this post was submitted on 29 Apr 2024
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me_irl
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I have seen so many people say it's good but I watched it with my wife and at around episode 3 she described it as aggressively mid which I heavily agree with and we stopped watching. Felt like the writers of Fallout 4 were involved and were told to tone down the excitement. Does it get like a lot better later in the season or are our tastes just different?
Wow that's a damning statement, given how atrociously written Fallout 4 was.
It's significantly better written and much more coherant than fallout 4
They probably managed to cull most of Emil Pagliarulo's input, then
I think that part of Emil's problem as a writer is that he writes stories that don't allow for the player to be part of the process. It's Emil's story, we just play it.
Fallout 4 was such a mess because they tried to make the Institute an evil monster and a viable player faction which led to a huge conflict between the stated goals of the Institute and its actual actions. Which wouldn't be so bad if the player could confront them about it but not being able to do so makes the player feel disconnected from the character (in my opinion).
In a TV show that need to respond to player choice doesn't exist which is why it felt more natural. Having other writers on hand didn't hurt either.
I mean that's good, because I legitimately don't remember the plot of Fallout 4 and I finished that game, and did a couple of partial playthroughs in addition to try for the DLCs, which I never finished.
The only thing I really remember is that it was super against robots for some reason. You also had a partner and a child (did they have names? did they have genders?) you were supposed to care about but they died within the first five minutes so I doubt anyone really did.
You finished the game and think your character's child is dead? You really did forget everything.
My guy literally forgot the entire premise of the main story lol
They're right that it wasn't a great story, but that's still a pretty big thing to forget!
Oh right the MIT bit with the clone of your kid. Honestly the most memorable part of the game for me was the Salem Witch Museum, which also looks nothing like it does in real life.
I think there was also a bit where you ran away film gorillas, though they may have been alligators (not deathclaws). Don’t recall the context though, might’ve been a DLC?
The best thing to come out of Fallout 4 is the deathclaw dildo by Bad Dragon.
He wasn't cloned, but cryogenically frozen, like the main character. He was just awoken 60 years sooner.
Yes, the old man version of your son, but you meet Shane as a child, and that's a clone, no?
A synth, not a clone, but you're right, there is a child version you meet as well.
The 4 and a half episodes I saw felt like whoever made this just knew in broad strokes what Fallout 3 and 4 were and was told to make a movie based on that. It feels very Bethesda in it's storytelling, the plot exists but it's the most generic and bland as possible, no new ideas or interesting concepts and nothing to say. I feel like the only thing carrying it is the Fallout imagery and without it the show would be a solid 4/10.
Recent TV shows that I would rate as excellent would be The Expanse, From, Foundation and Lower Decks. Fallout doesn't feel even close to any of those but people seem to really like it.
I don't remember last time Bethesda (dev, not publisher) ever wrote a storyline that was gripping, honestly. The games tend to have at least one or two side plots that are at least a bit interesting, maybe in the form of a DLC or so, but the main story isn't generally all that good.
The only quest I really remember from any of their recent main-line games (by recent I mean Oblivion - Fallout 4) is the one where a wife is looking for her missing husband, who ended up having escaped into a painting in order to avoid a burglar. Plot-wise it wasn't amazing, but the storytelling thanks to it being a game, made it good. It wouldn't have worked in a show.
I really liked Foundation. I never read those books either so maybe that's why. I recently ranted about how atrociously bad the Netflix adaptation of Three Body was, and someone brought up thinking the same about Foundation - which caught me off guard. Couldn't really get past the first episode because by the time the episode ended we were halfway through the first book, and we'd pulled in elements of the second and third as well. Reading Three Body was a slow burn, it left you feeling on edge as the characters were prodding around the edges of this conspiracy, which then turned out to be not what you expected. It's also an intensely nihilistic read, which suits me great because I am intensely nihilistic. It was amazing, and the Netflix adaptation caught none of that.
I enjoyed The Expanse first time I watched it, then vanished, and now I need to re-watch it because I've forgotten everything. It's just tough to get back in to since I've already seen it and as I'm watching I'm like "oh right, this thing" and then it gets boring. Lower Decks I've only seen the crossover episode from SNW, which was fun, so I'm kind of curious about it!
As someone who dug into it without knowing anything about the fallout stories, I found it really mind numbingly dull for the first 3/4 of the season. It wrapped up at the end nicely and was a good series, but it felt like they weren't spending enough time on one of the 4 or so main character arcs to keep my attention. Like they knew they had a whole season so they cut everything up and made it as boring as they could... I forced my way through it and am glad I did, but yeah - getting there was more mind numbing than other shows I've watched in recent past.
seeing as the first 3 episodes barely get into more than character introduction I'd say give it a bit more time
I checked the watch history and it was 4 and a half episodes actually. Does it get any better after that?
hmm, if you're not enjoying it by that point I'd say skip it. If you're really into fallout lore it's still worth watching, but otherwise yea just skip it, or read a synopsis and see if something there catches your interest enough for you to continue
The Fallout TV show is mostly "revolutionary" on the grounds of being a TV adaptation of something that doesn't suck ass and explores the lore of Fallout in a way that's faithful to the games and not complete nonsense, I liked it a lot, but it's art and nobody is somehow obliged to like it lol
Oh, the lore was another thing that bothered me. For example ghouls now need a drug to not turn feral, the brotherhood being changed completely from what they were in Fallout 1, 2 and NV to some kind of pseudo religious faction that treats its members as completely disposable and Shady Sands just got bombed randomly so the NCR just doesn't exist now.
To me it felt like the show was incredibly liberal with the lore or was just familiar of the lore in Fallout 4 and none of the rest of it.
I think thee medicine is preventative, basically if ya start turning you take. The brotherhood have different culture between chapters, imagine working under Elijah from new vegas. I believe it was Chris Avalon who said he wanted to nuke the NCR if he did another game, so this is at the very least an idea thats been floating around.
From the interaction between the cowboy and his friend that turns into ass jerky it seemed like every ghoul needs it but even if that's not the case turning feral was always inevitable once you showed signs in previous media. This drug has never been mentioned.
From what I remember the only chapter that has been different was the Fallout 3 one. New Vegas was a return to how the brotherhood previously was. Xenophobic, terrified of anything outside the brotherhood and very insular while treating anyone inside the brotherhood as invaluable. Fallout 4's brotherhood was closer to what they were in the first games until they rolled in and started conquering everything, which was very weird.
Nuking Shady Sands is fine if it works in the lore but the why and how is completely waved away. If the enclave had nukes they would have used them already. It feels very forced, like Bethesda wanted to get rid of previously established canon but they did it so poorly it conflicts with their own canon too.
If you finish the show they explain why Shady Sands happened.
Its possible that a ghoul going feral is akin to dementia, which means in theory its treatable. Im not against the concept at the very least.
Oh boy ya aint heard of the Midwest Brotherhood? Let me give ya an idea of what they were like, Caesar's Legion but not technophobic would be a solid summary. They broke from the standard doctrine pretty notably, for example ghouls, super mutants, and even intelligent deathclaws were recruited by them. I like the idea of the Brotherhood fracturing ideologically.
And yeah I kinda get it but ill wait till we get more lore on what happened to the NCR before I cast judgment.
I thought Fallout Tactics wasn't canon or am I wrong?
Eh its complicated, theres certainly a midwestern chapter but we aint got any specifics. Regardless the influence of Tactics will be present regardless.
It's just a different story being told in the Fallout universe.
Kind of a spoiler but since you ditched the show, I don't think you'll mind, Shady Sands wasn't bombed randomly.
I don't mind spoilers, what/who is the reason behind nuking Shady Sands?
It's a very large spoiler lol
spoiler
Lucy's dad nuked it to keep the experiment of vaults 31, 32, and 33 hidden.At this point though IS it revolutionary to be a good video game adaptation? We've got Castlevania, Last of Us, Edgerunners, Arcane...
yeah but the years of failed attempts are still weighing on us
But we also got all the Uwe Boll trash... And Mario. The live action one.
If you don't like it yet, I dont think you'll enjoy it at all.
It has a couple of very decent episodes, but as someone who is a big Fallout fan the show seems pretty underwhelming. It's like they wanted to lean into the grim darkness of the setting, so they decided to eliminate whatever vestiges of civilization there might have been (the Brotherhood of Steel being in a massive downward spiral as an organization and the whole Shady Sands things seemed like a copout for budget and storytellilng purposes). Not saying Fallout isn't a bleak setting, but it's definitely got more of an oddball humor to it that is generally pervasive through the setting, instead of the sprinkle of it we got throughout the show. I guess what I'm saying is that with something like this you have to really nail the tone, and they just sorta missed the mark on it.
I don't know what show you watched, but the Fallout show was laden with comedy in nearly every scene. It heavily leans on dark comedy and the perils & shittiness of humanity with random touches of the absurd (or oddball as you put it). With my experince of the Fallout franchise and spending countless hours reading terminals, listening to the recordings, talking to the denziens of the world in all the fallout games since FO1 except for 76, I thought they did an excellent job capturing the tone of the universe.
My biggest complaint is that they could have done a couple more episodes to flesh out some details. However that has more to do with how shows now seem to have a ~8 episode format instead of the ~12 episode format (or even ~22 format of old. Who remebers having all those Supernatural epps?!) than the show itself. Most newer streaming shows leave me with this gripe. This gripe is likely the same reason why you felt that the coverage of BoS, NCR, and Shady Sands was a little flat/copouty.