in it, so when there’s actually some cool like a unique weapon, I’ll have no idea unless I look it up. Examples of this are side quests like the one around Republic of Dave which is literally in the ass end of a corner of a map and for weapons, The Terrible Shotgun comes to mind. You have to kill this random raider merchant in the middle of a dungeon where you'd have no clue he has a unique weapon unless you looked it up or found it by accident since all the "unique weapons" in this game look the exact same as their normal models.
This game uses the same system of leveling that Oblivion does where the enemies in the world level up with the player. This initially sounds like a good idea because it lets the player freely explore the world anyway they want but IMO at the end of the day this is more of a determent to the overall gameplay loop. It completely kills any sort of progression to give the player a broad path to follow so the devs can slowly feed them bread crumbs of new quests and content they can discover and they can genuinely feel like they're becoming stronger. When you reach late game, especially late 20's, every enemy just becomes a bullet sponge no matter where you are and its so unfun. (DO NOT FUCKING GET ME STARTED ON THE FERAL GHOUL REAVERS AND THE ALBINO RADSCORPIONS)
This is no secret but this game has some of the most nonsensical and dogshit writing I've ever seen in a video game, it was so hard for me to care about any of the characters in this game or even the Capital Wasteland itself. Even your Dad doesn't give a shit about you when he sees you again after you leave the vault, he's just like "Oh, you're here? Go help me with project purity hehe." Again I don't wanna go to into so many examples, its not hard to know what I'm talking about if you watch any video about FO3 or even half paying attention to the game's dialogue and story.
Obviously the gunplay and combat sucks in Fallout 3 and VATS is a crutch because of how clunky it is. However, nobody really ever talks about how bad the collision meshes are for any of the environments in FO3. I’ll shoot someone behind cover and so many times, my shots will just get caught on invisible walls. Especially when using scoped weapons, this is infuriating. Of course not having true ADS is absurd and inexcusable as well, especially when every gun in this game has a random Valorant ass spray pattern. If you're not building for VATS and getting Grim Reaper's Sprint, Concentrated Fire and Better Criticals, you're literally just nerfing yourself.
The Good vs Evil karma system is fucking garbage. It might genuinely be the worst aspect of the entire game. I don't know what Bethesda was thinking when they decided to tell players DIRECTLY if they were doing something the writers liked or not. It completely takes away any agency from the player to make their own choices that can involve any sort of real nuance or decisions. Because of this system, it makes so Bethesda wrote a lot of the choices being between being a complete dick or being a reasonable person with no grey morality or nuance.
That's another thing too, unless you're doing a "what if?" scenario like one of those videos where people beat games while purposefully nerfing themselves because its funny, there is absolutely no reason for anyone playing this game to have bad karma unless they're actively trying their hardest to be evil. The game actively punishes you for having bad karma with almost absolutely no real reward in return, you're basically just shooting yourself in the foot. It's genuinely infuriating holy shit.
I hate how much random stuff this game takes from Fallout 1 and 2 and just plops into this game no matter how little sense it makes. Radscorpions in fucking DC? Sure dude! They're so iconic we HAVE to put them in the sequel even if they don't exist in the East Coast! Harold from The Hub? He's back in this game somehow! It's so incredibly forced in this game especially, its insane.
Speaking of that, this is more of a minor nitpick and even though I said I enjoy Fallout 3's aesthetic, I really wish the environment had more variety and wasn't just a pseudo desert with nothing but dead trees. Where do the people that live here get their food from? How is there a functioning ecosystem in The Capital Wasteland?!
I know its mainly because gamebryo is silly and just like how Oblivion had to retcon Cyrodil from being a swampland into being gm_flatgrass and LOTR because the engine couldn't handle the amount of foliage it would have, its still insanely disappointing because DC would be filled with various wetlands. Ironically, Point Lookout portrays this way better than the base game but even that DLC runs like complete shit even on PC despite having such small land mass, so if that's anything to go by, this is a little bit more forgivable than other issues with the game.
Even though New Vegas was the first fallout I played back in 2010 and it was and still is my favorite Fallout and game of all time, I still really liked Fallout 3 as a kid and I was genuinely excited to play it again and be like "Yeah, this is really fun!" almost in spite of loser nerds like HBomberguy making 8 hour long videos on why Fallout 3 is the worst game ever created but it wouldn't be genuine if I said I "love" this game as an adult.
This is probably going to be the longest review I've ever written on Backloggd. After playing through this game and all the DLCs and doing pretty much almost every major side quest I can safely say that this easily the weakest mainline Fallout game, IMO even weaker than 4 and 76.
However, I don't really hate or completely dislike FO3. Before I complain for a while, I wanna at least talk about things I like about it.
-The art style is pretty cool. I like the art deco/retro futuristic industrial look of downtown DC and I actually like the green tint the game has, it’s iconic and sells DC a bit more as being fucked by tons of nukes.
-I think a lot of sound design is really good. A lot of the guns sound super crunchy and loud like the Chinese assault rifle, combat shotgun and sniper rifle to name a few.
-Both the licensed soundtrack and OST is really good.
-There aren’t a lot of side quests but the ones that are there are usually pretty neat. Even some of the parts of the main story like Tranquility Lane can be fun. The Superhuman Gambit, Oasis, Blood Ties and Replicated Man are some of the highlights of the game because they’re the only quests I’ve found that give you more options to solve than just “be irrationally evil for no reason or be a good guy” They have multiple ways of solving them and aren’t just shooting galleries.
-Fallout 3 captures the gritty, desolate vibe of the first two fallout games the best out of any of the sequels (arguably)
-Like most other BGS games, the gameplay loop can be pretty addicting.
I genuinely couldn't think of a lot of other great things to say about the game though.
So many people have already torn this game apart so I don't wanna just repeat stuff that everyone has said but I still wanna bring up parts of the game that really bug me. I'm probably just gonna list a ton of stuff that comes to mind in no real order.
The world's map design is so weird and I don’t like it. Several times, I’ve felt like I had to look up where to find cool side quests because they’re so out of the way and blend in with the rest of the game because every area looks the same and anytime there’s a new POI, I discover I assume it's gonna have dogshit in it, so when there’s actually some cool like a unique weapon, I’ll have no idea unless I look it up. Examples of this are side quests like the one around Republic of Dave which is literally in the ass end of a corner of a map and for weapons, The Terrible Shotgun comes to mind. You have to kill this random raider merchant in the middle of a dungeon where you'd have no clue he has a unique weapon unless you looked it up or found it by accident since all the "unique weapons" in this game look the exact same as their normal models.
This game uses the same system of leveling that Oblivion does where the enemies in the world level up with the player. This initially sounds like a good idea because it lets the player freely explore the world anyway they want but IMO at the end of the day this is more of a determent to the overall gameplay loop. It completely kills any sort of progression to give the player a broad path to follow so the devs can slowly feed them bread crumbs of new quests and content they can discover and they can genuinely feel like they're becoming stronger. When you reach late game, especially late 20's, every enemy just becomes a bullet sponge no matter where you are and its so unfun. (DO NOT FUCKING GET ME STARTED ON THE FERAL GHOUL REAVERS AND THE ALBINO RADSCORPIONS)
This is no secret but this game has some of the most nonsensical and dogshit writing I've ever seen in a video game, it was so hard for me to care about any of the characters in this game or even the Capital Wasteland itself. Even your Dad doesn't give a shit about you when he sees you again after you leave the vault, he's just like "Oh, you're here? Go help me with project purity hehe." Again I don't wanna go to into so many examples, its not hard to know what I'm talking about if you watch any video about FO3 or even half paying attention to the game's dialogue and story.
Obviously the gunplay and combat sucks in Fallout 3 and VATS is a crutch because of how clunky it is. However, nobody really ever talks about how bad the collision meshes are for any of the environments in FO3. I’ll shoot someone behind cover and so many times, my shots will just get caught on invisible walls. Especially when using scoped weapons, this is infuriating. Of course not having true ADS is absurd and inexcusable as well, especially when every gun in this game has a random Valorant ass spray pattern. If you're not building for VATS and getting Grim Reaper's Sprint, Concentrated Fire and Better Criticals, you're literally just nerfing yourself.
The Good vs Evil karma system is fucking garbage. It might genuinely be the worst aspect of the entire game. I don't know what Bethesda was thinking when they decided to tell players DIRECTLY if they were doing something the writers liked or not. It completely takes away any agency from the player to make their own choices that can involve any sort of real nuance or decisions. Because of this system, it makes so Bethesda wrote a lot of the choices being between being a complete dick or being a reasonable person with no grey morality or nuance.
That's another thing too, unless you're doing a "what if?" scenario like one of those videos where people beat games while purposefully nerfing themselves because its funny, there is absolutely no reason for anyone playing this game to have bad karma unless they're actively trying their hardest to be evil. The game actively punishes you for having bad karma with almost absolutely no real reward in return, you're basically just shooting yourself in the foot. It's genuinely infuriating holy shit.
I hate how much random stuff this game takes from Fallout 1 and 2 and just plops into this game no matter how little sense it makes. Radscorpions in fucking DC? Sure dude! They're so iconic we HAVE to put them in the sequel even if they don't exist in the East Coast! Harold from The Hub? He's back in this game somehow! It's so incredibly forced in this game especially, its insane.
Speaking of that, this is more of a minor nitpick and even though I said I enjoy Fallout 3's aesthetic, I really wish the environment had more variety and wasn't just a pseudo desert with nothing but dead trees. Where do the people that live here get their food from? How is there a functioning ecosystem in The Capital Wasteland?!
I know its mainly because gamebryo is silly and just like how Oblivion had to retcon Cyrodil from being a swampland into being gm_flatgrass and LOTR because the engine couldn't handle the amount of foliage it would have, its still insanely disappointing because DC would be filled with various wetlands. Ironically, Point Lookout portrays this way better than the base game but even that DLC runs like complete shit even on PC despite having such small land mass, so if that's anything to go by, this is a little bit more forgivable than other issues with the game.
Even though New Vegas was the first fallout I played back in 2010 and it was and still is my favorite Fallout and game of all time, I still really liked Fallout 3 as a kid and I was genuinely excited to play it again and be like "Yeah, this is really fun!" almost in spite of loser nerds like HBomberguy making 8 hour long videos on why Fallout 3 is the worst game ever created but it wouldn't be genuine if I said I "love" this game as an adult.
It's whatever. It's just an extra hour of you shooting bullet sponge enemies but you get the Tesla Cannon which is pretty badass tho.
It’s also pretty asinine Bethesda made you buy a dlc in order to make the ending not completely shit lol
It’s also pretty asinine Bethesda made you buy a dlc in order to make the ending not completely shit lol
1997
It may not be the most expansive or the most refined but I think Fallout 1 is probably overall the most consistent Fallout game. It's so damn good.
Fallout's world and storytelling is so well thought out and intriguing that it'd make you think that when Interplay made this game, they knew for certain that it would become a popular franchise. You can tell how much effort and detail was put into every facet of NPCs and locations within the game.
That and also the iconic and terrifying soundtrack by Mark Morgan doing all of the OST with the almost clay-like CGI, gritty aesthetic of the game really makes it so unique and truly an alive world.
Despite how gritty and desolate the world seems in this game, I truly appreciate that it isn't this freshly nuked desert with nothing but crazy raiders running around with random junk like Bethesda seems to love. All the major locations in this game have actual infrastructure with agriculture, larger town centers, homes and everything, not just a bunch of scrappy shantytowns. The first area in the game that you encounter after you leave Vault 13, being Shady Sands is the best example of this with a clear farm and an entirely crafted created adobe architecture of all the buildings despite being so remote from the rest of the major locations like The Hub and Junktown.
Despite the simplicity in the story, I love it so much. I love coming freshly out of the vault and you basically directly assume the position as a vault dweller seeing this new world, learning about all these different factions and a growing army of mutants who want to take over the wasteland. Again, it does such a good job at giving bread crumbs for the player to follow and get drip fed new information about the world.
My only issues with this game come to a few things. For example, the game has a few oversights and glitches that can make playthroughs where you wanna mess around with stuff a bit annoying. From what I know, the fallout 1 in 2 mod fixes a lot of these bugs and unintended gameplay issues.
Another example is the combat can feel a bit unforgiving and start to spike weirdly in different areas where it really shouldn't. It's happens more near the end of the game but it still can happen early on. An example of this would be in an area like The Hub where you can pretty much get every quest there done easily around the same level except for the one house with the guys holding the BoS initiate captive, they somehow absolutely destroy you unless you come all the way back there after getting power armor and better guns way later into the game.
This is more of a subjective complaint because some people may like this because it gives the game a better sense of flow, but I feel like in this specific case, it feels a bit confusing and jarring.
The final big thing is just an issue with a ton of older games that are a bit more esoteric compared to games we're used to now. The game doesn’t really do the good job explaining how to play it. This is an issue with a lot of older games that rely on manuals and strategy guides to teach the player how to play.
This game fuckin' rocks though, I really appreciate it and after completing it, it's given me even more appreciation for the Fallout series.
Fallout's world and storytelling is so well thought out and intriguing that it'd make you think that when Interplay made this game, they knew for certain that it would become a popular franchise. You can tell how much effort and detail was put into every facet of NPCs and locations within the game.
That and also the iconic and terrifying soundtrack by Mark Morgan doing all of the OST with the almost clay-like CGI, gritty aesthetic of the game really makes it so unique and truly an alive world.
Despite how gritty and desolate the world seems in this game, I truly appreciate that it isn't this freshly nuked desert with nothing but crazy raiders running around with random junk like Bethesda seems to love. All the major locations in this game have actual infrastructure with agriculture, larger town centers, homes and everything, not just a bunch of scrappy shantytowns. The first area in the game that you encounter after you leave Vault 13, being Shady Sands is the best example of this with a clear farm and an entirely crafted created adobe architecture of all the buildings despite being so remote from the rest of the major locations like The Hub and Junktown.
Despite the simplicity in the story, I love it so much. I love coming freshly out of the vault and you basically directly assume the position as a vault dweller seeing this new world, learning about all these different factions and a growing army of mutants who want to take over the wasteland. Again, it does such a good job at giving bread crumbs for the player to follow and get drip fed new information about the world.
My only issues with this game come to a few things. For example, the game has a few oversights and glitches that can make playthroughs where you wanna mess around with stuff a bit annoying. From what I know, the fallout 1 in 2 mod fixes a lot of these bugs and unintended gameplay issues.
Another example is the combat can feel a bit unforgiving and start to spike weirdly in different areas where it really shouldn't. It's happens more near the end of the game but it still can happen early on. An example of this would be in an area like The Hub where you can pretty much get every quest there done easily around the same level except for the one house with the guys holding the BoS initiate captive, they somehow absolutely destroy you unless you come all the way back there after getting power armor and better guns way later into the game.
This is more of a subjective complaint because some people may like this because it gives the game a better sense of flow, but I feel like in this specific case, it feels a bit confusing and jarring.
The final big thing is just an issue with a ton of older games that are a bit more esoteric compared to games we're used to now. The game doesn’t really do the good job explaining how to play it. This is an issue with a lot of older games that rely on manuals and strategy guides to teach the player how to play.
This game fuckin' rocks though, I really appreciate it and after completing it, it's given me even more appreciation for the Fallout series.