What makes a game good?

[Renzokuken]

In the Fallout series, it's an incredible fictional world combined with a wide range of choices that result in a wide range of consequences. Any RPG lets you create your own character, but how many of them have NPCs treat you so differently depending on those choices, with entirely different quests/story threads possible?

Going to digress a little, but Fallout, weren't you just slightly bored? Don't get me wrong, it is a good game, but there were some things that frustrated me to no end;

• My guns kept breaking. I couldn't hold onto a decent weapon for the life of me without it falling apart in my hands. 90% of the time I just used the Hunting Rifle because there is ample ammo for it and everyone you kill, has one on them, so just tape six of them together to repair the first one you got. I find some badass weapon and get all excited, a few shots later, oh shit the weapon broke, "fuck you Renzo", Fallout says to me, and I cry myself to sleep.
• The landscape was a little stale. I realise it's the aftermath of nuclear warfare, but nothing is really going on. You can walk around for ages and come across maybe one bug.
• The game stops becoming interesting after your either A: Save Megaton, or B: Blow it the fuck up. Right after that happened everything else I did felt like it had no bearing on the Fallout universe. I could do whatever I want, and it wouldn't make a lick of a difference. I was surprised and impressed that I could actually destroy Megaton - a residential hub - but after I did, I quickly realised that it was the climax of my impact on Fallout and nothing else could compare to it.
• Pointless skills/feats (or whatever they are). When I first started my character, I was all keen for an in-your-face melee-type of character (rogue-ish if you will) and using one-handed guns, so I could be all cool, so I raised the skill of melee/fist weapons, pistols, and stealth. Only later did I realise what a big mistake that was, pistols just plain suck, and there is no benefit for being in a monsters face, and for the life of me I couldn't figure out of the benefit of stealthing. If you are in their face, they can hit you, and quite a lot of the monsters hit pretty fucking hard, making these skills useless and leaving me feeling like I just wasted a heck of a lot of time. Stealth sucked to the point of me never ever using it. Unless the creature has no eyes or is blind, it's going to see you, no matter what you do.

So to summarise; Fallout pissed me off.

 

[Raya Wolfsun]

I can't say I ran into the same problems (never had issues with breaking weapons, and I've actually used stealth to great effect) - but I do agree that Fallout 3 has issues that make it less immersive than I like. I still enjoy playing it, but sometimes I feel like it's an Elder Scrolls: Oblivion clone (and I'm lukewarm about Oblivion).

But note that in my original comment, I was referring to the Fallout series. Perhaps I should have specifically said Fallout 2, which I think is the best of them hands down... I am rather disappointed that Fallout 3 isn't more in that spirit. I guess I'll just have to try harder to locate Arcanum (another game by the people responsible for Fallout 1 and 2, which apparently builds more on the things I liked. And it's set in a steampunk universe to boot! )

 

[Amantis]

Going to digress a little, but Fallout, weren't you just slightly bored? Don't get me wrong, it is a good game, but there were some things that frustrated me to no end;

• My guns kept breaking. I couldn't hold onto a decent weapon for the life of me without it falling apart in my hands. 90% of the time I just used the Hunting Rifle because there is ample ammo for it and everyone you kill, has one on them, so just tape six of them together to repair the first one you got. I find some badass weapon and get all excited, a few shots later, oh shit the weapon broke, "fuck you Renzo", Fallout says to me, and I cry myself to sleep.
• The landscape was a little stale. I realise it's the aftermath of nuclear warfare, but nothing is really going on. You can walk around for ages and come across maybe one bug.
• The game stops becoming interesting after your either A: Save Megaton, or B: Blow it the fuck up. Right after that happened everything else I did felt like it had no bearing on the Fallout universe. I could do whatever I want, and it wouldn't make a lick of a difference. I was surprised and impressed that I could actually destroy Megaton - a residential hub - but after I did, I quickly realised that it was the climax of my impact on Fallout and nothing else could compare to it.
• Pointless skills/feats (or whatever they are). When I first started my character, I was all keen for an in-your-face melee-type of character (rogue-ish if you will) and using one-handed guns, so I could be all cool, so I raised the skill of melee/fist weapons, pistols, and stealth. Only later did I realise what a big mistake that was, pistols just plain suck, and there is no benefit for being in a monsters face, and for the life of me I couldn't figure out of the benefit of stealthing. If you are in their face, they can hit you, and quite a lot of the monsters hit pretty fucking hard, making these skills useless and leaving me feeling like I just wasted a heck of a lot of time. Stealth sucked to the point of me never ever using it. Unless the creature has no eyes or is blind, it's going to see you, no matter what you do.

So to summarise; Fallout pissed me off.

LOL. All that manliness and wanting to look all cool makes me fall in love with you all over again Ranzo.

The point of those weaponry in Fallout, at least that's what the developers say, is to find a nearly broken weapon with limited ammo, use it just to get a feel of it and see whether you like it or not, then fix it if you like it so much.

While I find that playing melee/unarmed has a lot more disadvantages compared to using guns, I find that I have to be way more strategic if I don't want to waste too many stimpaks, which sort of enhances the gameplay a little, at least for me. It's mainly because by the 2nd run through, I pretty much know the layout of most of the land, and got through way faster than the 1st run.

I agree that FO2 was way better. I find that playing FO3 was way too much like playing CS (although the VATS system is fun, only using guns at level 20 gets boring after some time). I was seriously gutted when I found that I could neither do porn movies nor have sex with the NPCs.

- Amantis

 

[Etoile]

hi there..

well, for me fun to play of course,
unique game system, and the community inside the game.

 

[2gameornot2game]

1. Good gameplay
2. Replay value
3. Multiplayer options
4. Customization options
5. Popularity (for resale purposes)