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NecroMonster
Jan 4, 2009

I like the Institute and the Synths and I feel like they are the first thing Bethesda has done with these games that is both appropriate and something they can call their own but man I wish the writing was better.

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RBA Starblade
Apr 28, 2008

Going Home.

Games Idiot Court Jester

I wish there was an ending where I can kill all the evildoers of all four factions as the Silver Shroud.

Zodium
Jun 19, 2004

RBA Starblade posted:

I wish there was an ending where I can kill all the evildoers of all four factions as the Silver Shroud.

The canon ending is that the Sole Survivor goes insane and fully believes he is the Silver Shroud, kills all four factions with That Gun for being evildoers, and leaves Captain Ironsides in charge of the Commonwealth. :colbert:

Transistor Rhythm
Feb 16, 2011

If setting the Sustain Level in the ENV to around 7, you can obtain a howling sound.

RBA Starblade posted:

I wish there was an ending where I can kill all the evildoers of all four factions as the Silver Shroud.

I would legit opt for this.

I was just talking to a friend of mine, and I really wish that for FO5 they would ditch the entire concept of a "main quest" and just populate the game with all sorts of "Silver Shroud" type sidequests, letting you roll your own story or combination of stories. Maybe each little sidequest branch could have its own " game ending" if you chose it, or you could keep adventuring. FO4's side quests are significantly more compelling than the main narrative.

Songbearer
Jul 12, 2007




Fuck you say?

Zodium posted:

The canon ending is that the Sole Survivor goes insane and fully believes he is the Silver Shroud, kills all four factions with That Gun for being evildoers, and leaves Captain Ironsides in charge of the Commonwealth. :colbert:

Sorry this ending does not contain Professor Goodfeels and cannot be canon

emanresu tnuocca
Sep 2, 2011

by Athanatos
Regarding the discussion in the previous page: I don't even care so much about the lack of RP or the character's motivations being detached from the player's motivations, what I miss most from F1/2 (I don't remember F3 that well and never got that into NV, though I should probably give it another go) is the variety of splitting paths and the multiple conclusions almost each quest had, the end game slides detailing the fate of the various central locations you've interacted with, sometimes yielding non-obvious results (i.e, iirc fixing the ghoul operated nuclear reactor could actually lead to their settlement getting annexed by the nearby vault city) just went a long-long way towards making the player interactions feel meaningful and making the world feel dynamic, I really miss that sort of poo poo and it really feels like a fallout game missing those elements is taking too many steps backwards... feeling like you've accomplished something in the game world was something that I always considered to be a major portion of the Fallout experience.

Not to mention all of the little details that also add a lot towards making each playthrough a unique experience like having unique conversations and interactions for characters with 1 int, etc, that stuff was amazing and a great source of comedy as well.

In F4 the fact that you often get information that pertains to certain quests and characters and that by all means should allow you to either provide different solutions to the quests or at the very least open different interaction paths with the characters and yet none of this happens is a major disappointment that makes the whole thing feel like a game set in the fallout universe but not a proper sequel to the series.

Zephyrine
Jun 10, 2014

This is what meat is supposed to be like, dingus

RBA Starblade posted:

Mama Murphy has achieved CHIM, but instead of seeing the Morrowind game disc that Vivec saw, she sees a swarm of bits in a digital haze. She learns to condense them into a familiar form, then huffs it.

The game literally pays you xp to murder her. The old lady didn’t stand a chance.

frajaq
Jan 30, 2009

#acolyte GM of 2014




Article about the Todd Man

Zephyrine
Jun 10, 2014

This is what meat is supposed to be like, dingus

emanresu tnuocca posted:

Regarding the discussion in the previous page: I don't even care so much about the lack of RP or the character's motivations being detached from the player's motivations, what I miss most from F1/2 (I don't remember F3 that well and never got that into NV, though I should probably give it another go) is the variety of splitting paths and the multiple conclusions almost each quest had, the end game slides detailing the fate of the various central locations you've interacted with, sometimes yielding non-obvious results (i.e, iirc fixing the ghoul operated nuclear reactor could actually lead to their settlement getting annexed by the nearby vault city) just went a long-long way towards making the player interactions feel meaningful and making the world feel dynamic, I really miss that sort of poo poo and it really feels like a fallout game missing those elements is taking too many steps backwards... feeling like you've accomplished something in the game world was something that I always considered to be a major portion of the Fallout experience.

Not to mention all of the little details that also add a lot towards making each playthrough a unique experience like having unique conversations and interactions for characters with 1 int, etc, that stuff was amazing and a great source of comedy as well.

In F4 the fact that you often get information that pertains to certain quests and characters and that by all means should allow you to either provide different solutions to the quests or at the very least open different interaction paths with the characters and yet none of this happens is a major disappointment that makes the whole thing feel like a game set in the fallout universe but not a proper sequel to the series.

The main issue being that the amount of money required to make fallout 1 or 2 would these days not even pay for a mid sized quest line due to all the animators. Vouce actors, motion capture studio work. As games cost more. There's a alot less room for optional content.

See bioware games as an example where you can even wipe out the whole council in ME1 only to have it be replaced by another council with the same races, genders, voices and dialogue.

En Fuego
Oct 8, 2004

The Reverend
I'm looking to make a CHA 10 character so I can recruit Deathclaws as pets and kill people/everything with my giant deathrover.

Question, does anyone know if Lone Wanderer works with Wasteland Whisperer?

flashman
Dec 16, 2003

Its pretty annoying how many dudes will just take a knee when you've blasted them. I'm not trying to sequence break intentionally or anything but theres lots of times when klilling the dude is idea #1 like meeting the mayor for the first time, or when the gunners are accosting MacReady in the bathrooom. Frustrating.

Friar Zucchini
Aug 6, 2010

Anime Schoolgirl posted:

because then you can stack the psycho, psychobuff, psychojet and overdrive separately
FTFY

Also. I got tired of being given MOMMY THE RAIDERS ARE BOTHERING ME quests so I sent Preston off to yet another random settlement I only visited to conquer it, just picked something off the list that didn't ring a bell. Then I asked the BoS gun seller about his work and he wanted me to go get food from some settlement by peace or force, and it just had to be the same drat one. Now I get to see if that annoying gently caress stays there like I told him to or leaves cause it's not my settlement anymore.

King Vidiot
Feb 17, 2007

You think you can take me at Satan's Hollow? Go 'head on!

RBA Starblade posted:

They want the intro screen to say Obsidian instead of Bethesda.

To be fair to Bethesda, they always lay down some amazing groundwork. People are just upset because the game is merely really good instead of being amazing. With just a little bit more freedom in how to approach the goals in the game and better writing it could be a fantastic game. I love the game personally I just want to love it more, and I would if Obsidian were involved.

NecroMonster posted:

I like the Institute and the Synths and I feel like they are the first thing Bethesda has done with these games that is both appropriate and something they can call their own but man I wish the writing was better.

Yeah, adding a Blade Runner theme feels appropriate considering the franchise's tendency towards pop culture references, and the fact that the idea of human-like androids (or "pod people" or any notion of humans being replaced by duplicates) has been in science fiction writing since at least the 1950's or earlier means it fits the retro-futuristic setting. I wanted it to have a bigger impact on the world as you play though, like I wanted to pass a lone merchant walking with a brahmin only to have them suddenly stop walking and turn to stare at me, then maybe their face twitches for a bit before they pull out a weapon and start firing at me. I know that settlements get "Institute attacks" as a scripted thing which is kinda neat, but more stuff like that would've been cool.

Entropic
Feb 21, 2007

patriarchy sucks

Azhais posted:

Could be pre-planned DLC too, get all the voice acting out of the way

I would be overjoyed if the DLC is just "hey, we fixed the main storylines to give you more options to make them less terrible.

King Vidiot posted:

The Diamond City Market triggermen attacks are such bullshit. The triggermen can attack you with impunity and the guards will literally say "I'm not gettin' involved" but the second you pull out a weapon they'll fire on you and start a chain reaction where everybody goes hostile. You basically have to lead them to an indoor location and hope there aren't NPCs inside that will go hostile if you fire a gun. Also you have to hope your companion won't fire back before you can run away.
It's especially annoying because there isn't even the Skyrim style crime mechanic where you can pay a fine and have the guards stop trying to kill you. It's way to easy to accidentally steal a tin can and have the same thing happen too. You shouldn't have to worry about being run out of town because you took something literally out of a garbage can.

JawKnee posted:

Everyone's favorite home base? Mine's still the giant multi-story metal shed I built on top of the red rocket - no settlers allowed!
Egret Tours Marina is a fun spot to build on, and the NPC who lives there has an interesting backstory.

mackintosh
Aug 18, 2007


Semper Fidelis Poloniae
My issue with the story isn't even the fact that I'm railroaded (har har) into looking for a son I couldn't care less about and all the issues their sloppy writing causes. It's the illogical way the factions behave.

While I can certainly understand that BoS have turned into literal Nazis in lieu of Enclave, even the Nazis would think twice about obliterating the Institute, given its technological potential. You'd have to be borderline insane not to at least try to harness that technology and bring it into your fold. Exterminate the undesirables if you must, suppress some of their work so that synths cannot be rebuilt, but blowing up the whole thing? Where's the logic in that?

As for the Railroad - again - same issue - if you're so much for synth rights, why would you destroy the place that makes them, depriving them of procreation? That's akin to genocide.

It's idiotic and insulting.

Gravy Jones
Sep 13, 2003

I am not on your side

emanresu tnuocca posted:

Not to mention all of the little details that also add a lot towards making each playthrough a unique experience like having unique conversations and interactions for characters with 1 int, etc, that stuff was amazing and a great source of comedy as well.

I wonder how much of that is down to the economic realities of creating games of this scale. I suspect that the vast majority of people who buy this game will buy it with no intention whatsoever of playing through it more than once and for many of those people having any kind of gated content (by choice or stats or whatever) that requires multiple playthroughs to experience is a negative rather than a positive. I can see how this kind of sucks for those who want something different out of the game, something you articulated pretty well.

I'll only ever do a single playthrough. I like these games for the environment and environmentally storytelling and treat the world more like a snapsot of a time and place that I can explore and interact with rather than a narrative. Quests are little set-pieces and vignettes that I experience and enjoy and it's not a negative (for me) that have no real impact on the state of the world and I have limited agency with regards to how to proceed. I've played (and enjoyed) other Fallout and Elder Scrolls games in the same way so I guess I don't really even notice any changes that limit the appeal of multiple playthroughs.

I guess the best of both worlds aspect of it is that if the game isn't catering for that kind of audience... modders will be and they've been given a very big and detailed world to play with.

Entropic
Feb 21, 2007

patriarchy sucks

mackintosh posted:

My issue with the story isn't even the fact that I'm railroaded (har har) into looking for a son I couldn't care less about and all the issues their sloppy writing causes. It's the illogical way the factions behave.

While I can certainly understand that BoS have turned into literal Nazis in lieu of Enclave, even the Nazis would think twice about obliterating the Institute, given its technological potential. You'd have to be borderline insane not to at least try to harness that technology and bring it into your fold. Exterminate the undesirables if you must, suppress some of their work so that synths cannot be rebuilt, but blowing up the whole thing? Where's the logic in that?

As for the Railroad - again - same issue - if you're so much for synth rights, why would you destroy the place that makes them, depriving them of procreation? That's akin to genocide.

It's idiotic and insulting.

It really comes down to constantly running into limited options where you can't do or say some obvious thing. It's annoying that everything to do with your son has your character assuming he must still be an infant when there's no reason to believe that. It's annoying that when you finally find out what happened to him you have some really perfunctory and unsatisfying conversations where your character can't ask obvious questions about the Institute's motives and methods. It's annoying that your character goes along with whatever dumb plan the faction you ally with suggests without raising some obvious objections. It's annoying that the factions are written to have such dumb plans in the first place. It's just a lot of really unsatisfying writing.

NecroMonster
Jan 4, 2009

There were only two directions that the BoS could concievably "head in" if they intended to stay relevant or become powerful. It just turns out that the "more inclusive peace keeping entity" loses fights against the jackbooted thug approach pretty handily.

Deified Data
Nov 3, 2015


Fun Shoe

mackintosh posted:

As for the Railroad - again - same issue - if you're so much for synth rights, why would you destroy the place that makes them, depriving them of procreation? That's akin to genocide.

Why would the Railroad have an interest in creating more synths? To them it's a civil rights issue effecting a certain group of people - they organized as a response to Institute oppression. Bringing more synths into the world isn't part of their mission in any way. It would probably just make it harder to help the synths they're currently serving.

Entropic
Feb 21, 2007

patriarchy sucks
I mostly just wish they'd put more effort into writing the Institute, especially to make them more sympathetic once you meet them. Like have it turn out that they actually aren't kidnapping random people to murder them and replace them with synths, that it's mostly just the wastelanders' paranoia and everything that goes wrong in the Commonwealth being blamed on the Institute. Give them something actually morally ambiguous to be doing, instead of just having them be a nerdier Enclave. Hell, their whole plot could have used a couple rewrites because nothing they did with Kellog makes much sense motivation-wise. The fact that things which happen during the opening sequence of the game never get satisfying answers that actually make sense should have been a big red flag that the writing wasn't done. But I guess that's how it goes with these giant games that are rushed to come out before a holiday deadline. The story gets to the "good enough" outline stage and then they're probably jumping into getting dialogue recorded already, which makes it hard to change anything significant.

When I got close to the end game stuff, I assumed the Institute's plan would be that they're perfecting perfect immortal radiation-proof bodies to upload the minds of themselves and those they deem worthy into. But nope, they're just a less-actively-genocidal Enclave who are making synths because, eh, who knows, because they're bored or something.

What if the story was that synths are escaping to avoid being mind-wiped so their body can house a human mind? That would help the Railroad storyline too. You'd get to choose to side with the Institute and their plan for human immortality, the Railroad who wants to attack the Institute to free all the Synths (preferably in a way that doesn't involve a nuclear explosion, the Brotherhood who fear the Institute as technological competition, and you'd probably have to find a better angle for the Minutemen, but their ending feels pretty tacked on already anyway.

I don't know how you fix the intro sequence so that your spouse being shot actually makes sense though.

Entropic fucked around with this message at 17:06 on Dec 8, 2015

Anime Schoolgirl
Nov 28, 2002

there are lots of tiny but substantial things they could tweak during drafting to make the story better, just none of them are taken because egos seem to rule at bethesda

The Cheshire Cat
Jun 10, 2008

Fun Shoe

King Vidiot posted:

To be fair to Bethesda, they always lay down some amazing groundwork. People are just upset because the game is merely really good instead of being amazing. With just a little bit more freedom in how to approach the goals in the game and better writing it could be a fantastic game. I love the game personally I just want to love it more, and I would if Obsidian were involved.


Yeah, adding a Blade Runner theme feels appropriate considering the franchise's tendency towards pop culture references, and the fact that the idea of human-like androids (or "pod people" or any notion of humans being replaced by duplicates) has been in science fiction writing since at least the 1950's or earlier means it fits the retro-futuristic setting. I wanted it to have a bigger impact on the world as you play though, like I wanted to pass a lone merchant walking with a brahmin only to have them suddenly stop walking and turn to stare at me, then maybe their face twitches for a bit before they pull out a weapon and start firing at me. I know that settlements get "Institute attacks" as a scripted thing which is kinda neat, but more stuff like that would've been cool.

You can have settlers that are synths as well. The only way to tell is to kill them and find a synth component in their inventory, or have them turn on your settlement and attack (which will almost certainly happen while you aren't there and so you'll never know that's what it was).

creatine
Jan 27, 2012




Entropic posted:

I mostly just wish they'd put more effort into writing the Institute, especially to make them more sympathetic once you meet them. Like have it turn out that they actually aren't kidnapping random people to murder them and replace them with synths, that it's mostly just the wastelanders' paranoia and everything that goes wrong in the Commonwealth being blamed on the Institute. Give them something actually morally ambiguous to be doing, instead of just having them be a nerdier Enclave. Hell, their whole plot could have used a couple rewrites because nothing they did with Kellog makes much sense motivation-wise. The fact that things which happen during the opening sequence of the game never get satisfying answers that actually make sense should have been a big red flag that the writing wasn't done. But I guess that's how it goes with these giant games that are rushed to come out before a holiday deadline. The story gets to the "good enough" outline stage and then they're probably jumping into getting dialogue recorded already, which makes it hard to change anything significant.

When I got close to the end game stuff, I assumed the Institute's plan would be that they're perfecting perfect immortal radiation-proof bodies to upload the minds of themselves and those they deem worthy into. But nope, they're just a less-actively-genocidal Enclave who are making synths because, eh, who knows, because they're bored or something.

What if the story was that synths are escaping to avoid being mind-wiped so their body can house a human mind? That would help the Railroad storyline too. You'd get to choose to side with the Institute and their plan for human immortality, the Railroad who wants to attack the Institute to free all the Synths (preferably in a way that doesn't involve [spoiler]a nuclear explosion[/url], the Brotherhood who fear the Institute as technological competition, and you'd probably have to find a better angle for the Minutemen, but their ending feels pretty tacked on already anyway.

I don't know how you fix the intro sequence so that your spouse being shot actually makes sense though.

Yeah I really wish they explained what they did with the actual humans they replaced. Basically all we know is that yes many people are replaced but they make no mention if they kill the original or what.

feedmegin
Jul 30, 2008

Deified Data posted:

Why would the Railroad have an interest in creating more synths? To them it's a civil rights issue effecting a certain group of people - they organized as a response to Institute oppression. Bringing more synths into the world isn't part of their mission in any way. It would probably just make it harder to help the synths they're currently serving.

Why would the synths want to create more synths? We can't assume they have the human drive to do so. You could argue it's more like abolishing the slave trade.

NecroMonster
Jan 4, 2009

So, cool as hell thing, it turns out that jet increases your jump distance by some sort of hysterical amount. You can absolutely loving SAIL through the air on some jet.

icantfindaname
Jul 1, 2008


so here's a dispatch from the ivory tower liberal elite headquarters about how your game is bad and dumb:

http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2015/12/why-fallout-4s-1950s-satire-falls-flat/418665/

quote:

Fallout 4 takes players back. Back to the beginning. Back before the bombs fell, and before the world of the Fallout series took on its mutated, feral, apocalyptic form. But what did that world look like?

The Fallout series has, since its inception, hinted at a world before nuclear annihilation that resembled the 1950s in its culture and its design, rather than the 2070s, which is the decade in which Fallout’s “Great War”—a two-hour series of nuclear blasts that decimated the planet—took place. But the series has only ever revealed this in the clues left behind in its various wastelands. That pre-war world, untouched by nuclear fallout, has never been shown, and because of this the series has always managed to uphold an ironic distance between the wastelands the player explores and the past these spaces gesture back to.

But Fallout 4 is different; it begins before the bombs. And allowing the player to be a part of this world, even briefly, breaks this distance down completely. Fallout 4 is the most nostalgic game in the series, pining for its its lost world. You play as someone who lived and loved this old world, somebody who has an emotional attachment to it. But to get the player to feel the same is difficult, and the game doesn’t exactly reconcile this newfound sentiment with its irreverent tone. Fostering an emotional attachment to what has come before is not something that sits easily with the game’s satirical take on that previous world.

There’s a marked difference as soon as the game’s introductory film begins. Previous games in the Fallout series have begun with a maudlin tune from the ’30s, ’40s, or ’50s, wailing away over a series of grainy images of a destroyed world. After the song ends, the monologue begins, with the video-game-famous intonation, “War. War never changes.” Fallout 4 changes this. For the first time, there is no song, and the opening monologue is spoken by the game’s playable male character. This does two things: Firstly, it sidelines the female character, and presents the male as the default, intended protagonist of the game (an opening speech by both of them could have been interesting); and secondly, it creates a character before the player has had a chance to.

Character creation has always been a key element of Fallout, with the playable character often being a blank state that players fill in for themselves. In the previous game, subtitled New Vegas, players are told the protagonist is a courier; apart from that, no other information is given. In Fallout 3, the game begins at the birth of the protagonist; in that game, the player is absent from no single moment of their life. This opening speech is much more revealing. The playable character is a former soldier. He speaks of his grandfather, of his wife, his child, of the shattering of the American dream. About the fear he feels. The game seems to be using this speech to pull players in emotionally, to feel what the character feels, so that when the bombs start to fall we understand what’s at stake for this family.

Then the film ends, and the game opens up, and we’re plunged into its pre-war world. On a sunny autumnal morning, somewhere in the suburbs surrounding Boston, the player is finally witness to the world before the bombs fell. The house we find ourselves inhabiting, in both its exterior design and its interior decoration, resembles a brand new home of the suburban 1950s; shiny new cars lay dormant outside each bright new house. The opening film has made it clear that the male playable character loves his family very much; it would make sense if this was shown and explored in this scene. It would make sense too for the wife to be given some characterization, for their relationship to be given some depth.

But this doesn’t happen. The sequence gives the player no opportunity to engage in any meaningful way with either spouse or son. Instead, the game seems to utilize 1950s imagery as a visual shorthand; by presenting the traditional nuclear family in their comfortable suburban home, the game is telling the player to assume that they are happy and loving, rather than this being illustrated through in-game actions. This upends the stance previous games in the series took, in which the cultural mores of the 1950s, including the idea of the happy, suburban nuclear family, were plundered for satire. Being part of such a family, and feeling like an emotional attachment is meant to be made to them, sits uneasily with the game’s overall tone and sense of humor, and this is only heightened by the lack of effort the game makes in showing real relationships between these characters.

This begs the question, then: Why the ’50s? Outside of the irony we as players are meant to perceive and enjoy, there’s no reason why the culture of the Fallout world, in its music, its design and its fashion, is permanently stuck in the mid-20th century. The inherent humor in the juxtaposition the game creates between its cozy ’50s aesthetic and its hyperviolent imagery is clear, but there’s nothing in the world itself that justifies this, or at least expands on it. The series’s retrofuturism is its longest running joke, and by combining many different facets of ’50s American culture—from naive technological optimism to the focus on the nuclear family and the beginnings of consumer capitalism—and coupling this with nuclear fallout on a planetary scale, the Fallout games have always carried with them an ironic commentary on the so-called “Atomic Age,” in which the power of nuclear energy was viewed as something that could change the world.
There is no reason why the culture of the Fallout world is permanently stuck in the mid-20th century.

In the United States, the rise of nuclear energy came to a slowdown in the 1970s, and halted drastically after the Three Mile Island accident in 1979, when a nuclear meltdown took place in one of the two nuclear reactors in Dauphin County, Pennsylvania. After this, public support for nuclear power in the U.S. dropped significantly. Globally, the Chernobyl disaster of 1986 and the Fukushima Daiichi disaster of 2011 continue to fuel debate regarding the safety of nuclear power. But in the Fallout series, it’s the harnessing of nuclear power that is key, both to its society’s technological advances, and its eventual self-destruction. The historian William Knoblauch writes of Fallout 3 that “the game’s reliance on 1950s imagery suggests that nuclear war was only ever really possible during the early Cold War. Put simply, Fallout 3’s apocalypse is born of a distant, but culturally familiar, 1950s era.” Maybe the answer to “Why the ’50s?” is simply that without the ’50s, Fallout wouldn’t be Fallout. Perhaps there is no other decade in which the cultural and political climate could be as severely juxtaposed with nuclear annihilation as that of the 1950s.

In many ways then, Fallout 4, like the rest of the series, is a satire of the 1950s and that decade’s dream of a science-fiction utopia. The wastelands of the series have always been strewn with the burnt-out remains of these dreams, yet because of the distance in time and in culture between the remains of the old world and the reality of the new, the kitsch ’50s culture of the pre-war world always appeared ridiculous. By allowing the player to begin the game in that setting, and to play as someone who lived in that world, the game loses this distance from events, and therefore, so does the player. Being cast as somebody whose life is contained in the remains of the old world means that what before was considered ironic now has to be taken in with a very straight face.

How is it possible to roleplay as anything but a parent pining for their child and for their home? But it’s still Fallout, and so this is perfectly possible. After hours spent wandering the wasteland, the memory of that brief stint in a past life will vanish, and all the leftovers of the old world will revert back to what they were in every other Fallout game: stuff to pick up. But maybe this is where Fallout 4’s settlements, in which players can rebuild broken-down towns and homes with junk assembled along their journeys, will come in. Perhaps it can all be built back up, that image of the old world, and a son will be found, and that past life can begin again.

icantfindaname fucked around with this message at 17:18 on Dec 8, 2015

Cojawfee
May 31, 2006
I think the US is dumb for not using Celsius
Your link is broken.

http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2015/12/why-fallout-4s-1950s-satire-falls-flat/418665/

Maybe the editor had to come something off the end to get below a word limit or something but I didn't see where the author explains why it falls flat.

HnK416
Apr 26, 2008

Hot diggity damn!

icantfindaname posted:

A Big Huge Pile Of Liquid poo poo In Written Form

I sometimes forget that people who don't actually give a poo poo about video games don't read backstory material. The reason for the 50's aesthetic is just that culture and fashion are cyclical, right? The US went through it's normal stuff (hippies in the 60's/70's grungy punk in the 70's/80's) and looped back to 50's Americana. If I'm wrong please correct me, but I'm pretty drat certain that's the case.

icantfindaname
Jul 1, 2008


HnK416 posted:

I sometimes forget that people who don't actually give a poo poo about video games don't read backstory material. The reason for the 50's aesthetic is just that culture and fashion are cyclical, right? The US went through it's normal stuff (hippies in the 60's/70's grungy punk in the 70's/80's) and looped back to 50's Americana. If I'm wrong please correct me, but I'm pretty drat certain that's the case.

the main reason for the 50s poo poo is that nerds will take any funny or interesting premise they get their hands on and then beat it into a bloody paste because they're dumb and unfunny

and no none of the things in your post makes any sense except as a handwave-y kludge to try to justify the uninteresting, unfunny nerdbait setting and humor of the game. no amount of backstory stuff on wikis curated by autists will change the fact that the game is uninteresting and unfunny

Cojawfee posted:

Your link is broken.

http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2015/12/why-fallout-4s-1950s-satire-falls-flat/418665/

Maybe the editor had to come something off the end to get below a word limit or something but I didn't see where the author explains why it falls flat.

he seems to be arguing the 50s setting isn't explored very deeply and is just taken at face value, despite the overtures to satire that the game makes

icantfindaname fucked around with this message at 17:26 on Dec 8, 2015

HnK416
Apr 26, 2008

Hot diggity damn!

icantfindaname posted:

the main reason for the 50s poo poo is that nerds will take any funny or interesting premise they get their hands on and then beat it into a bloody paste because they're dumb and unfunny

This is true, but it doesn't negate the fact that there is actually an explanation behind it. If there wasn't and it was literally just "uhhhhhh 50's lol" then the dumbshit factor would be much higher.

Also, personally, I'd like to see the series branch a bit forward in time, where culture is concerned. The 60's rock stuff that's popped up in F4 has been wonderful and I'd like to see some real 60's/70's counterculture stuff show up.

Or, y'know, they just ditch that poo poo all together and go for something more fitting with the post-apocalyptic setting. That'd be cool too.

Literal Nazi Furry
Jan 27, 2008

Swastika - Helvetica - Ikea
Last night I dreamt of Adolf searching for Anne.
I lay on my back
standing alone in the corner watching the girls dance.

I'm on crystal meth.
I piss in my pants.

icantfindaname posted:

so here's a dispatch from the ivory tower liberal elite headquarters about how your game is bad and dumb:

those fuckers with the audacity to criticize The Product

icantfindaname
Jul 1, 2008


HnK416 posted:

This is true, but it doesn't negate the fact that there is actually an explanation behind it. If there wasn't and it was literally just "uhhhhhh 50's lol" then the dumbshit factor would be much higher.

backstory stuff on a wiki means absolutely, literally nothing. i could say that a paper bag of dogshit was actually worth a billion dollars on a wiki but that wouldn't make it true. you can't logic your way out of the game being bad, a detailed, rational explanation of why the game is bad doesn't actually change the fact that the game is bad

Android Blues
Nov 22, 2008

HnK416 posted:

I sometimes forget that people who don't actually give a poo poo about video games don't read backstory material. The reason for the 50's aesthetic is just that culture and fashion are cyclical, right? The US went through it's normal stuff (hippies in the 60's/70's grungy punk in the 70's/80's) and looped back to 50's Americana. If I'm wrong please correct me, but I'm pretty drat certain that's the case.

No, it's pretty much what that person said. I mean, there might be a Fallout canon explanation for it, but the series hearkens back to the '50s entirely because of the fact that it was the Atomic Age and had an essential juxtaposition of goofy warmth and looming nuclear threat.

Harrow
Jun 30, 2012

HnK416 posted:

I sometimes forget that people who don't actually give a poo poo about video games don't read backstory material. The reason for the 50's aesthetic is just that culture and fashion are cyclical, right? The US went through it's normal stuff (hippies in the 60's/70's grungy punk in the 70's/80's) and looped back to 50's Americana. If I'm wrong please correct me, but I'm pretty drat certain that's the case.

I thought it was just because the alternate history branch-off point was in the 1950s, with a huge leap forward in technology brought on by a fantastic version of nuclear power. But I guess that wouldn't make culture stagnate so really I have no idea what the in-universe justification is.

Although actually the real reason, I think, is because Fallout is supposed to evoke those 1950s-era "this is what life will be like in the FUTURE!" things. Sort of a, what if that really was what the future was like, and also the Cold War never ended and everything went to poo poo, that kind of thing. While it wouldn't make a ton of sense for the cultural aesthetic to stay that way for fully 120 years of alternate history, it doesn't really matter because the end result is that they wanted to take that aesthetic into the post-apocalypse. One could easily argue that Bethesda took that aesthetic a bit too literally, but I think that's a separate issue.

HnK416
Apr 26, 2008

Hot diggity damn!

Android Blues posted:

No, it's pretty much what that person said. I mean, there might be a Fallout canon explanation for it, but the series hearkens back to the '50s entirely because of the fact that it was the Atomic Age and had an essential juxtaposition of goofy warmth and looming nuclear threat.

Eh, the series does make mention of hippies and there's elements of counterculture (even Punk) that pop up in the games, so maybe that's where I got it from. Though, I could have sworn that I remember hearing one of the OG devs talking about that at some point. Either way, it honestly doesn't bother me because hey, neat clothes and cool music.

icantfindaname posted:

backstory stuff on a wiki means absolutely, literally nothing. i could say that a paper bag of dogshit was actually worth a billion dollars on a wiki but that wouldn't make it true. you can't logic your way out of the game being bad, a detailed, rational explanation of why the game is bad doesn't actually change the fact that the game is bad

I'd love to know, just for a moment, what it's like to be so mad at someone not being mad about something.

Backhand
Sep 25, 2008
I used to despise Piper, Preston, and Nick because of how bland and aggravating and contrary they would always act. Their immortality made them useful meat shields and pack mules, but that was about it.

Then I realized that attacking them does not in any way affect their disposition to you, nor does anyone freak out when you do it. And they're still immortal.

Cue me wandering around Bunker Hill, exploring the town, only occassionally turning around every few minutes to sock Nick right in the jaw for whatever his latest stupid remark was. It's surprising just how satisfying it is to punch your followers in the face for being stupid. I gave Marcy Long a few shiners too, after one too many smartass remarks about how I better not ruin things for her. This game just keeps improving!

Bholder
Feb 26, 2013

Are we really complaining about the 50s aesthetic? Really?

There's nothing deeper to it, it is the juxtaposition from switching to Mad Max. I don't know why this poo poo needs to be taken completely seriously.

NecroMonster
Jan 4, 2009

icantfindaname posted:

so here's a dispatch from the ivory tower liberal elite headquarters about how your game is bad and dumb:

is this about ethics in video game journalism?

HnK416
Apr 26, 2008

Hot diggity damn!

Bholder posted:

Are we really complaining about the 50s aesthetic? Really?

There's nothing deeper to it, it is the juxtaposition from switching to Mad Max. I don't know why this poo poo needs to be taken completely seriously.

People have to find things to complain about in this perfectly alright game that is neither very bad but is also not A+ material.

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Anime Schoolgirl
Nov 28, 2002

HnK416 posted:

I'd love to know, just for a moment, what it's like to be so mad at someone not being mad about something.
the person you responded to unironically likes tolkien, make of this what you will

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