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Arts & Entertainment / Re: Chanel West Coast.
« on: December 05, 2013, 02:21:03 AM »
This is some dippy ass shit.
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762
Arts & Entertainment / Re: Survivor2299
« on: December 04, 2013, 08:39:36 PM »
Okay, my apologies for the delay, folks, here's a (by no means exhaustive) account of my issues with Fallout 3.
I've been reading up on the lore to make sure I have my facts straight, and the inclusion of Super Mutants, the Enclave and even the Brotherhood of Steel is fine in terms of lore, just about, although I can't shake the feeling that they were brought in because of laziness. As I said before, I really think it would have been best if F3 was a clean break, a new story away from the events of the other games, and with the new setting it seemed like that's what they were going for, it was a disappointment in the extreme to be given the same old stuff but in a terribly dumbed down manner.
The SMs are explained away by Vault 87. FEV was always a government project, so it stands to reason there would be a vault or two acting as a test arena. My main problem is that the SMs are just a little bit too similar to The Master's Mariposa SMs, I find it hard to believe that both were created under the same conditions using the same process. It would have been nice to see some diversity there, rather than the same thing with a new paint job. The fact that they are equipped with energy weapons, miniature nuke launchers and full body armour is also bizarre, where is all that coming from? In F1 it made sense, the SMs were created at a military base where weapons and other combat related stuff would be readily available, but here it's just some guys in a vault which might have slightly more weapons than usual, but not enough to arm a force that could terrorise a city.
The Enclave had bases in places other than California, so it makes sense that they would be able to amass a large force once again after such a devastating defeat. My problem here is that the game has nothing new to say about them, their philosophy and the lengths they will go to do achieve their goals are all fully explained in F2, their appearance here offers nothing new or interesting. On top of that, they are far less intimidating than they were in F2, not least of all because they don't have anything like Frank Horrigan on their side, and my essential feeling on encountering their soldiers in the field for the first time is: "why am I being made to fight you again?"—a feeling compounded by every piece of narrative development concerning them throughout the game.
If the Enclave's problem was total redundancy, the Brotherhood of Steel's problem is that there's plenty new to say, but it's totally incongruous with everything that makes them what they are. The BoS doesn't strictly prohibit involvement with outsiders, but it is very rare that they choose to deal with them, and even more rare that they choose to do so in a friendly manner. In your first encounter with them in F1, they purposely send you to a death trap just to keep you out of their business. They wouldn't think twice about letting a town be overrun by deathclaws, so long as they didn't pose a potential threat to them. Their primary interests are self-preservation, finding pre-war technology, learning how it works and keeping it out of the hands of those who might misuse it, and that last part is about as close as they get to being the wasteland guardians they are made out to be here. To have them be altruistic do-gooders claiming a stake in the survival of wastelanders is just weird, and I find it hard to believe that Elder Lyons would not have been ousted for going against both the word and spirit of the Codex, let alone that those who did challenge him were so few in number that they were thrown out.
Again, lore wise the presence of all these ostensibly west coast elements in DC checks out, but I just don't know why they're there from a storytelling perspective, they feel like place-holders for other things that should have been there instead. It's as if Bethesda started out with the intention of doing something totally different, then changed their mind halfway through and decided to pander to fans of the originals, and ultimately ended up with some bizarre hybrid that doesn't quite work. I think the BoS and Enclave could have worked if, instead of being central figures, they were two sides of a widespread conflict that formed the backdrop for the story, which could have been a perfectly good coming-of-age tale. With the father/son (or daughter) thing, it seems like it would have been served much better as a small, personal drama story, rather than an all out “ur savin da wastlanz wit ur dade n opdimuse prim!” kind of thing. Let big things happen, but keep the focus on the small things. I really think that would have been a story worth telling, but the story we got was a mish-mash of F1 and 2 with little rhyme or reason.
I already talked about the seemingly anachronistic setting, how it makes no sense that, even with the greater fire power used on DC, the wasteland would remain almost totally unsettled after 200 years where California was already comparatively thriving after not even 100. Not to say there aren't any settlements in DC, there are quite a few, but none of them seem to make any sense aside from Rivet City. Megaton is built around a nuke, at which one feels they almost deserve to be blown up for being so stupid; Little Lamplight is just... do I really need to say why Little Lamplight is bad?; Big Town is apparently constantly harassed by SMs, which is bizarre considering they have no guns (bizarre in itself for two reasons: Big Towners are former Little Lamplighters, and the latter have access to considerable weaponry; you can literally find fully loaded guns in trash cans in the Capital Wasteland) and could easily be wiped out in one fell swoop—SMs are not the smartest, but they are quite effective at killing unarmed civilians; Girdershade consists of a woman who collects Nuka Cola memorabilia through means unknown and some random dude who wants to bang her, how they have survived more than a couple of months is unknown to me. There are some others that are slipping my mind at this point, some may aid my case, others may not, but I feel like my point that most of these make no goddamn sense has been made. I'm not even talking about realism here, just about making sense in the context of the world.
Speaking of the world, the Capital Wasteland doesn't feel like Fallout at all. In essence this is a good thing, treading new ground for the series, but the realisation presented is really quite generic, looking more like the aftermath of a Roland Emmerich film in which the heroes never showed up, and so far removed from the spirit of the previous games that it just doesn't belong. Yes, F1 and 2 presented harsh worlds which were often very bleak, but not this washed out Book of Eli-looking stuff with a sickly Matrix-green pallor. The bleakness was also contrasted with well placed humour, something which is in very short supply here—whether that's down to the writing or the horrendous voice acting is a matter for debate, perhaps. I think that about sums it up; the ideas are not bad, but they have been realised in a lazy manner and ultimately missed the point of Fallout by several miles.
I sincerely hope they get their shit together for Fallout 4, it's not right that the series should be in the hands of people who don't understand it. I'm not saying I could do a better job*, I'm just a fan who wants to see one of my favourite gaming franchises get back on its feet after the atrocities that followed in the wake of Black Isle's disbandment. New Vegas was not perfect, but it was a big step in the right direction, and I can only hope the people at Bethesda have taken on board what made it so much more worthy of being the third numbered title in the series than their own attempt, and have taken steps to make sure they don't take more blind swings of the axe at an already thoroughly thrashed title in this latest instalment.
*okay, I totally am
I've been reading up on the lore to make sure I have my facts straight, and the inclusion of Super Mutants, the Enclave and even the Brotherhood of Steel is fine in terms of lore, just about, although I can't shake the feeling that they were brought in because of laziness. As I said before, I really think it would have been best if F3 was a clean break, a new story away from the events of the other games, and with the new setting it seemed like that's what they were going for, it was a disappointment in the extreme to be given the same old stuff but in a terribly dumbed down manner.
The SMs are explained away by Vault 87. FEV was always a government project, so it stands to reason there would be a vault or two acting as a test arena. My main problem is that the SMs are just a little bit too similar to The Master's Mariposa SMs, I find it hard to believe that both were created under the same conditions using the same process. It would have been nice to see some diversity there, rather than the same thing with a new paint job. The fact that they are equipped with energy weapons, miniature nuke launchers and full body armour is also bizarre, where is all that coming from? In F1 it made sense, the SMs were created at a military base where weapons and other combat related stuff would be readily available, but here it's just some guys in a vault which might have slightly more weapons than usual, but not enough to arm a force that could terrorise a city.
The Enclave had bases in places other than California, so it makes sense that they would be able to amass a large force once again after such a devastating defeat. My problem here is that the game has nothing new to say about them, their philosophy and the lengths they will go to do achieve their goals are all fully explained in F2, their appearance here offers nothing new or interesting. On top of that, they are far less intimidating than they were in F2, not least of all because they don't have anything like Frank Horrigan on their side, and my essential feeling on encountering their soldiers in the field for the first time is: "why am I being made to fight you again?"—a feeling compounded by every piece of narrative development concerning them throughout the game.
If the Enclave's problem was total redundancy, the Brotherhood of Steel's problem is that there's plenty new to say, but it's totally incongruous with everything that makes them what they are. The BoS doesn't strictly prohibit involvement with outsiders, but it is very rare that they choose to deal with them, and even more rare that they choose to do so in a friendly manner. In your first encounter with them in F1, they purposely send you to a death trap just to keep you out of their business. They wouldn't think twice about letting a town be overrun by deathclaws, so long as they didn't pose a potential threat to them. Their primary interests are self-preservation, finding pre-war technology, learning how it works and keeping it out of the hands of those who might misuse it, and that last part is about as close as they get to being the wasteland guardians they are made out to be here. To have them be altruistic do-gooders claiming a stake in the survival of wastelanders is just weird, and I find it hard to believe that Elder Lyons would not have been ousted for going against both the word and spirit of the Codex, let alone that those who did challenge him were so few in number that they were thrown out.
Again, lore wise the presence of all these ostensibly west coast elements in DC checks out, but I just don't know why they're there from a storytelling perspective, they feel like place-holders for other things that should have been there instead. It's as if Bethesda started out with the intention of doing something totally different, then changed their mind halfway through and decided to pander to fans of the originals, and ultimately ended up with some bizarre hybrid that doesn't quite work. I think the BoS and Enclave could have worked if, instead of being central figures, they were two sides of a widespread conflict that formed the backdrop for the story, which could have been a perfectly good coming-of-age tale. With the father/son (or daughter) thing, it seems like it would have been served much better as a small, personal drama story, rather than an all out “ur savin da wastlanz wit ur dade n opdimuse prim!” kind of thing. Let big things happen, but keep the focus on the small things. I really think that would have been a story worth telling, but the story we got was a mish-mash of F1 and 2 with little rhyme or reason.
I already talked about the seemingly anachronistic setting, how it makes no sense that, even with the greater fire power used on DC, the wasteland would remain almost totally unsettled after 200 years where California was already comparatively thriving after not even 100. Not to say there aren't any settlements in DC, there are quite a few, but none of them seem to make any sense aside from Rivet City. Megaton is built around a nuke, at which one feels they almost deserve to be blown up for being so stupid; Little Lamplight is just... do I really need to say why Little Lamplight is bad?; Big Town is apparently constantly harassed by SMs, which is bizarre considering they have no guns (bizarre in itself for two reasons: Big Towners are former Little Lamplighters, and the latter have access to considerable weaponry; you can literally find fully loaded guns in trash cans in the Capital Wasteland) and could easily be wiped out in one fell swoop—SMs are not the smartest, but they are quite effective at killing unarmed civilians; Girdershade consists of a woman who collects Nuka Cola memorabilia through means unknown and some random dude who wants to bang her, how they have survived more than a couple of months is unknown to me. There are some others that are slipping my mind at this point, some may aid my case, others may not, but I feel like my point that most of these make no goddamn sense has been made. I'm not even talking about realism here, just about making sense in the context of the world.
Speaking of the world, the Capital Wasteland doesn't feel like Fallout at all. In essence this is a good thing, treading new ground for the series, but the realisation presented is really quite generic, looking more like the aftermath of a Roland Emmerich film in which the heroes never showed up, and so far removed from the spirit of the previous games that it just doesn't belong. Yes, F1 and 2 presented harsh worlds which were often very bleak, but not this washed out Book of Eli-looking stuff with a sickly Matrix-green pallor. The bleakness was also contrasted with well placed humour, something which is in very short supply here—whether that's down to the writing or the horrendous voice acting is a matter for debate, perhaps. I think that about sums it up; the ideas are not bad, but they have been realised in a lazy manner and ultimately missed the point of Fallout by several miles.
I sincerely hope they get their shit together for Fallout 4, it's not right that the series should be in the hands of people who don't understand it. I'm not saying I could do a better job*, I'm just a fan who wants to see one of my favourite gaming franchises get back on its feet after the atrocities that followed in the wake of Black Isle's disbandment. New Vegas was not perfect, but it was a big step in the right direction, and I can only hope the people at Bethesda have taken on board what made it so much more worthy of being the third numbered title in the series than their own attempt, and have taken steps to make sure they don't take more blind swings of the axe at an already thoroughly thrashed title in this latest instalment.
*okay, I totally am
763
Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: What Religion are you?
« on: December 04, 2013, 10:50:34 AM »
I am indifferent towards religion. There was a time when I called myself an atheist, but I have no interest in being lumped in with the Dawkins/Hitchens herd.
764
Announcements / Re: Help wanted to make this place better
« on: December 03, 2013, 08:01:01 PM »I would be happy to lend a hand with this as well.British accents do add respectability.Also, if people want more traffic then maybe we should make a video with the site's link and start posting it around. People could write up the script while someone else is the spokesman.
As long as other people are writing the words for him to say, I nominate Thork as the spokesperson.
765
Arts & Entertainment / Re: Now Playing (the Video Game Version)
« on: December 03, 2013, 04:05:51 PM »I would be up for that.Let's have an FES Civ V party at some point or someshit.Yes. Let's.
766
Arts & Entertainment / Re: Survivor2299
« on: December 03, 2013, 03:21:40 PM »
In all fairness, F3 should have been totally unrelated to the originals; why go to the opposite end of the country if not to relieve yourself of the burden of all the accumulated history of the previous games? Well, it seems they at least started wanting to do that, but then they brought a whole mess of west coast stuff over with them, used them in ways that contradicted everything we learned about them prior to that, yet still chose to reference prior events from the west coast, undermining the potential for distancing the game from its predecessors even further, and reinforcing the feeling, in the minds of those who did play the originals, of something being terribly amiss. It's also kind of silly that in 2277, 200 years after the bombs fell, the Capital Wasteland is more desolate and uncivilised than F1's California, which was set in 2161 and had viable farms, trading companies, several reasonably sized cities etc. Yes, according to the lore, DC was hit harder than California, but they've also had an extra 116 years to get their shit together.
I can bring up more specific examples if no one's bothered about spoilers for the first two games, but for now I'll leave it at that.
I can bring up more specific examples if no one's bothered about spoilers for the first two games, but for now I'll leave it at that.
767
Arts & Entertainment / Re: Gateway Musicians
« on: December 03, 2013, 01:16:26 AM »
For me it was Primus. I have fond memories of their music, but sadly it sounds better in my head than in my headphones these days.
768
Arts & Entertainment / Re: Now Playing (the Video Game Version)
« on: December 02, 2013, 09:19:08 PM »
769
Arts & Entertainment / Re: Survivor2299
« on: December 02, 2013, 09:14:57 PM »In before bawing about how Bethesda sucks at Fallout.
I see that I shall have to start this off. Behold, this is what Bethesda has reduced Fallout to:
http://forums.bethsoft.com/topic/1165312-there-isnt-that-much-epicness-is-this-game/
The horror... the horror...
770
Arts & Entertainment / Re: Just Watched
« on: December 02, 2013, 07:59:01 PM »You know the deal: post about a film or series you have seen recently.
12 Angry Men (Sidney Lumet)
This film is widely regarded as an American classic anyway, so there's really nothing for me to say that hasn't already been said. It has a great script, tight direction and excellent performances, and is surely one of the best directorial debut features of all-time.
One of the few good movies I've actually seen. It's a great example that a solid script and dialogue can make a great movie without the need for action-packed scenes of kissy-kissy romantic side stories.
There was a '97 remake that I haven't seen. I wonder if it's as good as the '57 version.
I haven't seen it either. It's directed by William Friedkin and it has quite a cast, but it just seems kind of pointless given that the original isn't dated at all.
I watched Aliens 3 and Alien Resurrection over the weekend. I'm pretty sure I caught the bad end of an Aliens marathon.
Yeah, it's a shame the way that series went. I actually haven't seen Alien 3, but Resurrection ranges between boring, idiotic and just-plain-bad.
771
Arts & Entertainment / Just Watched
« on: December 02, 2013, 07:12:47 PM »
You know the deal: post about a film or series you have seen recently.
12 Angry Men (Sidney Lumet)
This film is widely regarded as an American classic anyway, so there's really nothing for me to say that hasn't already been said. It has a great script, tight direction and excellent performances, and is surely one of the best directorial debut features of all-time.
12 Angry Men (Sidney Lumet)
This film is widely regarded as an American classic anyway, so there's really nothing for me to say that hasn't already been said. It has a great script, tight direction and excellent performances, and is surely one of the best directorial debut features of all-time.
772
Arts & Entertainment / Re: Supes' Must-Listen-To List (Recommend me albums!)
« on: December 02, 2013, 06:03:47 PM »
Oh, that markjo's at it again!