OK. I saw its first episode. I liked it and will check out the rest. Maybe I will play its games one day. :P

Ant <ant@zimage.comant> wrote:
> I wonder if I will like it if I never played Fallout games.

> Spalls Hurgenson <spallshurgenson@gmail.com> wrote:

> > So, speaking of that Fallout TV show...

> > I had to take a sick-day, so - in between my many 'oh god I still feel
> > awful' naps, I binge-watched the entire series. Hey, I finally got
> > some value out of our Amazon Prime subscription. And despite my
> > earlier predictions, I have to say I was pleasantly surprised.

> > Which isn't to say I necessarily think it was a good show. But I
> > definitely expected a lot worse.

> > To start with, you know how recent TV-shows-based-on-video games have
> > been loose interpretations of the source material? I mean, they made
> > MasterChief in the Halo TV show a talkative wimp whom nobody respected
> > or listened to, and - for a show about a space war - the TV show was
> > really light on space-war stuff. You can't fault the Fallout show for
> > the same thing.

> > This was a TV that went HEAVY into fan service. I mean, I don't think
> > there was one scene where you didn't see something that instantly
> > reminded you of the games, if it wasn't outright referencing some
> > event or character. Very little felt out-of-place from the games. You
> > could well imagine pretty much every location or situation appearing
> > in the games themselves. I mean, it was really, really, really heavy
> > into the fan-service. If that's all you want from the show, well,
> > lemme tell you, you're gonna walk away very satisfied.

> > This did come at a cost, however; if you're not familiar with the
> > game's lore, a lot of the references will slide past you and the world
> > will seem very, very weird. Like, who is Vaultec and RobCo? What was
> > the battle of Anchorage about? Why does this supermarket suddenly have
> > a robot? What is the Enclave? Who are the Brotherhood of Steel and why
> > do they have powered armor? If you stick with the show long enough,
> > some of these things get explained, but I'm not sure the game will
> > appeal enough to non-fans to keep them watching that long.

> > Tonally, the game is also much more pessimistic than the games. Sure,
> > the "Fallout" games were never particularly optimistic to begin with,
> > but they did have an underlying theme of people trying to get together
> > and rebuild, only to have some assholes - whether its raiders or
> > mutants or whatever - upend all their efforts, leaving a trail of
> > death and destruction it their wake. It's the post-apocalypse, after
> > all. But the Fallout TV show essentially postulates that /everyone/ is
> > a self-serving greedy asshole (with the exception of the naive
> > fresh-from-the-vault protagonist, of course, who serves as the
> > everyman character that the audience can relate to). It's
> > exceptionally grim, and honestly, made the watching a lot more of a
> > chore than it should have been. Hopefully, the producers will lighten
> > things up a bit in the next season.

> > One thing I noticed was that the game referred to (pre-war) America's
> > enemies only as 'Commies' or 'Reds', with the unspoken implication -
> > especially given the retraux 1950s-esque setting - that it was the
> > Russians that were the bad guys. Fans of the games of course know that
> > the "Great War" was fought between the US and China. There was
> > absolutely no reference - not even in passing - to this fact. I guess
> > Amazon (and possibly Microsoft) were too worried about offending their
> > biggest business partner to be open about what the source material
> > said (in fairness, they never outright said it was anybody other than
> > China either).

> > The show was - in my opinion - also delighted a bit too much in its
> > gore and black comedy. Ever want to see a close-up of a skull being
> > crushed by a power-armor glove? A wounded foot with its toes literally
> > falling off? The games always reveled in gore to a degree, but the
> > lack of fidelity always made it feel more comic book. The comedy bits
> > also felt a bit off - maybe not for the games (which also could be
> > ridiculous) - but given the overall tone of the TV show, it felt out
> > of place.

> > Speaking of the special effects, I have to say I was underwhelmed. It
> > all felt very low budget. The greenscreening was all fairly obvious,
> > and the CGI monsters and characters didn't blend in well with the
> > foreground (this was especially problematic with the powered-armor, as
> > those Brotherhood of Steel warriors were on-screen a lot). The VFX got
> > the job done, but the obviousness of it broke the immersion of the
> > show often.

> > The story itself was... okay. Lone vaultie goes out into the big bad
> > world (to save her dad), meets up with unscrupulous characters, learns
> > that Vault-Tec (the guys who made the eponymous fallout shelters) are
> > all evil comic-book villain-style evil scumbags. There are occasional
> > side-quests, lots of bang-bang-bang shootouts, and our hero has to
> > struggle between her virtuous upbringing and the realities of life in
> > the wasteland. It was all rather humdrum and without any real
> > surprises. The acting was fine, even if the actual dialog was rather
> > stiff and unconvincing. But like the games it was based on, it was
> > really the setting and not the story or characters that were the star
> > of the show.

> > All in all, I found the whole thing rather average. If you're a fan of
> > the series, you'll probably love it for all the fan-service. If you
> > just want dumb action and gore, it's okay for that too. But overall I
> > found it was too much in love with its source material, and didn't
> > offer a compelling reason behind its license to keep watching.

> > Still, at least we have ONE example of a TV show/movie that doesn't
> > completely ignore the game to do its own thing and then slap the
> > licensed titled on it. It had to happen eventually, I suppose.
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On Fri, 26 Apr 2024 21:28:58 +0000, ant@zimage.comANT (Ant) wrote:

>OK. I saw its first episode. I liked it and will check out the rest. Maybe I will play its games one day. :P

I watched all the episodes (and found it reasonably entertaining).

It did inspire me to load Fallout 76 up and continue where I left
off.. I've played an hour here and and hour there for a couple of
years now, around the time they started selling it for a tenner IIRC.

Some of the things that bothered others (like sparse use of NPCs)
never bothered me, because in a post nuclear wasteland I think crowds
of people would be weird anyway and would prefer every encounter be
well designed to that "busy" feel.

I also don't like RPGs that encourage you to talk to a gazillion
people and try to track dozens of quests at once... even worse
resulting in you completing ones you forgot you were even on.
Thankfully this game isn't like that, or at least it lets me play in a
way that avoids it.

Graphics aren't great but that's Bethesda and probably most MMOs for
you. I think it does have "something" even if it's not an easy
something to describe.. Next gen visuals isn't that "something"...
but moving through the world is still immersive enough I think.

I've heard some grumble about the brutality of difficulty compared to
FO4 for example, and there are two sides to that:

- On the one side, I don't think it's too bad as long as you don't
just spray and pray, but make a conscious effort to headshot the enemy
as much as possible -- to minimize damage to your character and to
conserve ammo and weapon wear and tear... on top of that I also kind
of enjoy the challenge.
- On the other side, in the back of my mind I'm aware of the monthly
subscription they'd LIKE me to sign up for, and the fact that it is
all designed to alleviate the stress of the challenge is kind of
annoying. If a player even suspects that a game is designed to annoy
them into spending more money just to relieve annoyances and enjoy the
game more, the reviews for that game will not work out well in the
long run. When I get annoyed I put the game down for extended periods
of time and start it up later, refusing to pay more. To me, that is
the proper response because it costs them more to serve the game but
nothing more for me to play. Let someone else be the chump and pay
the monthly fee.

As for the subscription... I don't know.... some people make these
games their primary hobby in life and maybe that's the audience for
that particular marketing effort. I don't mind to rank up slowly and
play 1-2 hours a week as long as I'm still having a good time, and the
quirkiness of this game remains strangely entertaining to me.
Thankfully I'm not a level-whore where playing the long game bothers
me, I'm not even level 30 yet and I've read of some folks who said
they had to sneak and play a stealth game until they got to level 50
before they were able to compete with the enemy. Hasn't really been
my experience so far.

Honestly, in terms of just trying it out... for free or even for a few
dollars I'd probably recommend it to anyone. I would just say be
open-minded and give it some time. Also be sure to research and apply
the tweak for the mouse lag fix, because for me it was no joy without.

Back to Fallout TV... does FO76 capture the vibe of the TV show? Only
a little IMHO, you might have to play some of the other games to get
more of that big picture. FO:New Vegas is the only one of the FO
games I ever played to completion, and I always felt the first 10-12
hours were the most fun and in terms of setting probably feels closer
to the setting of the show.

But I do think that anyone who liked the show and has never played the
games would probably benefit from trying one of them, whether FO4 (the
people's choice it seems), FO:NV or FO:76.