FALLOUT - RTFM: Further Reading on the Game

I was kind of thinking the same thing after printing out the ONE HUNDRED TWENTY THREE PAGE manual; I miss all the code wheels and cloth maps and spiralbound userguides. They gave you fair warning that you were about to enter a world that had been really thought out. I think you can make the analogy with LP covers and inserts vs MP3s; it does devalue the final product to strip it of all the pretty wrapping.

If I'm reading the manual correctly, you are role playing someone within the bunker playing the game to simulate what it would be like if you DID leave the bunker... am I right?

I have access to a major album release show from a AAA name in music and I've gotta say I'd rather go home and just play this. My character's not going to get started on his own!

And somewhat more on thread topic; here's a great article about video game packaging, manuals and bonus material.

I definitely have fond memories of clutching that original manual - it was actually a spiral-bound notebook. Not only that, but the humor from the game shines throughout the whole book, both in the Pip Boy illustrations and the narrative voice.

http://news.bigdownload.com/gallery/boot-disk-fallout/1063406/

http://www.edge-online.com/news/what-tim-cain-thinks-fallout-3

http://www.mcvuk.com/news/31995/Fallout-3-suffers-early-piracy-blow

Suddenly, they got Fallout. They grokked the mechanics and embraced the non-linear gameplay. They made peace with uncertainty. But more importantly, they built a relationship with the character and the offbeat but perilous world.

http://www.brainygamer.com/the_brainy_gamer/2008/10/fallout-3.html

Even though I find this constant sense of aimlessness and danger unsettling, there is something of genius in the way that this experience of aimlessness communicated by the gameplay dovetails with the setting and narrative of Fallout. Your character has spent his entire life sequestered away in a shelter, where a form of society has survived in complete isolation from the rest of the world aboveground. The surface world of Fallout has been obliterated by nuclear war, and in the wake of this conflict all the order and regularity promised by social life has been wiped from the earth. In its wake only the barest rudiments of settled living have taken root-- small, largely lawless settlements, linked by hazardous trading routes. In the absence of the social contract that makes life predictable you face a world governed by chance, a world that is only accidentally susceptible to your talents and foresight.

http://versusclucluland.blogspot.com/2008/10/leaving-vault-means-you-probably-ar.html

Interesting articles those...they describe my experience pretty well. I think I just maybe have less faith in the designers. This wasn't the first game I've ever played where it wasn't clear what I was meant to be doing, or where the conversations didn't always seem to go in the direction I wanted them to, or where death could leap out of nowhere and stomp on me. It's just the first game of that type I've played where people have then turned round and said "but that's the point! It's meant to be like that!". And I'm not 100% convinced that isn't just a cop out. After all, everyone says that Fallout 2 (which I might still try, soon) "fixes" a lot of these issues. Would the designers have made those fixes if the issues had been intentional all along? I'm not so sure.

That's a fair point, Jim. There's no doubt the sequel adds a lot of features that make the game easier to play, including a tutorial section at the start and much finer control over NPC behavior and equipment. The bad NPC AI in Fallout isn't something that can totally be forgiven, and this is largely fixed in FO2. The sequel is also much larger, with many more towns and quests, including ones that finally make use of those alternative skills (let's just say there's one or two really crazy things involving the Doctor skill). From that standpoint, it's a superior game, and it is as much blast to play through as I found the original to be. While I welcomed these changes, they also took some of that cohesive plot and gameplay design from the original game in exchange.

For example, the NPC design. When you first get a partner in the game, it's very odd compared to most games - you can barely control your partner at all, and you have to trade him weapons and equipment! I think it would have been relatively trivial for the designers to put in armor support in FO1 - it could have worked the same way each NPC has set types of weapons they can accept. But the designers intentionally did this to reinforce the idea that you are NOT leading an army - you're essentially alone out here. At first, the NPCs are incredibly helpful, when you're relatively weak, Dogmeat is an amazing companion! Through the middle section of the game, your character eventually becomes strong enough to equal and then surpass them. In the final section, while they might be able throw a decent punch, the lack of armor means it's almost impossible for them to survive, and you WILL watch them die, one by one - as they could never grow beyond their original strength. If you get to the end of the game, this idea that you, the player, have evolved beyond the "normal" human has a big significance in the plot, and without giving away spoilers, the ending and your final "reward" reflect these ideas.

Compare this to most games (including Fallout 2, where your NPCs have experience points and can level up) and you can see how rare this kind of thinking is in video game design.

Fun thread