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Comment by mstade | Hacker News Reader

Another thing the old games has that Bethesda forgot about: replay value. I still play FO1 and FO2 every now and then, and still find things and side quests I never knew existed. And they are interesting – not just randomly generated "there are ghouls that are bothering me over there, plx 2 go and kill them kthnxbye" grinding crap. I've just finished Fallout 4 and can't for the life of me be bothered to play it again. I had fun, it's not a bad game, and I don't mind the price of admission, but just like Fallout 3 it'll end up in a box somewhere and I'll never care for it again.

Not so with FO1 and FO2 (my favorite being FO2) – I dread the day I can't play them anymore because they are too old.

Also, pro-tip: http://user.tninet.se/~jyg699a/fallout2.html

That guide has everything, it's awesome.

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FO3 + NV have massive replayability, especially when combined with mods. People played those games over and over again, role playing totally different characters.

Your gut-feeling about Bethesda games lacking replay value is at odds with objective stats. Skyrim is even still in the top 10 played games today on Steam 5 years after release (and was a stubborn fixture in the top 10 even before the remaster)[1]. Fallout 3 + NV stayed there for years. Admittedly, FO4 dropped out quicker than usual, but a lot of people blame the constricting nature of a voiced protagonist. FO4 is nevertheless still in the top 20 for most players today a year after release.

So their games have definitely got replay value, they really get replay value. Their worlds are full of unique locations. I do admit they got something a bit wrong with FO4, but I think even they must realise that at this point given the player feedback.

[1] http://store.steampowered.com/stats/

To be fair, I'm positive that Skyrim's top 10 spot is due to mods. The modding community has done some crazy impressive stuff, up to and including complete gameplay overhauls.

Doesn't invalidate the point that Bethesda know how to make a game replayable, even if the answer is make it moddable.

Fair point. Far too few developers understand the value of an engaged, active community extending their game.

I wonder if the next Bethesda games will ever see such success after The Witcher 3. That game is so high above Fallout 4, in terms of quests, characters, and anything you could think about, that I seriously doubt Bethesda is capable of producing something that could even be compared.

Bethesda sure fucked something up with Fallout 4, but let's not go there.

Instead I thank you for encouraging to get back to the 1 & 2. I've bought the games off of GoG -- in several occasions mind you -- but never really got into them. Each generation of games is made easier and now it shows when you're supposed to get into the good ones. :( But I think I'll surrender myself to the spoilers and get Fo2 going.

Are there any modern games that fall into the same category, do you think?

You could try Pillars of Eternity. Also, Fallout 3: New Vegas was done by Obsidian, not Bethesda, and Obsidian has many of the same staff that worked on the original Fallouts 1 and 2.

Pillars of Eternity is really fantastic. I dropped more hours than I'm willing to admit on that game and I might pick it up again when I have some more free time. I'm also really looking forward to playing Tyranny.

Fallout is itself a spiritual successor to a game called Wasteland, which is old enough to have been released on the Commodore 64. The people who made Fallout couldn't get the rights to Wasteland so they made Fallout. Well, now they have the rights, and you can pick up Wasteland 2 now: http://store.steampowered.com/app/240760/ Currently on sale 60% off, though I'll say I've seen it on sale quite a bit. I'm sure it'll be on sale Christmas again.

I cut my teeth on the original Wasteland (on an Apple 2) and am working my way through WL2 (haven't yet got to CA).

Wasteland 2 is good but buggy. There were some balance issues with the original and even though they went back and made a director's cut it's still not great. I'm most annoyed by the way that certain factions are hostile depending on where you are on the map (e.g. not based on actions).

You're just missing the Red Boots DLC. Makes everything perfect.

Warts and all I really enjoyed wasteland 2

I was disappointed my initial "balanced" party was very difficult to fight with, and I had to go back and remake a party where everyone uses assault rifles (and one sniper) and a backup melee weapon. I don't mind realism (in which that is the only sensible build for what our characters are doing, there is a reason real militaries carry around so many assault rifles), and I don't mind artificially balancing things out so that all weapons are equally valid or situationally useful, but don't tell me you did one on the hint screen, then do the other.

A funding campaign for Wasteland 3 recently completed successfully! https://www.fig.co/campaigns/wasteland-3

That's awesome, I didn't know this was happening! Would have backed it otherwise.

Hopefully they have the budget to have it nice and polished before release.

Age of Decadence and UnderRail are two modern games that were pretty heavily influenced by Fallout. AoD in particular has a lot of content that you won't see in a single playthrough.

UnderRail seems like it should be so, so cool, but the interface is rough and nothing quite feels right. I was pretty disappointed.

Underrail.

Shadowrun Dragonfall is reasonably close.

From one angle, Fallout New Vegas.

I agree with the point about the grindy nature of Fallout 4. They seemed to think I would get excited to run through randomly generated side quests from unnamed NPCs that they couldn't even be bothered to create unique dialogue for.

Then they put in a little sting of failing some of these side quests if you don't play by their rules and jump on them before an undisclosed amount of time elapses. At that point, if you want go back to avoid the quest failure you need to revert to earlier save and lose some of your progress.

It's exactly what I'm trying to say to people that like fallout3/4 but don't know nothing about the FO1 and FO2.

Thumb up! I still play both of them too! and I will give a try to this 1.5 :) this made my day.

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