So why does (almost) everyone hate Fallout: New Vegas?

[JimboUK]

Having a good looking male or female lead is hardly unique to video games. Films, TV, advertising and music all have the same thing. Why? because it sells, why does it sell? because that's what people want.

[charwo]

The problem with jim's argument that in and of itself, fun is no reason to do anything. The point of play, certainly from an evolutionary point of view is to train. And the purpose of story is to make us genre savvy about the real world. An experience that caters to our most degenerate tastes or enables pure escapism is to proper entertainment what cotton candy is to nourishing food. A poor susstitute that damages when used as a replacement.

 

And, and this is strictly my opinion, that which merely entertains without informing is fit only to burn. As Shakespeare put it in Hamlet, the point of the play is to hold up the mirror on nature, to discern it's truths. The evening's entertainment is the medium and the bonus, not the reason for existence.

[JimboUK]

Fun is exactly the point, what that fun is differs from person to person but if something isn't enjoyable then why do it? Video games are entertainment, they have to be or companies would never sell enough to stay is business. The point of the story in a game is to give everything context, to give the player a goal and a reason to put in the effort that reaching said goal requires.

 

The real world is irrelevant, games often rely on the suspension of disbelief, the Fallout games certainly do, the Fallout world makes no sense whatsoever when logic and science are applied to it. Video games allow us to be anyone, go anywhere and do anything, the only limit is the imagination. The quest for realism in games limits that imagination, something I find quite sad.

[charwo]

Actually the Fallout world makes a LOT of sense, all but the dead world aspect. Which is not critical by a long shot. You have to remember the context of the Resource Wars: a violent, borderline moribund, declining world that failed to ween itself off of oil until it was far too late. That's our future between the drill baby drill and the 'extreme oil' of our day. In 99 I'd have agreed, but I've seen my country turn into the prewar Enclave in front of my eyes. Those mutants, from nightkin to molerats were not radioactive accidents: they were bio warfare gene engineered monstrosities. Someday we will learn the Chinese dude who came up with the insect mutagens was a big HG Wells fan, because the radscorpions are except for hue, an exact match to the giant crabs of 30,000,000 ad from Time Machine.

 

That's the trick to Fallout: almost all of those shout outs are in universe. The atomicpunk? Designed: the lore allows no other option than the US got out of the 50s and then went back, for the same reason the collapsing Byzantine Empire had a Hellenic revival in the 15th century. The nostalgia factor allows fascism to implement radicalism and dress it up as restoration or traditional vales. The Nazis did it, Mussolini did it, the Japanese military did it, and given China's power and the US's cultural references, both the US and the PRC did it too as both worked desperately to quell the social chaos of the early Resource Wars (2051-2066).

 

Fallout DOES make sense. Human beings are that screwed up.

 

And the lasers? Lasers in terms of expected effect, not in the science, although with enough advanced physics slowing down and adding a tracer effect to a laser beam is possible. Fallout appears to not make sense, but then you look at it closely and it does. It's trippy.

[JimboUK]

Fallout does not make sense, it's been 200 years since the war. People are wearing clothing that would have fallen apart a long time ago, they eat 200 year old food that would have dried and turned to dust, they use rusted guns that would explode in your face, modern buildings are still standing despite receiving no maintenance, exposure to high levels of radiation turns people in zombies, 200 year old pieces of paper lay scattered around exposed to the elements, a nuclear war stopped the weather cycle, the levels of radiation are far too high for such a long period, nuclear reactors still work without being maintained, the list goes on.

 

Does any of this matter? no, because it's a game and we suspend disbelief. Imagine if the developers had opted for realism, we wouldn't have anything like the same game. As I said, realism is limiting, by ignoring reality they've given a great universe.

[TrickyVein]

Why? because it sells, why does it sell? because that's what people want.

 

This is baloney, and you shouldn't buy into it. Trends in the gaming industry are not driven by "what people want." They are driven by what publishers and distributors *think* people want - and the content they provide satisfies this perceived need. And everyone goes along with it because it's what they have. In actuality, people like the next new thing. It is fear from creating something different that doesn't sell - because of the huge amounts of money that are involved in creating and selling a game - that is responsible for trending towards mediocrity and the 'safe' middle ground.

 

A very important point that I wanted to emphasize is that we are *not* being sold what we really want - increasingly because the latest generation which has grown up on AAA titles hasn't been exposed to anything better. This is really concerning. I don't see it changing in the near future. We are buying into lowering our standards for creative and thought-provoking gameplay by allowing big publishers to call mechanics like regenerating health "industry standards." And then everyone else falls in line. It effectively shuts out smaller publishers with different ideas.

 

Also, charwo and I had a somewhat similar discussion on suspending disbelief in fiction and whether this is warranted for poor storytelling and inconsistent ideas. Fallout on the whole is remarkably detailed and consistent with its own wacky take on physics and politics, post divergence. Unfortunately, Bethesda did not understand the timescales involved with creating a game set after Fallout 2 and established a visual style which is *not* lore-friendly. I think this has led to misunderstanding and confusion for all of the good reasons that you mention, Jim.

Edited December 13, 2012 by TrickyVein

[charwo]

Actually, all of that stuff does make sense. You do realize that the scientific know how of the prewar world was three generations past us? That extreme over engineering and robust redundancies were part of the design of everything? In the first game the pre war t-51b has a nuclear reactor designed for 100 years, the Vaults were designed to run indefinitely. And that unreliable water chip? The mcGuffin? Worked for 91 years, at full capacity for 85, and well known as a cheaply made piece of junk?

 

You don't get that joke?

 

Nothing is ever as it seems in Fallout. It looks pulp, it looks 50s, but it's not. And the madness is too consistant for there not to be some kind of method. Most of that method is equal parts over engineering and mutagens. It's cannon that most of the post war critters were bio weapons: supermutants, spore plants, mantises, nightstalkers, mole rats, Deathclaws, all were man made, most of them directly for the war effect.

 

A superficial reading of base material cripples the imagination more than a rule of cool tossing the rules out the window. The problem that I see whenever people say reality is boring is that your concept of thhe resonant the mundane is far, FAR too limited. Reality is COOL! the USSR collapsed without a shot being fired after running itself into the ground. Tvtropes calls it the great political mess up because anyone who was an adult in 1989 still can't believe that was possible. And yet it was an organic and real solution to the Cold War.

 

Also....I know how the self refilling vending machines work. No shut. I saw it on a Ted talk on suistaible bio designs. I'd link it if I could copy links on my phone. Other things to pay attention to is that the Fallout prewar was not atomicpunk. Never was. It looks like it, but it's actually a low key cyberpunk combined with noir and this is overlaid with a subtle, rational pre resource wars biopunk, which despite being perpetually in the background, was more socially pervasive than the ADAM compounds of Bioshock. And it's been that way from the first game.

[TrickyVein]

Also, about the lead almost always being white male and brunette, that comes with the territory. I mean if you look at modern demographics, the characters you are likely to play as ass kicking modern or past folk must almost universally be male. Playing a shootin cow girl in even a semi realistic game would mean being constantly being harassed and shunned for refuting patriarchial stereotypes. Does the average male player want to play a female character other than for T&A factor?

 

I actually always opt to play as a female character. Maybe I can't escape the 'T&A' factor at some level because I am a guy, but I don't think this is my motivation for it. It's hard to play a game as two people, after all, and I don't think many people do - being aware of yourself playing a game, looking at the *other* you on the screen and your virtual love-handles. That just seems like it would be confusing.

 

Are you talking about the demographics of gamers, or the population at large? White males are no longer a majority at least in the US, so I feel like games should get in line with the trend. I champion Veronica and Arcade because they are strongly written and intelligent characters who buck traditional gender stereotypes. I think that most gamers are socially very liberal and would absolutely accept more LBGT protagonists.

[asdfpepper]

It's quite annoying how some LBGT characters in videogames tend to be just stereotypically flamboyant and annoying, but Arcade is a pretty good exception.

 

Arcade's reason for existence isn't his orientation, he just subtly mentions it in a brief conversation. And after that, it's not really mentioned anymore.

I'm not saying that ever videogame character should mention their orientation only subtly, be it straight or gay, but they shouldn't bring it over the top in an annoying way (Unless it's a more humorous sort of game)

Edited December 13, 2012 by asdfpepper

[charwo]

Well, it all depends on the context. If you have someone who's naturally flamboyant....well. The thing about Veronica is that she's a lipstick Lesbian, despite the burlap robe and power fist. Things are going to get much more complicated with you have something less heretonomative. Imagine if you will is Veronica was a butch Lesbian instead? Or even more confusing, a raging butch heterosexual woman? Or, let's take it up a notch, what if they decided to use the Kinsey scale, and rather depicting Veronica as either heteo (0) or lesbian (6) and not even bi (3) but an ALMOST exclusive lesbian (5)? That is, she is seriously attracted to women, but there's an outside chance a male character could romance her? But would have to work 3 times as hard as a female character? I ask because one of my character, Daniel, has a huge crush on Veronica, and if there's any chance at all she could be satisfied with a man, he'd do anything to win her.

 

Then you have the other issue, which shouldn't play in an action game, but a roleplaying thing. My vamp Theresa is 2 on the scale, meaning she'll flirt with women, she'll even sleep with women. But anything more than a fling? No. Because Theresa can bond physically with another woman, but not emotionally. Its a condition I've seen among some of my bi friends I refer to as bicapable. In this case, Theresa is dreading when Willow starts to want to become more than friends because with women, its strictly friends with benefits. Therefore, she feels much looser around Corporal Betsy because what Betsy wants is a good lay.

 

Then to compound the issue, any long lived character is going to confront old relationships. My character is a vampire, but this could apply to most of the non human characters in Fallout. She was married before the war, and had a long happy life, and being 95 when the bpmbs fell, she was going to have to fake her own death soon anyway. Her soulmate though is her long dead husband Arthur Schewbel. Theresa might be up for some fun, but her heart's already taken.

 

And for all these reasons I completely understand why JE Sawyer doesn't like romance options in his RPGs. But I do. And of course the problem is mod options are limited. Willow is a great romance option, if your character would like someone like Willow. But any of my characters see her as little sister. It's one for the reasons I haven't played Daniel is that he's head over heels with Veronica, and it's not something I can play out for good or ill. But as a player to have a male/male romance mod with Arcade. Not because it's 'haut' because Arcade deserves a nice guy, and for a male Courier with violence all around him, Arcade could be an utter source of emotional stability, a rock, and a conscience. Hell, even one of my other characters Charlotte could use a straight man like that.