Topic: The Chit-Chat Thread

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@Blitzenexx @JackEatsSparrows Yeah, Interplay/Black Isle was founded by Brian Fargo, and he's also the original creator of both Wasteland and Fallout. Technically Fallout was intended as Wasteland 2, or a reboot of Wasteland. Long story short there were venture capitalists, hostile takeovers, Interplay was run into the ground, and the VCs threw Brian out. He used to call himself the "Interplay CEO in Exile" which became the root of his new company: inExile (it's funny to call inExile an "indie" when it was owned by the guy that used to own one of the big 5 publisher-studios. That's exactly as if Trip Hawkins (EA founder) were to start a new company and everyone calls him "indie" ) Anyway, that means Wasteland 2 is technically more or less Fallout 3, going by the original Interplay releases Meanwhile Obsidian (Feargus Urquhart's company, he's the other half of Fallout's creation, and a lot of the Black Isle staff went there and have been cranking out RPGs, including doing the contract for Fallout 3: New Vegas for Bethesda. And last month they announced The Outer Worlds, which they're hinting to be the reformation of the "real" Fallout as a new IP set in the 60's rather than the 50's..... That will be their last multiplat. Both Obsidian and inExile were announced to be purchased by Microsoft at XO18 in November, so both halves of the original Interplay/Black Isle team (minus Chris Taylor) are now going to be united (but seperate, apparently) under the Microsoft banner, and will be probably making XBox/PC games only from now on (which isn't so bad, Interplay was mostly PC to begin with....) Though I suspect Obsidian will be put to work on the rumored Fable 4. Can't think of anyone else that can pick up where Lionhead left off.

@Blitzenexx As for getting into Fallout, the question is "which" Fallout. FO 1 & 2 under Interplay/Black Isle were completely different games than Bethesda's hack job of 3, 4, and 76. There's the obvious difference that 1 & 2 were isometric mouse-driven heavy PC CRPGS with turn based combat while 3/4/76 are 3D games....basically "Apocalyptic Elder Scrolls." But there's also a huge difference in theme. Bethesda either missed the entire point of Fallout, or they never cared. The tone is different. 1 & 2 are not apocalyptic survival games lost in the wastes, any more than Fantasy Life is a game about dungeons. The wastes exist, but the game theme, tone, etc, is not about the ruins. The game is mostly a tongue in cheek pastiche. It's about the Wild West reborn due to nuclear fallout, crazy human behavior in the reformed society, messed up human priorities, government experimentation, and secrative soldiers in black power armor in black helicopters in a place where tech was supposedly lost. In Fallout 1 there's a prominent group of this cult that worships technology....they have big LCD screens everywhere in these wasteland towns "spreading the word" and saloon towns. Fallout 2 has all kinds of crazy places ranging from a proper 50's suburb (thanks to the game's Mcguffin the "Garden of Eden Creation Kit"), black helicopters, a hydrogen powered future car, and, this one kind of signifies the tone of the games: the porn studio in one town. In the middle of radioactive wastes, what's the first thing humans rebuild in one horse towns? Porn studios complete with cameras........ because of course. That's the kind of tongue in cheek stuff Fallout is about.

Then Bethesda gets it and turns it into a series about the most photo-realistic depiction of post-nuclear horror you can find, where you spend half your time in the wastes exploring the ruins of decaying abandoned 50's houses and empty playgrounds with traces of what once was. It gets it's thrills from basically being depressing and living in the echoes of a lost and ruined past....which IMO has nothing at all to do with Fallout which is more about "wow humanity is so effed up....even rebuilding after complete disaster, we still manage to get it all wrong through greed and power struggles!" FO3 has hints of the former themes. Nuke Town, and the messed up mutant infested DC. New Vegas is Obsidian, not Bethesda so it's actually proper feeling. And then 4 just went deeper and deeper into the wastes with no life (at least there's still towns and NPCs though!) And now 76 removed the humans entirely so it's just a survival simulator in a joyless world. If you like apocalyptic survival, Bethesda's games are the way to go. If you like "reborn wild west in the atomic age" 1 & 2 (and 3: New Vegas) would be much more for you. 1 hasn't aged well in combat, but the story is memorable and timeless. And you could run it on even the shoddiest of laptops. It's a 2D pre-rendered game from the mid 90's, even a budget phone runs circles around top of the line PCs of the era.

It's not even Battle Royale with 76...there's no reward for killing players, and there's tons of punishment. It's like an MMO that never committed to being an MMO, but doesn't include real single player content, but also doesn't include group events. Ironically TES:O is a real MMO with group events and they're all optional, and most players ignore them and do the, like, 150 hours of solo content that just happens to have 20 other players running past you while you play and occasionally helping take out tough enemies..... That's the sad thing, there's really no excuse for 76 to be so awful.....the template to follow already exists from their own company! Of course TES:O uses it's own engine, not that disastrous Gamebryo mutant abomination they have id toiling away on.

@ReaderRagfihs Wow. You've really got me in the holiday spirit with that name. I would never have known it was you if you hadn't said so. Well done. Also note that I will tag you wrong in every single thread for 90 days.

EDIT: Note that Fallout/Wasteland was inspired by Mad Max, and it has a very Mad Max vibe overall. Bethesda Fallout games don't have any feel of that at all. Personally as far as 3D games go, I feel more like I'm in the Fallout world when I play the Mad Max game than the Bethesda Fallout games.