Nikostallvic
This port is so bad.
It's already bad enough the file size for the collection is 60 gigs because of the uncompressed ai upscaled textures but the multiplayer barely works at all.
Instantly there's already audio bugs with BF2 being much quieter than 1 even at max volume settings as well as the loading screen sound from BF1 when loading into a map being incorrect (which is a sin.)
First few experiences of me playing this game started with me in BF1 doing quick join and joining a server requiring a password, next match directly after that has me join a match and the game instantly crashes.
Then I try BF2 quick match and end up on a match in Utapau on Conquest. The hit reg is terrible despite having my ping only being around 40 on the server and there was a glitch that me and several other people in the server experienced where when we on a respawn timer, it would just be stuck at 1 and never would go down.
The new textures and graphical changes don't look very bad and I like the upscaled hud and everything but the background cut scenes on Battlefront 2's menu that are upscaled look so horrible.
It's so disappointing because I love these two games but I'm gonna have to refund it because this is ridiculous for a +$30 dollar collection that really doesn't have anything better than the original games on PC. I'll probably only pick it up again on discount if the biggest issues are fixed.
It's already bad enough the file size for the collection is 60 gigs because of the uncompressed ai upscaled textures but the multiplayer barely works at all.
Instantly there's already audio bugs with BF2 being much quieter than 1 even at max volume settings as well as the loading screen sound from BF1 when loading into a map being incorrect (which is a sin.)
First few experiences of me playing this game started with me in BF1 doing quick join and joining a server requiring a password, next match directly after that has me join a match and the game instantly crashes.
Then I try BF2 quick match and end up on a match in Utapau on Conquest. The hit reg is terrible despite having my ping only being around 40 on the server and there was a glitch that me and several other people in the server experienced where when we on a respawn timer, it would just be stuck at 1 and never would go down.
The new textures and graphical changes don't look very bad and I like the upscaled hud and everything but the background cut scenes on Battlefront 2's menu that are upscaled look so horrible.
It's so disappointing because I love these two games but I'm gonna have to refund it because this is ridiculous for a +$30 dollar collection that really doesn't have anything better than the original games on PC. I'll probably only pick it up again on discount if the biggest issues are fixed.
2010
My favorite game of all time.
I don't really know where to begin with New Vegas tbh. I replay this game just about every single year or so and I never get sick of it, of course I'll add some mods to refresh my experience but even without mods that add more stuff to the game, this game is still an absolute masterpiece.
Obviously this game requires a few patches to get running in stable state because of the fact its an older game that was only made in a year and a half. However, this should honestly be expected with most older games and if you cry about having to spend like 5 minutes max installing NVSE and 4GB patch you're an absolute bitch LOL
I love pretty much everything about this game. Even if its dated, I still love the gameplay and how many different kinds of weapons and armor there are in the game that can allow the player to choose so many different unique playstyles.
This game has an absolute fuck ton of quests, way more actual quests than both Fallout 3 and 4 and also of much higher quality that doesn't just consist of shooting galleries or choices that are purely obvious/black and white.
The narrative and writing in the game is so great, it really builds upon the strongest points of Fallout 1 and 2's writing and world building. New Vegas focuses more upon a truly POST-apocalyptic world rather than a freshly apocalyptic world like the Bethesda Fallout games, this game's world feels genuinely alive and authentic.
The role playing in this game allows for so many unique choices for most quests that really makes the world change around you as you play then game, every playthrough can feel completely different.
I mean there's only so much I can say about New Vegas that people haven't already said, this game basically takes the greatest elements of the first two Fallout games and puts it in the FPS/Open World format of Fallout 3 and just completely improves upon it in every single way. I genuinely think all of the cons of this game all come down to how rushed the game was but even then, they're all so minor and do not take away from how amazing this game is.
I don't really know where to begin with New Vegas tbh. I replay this game just about every single year or so and I never get sick of it, of course I'll add some mods to refresh my experience but even without mods that add more stuff to the game, this game is still an absolute masterpiece.
Obviously this game requires a few patches to get running in stable state because of the fact its an older game that was only made in a year and a half. However, this should honestly be expected with most older games and if you cry about having to spend like 5 minutes max installing NVSE and 4GB patch you're an absolute bitch LOL
I love pretty much everything about this game. Even if its dated, I still love the gameplay and how many different kinds of weapons and armor there are in the game that can allow the player to choose so many different unique playstyles.
This game has an absolute fuck ton of quests, way more actual quests than both Fallout 3 and 4 and also of much higher quality that doesn't just consist of shooting galleries or choices that are purely obvious/black and white.
The narrative and writing in the game is so great, it really builds upon the strongest points of Fallout 1 and 2's writing and world building. New Vegas focuses more upon a truly POST-apocalyptic world rather than a freshly apocalyptic world like the Bethesda Fallout games, this game's world feels genuinely alive and authentic.
The role playing in this game allows for so many unique choices for most quests that really makes the world change around you as you play then game, every playthrough can feel completely different.
I mean there's only so much I can say about New Vegas that people haven't already said, this game basically takes the greatest elements of the first two Fallout games and puts it in the FPS/Open World format of Fallout 3 and just completely improves upon it in every single way. I genuinely think all of the cons of this game all come down to how rushed the game was but even then, they're all so minor and do not take away from how amazing this game is.
Gearbox made like... two good games.
This is one of them.
Great expansion of HL1, building off the mechanics of that game and adding a lot of new interesting weapons and enemies. Very fun and well thought out level design throughout the entire thing too.
The only part where I felt the level design started to fall off was around the very end parts where it feels like the game can mindlessly spam you with shock troopers and voltigores with no breathing room.
Also as much as I a like a lot of the new sandbox, some of the new weapons seem kind of odd like the wrench being pretty useless as soon as you get the knife and also the sniper rifle being great but only being able to be used a little bit near the end of the game because of how late you get it and how rare ammo is for it.
Despite some minor flaws, it was still a really fun experience.
This is one of them.
Great expansion of HL1, building off the mechanics of that game and adding a lot of new interesting weapons and enemies. Very fun and well thought out level design throughout the entire thing too.
The only part where I felt the level design started to fall off was around the very end parts where it feels like the game can mindlessly spam you with shock troopers and voltigores with no breathing room.
Also as much as I a like a lot of the new sandbox, some of the new weapons seem kind of odd like the wrench being pretty useless as soon as you get the knife and also the sniper rifle being great but only being able to be used a little bit near the end of the game because of how late you get it and how rare ammo is for it.
Despite some minor flaws, it was still a really fun experience.
1994
This game was like a giant renaissance painting telling a sweeping, epic story.
There are so many things I loved about this game. The music was theatrical and memorable with surprisingly fun combat and a beautiful story with lovable characters.
My favorite aspect of the game was the overall theme and message the story has. Kefka is the living embodiment of nihilism who creates chaos to destroy all hope within the main characters and the world around them. Seeing the experiences and story archs of the main characters and how they move on from their pasts and restore hope is inspiring, especially for a game that came out in 1994, it was unheard to have a story that was so large and impressive.
The pacing of the game is perfect too, the story doesn't drag but its also not too short. I beat it in about 30 hours while also doing some side stuff and it felt perfect in terms of pacing.
Despite some characters only existing to fill in a role within the sandbox of combat variety, there's so many moving characters like Edgar, Sabin, Locke, Shadow, Terra, Setzer, Cyan and probably my favorite character, Celes.
Celes had some of my favorite story beats in the whole game. The Opera House part and how it lampshades her relationship with Locke is fantastic and also the beginning of World of Ruin with Cid and Celes was gut wrenching.
Not to mention, the final fight in Kefka's tower was insane. The music as well as the sprites and backgrounds were gorgeous, it goes back to what I said about the game feeling like a renaissance painting.
The only issues I really had with this game were random encounters being a little too annoying, especially in areas like Zozo and also some really vital story beats between characters can be way too easy to miss sometimes, especially with a character like Shadow who is implemented in a really temperamental way gameplay wise.
Despite that, the pros outway the cons so much that I think this game is almost perfect and I loved my time with it.
There are so many things I loved about this game. The music was theatrical and memorable with surprisingly fun combat and a beautiful story with lovable characters.
My favorite aspect of the game was the overall theme and message the story has. Kefka is the living embodiment of nihilism who creates chaos to destroy all hope within the main characters and the world around them. Seeing the experiences and story archs of the main characters and how they move on from their pasts and restore hope is inspiring, especially for a game that came out in 1994, it was unheard to have a story that was so large and impressive.
The pacing of the game is perfect too, the story doesn't drag but its also not too short. I beat it in about 30 hours while also doing some side stuff and it felt perfect in terms of pacing.
Despite some characters only existing to fill in a role within the sandbox of combat variety, there's so many moving characters like Edgar, Sabin, Locke, Shadow, Terra, Setzer, Cyan and probably my favorite character, Celes.
Celes had some of my favorite story beats in the whole game. The Opera House part and how it lampshades her relationship with Locke is fantastic and also the beginning of World of Ruin with Cid and Celes was gut wrenching.
Not to mention, the final fight in Kefka's tower was insane. The music as well as the sprites and backgrounds were gorgeous, it goes back to what I said about the game feeling like a renaissance painting.
The only issues I really had with this game were random encounters being a little too annoying, especially in areas like Zozo and also some really vital story beats between characters can be way too easy to miss sometimes, especially with a character like Shadow who is implemented in a really temperamental way gameplay wise.
Despite that, the pros outway the cons so much that I think this game is almost perfect and I loved my time with it.
Cold War is easily the best CoD game to come out post Black Ops II.
I totally understand why it got a ton of hate when it came out because of the fact that from a mechanical and technical standpoint, it was a complete stepdown from Modern Warfare (2019) but in terms of character and content, I think it's easily the most interesting and fully enjoyable package even with its complicated and rushed development during the height of COVID.
The obvious thing first, I am in love with this game's aesthetic. The 80's theme is so fucking cool and Cold War really takes it and runs with it, you can really tell when it comes to the design of a lot of the levels in all game modes of Cold War and also within the narrative of the campaign.
Despite the fact that it may be a bit short, I fucking LOVED the campaign. Each mission felt so distinct and unique, I loved making my own character with their own perks and having dialogue choices that change how events play out, similar to Black Ops II.
On top of that, the side content with the campaign where you had to decipher the codes to find Perseus was so fucking cool to me. I remember writing all these different strings of numbers and city names in my notebook physically to try and crack the code and it was genuinely such a memorable and engaging moment in any game I've ever played and it was totally optional. In general, doing different side stuff and replaying missions was so fun, I remember replaying the whole campaign twice to get all the Dark Ops challenges completed.
Most people would consider the multiplayer to be the weakest part of the game and to an extent I would agree. Cold War's movement system feels pretty similar to Black Ops 4, generally being pretty stiff and janky, especially compared to how buttery smooth movement was in MW2019. The gunplay, animations and overall polish wasn't as on point as the last game because of the older engine but I think despite all of this, mechanically, Cold War's multiplayer was really sound.
Besides Miami, Cartel and The Pines, there weren't really any offensively bad maps in the game, they all ranged from competent to being very good. I also really enjoyed the wildcard system in Cold War allowing players to really add more onto what kind of playstyle they wanted to rock with, even being able to do weird shit like have two secondary weapons.
The multiplayer had an actual working mini map, easily recognizable enemies, maps that weren't dogshit and DEAD SILENCE AS A PERK. I really can't say the same about MW2019 lol. Minus maybe the slightly longer time to kill, Cold War was the last classic feeling CoD game we ever got. I don't think that even games like CoD WW2 or Black Ops 3 matched that golden age CoD game feel as much as this game.
When Cold War first came out, I was really mixed on the zombies because I felt it was too easily and strayed too far from the original formula of Black Ops III which I thought and still think is the gold standard for zombies. However, over time I've come to accept that Cold War is totally its own thing and it does its own style of gameplay pretty well, I think all 4 maps in Zombies are really fun, especially Mauer Der Toten is my favorite, knowing everything in that map down to a T.
I would even argue that Cold War does some things better than previous zombies iterations. I really like how hectic late rounds are in cold war, zombies get super fast and they feel way less monotonous as late rounds in something like BO3 or BO2 zombies. The exfil system is a really nice alternative to end the game and get better rewards than having to die or do the Easter egg to complete the map and I also think Cold War has the best perk system by having no limit but having each perk you get become increasingly more and more expensive as you acquire more. This is just way more fun than choosing the same 4 perks every single game like in every single zombies game in the past, even BO4 because even that game had an obvious meta of what perks were the best.
Cold War was a bit of a mess at launch but in its final state, I think almost from an objective standpoint, it is the highest quality, most unique and offers the most amount of content compared to almost any other CoD game post 7th Gen.
I totally understand why it got a ton of hate when it came out because of the fact that from a mechanical and technical standpoint, it was a complete stepdown from Modern Warfare (2019) but in terms of character and content, I think it's easily the most interesting and fully enjoyable package even with its complicated and rushed development during the height of COVID.
The obvious thing first, I am in love with this game's aesthetic. The 80's theme is so fucking cool and Cold War really takes it and runs with it, you can really tell when it comes to the design of a lot of the levels in all game modes of Cold War and also within the narrative of the campaign.
Despite the fact that it may be a bit short, I fucking LOVED the campaign. Each mission felt so distinct and unique, I loved making my own character with their own perks and having dialogue choices that change how events play out, similar to Black Ops II.
On top of that, the side content with the campaign where you had to decipher the codes to find Perseus was so fucking cool to me. I remember writing all these different strings of numbers and city names in my notebook physically to try and crack the code and it was genuinely such a memorable and engaging moment in any game I've ever played and it was totally optional. In general, doing different side stuff and replaying missions was so fun, I remember replaying the whole campaign twice to get all the Dark Ops challenges completed.
Most people would consider the multiplayer to be the weakest part of the game and to an extent I would agree. Cold War's movement system feels pretty similar to Black Ops 4, generally being pretty stiff and janky, especially compared to how buttery smooth movement was in MW2019. The gunplay, animations and overall polish wasn't as on point as the last game because of the older engine but I think despite all of this, mechanically, Cold War's multiplayer was really sound.
Besides Miami, Cartel and The Pines, there weren't really any offensively bad maps in the game, they all ranged from competent to being very good. I also really enjoyed the wildcard system in Cold War allowing players to really add more onto what kind of playstyle they wanted to rock with, even being able to do weird shit like have two secondary weapons.
The multiplayer had an actual working mini map, easily recognizable enemies, maps that weren't dogshit and DEAD SILENCE AS A PERK. I really can't say the same about MW2019 lol. Minus maybe the slightly longer time to kill, Cold War was the last classic feeling CoD game we ever got. I don't think that even games like CoD WW2 or Black Ops 3 matched that golden age CoD game feel as much as this game.
When Cold War first came out, I was really mixed on the zombies because I felt it was too easily and strayed too far from the original formula of Black Ops III which I thought and still think is the gold standard for zombies. However, over time I've come to accept that Cold War is totally its own thing and it does its own style of gameplay pretty well, I think all 4 maps in Zombies are really fun, especially Mauer Der Toten is my favorite, knowing everything in that map down to a T.
I would even argue that Cold War does some things better than previous zombies iterations. I really like how hectic late rounds are in cold war, zombies get super fast and they feel way less monotonous as late rounds in something like BO3 or BO2 zombies. The exfil system is a really nice alternative to end the game and get better rewards than having to die or do the Easter egg to complete the map and I also think Cold War has the best perk system by having no limit but having each perk you get become increasingly more and more expensive as you acquire more. This is just way more fun than choosing the same 4 perks every single game like in every single zombies game in the past, even BO4 because even that game had an obvious meta of what perks were the best.
Cold War was a bit of a mess at launch but in its final state, I think almost from an objective standpoint, it is the highest quality, most unique and offers the most amount of content compared to almost any other CoD game post 7th Gen.
1994
God tier platformer, everything about this game is perfect except for the first two snow levels and the poison pond level. Besides that, god tier music, level design, sfx, everything.
This review contains spoilers
Story wise this part makes sense, as it piggyback rides off the end of Infinite but gameplay wise this was a mess.
For one, it was super glitchy. I got soft locked out of certain areas several times when I tried exploring. When I picked up a new gun, the game would delete the old one I had, hard locking me into choosing guns that I picked up.
In terms of good things, the story seems so far to be giving more context to the ending of Infinite, the Rangefinder gun is really cool but OP as shit, Elizabeth’s new design in Burial at Sea is a 10/10 (I want to marry her) and like the base game, the environments and art direction is beautiful with Rapture being perfectly recreated.
Besides that, there isn’t much Burial at Sea really has going for it.
They tried making the gameplay more like the original Bioshock games by giving you small ammo pools and lower health and also making it so you can hold more than two guns.
By the way, this is a big problem I had. I’ve played through this DLC twice now and only now did I realize that you can carry multiple guns because the game never tells you that it's an added feature in the DLC. I found out by looking at a joke review on steam of a guy saying “Booker can fit more than two guns in his trousers.” and I got so confused.
The dumb thing is that with the base game, you get so accustomed to just using the mouse wheel to switch since it's a two weapon limit anyway so it would be safe to assume the DLC wouldn’t change anything since it says literally NOTHING to tell you that you can hold multiple guns.
Anyway, The gameplay was pretty difficult for the first hour or so because of the small ammo pool and health but as soon as Elizabeth starts giving you tears, it's still harder than base infinite but it pretty much goes back to easy mode again even in 1999 difficulty.
Burial at Sea suffered from almost all the same issues of the level design being too linear and suffocating and not rewarding the player very well for exploring.
On top of that, I ran into so many glitches. At one point, the game would spawn splicers directly in front of me and they’d appear out of thin air, I got stuck in an area where the airlock door would endlessly spin, when I looted, I could only collect all items and I couldn’t collect specific items like the base game and for some reason, pressing “E” while looting would switch my weapons.
Probably the biggest issue of all is the fact that this DLC is around 2 hours long AT MOST! You can easily beat the whole thing in one sitting and I was playing 1999 Mode!
Very disappointing, even more so than the base game. I hope Part 2 adds more onto this but I doubt it will. Also, you only fight one Big Daddy fight at the very end and it's okay I guess. I like how he can use his drill to hook you in, it makes it more challenging but still pretty eh.
For one, it was super glitchy. I got soft locked out of certain areas several times when I tried exploring. When I picked up a new gun, the game would delete the old one I had, hard locking me into choosing guns that I picked up.
In terms of good things, the story seems so far to be giving more context to the ending of Infinite, the Rangefinder gun is really cool but OP as shit, Elizabeth’s new design in Burial at Sea is a 10/10 (I want to marry her) and like the base game, the environments and art direction is beautiful with Rapture being perfectly recreated.
Besides that, there isn’t much Burial at Sea really has going for it.
They tried making the gameplay more like the original Bioshock games by giving you small ammo pools and lower health and also making it so you can hold more than two guns.
By the way, this is a big problem I had. I’ve played through this DLC twice now and only now did I realize that you can carry multiple guns because the game never tells you that it's an added feature in the DLC. I found out by looking at a joke review on steam of a guy saying “Booker can fit more than two guns in his trousers.” and I got so confused.
The dumb thing is that with the base game, you get so accustomed to just using the mouse wheel to switch since it's a two weapon limit anyway so it would be safe to assume the DLC wouldn’t change anything since it says literally NOTHING to tell you that you can hold multiple guns.
Anyway, The gameplay was pretty difficult for the first hour or so because of the small ammo pool and health but as soon as Elizabeth starts giving you tears, it's still harder than base infinite but it pretty much goes back to easy mode again even in 1999 difficulty.
Burial at Sea suffered from almost all the same issues of the level design being too linear and suffocating and not rewarding the player very well for exploring.
On top of that, I ran into so many glitches. At one point, the game would spawn splicers directly in front of me and they’d appear out of thin air, I got stuck in an area where the airlock door would endlessly spin, when I looted, I could only collect all items and I couldn’t collect specific items like the base game and for some reason, pressing “E” while looting would switch my weapons.
Probably the biggest issue of all is the fact that this DLC is around 2 hours long AT MOST! You can easily beat the whole thing in one sitting and I was playing 1999 Mode!
Very disappointing, even more so than the base game. I hope Part 2 adds more onto this but I doubt it will. Also, you only fight one Big Daddy fight at the very end and it's okay I guess. I like how he can use his drill to hook you in, it makes it more challenging but still pretty eh.
2009
Pretty cool aesthetically and narrative wise it is interesting enough but the execution falls flat, especially near the end and the I literally beat it all in a little bit more than a singular hour, which is inexcusable.
You don't really learn a lot of the motives well enough to have a strong enough opinion to help the slaves or Ashur. They both claim to be able to use the cure The Pitt but they just kinda say each opposing side is lying and leave it at that. It's lazy as fuck writing in typical Bethesda faction.
What made me the most irrationally annoyed was I decided to side with Ashur because I hadn't before and afterwards the game literally said
"Medical research from The Pitt has improved your life. Just try not to think what it costs others."
Like are you fucking kidding me? LOL. That's some Fallout: Frontier level writing but the whole binary good vs bad karma is an entirely different can of worms of why it hurts Fallout 3 so bad.
You don't really learn a lot of the motives well enough to have a strong enough opinion to help the slaves or Ashur. They both claim to be able to use the cure The Pitt but they just kinda say each opposing side is lying and leave it at that. It's lazy as fuck writing in typical Bethesda faction.
What made me the most irrationally annoyed was I decided to side with Ashur because I hadn't before and afterwards the game literally said
"Medical research from The Pitt has improved your life. Just try not to think what it costs others."
Like are you fucking kidding me? LOL. That's some Fallout: Frontier level writing but the whole binary good vs bad karma is an entirely different can of worms of why it hurts Fallout 3 so bad.
Probably my favorite game that I’ve beat all year. Genuinely loved everything about this game from the music, environment, playful story, well thought out level design and just even all the gimmicky aspects of the game that came from the N64 era kind of add to the game’s charm in a way like a lot of older games have. My gripes with this game come down to things like the water temple level being kind of ass but it's not enough for me to take the game down from being a 10, it's that good. I wish I played OOT all the way through earlier in my life and I’d see it's easily one of my favorite games of all time now. It was so enjoyable from beginning to end.
2008
I really wanted to AT LEAST give this game 3 stars but I'd honestly just be being disingenuous.
This is probably going to be the longest review I've ever written on Backloggd. After playing through this game and all the DLCs and doing pretty much almost every major side quest I can safely say that this easily the weakest mainline Fallout game, IMO even weaker than 4 and 76.
However, I don't really hate or completely dislike FO3. Before I complain for a while, I wanna at least talk about things I like about it.
-The art style is pretty cool. I like the art deco/retro futuristic industrial look of downtown DC and I actually like the green tint the game has, it’s iconic and sells DC a bit more as being fucked by tons of nukes.
-I think a lot of sound design is really good. A lot of the guns sound super crunchy and loud like the Chinese assault rifle, combat shotgun and sniper rifle to name a few.
-Both the licensed soundtrack and OST is really good.
-There aren’t a lot of side quests but the ones that are there are usually pretty neat. Even some of the parts of the main story like Tranquility Lane can be fun. The Superhuman Gambit, Oasis, Blood Ties and Replicated Man are some of the highlights of the game because they’re the only quests I’ve found that give you more options to solve than just “be irrationally evil for no reason or be a good guy” They have multiple ways of solving them and aren’t just shooting galleries.
-Fallout 3 captures the gritty, desolate vibe of the first two fallout games the best out of any of the sequels (arguably)
-Like most other BGS games, the gameplay loop can be pretty addicting.
I genuinely couldn't think of a lot of other great things to say about the game though.
So many people have already torn this game apart so I don't wanna just repeat stuff that everyone has said but I still wanna bring up parts of the game that really bug me. I'm probably just gonna list a ton of stuff that comes to mind in no real order.
The world's map design is so weird and I don’t like it. Several times, I’ve felt like I had to look up where to find cool side quests because they’re so out of the way and blend in with the rest of the game because every area looks the same and anytime there’s a new POI, I discover I assume it's gonna have dogshit in it, so when there’s actually some cool like a unique weapon, I’ll have no idea unless I look it up. Examples of this are side quests like the one around Republic of Dave which is literally in the ass end of a corner of a map and for weapons, The Terrible Shotgun comes to mind. You have to kill this random raider merchant in the middle of a dungeon where you'd have no clue he has a unique weapon unless you looked it up or found it by accident since all the "unique weapons" in this game look the exact same as their normal models.
This game uses the same system of leveling that Oblivion does where the enemies in the world level up with the player. This initially sounds like a good idea because it lets the player freely explore the world anyway they want but IMO at the end of the day this is more of a determent to the overall gameplay loop. It completely kills any sort of progression to give the player a broad path to follow so the devs can slowly feed them bread crumbs of new quests and content they can discover and they can genuinely feel like they're becoming stronger. When you reach late game, especially late 20's, every enemy just becomes a bullet sponge no matter where you are and its so unfun. (DO NOT FUCKING GET ME STARTED ON THE FERAL GHOUL REAVERS AND THE ALBINO RADSCORPIONS)
This is no secret but this game has some of the most nonsensical and dogshit writing I've ever seen in a video game, it was so hard for me to care about any of the characters in this game or even the Capital Wasteland itself. Even your Dad doesn't give a shit about you when he sees you again after you leave the vault, he's just like "Oh, you're here? Go help me with project purity hehe." Again I don't wanna go to into so many examples, its not hard to know what I'm talking about if you watch any video about FO3 or even half paying attention to the game's dialogue and story.
Obviously the gunplay and combat sucks in Fallout 3 and VATS is a crutch because of how clunky it is. However, nobody really ever talks about how bad the collision meshes are for any of the environments in FO3. I’ll shoot someone behind cover and so many times, my shots will just get caught on invisible walls. Especially when using scoped weapons, this is infuriating. Of course not having true ADS is absurd and inexcusable as well, especially when every gun in this game has a random Valorant ass spray pattern. If you're not building for VATS and getting Grim Reaper's Sprint, Concentrated Fire and Better Criticals, you're literally just nerfing yourself.
The Good vs Evil karma system is fucking garbage. It might genuinely be the worst aspect of the entire game. I don't know what Bethesda was thinking when they decided to tell players DIRECTLY if they were doing something the writers liked or not. It completely takes away any agency from the player to make their own choices that can involve any sort of real nuance or decisions. Because of this system, it makes so Bethesda wrote a lot of the choices being between being a complete dick or being a reasonable person with no grey morality or nuance.
That's another thing too, unless you're doing a "what if?" scenario like one of those videos where people beat games while purposefully nerfing themselves because its funny, there is absolutely no reason for anyone playing this game to have bad karma unless they're actively trying their hardest to be evil. The game actively punishes you for having bad karma with almost absolutely no real reward in return, you're basically just shooting yourself in the foot. It's genuinely infuriating holy shit.
I hate how much random stuff this game takes from Fallout 1 and 2 and just plops into this game no matter how little sense it makes. Radscorpions in fucking DC? Sure dude! They're so iconic we HAVE to put them in the sequel even if they don't exist in the East Coast! Harold from The Hub? He's back in this game somehow! It's so incredibly forced in this game especially, its insane.
Speaking of that, this is more of a minor nitpick and even though I said I enjoy Fallout 3's aesthetic, I really wish the environment had more variety and wasn't just a pseudo desert with nothing but dead trees. Where do the people that live here get their food from? How is there a functioning ecosystem in The Capital Wasteland?!
I know its mainly because gamebryo is silly and just like how Oblivion had to retcon Cyrodil from being a swampland into being gm_flatgrass and LOTR because the engine couldn't handle the amount of foliage it would have, its still insanely disappointing because DC would be filled with various wetlands. Ironically, Point Lookout portrays this way better than the base game but even that DLC runs like complete shit even on PC despite having such small land mass, so if that's anything to go by, this is a little bit more forgivable than other issues with the game.
Even though New Vegas was the first fallout I played back in 2010 and it was and still is my favorite Fallout and game of all time, I still really liked Fallout 3 as a kid and I was genuinely excited to play it again and be like "Yeah, this is really fun!" almost in spite of loser nerds like HBomberguy making 8 hour long videos on why Fallout 3 is the worst game ever created but it wouldn't be genuine if I said I "love" this game as an adult.
This is probably going to be the longest review I've ever written on Backloggd. After playing through this game and all the DLCs and doing pretty much almost every major side quest I can safely say that this easily the weakest mainline Fallout game, IMO even weaker than 4 and 76.
However, I don't really hate or completely dislike FO3. Before I complain for a while, I wanna at least talk about things I like about it.
-The art style is pretty cool. I like the art deco/retro futuristic industrial look of downtown DC and I actually like the green tint the game has, it’s iconic and sells DC a bit more as being fucked by tons of nukes.
-I think a lot of sound design is really good. A lot of the guns sound super crunchy and loud like the Chinese assault rifle, combat shotgun and sniper rifle to name a few.
-Both the licensed soundtrack and OST is really good.
-There aren’t a lot of side quests but the ones that are there are usually pretty neat. Even some of the parts of the main story like Tranquility Lane can be fun. The Superhuman Gambit, Oasis, Blood Ties and Replicated Man are some of the highlights of the game because they’re the only quests I’ve found that give you more options to solve than just “be irrationally evil for no reason or be a good guy” They have multiple ways of solving them and aren’t just shooting galleries.
-Fallout 3 captures the gritty, desolate vibe of the first two fallout games the best out of any of the sequels (arguably)
-Like most other BGS games, the gameplay loop can be pretty addicting.
I genuinely couldn't think of a lot of other great things to say about the game though.
So many people have already torn this game apart so I don't wanna just repeat stuff that everyone has said but I still wanna bring up parts of the game that really bug me. I'm probably just gonna list a ton of stuff that comes to mind in no real order.
The world's map design is so weird and I don’t like it. Several times, I’ve felt like I had to look up where to find cool side quests because they’re so out of the way and blend in with the rest of the game because every area looks the same and anytime there’s a new POI, I discover I assume it's gonna have dogshit in it, so when there’s actually some cool like a unique weapon, I’ll have no idea unless I look it up. Examples of this are side quests like the one around Republic of Dave which is literally in the ass end of a corner of a map and for weapons, The Terrible Shotgun comes to mind. You have to kill this random raider merchant in the middle of a dungeon where you'd have no clue he has a unique weapon unless you looked it up or found it by accident since all the "unique weapons" in this game look the exact same as their normal models.
This game uses the same system of leveling that Oblivion does where the enemies in the world level up with the player. This initially sounds like a good idea because it lets the player freely explore the world anyway they want but IMO at the end of the day this is more of a determent to the overall gameplay loop. It completely kills any sort of progression to give the player a broad path to follow so the devs can slowly feed them bread crumbs of new quests and content they can discover and they can genuinely feel like they're becoming stronger. When you reach late game, especially late 20's, every enemy just becomes a bullet sponge no matter where you are and its so unfun. (DO NOT FUCKING GET ME STARTED ON THE FERAL GHOUL REAVERS AND THE ALBINO RADSCORPIONS)
This is no secret but this game has some of the most nonsensical and dogshit writing I've ever seen in a video game, it was so hard for me to care about any of the characters in this game or even the Capital Wasteland itself. Even your Dad doesn't give a shit about you when he sees you again after you leave the vault, he's just like "Oh, you're here? Go help me with project purity hehe." Again I don't wanna go to into so many examples, its not hard to know what I'm talking about if you watch any video about FO3 or even half paying attention to the game's dialogue and story.
Obviously the gunplay and combat sucks in Fallout 3 and VATS is a crutch because of how clunky it is. However, nobody really ever talks about how bad the collision meshes are for any of the environments in FO3. I’ll shoot someone behind cover and so many times, my shots will just get caught on invisible walls. Especially when using scoped weapons, this is infuriating. Of course not having true ADS is absurd and inexcusable as well, especially when every gun in this game has a random Valorant ass spray pattern. If you're not building for VATS and getting Grim Reaper's Sprint, Concentrated Fire and Better Criticals, you're literally just nerfing yourself.
The Good vs Evil karma system is fucking garbage. It might genuinely be the worst aspect of the entire game. I don't know what Bethesda was thinking when they decided to tell players DIRECTLY if they were doing something the writers liked or not. It completely takes away any agency from the player to make their own choices that can involve any sort of real nuance or decisions. Because of this system, it makes so Bethesda wrote a lot of the choices being between being a complete dick or being a reasonable person with no grey morality or nuance.
That's another thing too, unless you're doing a "what if?" scenario like one of those videos where people beat games while purposefully nerfing themselves because its funny, there is absolutely no reason for anyone playing this game to have bad karma unless they're actively trying their hardest to be evil. The game actively punishes you for having bad karma with almost absolutely no real reward in return, you're basically just shooting yourself in the foot. It's genuinely infuriating holy shit.
I hate how much random stuff this game takes from Fallout 1 and 2 and just plops into this game no matter how little sense it makes. Radscorpions in fucking DC? Sure dude! They're so iconic we HAVE to put them in the sequel even if they don't exist in the East Coast! Harold from The Hub? He's back in this game somehow! It's so incredibly forced in this game especially, its insane.
Speaking of that, this is more of a minor nitpick and even though I said I enjoy Fallout 3's aesthetic, I really wish the environment had more variety and wasn't just a pseudo desert with nothing but dead trees. Where do the people that live here get their food from? How is there a functioning ecosystem in The Capital Wasteland?!
I know its mainly because gamebryo is silly and just like how Oblivion had to retcon Cyrodil from being a swampland into being gm_flatgrass and LOTR because the engine couldn't handle the amount of foliage it would have, its still insanely disappointing because DC would be filled with various wetlands. Ironically, Point Lookout portrays this way better than the base game but even that DLC runs like complete shit even on PC despite having such small land mass, so if that's anything to go by, this is a little bit more forgivable than other issues with the game.
Even though New Vegas was the first fallout I played back in 2010 and it was and still is my favorite Fallout and game of all time, I still really liked Fallout 3 as a kid and I was genuinely excited to play it again and be like "Yeah, this is really fun!" almost in spite of loser nerds like HBomberguy making 8 hour long videos on why Fallout 3 is the worst game ever created but it wouldn't be genuine if I said I "love" this game as an adult.
I really loved Vice City, the game was fun as hell and super memorable. My biggest complaints are mostly two things.
The first thing is that the game has a lot of very aged mechanics that become a pain in the ass to deal with beyond the bad combat. One example is how you lose all your guns when you die and then you have to restart the entire mission. At that point you’re better off just loading a previous save.
On top of that, I didn’t mind the idea of having to go to certain areas of the game to save, but it just becomes pretty monotonous later on in the game, alongside having to constantly rebuy armor.
The second thing is that around the final quarter or so of the game and some missions even before that, the missions get really stupid and gimmicky where you have to do a bunch of stupid shit and it's amusing at first but eventually it gets very tiring and annoying. I love almost everything else about this game besides that though.
This games atmosphere and vibes are incredible, I love the characters, writing and goofyness of the game, the radio is fucking amazing and in general I love how arcadey and flashy this game is compared to later GTA games, its very refreshing and a ton of fun.
The first thing is that the game has a lot of very aged mechanics that become a pain in the ass to deal with beyond the bad combat. One example is how you lose all your guns when you die and then you have to restart the entire mission. At that point you’re better off just loading a previous save.
On top of that, I didn’t mind the idea of having to go to certain areas of the game to save, but it just becomes pretty monotonous later on in the game, alongside having to constantly rebuy armor.
The second thing is that around the final quarter or so of the game and some missions even before that, the missions get really stupid and gimmicky where you have to do a bunch of stupid shit and it's amusing at first but eventually it gets very tiring and annoying. I love almost everything else about this game besides that though.
This games atmosphere and vibes are incredible, I love the characters, writing and goofyness of the game, the radio is fucking amazing and in general I love how arcadey and flashy this game is compared to later GTA games, its very refreshing and a ton of fun.
I mean it's alright...
In terms of positive stuff, nothing was offensively bad about Blue Shift and I think what this expansion does best is the puzzle sections are mostly pretty great and in some cases better than Opposing Force.
There are some pretty cool parts of levels but overall since it was originally supposed to be bonus content for the Dreamcast port of HL1 it has a reoccurring issue of being too similar to the content in base HL1.
Because of that, a lot of level design is very "safe" and pretty uninteresting, especially when it comes to enemy encounters, the entire expansion felt WAY too easy and boring.
To add on to that, Blue Shift LOVES putting headcrabs in crawl spaces that are artificially long and extended so they can spam you with them every time you get to a corner or they’ll put headcrabs in really obscure locations where it feels almost impossible to not lose health from them because of how hard they are to see. I’ve never died to a headcrab at all in Blue Shift, I think I might’ve died twice my entire time playing this, but it just feels really lazy and annoying more than anything.
Blue Shift will also constantly do this thing where it’ll have an empty room where it spawns exactly two vortigaunts but they’re so easy that you can spawn kill them before they even get a chance to shoot at you. This happens throughout the entire campaign.
The biggest thing about my experience playing this game has got to be escorting Rosenberg on the Captive Freight level.
People complained about the tracking of the marines in Opposing Force but during Captive Freight, having to escort Rosenberg has WAY worse tracking and sequence breaking. When I played, Rosenberg ran in front of me down all the flights of stairs, went to the basement area, said to stick together and then continued to suddenly book it all the way back where he started for no reason, so I had to run all the way back to where Rosenberg started and walk ahead of him so he’d follow me correctly.
Also this goes without saying but since this was meant to be bonus content, this expansion is so fucking short. I literally beat it in exactly two and a half hours in comparison to Opposing Force, which took me about six hours to beat.
Blue Shift isn't necessarily bad by any means but its a pretty overall forgettable experience. Especially when compared to the base game and Opposing Force.
In terms of positive stuff, nothing was offensively bad about Blue Shift and I think what this expansion does best is the puzzle sections are mostly pretty great and in some cases better than Opposing Force.
There are some pretty cool parts of levels but overall since it was originally supposed to be bonus content for the Dreamcast port of HL1 it has a reoccurring issue of being too similar to the content in base HL1.
Because of that, a lot of level design is very "safe" and pretty uninteresting, especially when it comes to enemy encounters, the entire expansion felt WAY too easy and boring.
To add on to that, Blue Shift LOVES putting headcrabs in crawl spaces that are artificially long and extended so they can spam you with them every time you get to a corner or they’ll put headcrabs in really obscure locations where it feels almost impossible to not lose health from them because of how hard they are to see. I’ve never died to a headcrab at all in Blue Shift, I think I might’ve died twice my entire time playing this, but it just feels really lazy and annoying more than anything.
Blue Shift will also constantly do this thing where it’ll have an empty room where it spawns exactly two vortigaunts but they’re so easy that you can spawn kill them before they even get a chance to shoot at you. This happens throughout the entire campaign.
The biggest thing about my experience playing this game has got to be escorting Rosenberg on the Captive Freight level.
People complained about the tracking of the marines in Opposing Force but during Captive Freight, having to escort Rosenberg has WAY worse tracking and sequence breaking. When I played, Rosenberg ran in front of me down all the flights of stairs, went to the basement area, said to stick together and then continued to suddenly book it all the way back where he started for no reason, so I had to run all the way back to where Rosenberg started and walk ahead of him so he’d follow me correctly.
Also this goes without saying but since this was meant to be bonus content, this expansion is so fucking short. I literally beat it in exactly two and a half hours in comparison to Opposing Force, which took me about six hours to beat.
Blue Shift isn't necessarily bad by any means but its a pretty overall forgettable experience. Especially when compared to the base game and Opposing Force.
2018
Such a great game, throughout all three chapters.
Chapter 1 was a bit more simplistic but I think it worked in the games sake because I imagine it was intended to give the player a bit of breathing room to learn the basic mechanics of the game before the game gets crazy.
Chapter 2 was probably my favorite out of the three because of how variety there was in the different levels and the level design and flow of those levels were excellent, The Grainery, Infernal Machine and Escher Labs are examples of being genuinely perfect.
Chapter 3 upped the ante with how crazy and Lovecraftian the game gets and while I don't think the levels were as good as the second episode, its very close and all the levels in chapter 3 are all mostly very memorable and do a perfect build up from the last two chapters.
The game's sandbox and enemies are all very fun to use/fight, the only two enemies I think are kind of lame are the Grand Wizards (the red mages that shoot projectiles that track you) and the bone ball. An enemy that I loved fighting was the Wendigo though, I loved the mechanic with having to look down to find its footsteps and also hear its breathing while it gets close and if you shoot it, it reveals itself from being invisible, such good shit.
A lot of this game is what I wanted Quake to be when I played it more than a year ago, this game all across the board is near perfect and was so fucking fun to play.
Chapter 1 was a bit more simplistic but I think it worked in the games sake because I imagine it was intended to give the player a bit of breathing room to learn the basic mechanics of the game before the game gets crazy.
Chapter 2 was probably my favorite out of the three because of how variety there was in the different levels and the level design and flow of those levels were excellent, The Grainery, Infernal Machine and Escher Labs are examples of being genuinely perfect.
Chapter 3 upped the ante with how crazy and Lovecraftian the game gets and while I don't think the levels were as good as the second episode, its very close and all the levels in chapter 3 are all mostly very memorable and do a perfect build up from the last two chapters.
The game's sandbox and enemies are all very fun to use/fight, the only two enemies I think are kind of lame are the Grand Wizards (the red mages that shoot projectiles that track you) and the bone ball. An enemy that I loved fighting was the Wendigo though, I loved the mechanic with having to look down to find its footsteps and also hear its breathing while it gets close and if you shoot it, it reveals itself from being invisible, such good shit.
A lot of this game is what I wanted Quake to be when I played it more than a year ago, this game all across the board is near perfect and was so fucking fun to play.
Some of the prequel levels and the Endor parts of ROTJ are kinda lame but still kino af
2011
Portal 2 is a great expansion upon the already rock solid mechanics and intriguing gameplay and level design of Portal 1 alongside just pretty much taking what Portal 1 did and cranking it up to 11.
Better levels, a better story, an even better soundtrack, a longer length with new mechanics added like all the different types of paint and generally a more challenging experience with a very fair and natural learning curve.
Also people who say that this game's writing is "Reddit" are lame. This game's writing is clever and funny as hell. Portal 2 did that "reddit" writing way before it became popular and overdone and even nowadays trying to equate Portal 2 to something like Forespoken or shitty Marvel movies is such a force.
Portal is a series that I think almost everyone plays at least once and I think everyone SHOULD beat it at least once, there's really no other games even remotely like it.
Better levels, a better story, an even better soundtrack, a longer length with new mechanics added like all the different types of paint and generally a more challenging experience with a very fair and natural learning curve.
Also people who say that this game's writing is "Reddit" are lame. This game's writing is clever and funny as hell. Portal 2 did that "reddit" writing way before it became popular and overdone and even nowadays trying to equate Portal 2 to something like Forespoken or shitty Marvel movies is such a force.
Portal is a series that I think almost everyone plays at least once and I think everyone SHOULD beat it at least once, there's really no other games even remotely like it.