Fallout 1/2 vs Fallout 3

Based on 7-hours hands-on time, VideoGamer.com compares Bethesda’s take on the Fallout franchise with the originals.

We suspect the dialogue and tone will be the biggest bones of contention for hardcore Fallout fans. Pithy dialogue and description was a key part of the charm to the original games; there’s a very distinct tone that was always going to be a big challenge for Bethesda to replicate. On a visual level, there’s really no questioning the fact that the team has done an amazing job of recreating Interplay’s post-nuclear-war world, but at times the dialogue is perhaps a little too theatrical for its own good. That’s not to say it’s badly executed – the standard of voice acting is very high, on the whole – but the actual tone of the script writing seems to vary quite a lot from area to area. An example: The ravaged settlers of Arefu seemed like a fairly miserable, desperate bunch – but on the way there we ran into a merchant named Crow, a colourful chap who seemed far too jolly for a man who risks his life by walking the wasteland for a living.

The point here is that Fallout veterans who come to this game expecting the same style of gritty patter are likely to get wound up rather quickly. For the rest of you, your reaction for the dialogue is going to be a matter of taste. To reiterate: there’s no real problem with the way speech is delivered. It’s more to do with the fact that what’s actually being said can be a bit overly dramatic. Sometimes this approach works, at other times it’s a tad hammy. If you’ve seen any video footage of Megaton’s Mister Burke, you’ll get the idea: as soon as he opens his gob, you know that he’s a boo-hiss villain – and as boo-hiss villains go, he’s really pretty well done. We’ve not heard much of Liam Neeson’s contribution to the game, but we love the gravelly pomp of Malcolm McDowell’s John Henry Eden – the leader of the fascistic Enclave. So far we’ve only heard his radio broadcasts, but we look forward to meeting him in the flesh (or pixels, whatever).