Bethesda Reacts To Three Major 'Fallout 3' Criticisms

MTV Multiplayer writes:

"As good as 'Fallout 3' is - I've invested more than 65 hours! - it wasn't a perfect game, a statement even 'Fallout 3' executive producer Todd Howard would agree with, so we lined up three common criticisms gamers have leveled against his post-apocalyptic RPG to find out if he agreed with them."

[Canary]

What, seriously? THOSE are the top complaints?

Where's the terrible, atrocious writing come into play? Why isn't that number 1?

And... *smacks head* Todd Howard is a moron. Does he seriously think people despise the ending because it ends? Does he seriously fail to consider that people hate it because Bethesda tried to make a game without hiring ANY writers?

[PixlSheX]

I'm actually glad that he said this:
"We really underestimated how many people would want to keep playing, so that’s probably the last time we’ll do something like that."

[Megaton]

No mention of an entire platform of users being left out in the cold with our d*cks in our hands eh? I love this game, I absolutely hate Bethesda for taking the exclusive ass-raping moneybags path on DLC. Unlike the GTAIV stuff, I actually really want this DLC.

...and yes, not being able to play after the ending was a horrible decision.

[felidae]

150+ hours in .. and still loving every single bit of this game.

@below

yeah, i feel sorry for PS3-only gamers. it's really a rip-off in some way.

[MegaMohsi]

How can you charge the PS3 owners of the game full price when you won't support it at all after launch? No extended level cap patch, no play after ending patch, so basically we got ripped off.

[deeznuts]

I have both consoles, and put both versions on my queue for gamefly (ensures I get whatever comes first for me, quicker). The PS3 version came. Is it that much crappier? Or just the after-finish features?

I never play a game after I beat it, so any of that isn't essential. I just don't want a gimped version while playing the game itself. I only get to game a couple hours a week nowadays.,

[MegaMohsi]

It's not gimped at all, the graphics are almost identical to the 360, the 360 having AA of course, sharper textures (for the most part) and a bit better framerate. It's nothing that detracts from the experience though. The PS3 version did have more bugs than the other versions but a lot of those were corrected with the 1.10 patch. The only problem with the game is no DLC and these other things that were problematic(not being able to play after beating the game, level cap) won't be addressed on the PS3 version because they aren't getting the DLC so Bethesda pretty much said F you to PS3 owners.

[phosphor112]

was the worst of the Fallout series. I'm not saying its bad by any means. But lots of people who have played (and beaten) the other two would agree. While the VATSystem and every old fallout moment that was brought back gave me a sense of nostalgia, it just didn't feel anything like the unique games that came out what..12 years ago now?

Also, Bethseda can go suck one for not supporting PS3. What kind of bullsh*t is that? They are NOT getting any more money from me.

[luoshuigui]

it actually goes like this, from the worst to the best

FOBOS<FOT<FO3<FO< FO2

[4 cough]

Best played on 360

[MegaMohsi]

No, best played on PC, 360 is nowhere close.

[Graphics Whore]

Pwned.

[Magic_The_Celt]

Correction

Pwned in the ASS :)

[Deadman64]

ya best played on PC if you wanna dump serious cash into your PC. No thanks.

[Kinetix]

True. Heres a middle finger todd, just returning the favor.

[dash--]

If he knows how disappointed people are with the ending why only make DLC for the PC and Xbox? He also stated in one interview that PS3 owners got their money's worth with the game because it's over 100hrs of gameplay.

[Gamingisfornerds]

- Horrible FPS mechanics
- Repetetive environments
- Unconvincing/messy visuals (shadows anyone?)

Wish I could, but just not digging this one. :(

[ChampIDC]

Well, seeing that it's not a twitch FPS, it can get away with the mechanics. It is an RPG after all. The other 2 points I agree with, though.

[Gamingisfornerds]

I think the "it's an RPG" argument isn't a valid one and it's coming off a bit easy like that. I realise it can't be as polished as say a COD4, but it must be atleast above average for it to be worthwile.

Yes, at it's core it's an RPG, but do you realise that the FPS element of this game isn't just a minor addition, it's basicly one of the main attributes. It's something you're doing constantly throughout the entire game! Therefore, it must meet "decent" standards at the very least.

Really, I'd even be fine (kind of) with "average" FPS mechanics in an RPG, but Fallout 3 has TERRIBLE FPS mechanics which is unacceptable.

[Baka-akaB]

Well ps3 owners should just stomp their foot and not support devs that mess with them . I got an average pc , so it would be easier to play it on ps3 .. however i dont see why i should give them money for the ps3 version if they just dont care .

I wont beg and shouldnt need to

[poeo]

i kinda agree but.. Fallout 3 is one of the best games i've played this gen on my PS3. and it could have been a 360 exclusive, and i would have had to buy a 360 in that case... so im thankful i got to play the game at all.

also, if we PS3 owners now start to boycott Bethesda, what do you think will happen to Elder Scrolls 5 and Fallout 4 (if they make one)? well, they would end up as 360/PC exclusive. how's that good for the PS3..? i'm a long time PlayStation fan (ever since the very first Wipeout), and even i would "switch sides" IN A HEARTBEAT if the next Elder Scrolls and Fallout didnt come to PS3... and besides, Bethesda made Oblivion SUPERIOR on PS3! they certainly dont hate the PS3. it's just that maybe... maybe, MAYBE, enough people just didnt buy Oblivion on PS3. or the Shivering Isles expansion. why should they bother releasing Fallout 3 DLC on PS3 if we dont support their games?

[rockleex]

So no matter how much the developers screw us over, it was worth it!

/end sarcasm/

Supporting people who rip you off won't make them suddenly realize how valuable you are as a customer.

There's a reason why boycotting was invented, because people were getting ripped off. If you keep supporting people who rip you off, they will simply continue to rip you off because all they care about is getting the money.

If enough people boycott, then they will LOSE money and you WILL make an impact. You WILL matter to them, because they are no longer getting as much money as they could have.

Honestly, it SHOULDN'T require a boycott for a developer to realize that their customers' needs matter. But sadly, people are still supporting those developers. -_-"

[poeo]

my point is that Fallout 3 for the PS3 is pretty much charity, they didnt HAVE TO make it. we PS3 owners are not exactly essential Bethesda customers.. i really wonder if Oblivion made them any profit at all. so i doubt that if we dont buy their games they would suddenly decide to put more effort into the PS3 versions. not gonna happen. they will just go to the 360/PC, since that's more their thing. and like i said, before Bethesda knew how their games would sell on the PS3, they made a SUPERIOR CONSOLE VERSION OF OBLIVION. which sold massively less than the 360 version. they did their part, we PS3 gamers didnt meet them halfway. we had the chance of supporting Oblivion (one of the highest rated and groundbreaking games this gen), but we really didnt.. people bought Resistance and whatever instead....

and yeah, after playing Fallout 3 and Oblivion, i support Bethesda more than Sony. i will proudly support any developer who manage to truly amaze me with their games. and i will buy any console the next Fallout is on.. (not getting a 360 for the DLC though, no way).

[kingme71]

Whew, glad they didn't interview Denis Dyack. I can just hear Denis now

Criticism: #1: “Fallout 3″ is just mediocre when judged as a first person shooter

DD: I would say the fans say different. We have had countless paid focus groups that I have interviewed personally in our office tell us this is the best game they have ever played and likely ever will play in this lifetime. The sheer number of downloads of the demo alone prove you are wrong and anyone who thinks that way is wrong too.

Criticism #2: The ending isn’t very satisfying and much shorter than other “Fallout” endings

DD: I don't think most people really "get" the ending we were going for. Either they didn't put enough thought into how it unfolds or didn't have the capacity to understand it. We definitely got the ending and it makes me laugh to hear others outside of Silicone Knights had trouble finding satisfaction with it.

Criticism #3: V.A.T.S. is boring once you’re accurate enough to head shot everyone

DD: Boring!?! I would argue that it is one of the most exciting things you will have come in contact with in a gaming environment. I honestly cannot wait to leave work each day to get home and play this game and perform accurate headshots. I've never said that about any game I (I mean we) have ever made at SK. My employees say the same thing and we all can't be wrong.

[divideby0]

I am enjoying the game...but GOTY...lmao...not even close.....I think IGN gave it GOTY...that site has gone downhill and continues to fall

[shovelbum]

Luckily I picked up the 360 version because I really like the game and am on my third character. PS3 folks are getting screwed over (again) by Bethesda. I agree with the main story being too short and the ending was tame considering the story to that point but I love V.A.T.S. and I think it was a good first effort by Bethesda for the Fallout series. They did enough right that they should be able to build a quality sequel. I'd tell them to have more diversity with the interiors and NPC's, hammer down an epic story because the game deserves it, more side quests, be more creative with the achievements this time around as well. I'm not saying turn it into Oblivion because I was lost most of the time when questing but I find myself just going into structure after structure doing/scavenging the same things over and over again with little reason to do so. I love the game but after reading this, I'm not sure why. :) Oh yea, DLC is coming tomorrow and it'll be a good day to visit Alaska.

[Erdrick]

i mostly hated it for the horrible controls, shallow battle mechanics, non-existent story, pathetic voice acting and dialogue, and retarded enemies...

[vincentvegawchz]

I really agree with the fact that the game should not end at all, thank goodness for game saves, it was nice to get all that great stuff after killing the hundreds of soliers and then the game ends, NOT. That was my only game complaint, as for playability, i found that my version (PS3) had alot of sticky issues, loading into a undiscovered portion of the Map, it would lag, if not freeze completely, but other than that happening a few times, i have little complaint of this game, i thought it was one of the best 2008 had to offer! Cant wait for next Elder Scrolls (Keeping Fingers Crossed for Online Play)

[Reibooi]

The game is great and these criticisms are pretty minor for a game so big. Personally I would like to know why all the character models in Bethesda games look like plastic dolls but that's besides the point.

Fallout 3 was easily one of the best games of last year but I have a major gripe and that is the lack of PS3 support. It's as simple as this. If you make a PS3 version SUPPORT IT!!! End of story. There is no point in screwing over PS3 users. Why? because when you release your next game they will remember how they got screwed and won't buy the game at all.

[Sarcasm]

"because when you release your next game they will remember how they got screwed and won't buy the game at all. "

Yup, then they will just make the next game multiplat only on 360/PC. Yes you 360 fans, MULTIPLATFORM. 360 AND PC. TWO PLATFORMS.

:)

[akiraburn]

I have played all 3 iterations of the game (On PC and PS3 I own it and have played the most of), and here's my thoughts overall. And before I start off, I want to say that it really is one of the most amazing games I've played, for it's sheer size, depth, diversity in choices. And keeping that in mind, overall I would say for a multi-plat game it came out very well rounded on each system. The problems I have found... well my biggest complaints are a lot different than this writer.

For starters, all three iterations have a decent amount more bugs than should have slipped through. I have a real nice high end gaming PC I built myself, I have played many high requirement games on high or maxed settings, and I rarely ever experience lag, crashes, or similar. In Fallout, I've had several bugs that cause crashes sending me directly to desktop, and even once or twice that ended up locking my system completely. Besides that, I've had to deal with script errors and similar problems.

In the PS3 and 360 iterations, I've seen much worse. I just finished my platinum trophy on PS3 actually. The entire last mission while outside I would need to save every couple minutes, due to the game locking up completely and needing to "hard reset" my system. My friends on their PS3 and 360's experienced this as well, so I have a feeling this is a big coding error. This happened periodically through the game in other areas, though much more infrequently prior to this (in fact it didn't seem to happen at all until about halfway through the game, and then seemed to get worse the farther I progressed and the more things I did). Not to mention MANY graphical errors, scripting problems for quests and sequences, and areas that seemed unfinished or messed up. I've also seen a problem on both systems, where dialogue and subtitles just skip completely. You talk to someone, and it starts a dialogue, and then just disappears and skips the audio over it.

Second, I would have liked a little more of a well put together ending. It wasn't that it was awful (it was nice how depending on your choices through the game certain things were included or un-included), but it was missing so much, and seemed unfair to give players such a bland ending for a possible 100+ hour quest.

Third, probably I would have to say is a mix between the problems with VATS being unbalanced, and the problems with skills being unbalanced. This is similar to the problems Bethesda had with Oblivion, and even to an extent with Morrowind. They have balancing issues in their games, and it gets overlooked far too often.

Skills like Barter and speech are nice in theory, but were pointless in general. I amassed over 20,000 caps by the time I was nearing the end with never taking a point in Barter. And with speech, the player can just reload continuously until they get the desired outcome. Even with weapons based skills, you really only needed to max small guns and maybe melee. And character creation was kinda messed up. All the stats were balanced a little poorly, and ended up making Intelligence the most important no matter what type of character you were playing, and Charisma was kind hardly useful for any character.

To add, with each bobblehead, it adds either a point to a stat or a 10 points to a skill. Plus there's 25 books per skill type (total is 325 books) that add a skill point of each type in the wasteland (plus a perk that makes each book worth 2 Skill points). And then the perks that boost either number of skills per level by an extra 3, or the dual skill-up perks, you could max out all the skills you have long before level 20 with a little pre-planning. Point being, it needed work, and a bunch skills needed to be made more useful and practical.

With VATS, at times can be useful, but overall it's either too overpowered, too underpowered, or it's overall targeting percentages are completely off for the situation. Especially when you of the enemy rushes in, and you and the enemy's model are too close. It gives 0% chance to hit more often than not. VATS was a nice idea, but again, needed a lot off touch up, and maybe some variation (more than just the Mysterious stranger).

Anyway, those are my main complaints overall. While I love the game, I beat it on PC, and I had fun with the PS3 version and getting the trophies (and I do hope Bethesda chooses to patch and release the DLC on PS3), I think stick to the PC version with some nice mods added on for further enjoyment and fixing the balancing, and for the ever-so-handy quick save. Here's hoping they either allow console based mods, or take some of the good ideas from the exsisteing ones and add them in a future update.

P.S. Sorry for the epic post.

[theEnemy]

more like 3 major personal opinions.

[JD_Shadow]

No 360 fanboys have went and bragged yet that "they get the patch and the PS3 don't". A plus...and telling that Bethesda is pissing off everybody with that move and that NO ONE thinks it's fair.

Seriously, I'm still waiting for someone to start it.

[ASSASSYN 36o]

183 hours of gameplay and I am enjoying every minute of it. The best RPG I have ever played.

[Fanboy Slaughter]

....it's called: "Give us a f**king DLC pack too, you pr!cks!"

[L-a-i-n]

No DLC for the PS3 owners is lame and just plain wrong. I bought it on the 360 because I havent gotten a game for it in awhile. Needless to say I will not buy the DLC just because they are being @sses to the PS3 folks. I will not surport a dev that does stupid stuff like this. If you make a game multiplat you should treat them both the same. (I'm looking at you Rockstar) Sorry the PS3 fans will not be getting the same game as the PC/360.

Conclusion LAME AS HECK!

[d_dogg2007]

This gimped game is nominated for GOTY?? I swear the industry has no more standards to what is a great game. I mean even LEft 4 dead was nominated for game of the year WOW.

[Sarcasm]

Left 4 Dead was a fun game though. But hardly GOTY. Lack of story, pointless single player, and average graphics.

And it boggles my mind, Brian Sh1tcente from Kotaku picked L4D for "Best Story"

[PS360PCROCKS]

"We really underestimated how many people would want to keep playing, so that’s probably the last time we’ll do something like that."

haha this makes no sense! Who wants a game to end if it's good? I could continue playing ratchet and clank, god of war, gears of war, resident evil, mass effect and bioshock forever if it just kept going.