Fallout (Amazon Prime series) - Based on the games

[MinionZombie]

Only what Ive subsequently found when I typed fallout not being made for the fans into Goggle. I first heard it when a mate of mine told me when we were discussing the trailer. It could all just be the usual interweb storm in a teacup and looking at his direct quote "I don't think you really can set out to please the fans of anything, or please anyone other than yourself", it can be interpreted in a number of ways. Probably a case of some people seeing that and losing their shit to create some drama. Ah that's just contrarian claptrap. I wouldn't pay any mind to that kind of nonsense. The modern iteration of Fallout is light years ahead of the old isometric games. 1) Indeed. The internet will hop on the tiniest thing and speculate absolutely anything and everything from it. 2) I've never understood some folks dislike for Fallout 3 and 4. Admittedly, I haven't played the original isometric games, but F3 and F4 were thoroughly enjoyable and immersive games, and they certainly reached a wide audience. Some of it seems to be rooted in a heated disdain for Bethesda.

[shootemindehead]

1) Indeed. The internet will hop on the tiniest thing and speculate absolutely anything and everything from it. 2) I've never understood some folks dislike for Fallout 3 and 4. Admittedly, I haven't played the original isometric games, but F3 and F4 were thoroughly enjoyable and immersive games, and they certainly reached a wide audience. Some of it seems to be rooted in a heated disdain for Bethesda. Oh well, Bethesda are dicks no doubt (well, at least the higher ups). But I think a lot of the whining just comes form people being stuck in the mud. How any gamer could dislike something like New Vegas is beyond me. But ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ feck em anyway.

[MinionZombie]

Oh well, Bethesda are dicks no doubt (well, at least the higher ups). But I think a lot of the whining just comes form people being stuck in the mud. How any gamer could dislike something like New Vegas is beyond me. But ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ feck em anyway. I never got around to playing New Vegas. IIRC when it first launched it was massively buggy, so I never bothered, then time just ran away and I played #4 instead - however, I have heard a lot of good opinions on New Vegas over the years (from from some of the whiners, incredibly). Bethesda dropped the ball with Fallout 76, though. I mean, for starters - where are the intervening 72 Fallout games, I mean come on! Online only? Fuck that. It's the single player experience in a massive open world that works best.

[EvilNed]

Having played 1 and 2, I can easily understand why many were disappointed with 3 and 4 - and at the same time feel like New Vegas was a step in the right direction. And I agree with all of that, in parts. I think New Vegas is a massive improvement over 3, and 4 is incredibly shallow compared to 1 and 2. Having said all of that: I enjoy all of them to some extent. The roleplaying aspects are toned downed considerably in 3 and onwards, and especially so in 4. The world setup is different, and more fun to explore I think, but it also suffers from being loaded with very generic houses, caves, loot and villains. It also ignores many of the things that were cemented in the previous games and tries to include stuff that shouldn't be there. The super mutants, for instance, are the main enemies in the first game and an anomaly. They are created at a specific military base north of Los Angeles, which is destroyed at the end of Part 1. Super mutants aren't some kind of result of the post apocalyptic wasteland, they're a deliberate experiment by that game's villain in order to establish a new master race. By the time Fallout 2 rolls around, the few super mutants that are left are trying to find a place for themselves in this world. There shouldn't be any super mutants in DC, or Boston or Chicago (Fallout Tactics) for that matter because they're the result of very specific circumstances that are explored in Fallout 1. The same goes for the Enclave, the main villain in Fallout 2 and 3 - and The Brotherhood of Steel in a way which is a very mysterious organisation in both Fallout 1 and 2. But from 3 onwards it's as if every Fallout game just tries to include "the best of"- the first two games and not really bothering to introduce new elements to the world that are specific to their geographic region. This, together with the toned down roleplaying elements, make for a comparatively flavorless experience. 3 and 4 also present a world where there, to a greater extent, seems to exist a struggle between good and evil, whereas in the original two it was much more morally gray. The Brotherhood of Steel are not the good guys, they have their own agenda which just happens to suit our protagonist in his struggle against the mutants. It's almost impossible to be "good" in the first two games, as there are no real good guys around. Just varying degrees of survivors or bad guys. New Vegas corrects some of this and feels much more like a successor to 1 and 2, even being set closer geographically. EDIT: I just want to point out that if I were still playing games, I could easily see myself going back and replaying any of these games. I love to explore in these kinda games, and Fallout 3 in particular had a lot to explore.

[shootemindehead]

I never got around to playing New Vegas. IIRC when it first launched it was massively buggy, so I never bothered, then time just ran away and I played #4 instead - however, I have heard a lot of good opinions on New Vegas over the years (from from some of the whiners, incredibly). Bethesda dropped the ball with Fallout 76, though. I mean, for starters - where are the intervening 72 Fallout games, I mean come on! Online only? Fuck that. It's the single player experience in a massive open world that works best. New Vegas was excellent. The best iteration of the game as far as I'm concerned and really funny. 3, NV and 4 were great games all round. The original 2 were good as well, but putting the player in a proper 3D environment was a vastly superior way to play the game compared to the isometric setting of the older games. Played 76 for about 2 hours, though, and just wasn't feeling it. Uninstalled and never bothered with it again.

[EvilNed]

I think the new trailer looks great. I don't know if it's just trying to reference the first games or not, but going by what we see I'd say it's set in and around the world of the first Fallout game. We Shady Sands and LA, both places featured there. If I'd speculate, seeing as the Brotherhood doesn't seem to mind making it's presence known, it appears to be set after the first game, maybe in the 80 years between 1 and 2. That's a good setting! Those are the years when the Shady Sands village of Fallout 1 organized itself into the New California Republic we see in Fallout 2 and New Vegas. Or maybe, just maybe, it's just a new story that completely disregards the events of the game. But it'd be a weird move to have it set in California, then, so I doubt it.

[MinionZombie]

I was reading some of those quotes from Nolan RE: 'pleasing the fans' ... I can easily see how it could be a misinterpretation, especially in these days of so many projects that have disregarded the source material and/or sought to deliberately piss off fans. He could easly just be saying that you shouldn't be worried about trying to please everybody, because that's simply not possible, and if you did try and please everyone then you're going to fail. Indeed, trying to please everyone is exactly what 'made by committee' junk is (e.g. Madamme Web). However, getting your intentions across accurately to a committed fanbase is also crucially important. It's amazing how much "respecting the source material" means to a fanbase. Of course, you actually have to do just that if you're going to say those words - but look at how popular Netflix's "One Piece" ended up being. The key message in the promotion of it was being accurate to the source material and respecting the material (and having its originator involved and approving). So for Fallout it's very much still in the air. We'll just have to see in a few weeks time. I hope they've done it right ... but at the same time you've got the spectre of how WestWorld turned into pretentious, expensive, pandering wankery. The pedigree of some writers on the show also raises an eyebrow, considering some less-than-well-written projects they've been involved with. Still, talented writers can still work on something that ends up being junk and then make something really special. Craig Mazin has utter dreck like "Superhero Movie" and "The Hangover 3" on his resume, and then he came along with "Chernobyl", so ... what a friggin' turn around that was, eh?

[EvilNed]

Don't knock Superhero Movie. That's not a bad film. It's not great, but it's surprisingly clever in it's silliness.

[Neil]

Talking of super hero movies, give "The Return of Captain Invincible" a watch on Amazon. You can thank me later... ps: Fallout is out - One episode in, and pretty good so far as long as it 'builds up' now...

[MinionZombie]

Talking of super hero movies, give "The Return of Captain Invincible" a watch on Amazon. You can thank me later... ps: Fallout is out - One episode in, and pretty good so far as long as it 'builds up' now... I just finished watching the first episode and it's off to a good, solid start. The tone and style seems pretty on-target, too. The opening section at the birthday party was very well done and so damn chilling as the bombs began to explode ... gave me shivers all over. Really looking forward to checking out another episode or two this evening.

[Neil]

Catch up! I've just done ep2, and it's definately moving in the right direction. Really enjoyable episode, and especially nice to see Michael 'super unhinged and toxic' Rapaport not doing well

[MinionZombie]

Catch up! I've just done ep2, and it's definately moving in the right direction. Really enjoyable episode, and especially nice to see Michael 'super unhinged and toxic' Rapaport not doing well Okay, four episodes deep now and loving it. Well written, good characterisation (flaws, complexity, humour etc), no out-of-place pandering, true and respectful of the source material ... not a hard concept to grasp, is it? Really looking forward to watching the remaining episodes. I was almost wondering from the first episode if they were slightly soft-pedaling the gore, but then there's been some juicy kills since then (e.g. a T-60 armour hand vs someone's head - and with added character development thrown into the mix, haha - or The Ghoul's two-for-one chest/head double kill in Filly).

[MinionZombie]

Annnnd finished. Thoughts? Sure, there's areas to nitpick at and there'll be logic holes here and there, but I really enjoyed it.

[EvilNed]

Started watching this today. Like already mentioned, big fan of the first few games in particular. I think it's good! Both as a show, and as an homage to the games. One minor gripe, I don't think Walton Goggin's ghoul makeup is as nasty as it could have been. Ghouls in the games are much, much nastier. In particular in the early games, when they're shriveled up to such an extent they're barely recognizable. But his ghoul makeup looks like a normal human with third degree burns over his face, hardly the inhuman zombies of the games. The music is awesome.

[MinionZombie]

With The Ghoul, it's probably a case of keeping enough of Goggins' face recognisable to help the audience connect with him in that state and to allow for a fuller performance, especially as he's one of the main characters. We see other Ghouls who are much nastier looking, including ones who have gone full-Ghoul, so it's not as if they all look like him. In fact most of them don't. I think it's a fair decision to make RE: Goggins' character IMHO.