The Decline and Fall of Fallout Fans, Part Three

The third installment to NMA’s “The Decline and Fall of Fallout Fans” article is now available, this time focusing on innovation and conservatism and how it applies to Fallout 3.

If you’re going to argue from quality rather than innovation, you could say that Fallout belongs to those cRPGs that focus on translating the pen and paper experience to the computer. If you’re going to choose the pen and paper experience over the more fashionable (but not qualitatively different) immersion, you end up with turn based combat. Only turn-based combat, the reasoning of the oldest cRPGs was, could be a faithful representation of the tactical combat of pen and paper RPGs. A developer intent on translating the P&P experience to the computer would automatically be tied to turn-based combat, which is tied to either isometric or top-down view for playability reasons. Normally, this is a matter of preference, though Fallout as a franchise is already tied to the pen and paper experience. It being simply preference goes against any unrealistic perception of there being a linear evolution in gaming.