Fallout games (nuclear Skyrim type game)

[Mister Six]

It's an interesting point. In Elder Scrolls you have Khajit, Argonians, and Elves (And factions within the elves). Fallout has Ghouls, Mutants, comedy robots, and more sophisticated androids. Would have been interesting if Starfield went for a more fantastical kind of Sci Fi.

The Outer Worlds did the same thing, and it's so odd. Surely a lot of the fun of space opera-type universes - and a common theme in the most popular (Star Trek, Star Wars, Mass Effect etc) - is the idea of meeting lots of different alien races, each with their own quirks, societies and belief systems? Isn't running around on the Citadel in Mass Effect, hearing trailers for a hard-boiled cop show starring a flying jellyfish more fun than poking around a space mine, fighting the thousandth evil corporation to appear in a video game that month?

I guess stuff like The Expanse might feel more zeitgeisty to tech types, especially with Musk banging on about Mars all the time, but what do people paying video games actually want to see?

[Thursday]

I suppose in theory people might like the idea of a more grounded and realistic space opera, about humans and politics, but then Starfield really isn't that is it?

[Lemming]

It's also weird that Starfield istechnically post-apocalyptic given that Earth is a desert wasteland, which might be the only halfway interesting thing in the setting, but that almost never comes up.

Todd said that Starflight and FTL were two of his big inspirations for Starfield, which makes it even stranger, because both of those games show off their cool aliens to you as soon as possible (Starflight even letting you have sentient plants and dinosaurs on your crew). Shove a romanceable dinosaur in the first act of Starfield and guaranteed it'd be getting at least 8/10 from most players.

The only similarly cool thing in Starfield is the fact you can recruit Amelia Earhart to your crew (and meet Queen Amanirenas, FDR and Ada Lovelace, among others) but it's locked in an endgame area that few people will play long enough to actually visit.

[H-O-W-L]

Ferris, if FO1 does interest you feel free to drop me a line sometime, I can hook you up with a mod that makes it brisk and breezy to play on modern PCs, and it can run on almost anything. No faff, no patches, just drop and go.

[Ferris]

Ferris, if FO1 does interest you feel free to drop me a line sometime, I can hook you up with a mod that makes it brisk and breezy to play on modern PCs, and it can run on almost anything. No faff, no patches, just drop and go.

I think I'm going to give the games a miss altogether really but appreciate the offer!

[Mister Six]

.

[Ferris]

Last few days I've been playing The Outer Worlds which feels exactly like Skyrim (same controls and mechanics for the most part, silly NPC dialogue etc) but take all that and set it in a retro-futuristic dystopian alternate reality. That sounds like an elevator pitch for Fallout, to my uninformed ears. In fact, add in TOW's spaceships and it is basically the idea for Starfield, I think??

...but The Outer Worlds feels like an actual game I want to spend time in. There's little jokes* and stuff to explore - I felt rewarded every time I wandered off in the wrong direction. It also tones down the grimness by about 50% and everything feels more worthwhile as a result. The game palette isn't unrelentingly brown/grey!! Even collecting old tin cans and random bits of shite then crafting stuff felt more rewarding than the stingy shite in Fallout. It feels like my choices matter too - I coulda told Parvati to push off and gone with a solo build but I like having her around.

Still not completely bought in (I've only done one and a bit story missions so maybe the wheels completely fall off later on) but it's odd that a game that has an elevator pitch so similar to fallout should provoke such a different response in me. It's even made by Obsidian ffs, I wouldn't be surprised if they basically re-skinned fallout NV, even the dialogue font is the same from memory.

I mean, I know nobody cares but I thought that was interesting. I didn't even know fallout/TOW were so similar in origin until it started to feel like an uncanny elder scrolls and I googled it. I'll play this for a few more evenings and see how I get on - there's no recent CaB thread for TOW either so if I have anything interesting to say I'll start a new thread I suppose.

_{*ok so a lot of them don't really land and have that annoying snarky marvel type humour which I could frankly do without but christ at least they're trying}

[oggyraiding]

I never finished TOW, but did enjoy the 15 or so hours I put into it. I guess if you combined all the areas into one it'd be bigger than New Vegas, but because it's split into fairly small parcels of open world it feels very limited in scope. Party members are incredibly bland, but the combat is decent and I think the TTD is better than VATS. My biggest beef is that perks/flaws are so boring. It's cool how if you take loads of damage from robots you can choose to develop robophobia to get a perk point, but it doesn't do it in a fun way. FO3/NV had plenty of boring perks, but there was fun/silly stuff like Mysterious Stranger. TOW has no interesting perks.

[Ferris]

Fair enough, the perk system does look shite. Not been an issue so far for me, but as I get further into the game it may well be more of a pain.

It does that thing of allowing you to reallocate your perk points as you go though, which is brilliant for people like me who fret over the "right" decision and end up trying not to spend the points until I'm more decided on what I want to do which leaves my characters under-powered... etc.

Also the acid monsters can fuck the fuck off.

[Mister Six]

The Outer Worlds is about one third the designers going hell for leather to make a really excellent game, one third "Hold on, the publisher's deadline is when?" and one third "Fuck it, we'll cut this stuff and save it for the sequel if we get the chance." Wheels fall off indeed.

Still looks more fun than Starfield though.

[Ferris]

The Outer Worlds is about one third the designers going hell for leather to make a really excellent game, one third "Hold on, the publisher's deadline is when?" and one third "Fuck it, we'll cut this stuff and save it for the sequel if we get the chance." Wheels fall off indeed.

Still looks more fun than Starfield though.

Laughed.

I'll rock it til the wheels fall off then ditch it I guess!

[Mister Six]

It's pretty short - especially once you realise that aside from the robot all the companions are functionally identical and the first one you get, Pavarti, is the best of them - so just go for it. Once you head to the Labyrinth you're in the endgame (even though it seems like it should be the penultimate dungeon at most) so finish up whatever you like before doing that.