The entire biome and food chain are completely unsupportable, in the final analysis. Without reasonably-widespread photosynthesis, there isn’t enough energy input to sustain predation; and as sparse as prey is, it seems unlikely that predators would survive between meals.
Speaking of tin cans, does it strike anyone else as odd that the only canned food is pork and beans, but there seems to be a nearly-uniform blanket of empty (bent or not) tin cans in various places? Were the beans just the least palatable of the canned food, and the last to go? If the Vault Wanderer had come out 100 years earlier, could he/she feasted on canned asparagus or tinned chop suey? (Come to think of it, if the latter existed, why wouldn’t it have been the last to get eaten? Because frankly, it’s far worse than any canned pork-and-beans.)
Hey, I don’t question inconsistencies in Borderlands’ world, since it’s not really important to the game. But Fallout has a pretty rich setting, and it is an RPG. Fair enough to pick apart the stuff that doesn’t hold up.
You snark well, but somewhat inaccurately. They haven’t rediscovered how to build a Gatling laser; they’ve rediscovered the actual Gatling lasers, 200-and-some years after they were built, and have kind of worked out how they work well enough to repair them and keep them running, and which kind of energy pack they use, and which end not to point at yourself.
Nobody has a Gatling laser factory, or even workshop. The only kinds of weapons being made are ridiculous (albeit effective) Rube Goldbergs like Rock-it Launchers and Bottlecap Mines, or very simple improvised weapons like sledgehammers or nail boards.
I think the squalor of the place isn’t rational; someone cited the rule of cool, and let’s face it, a post-apocalyptic future has to look post-apocalyptic.
It drives my brother crazy when my wife and I sit around critiquing a TV show while we watch it. He says “Why can’t you just enjoy the show?” We’ve tried to explain to him that we’re having a blast, but it’s no use.
It is annoying, and rude, if you’re doing it in front of him, while he is trying to watch it too. I hate that myself. Critique after the fact as much as you like, but not during!
I’m willing to cut the devs some slack on that one - it’s canned food, not exactly a crucial part of gameplay, and drawing up art for 50+ types of cans would have diverted time and money away from more gameplay worthy stuff.
Mentally, I designate half of it as SPAM anyway. Which is why I don’t touch the stuff neither - even starving in post-Apocalyptia, a man needs standards.
In that case, I am with you, to an extent. I generally like delving into a show or a movie or a book to critique it or find more meaning into it. My SO thinks this is a waste of time, and finds it utterly boring. So I go online to find people to discuss with.
But some things I just let slide. I don’t mind the things referenced in this thread about Fallout 3 because they are essential to the 'feel" of the game, I find. I do mind some of the actions taken in-game, however, and will discuss those to the end.
I thought that so much was left intact in the Fallout universe because the damage caused by the nukes was what most people in the 50’s thought would be caused, not what would actually be caused. Remember, in their timeline they actually thought fallout shelters and the like would be of real protection against a direct nuclear strike.
So the Fallout “universe,” hopelessly stuck in the 50’s, retains this fiction. “Fiction” is still the right word for it. The only real damage seen in DC from the nuke strikes is right downtown with most buildings still standing, and the game explains that the White House took a direct hit. Even Fat Boy or Little Man would have leveled Washington if the WH took a direct hit, so it’s not like nobody in the 50’s would be fooled. But, like so many other fictions about the 50’s (a baseball diamond in every lot! the pleasantness of New Suburbia! TV dinners are good for you!), fiction has become reality in the Fallout universe.
Constant raider, ghoul, super mutant, and even mole rat attacks make it sorta understandable they’d not have much time to worry about beautification. Gatling lasers will keep you alive another day, drywall won’t.
Generally, they are. East Coast vaults, at least around DC, are a grand experiment in human nature; they want people to remain inside. Some vaults approach Mengele levels.
Actually, this is one of my biggest bitches about this game. In Oblivion I was able to heavily modify my house. You can do a few things in the Megatown house, themes, but not really to the extent I’d like! Maybe everybody else doesn’t have time, but I DO - and I have the means to defend myself, too.
I’ve complained about the brownness of the game in general, but this in particular is what drives me nuts.
In the Fallout games, home after home is nothing but brown and grime. That is simply NOT the way people live, unless they’re refugees, and often not even then. People beautify where they live. Megaton, or any other permanently habited place, would not be nothing but brown and filth; it would be cleaned up and people would make an effort to make it look bright and colorful. They always have, and they always will, no matter the conditions.
I know it’s the engine, but if I find shit out in the Wasteland, I want to use it to decorate my room! If I could have hung up the poster of Abraham Lincoln, I might never have returned it. And I shouldn’t have to throw my collection of 27 baseballs on the floor - why can’t I organize them? Plus even Sims has a simple option where I can PAINT THE WALLS. I can see why you can’t do it in 500 colors but if there’s 200 YO salisbury steak there has to be some red paint, yo.
Almost the reverse is what’s annoying me in Alpha Protocol right now - I have three gorgeous safehouses, and I can’t interact with any of my damn stuff. I can’t even sit down on the couch! I must watch TV while standing. In my Rome safehouse I have a hot tub on the balcony and I can’t interact with it at all, must just stand looking at it longingly. I can’t even stand up in it and get my feet wet! Aargh! Let us interact with the environment more!
There’s also the odd contradiction that apparently it doesn’t rain (and IIRC canonically the world has been reduced to a desert); people have shelters with no roof, and there’s an awful lot of stuff exposed to the sky that rain would destroy quickly. Yet there are those pools of radioactive water all over.
But wood and paper doesn’t; you can still find unopened pre-war mail in mailboxes.
Fallout III exists in a kind of weird timeless zone; it looks like only a year or two has passed some places; all the surviving stuff that’s exposed in the open, for example. And just how many robots were there that 200 years later some are still wandering around randomly killing stuff? While at the same time there’s been enough time for new organizations and species to rise and quite a lot of history. Maybe the War broke time!
Personally, I just ignore it all and go along with it; it’s all part of creating the particularly variety of post-apocalyptic feel of the game. But I do feel that New Vegas feels somewhat more realistic in that sense - there’s still quite a bit of debris around that wouldn’t last 200 years though.
I believe that’s incorrect. The original game makers wanted to use a desert wastreland, and so set their games in desert wastelands. Bethesda did it because, despite their various successes, they’ve been incredibly stupid imitators post-Morrowind.
Some are control vaults, with no manipulation. The ones your character starts in always seem to be the more innocuous ones, without a planned reactor failure 100 years in.
I think a short answer is: Fallout is all about shooting things, and Beth will add that kinda customization if enough people demand it. I like it to some extent, but sometimes it goes a little far: does every goddamn game these days need to be a marriage and/or child-rearing simulator?
Oh, and if you want some of that stuff, get the PC version + mods. There are sorting mods. One I remember from Oblivion that I used made it so you could actually effectively put books in bookshelves without them exploding everywhere.
Oh and what is with the Road (book/movie). All plant and animal life is mostly dead except humans and maybe dogs. I could see a food shortage leading to cannibalism, but it all seems too complete.
