Spideyisamoron

Character is of course vital, but we still need to care about whether or not they achieve their goals. Ned Stark, Winston Smith, Walter White, Arthur Dent, Sam Gamgee and Atticus Finch are all great characters but if the story was just about them sitting around their apartment all day watching the sports channel and filing their taxes with no stakes then it would be pretty damn boring. We care about Arthur because he’s an utterly bog standard, unremarkable everyman who’s thrown into a vast, bizarre barely comprehendible galaxy with no way of going back home. Both the tension and the humour of the story emerge from the fact that he’s the least prepared person on Earth to handle to concepts and challenges he encounters on his journey. Walter White fascinates us because we’re always on edge, on the one hand kind of sympathising with him while fearing he’ll be consumed by his inner demons. The sense of jeopardy, either from physical danger or emotional strife is what allows us to connect with them. On a more personal level, in the Shawshank Redemption we care about Red because we don’t want him to give into the sense of despair and defeat that have consume so many of his fellow prisoners.

No, the majority is content to simply use the word "better". Finding a missing family member is such a tired trope. It's serviceable, albeit unimaginative, for narratives in the fantasy genre which tend to be personal tales of heroes that go on a journey of self-discovery. Science fiction is not about the individual, though, it's about the human condition as a whole. Fallout, in my opinion, works best as a science fiction franchise. Bethesda made a fantasy game, complete with orcs (super-mutants), a evil antagonist with no redeeming qualities (Enclave, despite them being wiped out in a previous game), heroes in shining armor (BoS, for some reason) and someone to step up and save the world (the player character). The "darkest hour" trope, is quite positively my least favorite part of any story that has one. Every time I sit down and watch a Hollywood movie, I dread the inevitable moment where everything is made to crumble for no apparent reason and, instead of simply moving on, the story has to spend the next 15 minutes picking the broken pieces up off the floor and putting them back together. And it's not because I want everything to be flowers and sunshine. I'm the kind of sadist who enjoys the utter despair of things like Breaking Bad, The Walking Dead and watching favorite characters getting killed off in Game of Thrones, but in those shows the suffering is more constant and doesn't have a separate act of the story devoted to it. It's just that writers often cram this stuff in unnecessarily because they feel like they have to, are ordered to, or because they genuinely don't have any better ideas. Stories that deviate from traditional methods of storytelling are the ones I find the most interesting. I like stories where the protagonist is really just a normal person, where there are no clearly defined villain, and where my expectations are subverted by not having things play out according to some archaic standard of how to tell a story. Fallout: New Vegas doesn't have a "darkest hour" or many moments of tension. It's not a bad thing, just different, and the narrative being so grounded is a big reason for why I like it. A lack of tension becomes problematic as it means there’s little reason to be invested in the story. In New Vegas I could never shake the feeling that I could just saunter off and let House and the NCR take care of things, which meant there was little investment in completing in quests. While some darkest ours can certainly be contrived a better solution would be to find a way to work them into the story more naturally rather than do away with them altogether. I have nothing against more unusual narratives, but even they depend on having something genuinely at stake. 12 Angry Men is essentially one long protracted scene with no clear villain, but it’s still held together by a genuine sense of risk that the characters may wend up either sending an innocent man to his death or letting a murderer out onto the streets. Fallout 3’s handling of morality isn’t really that different from the earlier games. It was impossible to join the Enclave in 2 and all siding with the Master got you was a glorified game over screen. If anything Fallout 3 follows a consistent pattern in the series where the player is free to be the biggest dick in the world in the sidequests but has to fight a greater evil in the main story. If anything Fallout 3 nudged the series in a less linear direction by allowing the player to help Eden (granted they dropped the ball on that in Broken Steel, and it's a little odd that the player can support Eden Who's a genocidal maniac but not Autumn who's really not much worse than the Brotherhood). In some areas it even exceeds the early games. For instance, in Fallout 2 and 3 we see similar quests where a pack of underdog Ghouls is pitted against a band of prejudiced humans. In Gecko the moral dilemma is clear cut as on the one hand you have the Ghouls, who are all friendly, decent hard working folks lead by Harold who we know is a stand-up guy thanks to the first game, and on the other you have Lynette, a paranoid racist elitist from a society dependant on slavery who wants to solve the problem by blowing up the power plant, further irradiating an already derelict Wasteland. Then you have Tenpenny Tower, where the moral dilemma initially seems black and white with the Ghouls as underdogs against the wealthy bigots. However, on closer inspection it turns out many of the Tower’s residents are actually pretty decent, if ignorant people who can be made to see the error of their ways. In contrast we see Philips is an unrepentant monster who’s allowed himself to become the very thing he hated, with his cohorts varying from Michael Masters who somewhat acknowledges the barbarity of what he’s doing but still allows himself to be sucked in by Roy’s charisma to Bessie Linn who tries to filter out and deny the magnitude of Philips’s crimes. The questline’s unavoidable downbeat ending may have been controversial, but it makes a clear statement that some problems can’t be magically fixed by one random bum wandering in from the Wasteland. As for the Brotherhood, their implementation was highly flawed but I think there was more thought put into it than is often acknowledged, though it was hamstrung by Bethesda’s unwillingness to take certain threads to their logical conclusion. They shoot Ghouls on sight (And judging by Winthrop’s aside that they miss most of the time have presumably killed a few), Dr Li warns you not to trust them and the Scourge of the Pitt repeatedly warn the player that they’re not quite the spotless paladins they set themselves up to be, and considering how Maxson turned into Baby’s First Stalin in Fallout 4 I strongly suspect that this was very deliberate. The problem is the game suggests these darker undercurrents but never follows up on them. The player is never allowed to call Lyons or his daughter out on their mistreatment of Ghouls, nor does it allow you to consider the inherent dangers of the Brotherhood having complete control over the Region’s only source of fresh water, something that gives them an unhealthy degree of leverage over the Wasteland’s communities. I suspect Bethesda was going to place more emphasis on the Brotherhood’s shady side but wimped out, fearing that it might put players off.

Too true, and it's obvious that by Dead Money they'd already gotten better with the scripting and characterisation issues. The companion's chatter around the fountain and Elijah's mad ramblings to himself over the radio did a much better job at naturally expressing character than most of the vanilla game did. The thing I often find is that a lot of debate on the relative merits of the series is that different groups tend to become very tribal in regards to the games they like (Hello NMA) so I'm hoping to look at the series as a whole in a more balanced way, to look at its strengths as weaknesses as a whole. One area New Vegas did excel in was world building. Whatever its limitations in terms of execution it created a very strong base for mods such as Bounties and Autumn Leaves to build on. The NCR, Vegas families and other factions are all very well constructed, allowing the player to really inhabit the world, even if the story wasn't always up to snuff. Really good feedback by the way guys, its nice to have a level headed constructive argument online for once. :happy:

While it's certainly important to acknowledge how time constraints limited the developers that shouldn't constrain us from acknowledging the flaws of the story and how it could have been improved. The Someguy series was made with even less manpower and resources but it still managed to create a satisfying story with multiple endings. I think character interaction could have been better handled. Have Manny try to strike up a conversation with Boone as they pass each other between shifts, only to be told to shove off. Have a few bar brawls and raucous arguments in the Atomic Wrangler, have Caesar talk strategy with Vulpes and Lucius. Have your followers chatter with each other in the Lucky 38. With New Vegas I can never quite shake the feeling that all the NPC's exist in their own little bubble, only ever interacting with the player. Interaction is certainly is one area Fallout 3 exeeds New Vegas in. Hang around Megaton and you'll actually see Moritarty and the patrons abuse Gob rather than just hearing about it second hand. In the Citadel you actually experience the characters interacting, you'll actually have the pleasure of seeing Elder Lyons and Rothchild brickering like an old married couple rather than having to take their word that they're super best buds.

Fallout 2 had an even less linear structure than New Vegas yet it still manages to create a sense of danger and rising tension. We don’t know the full extent of the Enclave’s plans at first but we know they’re out there right from the opening cut scene. We get little glimpses of the danger they pose in places such as Redding and Horrigan’s massacre of the peasants, creating a tangible sense of suspense as we know that sooner or later we’re going to have to take on these seemingly unstoppable enemies. When the second act reaches its conclusion the game ups the ante by having them sack Aaroyo and butcher Vault 15, making the conflict more personal and showing the player that not even the people closest to them are safe. This does not impede on the player’s ability to play the game at their own pace, but these predetermined events give the story a genuine sense of momentum. Another good example would be Someguy2000’s mods, specifically their willingness to butcher characters regardless of how much the player has grown to like them. At the end of The Inheritance Bradley will always die, showing the player that the Syndicate means business. And even more shockingly the climax of the Bounties series has you watch helplessly as Marko mows down an entire town of innocent people, including Steven Randall who you’ve gotten to know ever since Bounties 1. Much like Aaroyo there’s nothing the player can do to save these people, hammering home the sense that the danger the Courier faces is very real. New Vegas could have benefited from similar events. More instances like Ranger Station Charlie where we find them wiping out NCR frontier outposts, raiding deeper and deeper into the map as the story progresses, much like the Enclave in Fallout 3. Perhaps even a quest where the Courier, after progressing far enough on the NCR/House path is captured and dragged before a fuming, vengeful Caesar. Scale is the least of Hoover Dam’s problems. In terms of storytelling it’s rather flat, as it boils down to the Legion launching an attack and easily being repulsed. Compare that climax to something like the end of Mass Effect where we see Sovereign and the Geth easily decimate the Council fleet, overrun the Citadel and almost bring the Reapers back. Even the First Battle of Hoover Dam is painted in much more dramatic terms than the one we actually participate in, with the Legion smashing through the NCR’s defences and making it into Boulder City.

Think of it this way. Imagine the climax of Star Wars if the Rebels went into the final attack on the Death Star outnumbering the Empire 10 to 1, Obi Wan Kenobi was alive and well and they were pretty sure they were going to win. It would be boring as Hell but that’s the exact position the Second Battle of Hoover Dam puts the player in. By placing the darkest hour at the start of the game it means that the sense of urgency diminishes as the story progresses. Consequently the stakes lower rather than that rise as New Vegas reaches the climax as there’s no sense that the player could lose. The darkest hour works best at the end of the second act because it heightens the sense of danger the player faces as the game reaches its conclusion, in contrast to New Vegas where any sense of tension dissipates long before the endgame. Going back to my Star Wars analogy, much of the tension of the final battle comes from the precarious position the Rebels find themselves in. Obi Wan is dead, Han Solo’s walked out on them and the Death Star is just minutes away from destroying their base. This makes for nail biting drama as Vader kills off the rebel pilots one by one and the Death Star creeps closer and closer. It also makes it so much more cathartic and triumphant when Han swoops in at the last moment and saves the day, because up until that point victory had seemed so impossible.

It’s become something of a truism amongst Fallout fans that New Vegas represents a shining pinnacle of narrative brilliance that transcends the works of George Orwell, Margret Attwood, William Shakespeare, Terry Pratchett and JRR Tolkien while Fallout 3’s writing is a load of arse. To be sure Fallout 3’s story has plenty of arseiness to go around but in some ways it surpasses New Vegas and to be honest both games share many of the same narrative flaws. Granted neither of these games are going to be winning Oscars for their storytelling but they both deserve a revaluation to see what went right and wrong. Characterisation Like much of their work Obsidian’s characters are strong on paper but paper is a flimsy thing that turns into incoherent mash when you get it wet. New Vegas’s cast are well drawn, but when it comes to execution they never quite feel convincing. And it all comes down to those three dreaded words that have haunted creative writing classes ever since the first Sumerian poet composed that epic ballad to his pet cat mittens, show don’t tell. The characters of New Vegas may have intricate backstories and nuances but the only way to find this out is almost exclusively via long winded exposition dumps. You can unravel literally everything regarding Veronica’s past, opinions, relationships, innermost desires and philosophy on life by exhausting here dialogue tree the first time you meet her. The dialogue is well written to be sure, but New Vegas tends to depend on people expositing their life story to the player, and we rarely get to experience their personalities and stories for ourselves. The King assures you that he and Pacer are old friends, yet they never share one word of dialogue. Arcade goes into wistful detail regarding his relationship with the Enclave Remnants, yet we never see them interact for ourselves. New Vegas constantly teases us with fascinating dramas and relationship but never lets the player experience them for themselves. Fallout 3 has no shortage of bad writing, but while its cast is often shallow it often manages to express characterisation in a more subtle, involving way than New Vegas. It’s certainly frustrating that the characters of 3 are so taciturn, offering the player with little detail on their back story. However, perhaps we shouldn’t be so quick to brush them off for failing to divulge their life story to any old bum who wanders in from the Wasteland. After all, the face we show to strangers is rarely the same one we show to our loved ones. Vance for instance will act all haughty and unrepentant if you confront him on his loony vampire cult. However, if you eavesdrop on his conversations with Holly he confesses that he’s worried his teachings are doing more harm than good. Nova will say she’s not in a relationship with Gob but listening in on their chatter reveals she’s lying. It’s never explicitly stated that Dr Li was in love with your Dad and jealous of your mother but it becomes obvious from the way she acts around James and her coldness whenever Catherine is brought up. While the game certainly suffers from missteps such as the lacklustre use of the Brotherhood and Enclave the writing has a bit more nuance and effort put into it than it’s usually credited with. New Vegas by contrast while strong in concept often relies on spoon feeding characterisation to the player, rather than letting it unfold naturally. Tension Both Fallout 3 and New Vegas leave how much or how little the player character is invested in the main story up to our interpretation for a genre that revolves around letting us create our own protagonist (unlike certain other games I won’t name *Cough!* Fallout 4 *Cough! Dragon Age 2!) That said the hook of finding a missing parent is more universal and relatable than trying to give the bloke who shot you and left you for dead a second chance to finish the job. However, New Vegas’s greatest misstep in terms of structure is the lack of a darkest hour. It’s a near universal rule of storytelling that to create tension you need to put your protagonist in an increasingly helpless, precarious position as the story progresses, to emphasise the consequence should they fail. In Mass Effect for instance you discover on Virmire that you’re not just chasing a renegade Spectre but fighting a race of lovecrafitan abominations that have destroyed galactic civilisation again and again. To hammer home the danger this new threat represents either Kaidan or Ashley will inevitably die, putting the player in a position where they’re both genuinely hurt by the loss and left feeling genuinely vulnerable, raising the stakes of the story. In New Vegas by contrast the sense of tension and threat progressively deflates as the story unfolds. At first the Legion seem like a moderately intimidating foe due to their success at Nipton and Searchlight (thought their reliance on subterfuge and deception means they never successfully come across as a force that could defeat NCR in an all-out assault on the dam). However, after these initial victories the Legion remains a static force unless the player supports them. While the Courier recruits an army of techno knights, bomber planes and killer robots to support them in the final battle and wittles away at the Legion’s outposts and allies they remain content to sit on their hands until Hoover Dam. Their sole acts of aggression are the destruction of a single unimportant ranger station and an easily foiled assassination attempt on Kimball. More than a few gamers expressed discontent with the second battle of Hoover Dam but could never quite put their finger on why. Perhaps it had something to do with the villains being the ones who are undersupplied and outnumbered, charging hopelessly at much more powerful enemies. New Vegas never really puts the player in a sufficient position of jeopardy and hopelessness to make them fear the Legion could win. As a result the story lacks a palpable sense of threat as the Legion morphs from a credible enemy into Team Rocket in miniskirts. Fallout 3 is somewhat better in this department, though it to makes many of the same mistakes. The death of your Father makes the conflict more personal, and the Enclave are given some victories that make them a somewhat believable threat (Taking Project Purity, stealing the Geck, destroying Liberty Prime). However, much like New Vegas it bungles any sense of tension in the final battle by having the player trail a 40 foot indestructible killing machine. The classic games by comparison did a much better job of creating a genuine sense of suspense then either of their next gen counterparts. The Enclave’s slaughter of Vault 13 in the opening moments of 2 sets the tone brilliantly, as it comes as a huge shock that the place we spent so much time trying to save in the first game could be wiped out so cavalierly. The player thus enters the game with a sense that anyone could be next. When Aaroyo, the Brotherhood bunker and the Deathclaws of Vault 15 are slaughtered it genuinely hurts because unlike Nipton or Searchlight we actually got to know their inhabitants, making it sting on a personal level. Additionally, the player by this point knows that Deathclaws and the Brotherhood are the toughest things in the Wasteland, making the Enclave’s easy obliteration of them all the more shocking. I’m not trying to poo on New Vegas here. The 1168 hours I’ve poured into it show that it clearly did something right. What I am suggesting is that it might be worth revaluating, warts and all with all of its strengths and weaknesses taken into account so future games can improve on the base it left for them.