I have found the Holy Grail

Since Bethesda decided to make Fallout 3, we figured we might as well have a forum about it.
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Macky
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I have found the Holy Grail

Post by Macky »

I have been playing Fallout 3 for a couple of days now. Despite tremendous trepidation about the direction of the product over the past year, I had a ganja ritual before placing the disc in my drive to better suspend any prejudgments that have accrued. Because I have never played Oblivion, this was easy.

I’ve decided to withhold my general opinion of the game until I get a little more of the game experience behind me.

However, I thought that this one piece of advice is worth exploiting, as it has single-handedly changed my experience of the product.

It turns out that simply playing the game on Hard (after leaving the vault or anytime thereafter) immediately shifts combat to a tactical engagement reminiscent of Fallout 2. I cannot imagine anyone who is playing this game on normal after I performed this switch.

Within an instant of changing the difficulty to hard, the game has turned from having a superfluous item inventory to feeling as if you are just barely surviving (.... w/ some room for comfort). From mindless FPS to deadly and complicated combat scenarios.

On the Hard setting, every combat engagement has required tactical strategizing, and accordingly, VATS begins to be used more in the vein of the turn-based targeting system we all used to love. In simpler terms, VATS becomes necessary, just as the turn-based system was necessary in taking out Frank Horrigan’s machine-gun arm and then legs before he could decimate my HP. Lots of strategic planning with mines, frag grenades, sniping, targeted shots, scraping for any ammo you can find, and laying traps in advance to catch enemies off guard. Lots of saving and reloading.

Again, I am only mentioning this because the game on normal was a ridiculously mindless FPS. With the simple change of difficulty, the experience and adventure of my survival has become very reminiscent of Fallout 2. And quite honestly, this pleases me greatly. Once again, I cannot imagine any Fallout fan muddling through this on a lower setting – that is, doing so and expecting it to resemble the feel of the previous games.

This is not to say that I feel the game should at all be likened to Fallout 1 or 2...a judgment I will reserve for latter. I am simply stating that the difficulty setting has completely changed my experience with the game for the better, and that that effect has amazingly brought the experience closer to my memories of Fallout 2.
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Jimmyjay86
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Post by Jimmyjay86 »

A ganja ritual, you say?

I'm holding judgement until I get my copy next week but will try the hard setting out of the box.
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Frater Perdurabo
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Post by Frater Perdurabo »

I started the game on hard and haven't changed ever since.
Not a redeeming feature.

Oh and btw I was on the phone to my brother and he told me that o very hard, the game was absolutely retarded, you had to use like two magazines to take out a fucking mudcrab or a cockroach (or fucking radroach, I mean this is Fallout after all, isn't it?).
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Smiley
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Post by Smiley »

A handgun seems to work better.
The age old "because it's one handed, it has to be more powerful" argument.
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