Lean wrote:Plane missions, Andrew. Plane missions.
I haven't come close to getting that far so I haven't experienced the horror first hand, but from all that I've seen and read about them, if I do get that far I expect I'll get stuck there for a while too.
Lean wrote:I'd go with Andrew in saying that the base game's original endings sucks of it being just a slideshow. And I still hate Colonel Autumn as the final boss. A deathclaw is still much more of a challenge than him.
I don't mind it being a slideshow, that's Fallout's way of doing things. The problem is that unlike New Vegas, a lot of the things you do during the course of the game don't really show up in the ending slideshow; there's a couple of different slides depending on whether you blow up Megaton, finish with Evil Karma or whatever, but nowhere near the extent of subplots that are acknowledged during the ending of New Vegas.
Colonel Autumn definitely wasn't much of a final boss but in a game that's been criticised at times for having too much combat and leaning too much towards being a first person shooter for an RPG, it's not necessarily a bad thing. Broken Steel certainly provides a tougher shootout to finish the game.
Lamrock wrote:I'd call Fallout 3's ending turrible for a couple reasons. First (and NV is also guilty of this), is that it ends the game (it's a sandbox - c'mon son), makes little sense (just have Fawkes do it!) and the slideshow is lame because unlike the rest of the main games, your decisions are extremely easy and really don't matter much.
I see where you're coming from on the sandbox point, but I disagree. The two latest Fallout games are kind of a hybrid of a few genres: RPG, first person shooter and wide open sandbox. It's nice to be able to play beyond the ending (and indeed it is possible with Broken Steel, which the developers say is the true ending of the game) but unless you haven't bothered with the side quests at all, you've pretty much done everything at that point.
I guess a good comparison here is GTA which does allow you to keep playing after you finish the game but even then, the fun is kind of limited unless you've left some side missions undone or you really like the repeatable racing missions or whatever. A lot of the replay value in Fallout is playing through the story again in a different way, which is easier to do in New Vegas of course. I understand the complaint for a gameplay point of view but as far as the narrative goes, it's fine. Stating the obvious, but the ending does finish things, after all.
On Fawkes, I completely agree and that's one of the gaps in logic I was talking about. The same goes for a couple of other companions, including Charon is who a ghoul. It makes sense since they were going for the heroic sacrifice angle but it wasn't completely satisfying. Again, Broken Steel negates the original ending and apparently what happens two weeks later during the events of Broken Steel is to be considered the real ending of the game...of course, it's unclear whether this list allows DLC to be taken into account.
I also agree about the slideshow not accounting for enough of your actions during the course of the game, which again is another area they improved upon in New Vegas. Fallout 3 didn't have quite enough shades of grey or subplot integration, it's kind of linear. However, it was the first game in the current generation of Fallout and the whole, did a pretty good job telling a story and finishing it out with the theme it was going for. It doesn't mean we can't criticise it, of course.
Another reason I wouldn't call it terrible is because words like "terrible" and "awful" get thrown around way too often online; either it meets the standard of awesome, or it's terrible, there's no in between. It's entirely possible for something to be good but still flawed in some way, and that's what I'd say about Fallout 3's ending and Karma system to a certain extent. It works for the most part, it's reasonably well done, but there are issues. I suppose those issues have more of an impact for some than others, for me the overall experience outweighs a couple of nagging problems.
