Nikostallvic
2023
I loved everything about this game, the visuals sad music of the game are incredible. BRC does a fantastic job capturing the Y2K aesthetic. The gameplay is also buttery smooth and I like how it’s a mash between Tony Hawk and Jet Set Radio.
My only issues with the game is probably that I wish that the bosses were a bit harder/more interesting to fight and also that taking over each borough was a little bit more varied in terms of the method of doing it.
Regardless though, this shit was dope.
My only issues with the game is probably that I wish that the bosses were a bit harder/more interesting to fight and also that taking over each borough was a little bit more varied in terms of the method of doing it.
Regardless though, this shit was dope.
Gay Tony was so fucking fun.
Definitely one of my favorite GTA experiences, this game really takes everything about the base game and cranks it up to 11, adding tons of crazy new vehicles, weapons and much better missions compared to the base game.
The missions in Gay Tony are pretty varied and offer way more spectacle and fun shit to do, especially the Yusuf Amir missions are all batshit crazy and super fun to play.
All the characters are great in this DLC as well, I really like Luis and Tony and a lot of the side characters as well.
Legitimately the only complaint I could think of for this DLC is that I just it was a tiny bit longer but even then, this DLC still adds tons of cool side quests to do alongside the main story missions.
Definitely one of my favorite GTA experiences, this game really takes everything about the base game and cranks it up to 11, adding tons of crazy new vehicles, weapons and much better missions compared to the base game.
The missions in Gay Tony are pretty varied and offer way more spectacle and fun shit to do, especially the Yusuf Amir missions are all batshit crazy and super fun to play.
All the characters are great in this DLC as well, I really like Luis and Tony and a lot of the side characters as well.
Legitimately the only complaint I could think of for this DLC is that I just it was a tiny bit longer but even then, this DLC still adds tons of cool side quests to do alongside the main story missions.
It’s hard for me to really pinpoint one specific thing that made GH3 so special to me, obviously I have tons of nostalgia towards it but there’s more to it than that.
It’s the game that got me into music, more specifically rock and metal, that’s one aspect I can’t overlook but even as a game it’s really special.
I loved the game’s setlist so much, it felt like each set of songs for each stage was really unique and was streamlined in a way that perfectly matched the rise in difficulty scaling you would experience as you gradually become better at the game. Of course, the songs themselves were all iconic bangers. I feel like this streamlined progression and perfect match of songs was never really captured again to this extent in any other Guitar Hero or Rock Band game in the future.
The charting and gameplay itself was also so smooth and accessible, especially for the engine being built from the ground up by Neversoft. It’s genuinely impressive how great the game still feels now.
The visuals and aesthetic of this game are so cool too, all the stages and characters are so memorable and unique. Even the menus and UI are really badass.
Guitar battles were such a genius idea and were also so fun too. Gathering different attacks and abilities by collecting star power strings and strategically using them against your opponent was the coolest shit ever.
Overall, this game is one of my favorite games of all time and definitely my favorite rhythm game of all time.
It’s the game that got me into music, more specifically rock and metal, that’s one aspect I can’t overlook but even as a game it’s really special.
I loved the game’s setlist so much, it felt like each set of songs for each stage was really unique and was streamlined in a way that perfectly matched the rise in difficulty scaling you would experience as you gradually become better at the game. Of course, the songs themselves were all iconic bangers. I feel like this streamlined progression and perfect match of songs was never really captured again to this extent in any other Guitar Hero or Rock Band game in the future.
The charting and gameplay itself was also so smooth and accessible, especially for the engine being built from the ground up by Neversoft. It’s genuinely impressive how great the game still feels now.
The visuals and aesthetic of this game are so cool too, all the stages and characters are so memorable and unique. Even the menus and UI are really badass.
Guitar battles were such a genius idea and were also so fun too. Gathering different attacks and abilities by collecting star power strings and strategically using them against your opponent was the coolest shit ever.
Overall, this game is one of my favorite games of all time and definitely my favorite rhythm game of all time.
2013
This game was genuinely great until Trevor gets introduced lol
I've replayed and beat this game three times (Xbox 360, Xbox One then PC) and I've had fun playing it but to be honest I didn't care much about the story and just played it to do crazy stuff.
After playing IV and paying more attention to stuff, I wanted to replay V to get a better perspective of how I'd view at as I'm older and I was genuinely having a lot of fun at first. I really like Michael and Franklin as characters, they're both funny but have some traits about them that make them feel like they could be real people. The missions in the game are also pretty varied and enjoyable and IMO, much better than IV's missions.
However, as soon as you finish the Jewelry Store heist, I feel like the game's story just completely declines and even the missions start to become much less fun.
I fucking hate Trevor, there's genuinely not a single thing I like about him as an adult. He's ugly, insanely try hard edgy with him being a cannibal and being into bestiality for some reason? He's dick to pretty much everyone unless its made for comedic value like how he falls in love for Martin's wife because she's a silly old lady (because its funny I guess). He just completely embodies the QUIRKY RANDOM🤪 era of the early 2010's when this game was made and Rockstar tries to glaze him as much as possible and make him seem so funny and badass when he's just an insane retard.
Trevor's missions fucking suck too and I hate all of Trevor's friends. All of his friend's barely exist after you leave for LS in the part of the game where you're FORCED to play as Trevor and they all just suck him off and praise him and have no other traits. Again, Rockstar tries SO HARD to make you like Trevor but I feel like it would be impossible for anyone over the age of 18 to do so.
If it was just Michael and Franklin it would be a cool dynamic between the rich class who's disillusioned with materialism and Franklin who's trying to grind to get to the top. Trevor is has like no thematic reasoning in the story besides just being apart of Michael's past, he's such a FORCE!
This game in general has a lot of places where it jumps the shark in terms of trying way too hard to be satire to the point where it isn't funny. Don't get me wrong, there's still plenty of funny things in the game but so many of the Weazel News ads on the radio made me roll my eyes and there's still plenty of characters outside of Trevor's story that are just obnoxious and way too cartoonishly annoying like all of Michael's family. GTA has always had pretty on the nose stuff in terms of humor but idk I feel like in V they try way too hard.
I do like some of the characters though. I really liked Lamar and Franklin's dynamic (It's too bad Franklin just doesn't exist in the story after Trevor is introduced 🙃) and there are plenty of things that are cool about the game. Los Santos is really cool, the radio is great, I love the amount of customization and money sinks with the cars, weapons, clothes, stocks, real estate, etc.
I just am really disappointed with how much worse this game gets after the Jewelry Heist because tbh if the game was just as consistently good beforehand, I may even say that this game is better than IV, even despite its detail and gameplay downgrades.
Regardless of all the things I bitch about, the game is still pretty enjoyable IMO, just very disappointing in a lot of ways.
I've replayed and beat this game three times (Xbox 360, Xbox One then PC) and I've had fun playing it but to be honest I didn't care much about the story and just played it to do crazy stuff.
After playing IV and paying more attention to stuff, I wanted to replay V to get a better perspective of how I'd view at as I'm older and I was genuinely having a lot of fun at first. I really like Michael and Franklin as characters, they're both funny but have some traits about them that make them feel like they could be real people. The missions in the game are also pretty varied and enjoyable and IMO, much better than IV's missions.
However, as soon as you finish the Jewelry Store heist, I feel like the game's story just completely declines and even the missions start to become much less fun.
I fucking hate Trevor, there's genuinely not a single thing I like about him as an adult. He's ugly, insanely try hard edgy with him being a cannibal and being into bestiality for some reason? He's dick to pretty much everyone unless its made for comedic value like how he falls in love for Martin's wife because she's a silly old lady (because its funny I guess). He just completely embodies the QUIRKY RANDOM🤪 era of the early 2010's when this game was made and Rockstar tries to glaze him as much as possible and make him seem so funny and badass when he's just an insane retard.
Trevor's missions fucking suck too and I hate all of Trevor's friends. All of his friend's barely exist after you leave for LS in the part of the game where you're FORCED to play as Trevor and they all just suck him off and praise him and have no other traits. Again, Rockstar tries SO HARD to make you like Trevor but I feel like it would be impossible for anyone over the age of 18 to do so.
If it was just Michael and Franklin it would be a cool dynamic between the rich class who's disillusioned with materialism and Franklin who's trying to grind to get to the top. Trevor is has like no thematic reasoning in the story besides just being apart of Michael's past, he's such a FORCE!
This game in general has a lot of places where it jumps the shark in terms of trying way too hard to be satire to the point where it isn't funny. Don't get me wrong, there's still plenty of funny things in the game but so many of the Weazel News ads on the radio made me roll my eyes and there's still plenty of characters outside of Trevor's story that are just obnoxious and way too cartoonishly annoying like all of Michael's family. GTA has always had pretty on the nose stuff in terms of humor but idk I feel like in V they try way too hard.
I do like some of the characters though. I really liked Lamar and Franklin's dynamic (It's too bad Franklin just doesn't exist in the story after Trevor is introduced 🙃) and there are plenty of things that are cool about the game. Los Santos is really cool, the radio is great, I love the amount of customization and money sinks with the cars, weapons, clothes, stocks, real estate, etc.
I just am really disappointed with how much worse this game gets after the Jewelry Heist because tbh if the game was just as consistently good beforehand, I may even say that this game is better than IV, even despite its detail and gameplay downgrades.
Regardless of all the things I bitch about, the game is still pretty enjoyable IMO, just very disappointing in a lot of ways.
2011
Brainless campy slop with an addicting gameplay loop. It drags pretty hard later on though, especially near the prison part. It's more enjoyable if you played it when it came out because its nostalgic. Playing it for the first time would probably be pretty miserable though lol
2008
DISCLAIMER: IF YOU PLAY THIS GAME ON PC, MAKE SURE TO GET RADIO RESTORED and FUSION FIX MODS. When R* re released this game on PC, they cut like more than half of the songs from the base game and DLCs due to licenses expiring. Fusion Fix helps optimize the game better and adds missing visuals.
I pretty much loved almost everything about this game except for the actual missions themselves.
I loved the interactivity of everything in the game. It's especially notable in combat when you see enemies ragdoll different depending on where they're hit or shot but the details go beyond that to just tiny details around the environment like being able to chip and break walls or windows which is really impressive for GTA game and also just makes the game feel much more satisfying.
The story was also probably my favorite so far out of all the GTA games I've beaten, its the most grounded and believable story while still retaining a lot of comedic elements of the previous games. I really like Niko as a character and especially near the end of the game, I really was invested in how the game led to where it went depending on what choices I'd made earlier in the story.
I really enjoy the design of Liberty City, I really miss the more closely condensed design of GTA maps where everything feels close together and more detailed oppose to Los Santos in GTA V that feels like a pain in the ass to drive through because its a lot more vertically positioned rather than horizontal like Liberty City.
The radios in this game are amazing as well, so many bangers. I thought it would be worth mentioning since you spend so much time in GTA driving around, listening to the radio.
Like I said earlier, the biggest gripe I have with this game is the missions. Almost all of them feel the exact same and do genuinely end up feeling like errands rather than something that I feel genuinely invested and interested into getting into. Especially with how many different characters the game introduces, it makes a lot of missions feel trivial and kind of like a slog to keep the player busy. Almost every mission is just (Drive here-> Kill this guy->Drive away from cops-> earn $___). It's very dull.
I also like the idea of the friend reputation system but in execution, it again feels more like an actual chore to manage rather than something that adds extra depth to the game. However, listening to the dialogue between friends is always intriguing, it just can become annoying when you feel the need to continuously keep up the reputation of the all the random ass friends you've gotten throughout the game.
Great game overall though, it's a game I played a lot of online of as a kid but I never beat until now.
I pretty much loved almost everything about this game except for the actual missions themselves.
I loved the interactivity of everything in the game. It's especially notable in combat when you see enemies ragdoll different depending on where they're hit or shot but the details go beyond that to just tiny details around the environment like being able to chip and break walls or windows which is really impressive for GTA game and also just makes the game feel much more satisfying.
The story was also probably my favorite so far out of all the GTA games I've beaten, its the most grounded and believable story while still retaining a lot of comedic elements of the previous games. I really like Niko as a character and especially near the end of the game, I really was invested in how the game led to where it went depending on what choices I'd made earlier in the story.
I really enjoy the design of Liberty City, I really miss the more closely condensed design of GTA maps where everything feels close together and more detailed oppose to Los Santos in GTA V that feels like a pain in the ass to drive through because its a lot more vertically positioned rather than horizontal like Liberty City.
The radios in this game are amazing as well, so many bangers. I thought it would be worth mentioning since you spend so much time in GTA driving around, listening to the radio.
Like I said earlier, the biggest gripe I have with this game is the missions. Almost all of them feel the exact same and do genuinely end up feeling like errands rather than something that I feel genuinely invested and interested into getting into. Especially with how many different characters the game introduces, it makes a lot of missions feel trivial and kind of like a slog to keep the player busy. Almost every mission is just (Drive here-> Kill this guy->Drive away from cops-> earn $___). It's very dull.
I also like the idea of the friend reputation system but in execution, it again feels more like an actual chore to manage rather than something that adds extra depth to the game. However, listening to the dialogue between friends is always intriguing, it just can become annoying when you feel the need to continuously keep up the reputation of the all the random ass friends you've gotten throughout the game.
Great game overall though, it's a game I played a lot of online of as a kid but I never beat until now.
2010
My favorite game of all time.
I don't really know where to begin with New Vegas tbh. I replay this game just about every single year or so and I never get sick of it, of course I'll add some mods to refresh my experience but even without mods that add more stuff to the game, this game is still an absolute masterpiece.
Obviously this game requires a few patches to get running in stable state because of the fact its an older game that was only made in a year and a half. However, this should honestly be expected with most older games and if you cry about having to spend like 5 minutes max installing NVSE and 4GB patch you're an absolute bitch LOL
I love pretty much everything about this game. Even if its dated, I still love the gameplay and how many different kinds of weapons and armor there are in the game that can allow the player to choose so many different unique playstyles.
This game has an absolute fuck ton of quests, way more actual quests than both Fallout 3 and 4 and also of much higher quality that doesn't just consist of shooting galleries or choices that are purely obvious/black and white.
The narrative and writing in the game is so great, it really builds upon the strongest points of Fallout 1 and 2's writing and world building. New Vegas focuses more upon a truly POST-apocalyptic world rather than a freshly apocalyptic world like the Bethesda Fallout games, this game's world feels genuinely alive and authentic.
The role playing in this game allows for so many unique choices for most quests that really makes the world change around you as you play then game, every playthrough can feel completely different.
I mean there's only so much I can say about New Vegas that people haven't already said, this game basically takes the greatest elements of the first two Fallout games and puts it in the FPS/Open World format of Fallout 3 and just completely improves upon it in every single way. I genuinely think all of the cons of this game all come down to how rushed the game was but even then, they're all so minor and do not take away from how amazing this game is.
I don't really know where to begin with New Vegas tbh. I replay this game just about every single year or so and I never get sick of it, of course I'll add some mods to refresh my experience but even without mods that add more stuff to the game, this game is still an absolute masterpiece.
Obviously this game requires a few patches to get running in stable state because of the fact its an older game that was only made in a year and a half. However, this should honestly be expected with most older games and if you cry about having to spend like 5 minutes max installing NVSE and 4GB patch you're an absolute bitch LOL
I love pretty much everything about this game. Even if its dated, I still love the gameplay and how many different kinds of weapons and armor there are in the game that can allow the player to choose so many different unique playstyles.
This game has an absolute fuck ton of quests, way more actual quests than both Fallout 3 and 4 and also of much higher quality that doesn't just consist of shooting galleries or choices that are purely obvious/black and white.
The narrative and writing in the game is so great, it really builds upon the strongest points of Fallout 1 and 2's writing and world building. New Vegas focuses more upon a truly POST-apocalyptic world rather than a freshly apocalyptic world like the Bethesda Fallout games, this game's world feels genuinely alive and authentic.
The role playing in this game allows for so many unique choices for most quests that really makes the world change around you as you play then game, every playthrough can feel completely different.
I mean there's only so much I can say about New Vegas that people haven't already said, this game basically takes the greatest elements of the first two Fallout games and puts it in the FPS/Open World format of Fallout 3 and just completely improves upon it in every single way. I genuinely think all of the cons of this game all come down to how rushed the game was but even then, they're all so minor and do not take away from how amazing this game is.
2019
This game is only better than Starfield by this much 🤏 because its not plagued by insanely stupid mechanics and a million loading screens. This game is equally as mediocre and lame in almost every single way.
This game at its very core is just “guys its fallout but we made it our own thing 🙂." Except its missing practically every single aspect of what makes Fallout so appealing.
There's a very limited amount of quests to do in this game and all of the planet's maps are also very small and limited, really not allowing the player to explore and walk around very much at all to find anything interesting.
The combat is genuinely worse than Fallout 4, people were coping mad hard after getting burned by Bethesda after FO4 and 76. The controls feel incredibly stiff with really clunky animations and recoil. The bootleg VATS is also just bullet time lol, it is incredibly uninspired.
Despite being an RPG, the world in this game is so fucking bad, it's insane. I don’t know what Obsidian was trying to make the audience feel when making this game other than “corporations are evil!”
Genuinely, the first big choice you make in this game is choosing between a generic, corrupt corporation- run town or a group of deserters that take human bodies and decompose them so they can grow plants.
Bro, just because you make the player choose between two evils doesn’t make it good writing. Both sides are cartoonishly stupid and have almost no redeemable qualities at all. The corporations are unbelievably dumb because the writers didn’t want to compromise the player from being drilled in the head with the idea that CORPORATIONS ARE EVIL! It's so shallow and boring, just like the rest of the game itself.
That's the thing too, the corporations that are supposed to be evil and control like every area in the game are some of the dumbest people alive. Like the mayor in Edgewater denying that only eating fake canned tuna isn't related to the entire fucking town becoming sick?! Or maybe the fact that even in slogans its all done to make fun of how mediocre the corporations are.
Like with Spacer's Choice's motto being "It's not the best choice, it's Spacer's Choice!" and also how an endless amount of NPCs in this game will say shit like "Erm, I'll have you know that our surgery success rate has increased to a solid 58% succces rate!" Like bro we get it, corporations are evil and dumb lol.
But because of this narrative, none of the NPCs feel like actual human beings, they feel like puppets that just exist to reinforce the idea of corporations being dumb. It’s shoved into your face constantly and even if it's supposed to be satire, it's all this game is. The only issue is that this game is a fucking RPG where I’m supposed to be immersed and care about the world but how can I do that when the writer’s purposefully make every NPC so dumb and one dimensional to reinforce a shallow narrative?!
I genuinely hate how this game looks aesthetically too. Like some of this the environments and cities can look kind of cool I guess but I hate how all the NPCs and technology look.
Every female NPC has the same butch lesbian haircut and every man will all have the same face too with maybe some stupid steampunk cosplay looking ass mustache on their face. This game aesthetically looks like a redditor's wet dream. How the fuck did Obsidian manage to make every NPC look so ugly and all look the same when they're working with UE4?! It's genuinely insane.
This game is one of the most forgettable games I've ever played in my entire life. The only reason people still talk about this game is because its made by Obsidian and they made New Vegas (the best game ever) even though barely any of the original devs that worked on New Vegas actually worked on Outer Worlds.
This game at its very core is just “guys its fallout but we made it our own thing 🙂." Except its missing practically every single aspect of what makes Fallout so appealing.
There's a very limited amount of quests to do in this game and all of the planet's maps are also very small and limited, really not allowing the player to explore and walk around very much at all to find anything interesting.
The combat is genuinely worse than Fallout 4, people were coping mad hard after getting burned by Bethesda after FO4 and 76. The controls feel incredibly stiff with really clunky animations and recoil. The bootleg VATS is also just bullet time lol, it is incredibly uninspired.
Despite being an RPG, the world in this game is so fucking bad, it's insane. I don’t know what Obsidian was trying to make the audience feel when making this game other than “corporations are evil!”
Genuinely, the first big choice you make in this game is choosing between a generic, corrupt corporation- run town or a group of deserters that take human bodies and decompose them so they can grow plants.
Bro, just because you make the player choose between two evils doesn’t make it good writing. Both sides are cartoonishly stupid and have almost no redeemable qualities at all. The corporations are unbelievably dumb because the writers didn’t want to compromise the player from being drilled in the head with the idea that CORPORATIONS ARE EVIL! It's so shallow and boring, just like the rest of the game itself.
That's the thing too, the corporations that are supposed to be evil and control like every area in the game are some of the dumbest people alive. Like the mayor in Edgewater denying that only eating fake canned tuna isn't related to the entire fucking town becoming sick?! Or maybe the fact that even in slogans its all done to make fun of how mediocre the corporations are.
Like with Spacer's Choice's motto being "It's not the best choice, it's Spacer's Choice!" and also how an endless amount of NPCs in this game will say shit like "Erm, I'll have you know that our surgery success rate has increased to a solid 58% succces rate!" Like bro we get it, corporations are evil and dumb lol.
But because of this narrative, none of the NPCs feel like actual human beings, they feel like puppets that just exist to reinforce the idea of corporations being dumb. It’s shoved into your face constantly and even if it's supposed to be satire, it's all this game is. The only issue is that this game is a fucking RPG where I’m supposed to be immersed and care about the world but how can I do that when the writer’s purposefully make every NPC so dumb and one dimensional to reinforce a shallow narrative?!
I genuinely hate how this game looks aesthetically too. Like some of this the environments and cities can look kind of cool I guess but I hate how all the NPCs and technology look.
Every female NPC has the same butch lesbian haircut and every man will all have the same face too with maybe some stupid steampunk cosplay looking ass mustache on their face. This game aesthetically looks like a redditor's wet dream. How the fuck did Obsidian manage to make every NPC look so ugly and all look the same when they're working with UE4?! It's genuinely insane.
This game is one of the most forgettable games I've ever played in my entire life. The only reason people still talk about this game is because its made by Obsidian and they made New Vegas (the best game ever) even though barely any of the original devs that worked on New Vegas actually worked on Outer Worlds.
I really love the Zion National Park world space, the new items and I really enjoy certain parts of the narrative like Joshua Graham and The Survivalist story
Other than that, the DLC is definitely too short and is just a whole lot of fetch quests. I really wish there was more dialogue and interaction between tribes and other characters.
It's still pretty enjoyable to play every time I replay through New Vegas.
Other than that, the DLC is definitely too short and is just a whole lot of fetch quests. I really wish there was more dialogue and interaction between tribes and other characters.
It's still pretty enjoyable to play every time I replay through New Vegas.
My favorite thing about Lonesome Road is probably all the items and weapons. Otherwise, this is definitely the weakest New Vegas DLC. There's literally no NPC interaction besides ED-E and Ulysses and even though Ulysses is cool conceptually I don't really find his motives realistic and I feel like trying to get the player to step back and feel bad for actions that they've never done in person or were forced to do to forward the game's story is lame.
I've never really heard of anyone being a Ulysses defender, he's just carried by his cool ass voice but all he does is spew nihilistic psychobabble bullshit lol.
I liked ED-E's backstory though, I thought it was cute.
I've never really heard of anyone being a Ulysses defender, he's just carried by his cool ass voice but all he does is spew nihilistic psychobabble bullshit lol.
I liked ED-E's backstory though, I thought it was cute.
ugliest mod ever created
2021
My impressions of what this game would be and what it is were so far off lol.
Despite the game getting GOTY in 2021, I thought it just won because there weren't really any good releases in 2021 (which is still true) so I just thought this game was just a generic "quirky!" game but I was so off.
This game really took what A Way Out did and just improves on it in practically every single way with a much more engaging and emotional story, incredible and super unique level design that changes dramatically in every area of the game and naturally blends together so well.
The game also just has incredible pacing too, almost every area in the game never really overstays it's welcome and always provides different unique mechanics that always make the game feel fresh.
This may seem obvious but this game really does force you to work hard with your partner and you genuinely feel like in real life you develop more synergy with them as well as how Cody and May do within the story.
I haven't ever really played anything like this before. Again, the closest thing is A Way Out and even if I still liked that game, this game is WAY better.
Despite the game getting GOTY in 2021, I thought it just won because there weren't really any good releases in 2021 (which is still true) so I just thought this game was just a generic "quirky!" game but I was so off.
This game really took what A Way Out did and just improves on it in practically every single way with a much more engaging and emotional story, incredible and super unique level design that changes dramatically in every area of the game and naturally blends together so well.
The game also just has incredible pacing too, almost every area in the game never really overstays it's welcome and always provides different unique mechanics that always make the game feel fresh.
This may seem obvious but this game really does force you to work hard with your partner and you genuinely feel like in real life you develop more synergy with them as well as how Cody and May do within the story.
I haven't ever really played anything like this before. Again, the closest thing is A Way Out and even if I still liked that game, this game is WAY better.
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.
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
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.