War… War Never Changes

Posted on October 28, 2008 by Scott Jennings| 37 Comments

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  • http://emergentfuture.com Arrakiv

    The part of me that wants this game and hasn’t gotten it yet hates you… So, I guess that’s pretty much all of me. :-)

    I foresee that changing in the near future, though.

  • Amaranthar

    No, it doesn’t.
    Years ago I worked with an old gentleman who had been part of the liberation of the Nazi death camps. Memorial Day was in a few days and he brought in his pictures he had taken from the camp he went into. About 50 pictures, all just like any others with emaciated people standing around with hollow looks in their eyes.

    He told me what went down, how they couldn’t even give them food because they’d get sick and die. They had to be treated carefully to bring their systems up. How most of the German troops surrendered except for the SS guys, who holed up in one building and fought to the end. How they found a long burial pit filled with bodies. How some of the American troops wanted desperately to kill the captured Germans because of the insanity they saw there, done to fellow human beings, but a tight reign was kept on them by the commanders.

    His last words before we separated were these.

    “All because they were Jews. You know, to this day, after all these years, I have never got that smell out of my nose. I brought these pictures in today because people are forgetting.”

  • VorpalK

    I took a screenshot a bit back from that sign tonight. I’ve always loved the Fallout gamescape. I haven’t been disappointed with this episode for its own merit.

    I HAVE fought with the damn game for over an hour before I realized that it was the Nero ueberdaemon that was causing the DRM to make the game crash when I selected “New Game”

    I’m not thrilled with the apparently resource-leak-related crashes that I’ve had so far, but now that I’m in the habit of “save save save” they’re a non issue.

    This game == gamer happy place for me. Oblivion engine + Fallout story == Squeee!

  • Pandanapper

    Seriously debating getting this. No other good games I want come out soon and I’ve read a lot about this one and seen tons of media on it. Not sure, Should I buy it on Valves Steam or buy in stores? I really don’t wan’t the DRM to screw up my game and I will be installed it on my home desktop and lappy.

  • Gawain

    You bastard.

  • Gawain

    oh i forgot my new catch phrase from your last post’s comments.

    Ahem.

    “You bastard! I haven’t had a chance to buy it yet. Our enemies will celebrate all over the world!”

  • Anonymous

    Does this game live up to the Fallout name, or is it a typical Bethsoft product (i.e. poor writing, bland characterization, spammy combat, crap voice acting)?

  • http://beafraid.com hellfire

    The only reason anyone should have for “debating” this purchase is if your rig stinks.

    I’m blown away. In every respect. Every possible facet.

    The game is gorgeous. The detail is amazing. Combat is fluid and fun. And at its heart, it’s Fallout. The team behind this game know Fallout.

    I gush. But this game is just spectacular. I can’t wait to see what’s around the next bend.

  • Random Poster

    “The only reason anyone should have for “debating” this purchase is if your rig stinks.”

    Thats not even an excuse, you buy the 360 version then :P

  • Mandalla

    The game’s great so far, but be advised Nod32 Antivirus and Steam users. Nod32 *will* false positive some of the game files, effectively gutting your installation and causing no end of problems. Well, no end until you go into the quarantined folders and restore the apprehended files and then add an exclusion, but that took me about an hour to figure out….

  • Nicademus

    I bought a GeForce9800GT just FOR this game. I hope to fuck it doesn’t disappoint.

    I hate you so goddamn much right now lum, though if you were to drop it on a peer to peer network… I might forgive

  • Nicademus

    Oh crap, I thought it released NEXT week, screw the peer to peer, I think I officially became too sick to remain at work.

  • coppertopper

    You know Oblivion only became good when the mod community stepped in and balanced the game properly. This is what’s stopping me from running out and buying the game right now.

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  • http://wowpanda.blogspot.com wowpanda

    Thank you Amaranthar, your description ambushed me. I never thought anything serious is going on here, and that was touching.

  • coppertopper

    yeah agreed about Amaranthas post. Reminds me that the ONLY thing I didn’t like about the Band of Brothers series was the lack of true gut punching impact when the 101st discovered the concentration camp.

  • chabuhi

    I don’t know if I should be ashamed of admitting this, but I am still distracted by Warhammer.

    And I even recently finished replaying Fallout and Fallout 2 in anticipation of this!

    I’m no fan! I’m not even a man.

  • Njal

    “I never thought anything serious is going on here”

    While I agree completely with your sentiment Panda, one of my favourite quotes goes like this:

    “Humans are never more serious than when they play”

  • Klaitu

    FPS’s. FPS’s never changes.

  • http://ve3d.ign.com/ Apache

    me likey, although in hindsight I haven’t spent my skill points very well

  • http://www.gamersmind.org Tom

    This game reminds me of the old Fallouts ALOT. I save a lot, I screwed my characters stats a lot so I end up going back to a save spot from 3 hours prior. I am however waiting to see the Tardis or at least some sort of reference to Frank Horrigan… Something! Game has taken over all my free time. My only complaint about this game, is too many people are bitching about it on the net. I guess there are people who thought this would be like Halo or something?

  • sinij

    I *love* this game, visually stunning, voiced very well… it has perfect end-of-the-world feel and plenty things to explore. Character system is a lot simpler than in Fallout 2, that is regardless of what you do you can’t mess up your character. There are less “talk your way out of this” situations, so its more “shoot firs” than ether Fallout 1 or 2. There are too few opportunities to be real bastard, I played selfish bastard and ended up “good protector” at the end. Combat more a FPS-ish feel to it, that is turn based element can’t be kept up 100% and third-person is not something you would want to stay in even if you are big fan of it. When you play in FPS mode everything is BRUTALLY easy, the only challenge is not running out of ammo. So treat turn-based elements as an ammo-saver mode.

    This isn’t Fallout 2, but it isn’t Oblivion ether. 8.5/10

  • Freakazoid

    I messed up my character. I basically picked three skills that offered no benefit for a starting character, and I ended up not being able to do a couple of the starting town quests. It’s quite irritating that even though with most points going into science, lockpick and speech (with some in the gun skills), that half the time I can’t meet the base points needed to try them. I’d have to go over again and completely neglect any offensive skills to get to the good stuff, plus get enough base points in things like explosives to even do a quest.

    Maybe this game should’ve started me off at level 4 or something.

  • http://blog.tonday.com Gunch

    Been playing the 360 version, I haven’t had a game tell me to go “F*** myself”, ever. This one has done it three times today (I mean through dialogue)!

    Graphics are rich, the voice acting seems good to me (though Oblivion didn’t bug me like some), and the VATS makes up for my complete inability to play FPS.

    I look forward to playing through this game several times.

  • Merkwurdigliebe

    The ambient music was one of my favorite parts of Fallout. How is it in this one?

  • sinij

    Music is not there, you suppose to listen to the radio.

  • http://construed.wordpress.com dmosbon

    Am running through my promo copy as we speak, you are not only!

  • Mandalla

    Freakazoid, have you tried the Mentats or other ways to temporarily boost stats? That’s supposed to be the way around “bad” choices.

  • Merkwurdigliebe

    “Music is not there, you suppose to listen to the radio.”

    Shitcock!

  • Njal

    But let’s get important news. How badly does NMA hate it?

  • Zuzax

    This is one of those games that compresses time. For the last couple of nights I’ve started playing at 8PM or so and suddenly its 3AM, I’m dehydrated and ironically my bladder is about to explode. This reminds me of the golden age of RPGs back before the interwebs made us have to interact with other people.

    I’m working from home today, and self discipline is failing rapidly. Maybe just an hour over lunch.

  • http://beafraid.com hellfire

    I use my oven timer. It’s the only thing with an alarm so loud and obnoxious that I MUST go turn it off.

    Thus far that’s the only thing keeping me from going to work unshaven and in the same clothes as the day before.

  • james

    Seriously? Does anyone actually think this game has anything to do with Fallout? Its got blue jumpsuits and line drawings so it qualifies? I’m hardly an NMA-er but from what I’ve seen this has very little to do with Fallout or the golden age of the RPG. It may be a great game in its own right but memories have got to be short if the consensus is that bloom and vats is teh answer to making a fallout inspired game. I suddenly understand why my dad stopped listening to music when the Rolling Stones got old.

  • Andy O.

    Love it, you should try the game before you knock it James, I mean I think it’s more like Fallout 1 and 2 than you think it is. Just because it’s in first/third person doesn’t mean you still aren’t constantly trying to juggle the right inventory items for the right situation, the tactical mode is pretty much a must use to really take full advantage of the limited supplies of the wastes.

    The game engine feels like Oblivion, but the additions really made a huge difference. Also the voice acting that was broken in Elder Scrolls 4 is definatly fixed here.

    I’m not just saying this is an advance in gaming, but it’s also a bit of a throwback. Good story, semi-memorable characters, challenging gameplay, play at your pace. Varying landscapes, awesome music.

    Don’t fool yourself, at the very least you need to rent this game. If you’re smart you’ll make it a purchase. I went for the bobblehead.

  • Zuzax

    Back in the day people bitched about Fallout because it wasn’t true enough to the spirit of Wasteland.

  • Idealist

    After I read this entry my debit card leapt straight out of my pocket.

    Just a note, but if you have no radio station on, you get ambient music.

  • chabuhi

    Broke down and bought it

    Guess I’m done with WAR for now.

    One thing I’m not liking is

    **SHOULDN’T BE SPOILER BUT JUST IN CASE**

    when I kill a character that all the locals seem to despise and then they turn on me for doing what they’ve been hoping I’d do all along. Ingrates!!