My Thoughts on the "Old Fallout vs New Fallout" Argument (hint: pointless)

P/S: Excuse me for this poorly-done banner.

I love video games, and the Fallout series has always been one of my favorites. But I'm not one of those "hardcore players" or "fanboys" you see arguing all over the internet forums or YouTube comment sections. Gaming aside, I'm pretty much the kind of person most people would call a "geek". I love psychology and philosophy and via these subjects, I began to accept, and eventually love the fact that I'm a learner. In Fallout games, learning is crucial.

But flame war... Flame war never changes. And here, the wasteland is the playground, and the argument is this: Old Fallout vs New Fallout.

We've seen it. All over the web. The endless argument between those who love the old-school Fallout and the new breed of players who came to know the series through Fallout 3. It's ironic, on both sides. The old players despise the changes introduced in the new and more action-oriented Fallout games, claiming that they are true Fallout fans, but never even bother to try out the new games and see how far the series have gone. Then there are the new players who hate the slow, tactical approach and the outdated graphics as well as the lack of mod of the old games. Quite ironically also, the new players boast and brag about being "expert" to the series but never even played the old games.

I first started with the old games and boy, how I wish more people would play them. But I'm not going to flip my finger at you and say, "fuck you poser" if you're a Fallout player who've never played the old games. Hell, what does it take to be qualified as a true fan or an expert? Not just in Fallout, but in all games. I don't know and I don't care. All I know is that both the old and new games owe each other. The old games won't have been recognized by the younger generation if not because the new games. As a matter of fact, some of them, including me, fell in love with the old-school games. But then again, new Fallout games won't have existed in the first place if not because of the old and I happen to appreciate that.

I have played almost all of the Fallout games. That list includes all of the main games; Fallout 1, Fallout 2, Fallout 3 and Fallout: New Vegas. I've also had good times with the spin-off Fallout Tactics. The only game I haven't tried is the console-only Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel, which was released for the Playstation 2 and Xbox. But my brother bought a copy recently, so chances are I'm going to give it a go despite the negative receptions it had. Hey, I love the series, you know.

I "waited" for Van Buren, haha!

Heck, after playing the first and second games a few years back, I even "waited" for the cancelled Van Buren game, only to pathetically find out that the game has been called off long before I knew the series. In case you don't know, Van Buren is the code name for the installment of what would have been Fallout 3 (not to be confused with Bethesda's Fallout 3). If somehow the possibility of the development of that cancelled game resurfaces today, you bet it would be one of my most anticipated games of 2014.

I suppose it's time for me to come up with some sort of a conclusion on the series, since I have spent quite a huge proportion of time on each and every Fallout game, be it the old games or the new games. Does that make me a true fan or an expert player? No. Just as I mentioned before, I don't know what does it take to for me to be qualified with those labels, neither do I care. All I know is that I enjoy the games and apprecite every effort the developers have put into them, be they Interplay, Bethesda or Obsidian. As I have said much earlier, I love being a learner. When I'm being commented to on being fresh or inexperienced to something, I always appreciate it, because such comments indicate that I have a lot to learn.


Reminiscing the Old Games

In the wasteland, there's always a lot to learn and appreciate. You see, because I have played the old Fallout games, I do get a little bit upset every time I hear the new Fallout players making fun of the old games, like how those games are dated and everything. But what do they know? They only play the latest ones. The old games have brought me priceless memories. If I were to recall all of my best memories in Fallout 1, 2 and Tactics, I'm going to need another post for that because there's so much to say.

But you know what? I'm going to do a bit of that anyway:

I remember going out of Vault 13 in Fallout for the very first time. I was tasked to find a computer chip to replace the broken one in the vault. Without that computer chip, the vault's water system will fail to work, and I have 150 days to find a replacement before the vault runs out of water supply and everyone thirsts to death. Yes, there was a time limit. It felt heavy to carry such burden. Everyone --in fact the entire vault-- was depending on me for their survival.

First, I really had no idea where I was supposed to go. So I went to this place called Junktown and to blow off some steam, killed everyone there. Whoops, just kidding! You can't carry weapons around in Junktown, let alone kill people there. Also, this is the place where Dogmeat made his very first appearance in the series! Then, with Dogmeat keeping me company, I went to another town called the Hub, because I heard there were water merchants there. Initially, I thought, "Whoa, this is easy. They might have just the stuff I need." Turned out, there was more than meets the eye.

But the defining moment for me was when I was done playing the game. Well, I wasn't exactly done playing. My fun was actually cut short by a rather annoying graphical glitch that was (as if) the game's way of saying, "Whops! I just realized that I'm an old game and I'm not really compatible with your machine." But I took the glitch very seriously and had to leave my adventure hanging.

Unfortunately, later, I found out through some internet forum (if it was to be believed) that if I couldn't find the computer chip in 150 days, not only the vault's water supply would run out, a very vast army mutants would attack it, ending the game. Imagine my concern for the lives of the vault's residents! I went back to the game and pick off where I left, but the glitch got worse and worse to the point I had to navigate my character in a certain way to minimize the area covered by the black fog (I called it the Black Fog glitch). In the end, I gave up and shifted my attention to Fallout 2.


Fallout 3 and Beyond

I could go on and on rambling on my experience in Fallout 2 and Tactics, about my transition from a naive spear-wielding villager to a powered suit-wearing anti-hero on my quest for the G.E.C.K. in Fallout 2 and how excited I was every time my deathclaw companion shred everyone I wished dead to pieces in Fallout Tactics, but let's move on to the new (but not so new, since it's 2014 already) addition of the series, Fallout 3. In this game alone, I've also had multiple playthroughs, each of which lasted tens of hours. Stack them all up and you have me playing the game for over a hundred hours.

But goodness me! Everytime I step out of the Vault and start over, it feels like I'm playing the game for the first time! There are so many things to learn in the vast wasteland. Usually, I take one step at a time, very very slowly. No, the game doesn't have a steep learning curve. In fact, compared to the Fallout 1 and 2, the mechanics of Fallout 3 and New Vegas are easier to get a grip on, most probably due to the freedom that the open-world has to offer.

The wasteland is so huge that I even forget the places I've been to before. I've never been to the center of DC because I'd always fear that I'm not well-armed to dive into the deep waters. So I'd prepare myself for it. Scavenging. Travelling. Killing things. Looting. Levelling up. As I level up, I would argue with myself over which skill should I spend more points on, and come to regret overspending SPECIAL points (by the way, it was nice to see that Bethesda kept the SPECIAL system) on Intelligence rather than Strength, because I feel like I need to carry more loot. Eventually, my character tires me, and I'd start a new game. Then it goes on and on and on. It's crazy!


Learning Is Fun

You'll think twice before doing this in the first two games. It's unrealistic, but at least it's fun.

But the reason I'm such a late-bloomer is that I refuse to take it all too fast. For me, Fallout 3 is a lot less linear than the first two games, due to it being open-world. I don't want to get dangerously close to being an untouchable expert of some kind. Although I rarely use this term, but I want to feel like a noob all the time. It's the sense of vulnerability that I enjoy. The sense of not knowing how things work. Bethesda was even kind enough to include an in-game manual that I have access to any time and at any point in the game, but I never even bother to read it. Fuck me, it took me over a hundred (at least) of gameplay hours to figure out how to repair things!

That's the thing I love about Fallout 3 (or New Vegas): you know, that sense of independence. I never install mods or any third-party softwares for them, or use walkthroughs and read wikia articles on the internet. I think those are for pussies. I've been taking this non-spoilery approach on the game for 2 or 3 years already, and I'm doing fine... Okay, about the pussy-thing, forgive me for getting a little carried away, hehe. I just hate spoilers, you see. It's a shame if you don't discover all the good things in the game on your own. I don't want to know how many monsters and weapons are there in the game. I don't want to spoil my mindset towards the game by reading some "weapon list" article and exclaim "Aww man, I thought there were more weapons in this game!". You'll never know what you might find out.

But then again, in Fallout 3, it's hard to be tactical. Same goes to New Vegas. Once you've ran out of AP (action points), you can always start blazing away at real-time. It takes away the sense of helplessness. Suddenly it becomes Call of Duty: Post Apocalyptic Warfare. As much as I love saving my ass I couldn't help but wonder what it would feel like if the games are tactical. I guess that's what I miss the most about the old games. That anxiety I had as soon as I ended my turn. Will this be a headshot? Will the raider's shot miss? What if the radscorpion uses its turn to advance and melee me? Hell, it was a lot more difficult than the new games. Even switching weapons cost action points, because in reality, we don't have the superhuman ability to switch weapons in just a second or two. That's realism.


Video Games, But Not Just Video Games

But then again, they're video games. They're meant to be played and enjoyed, not to argue over. We play video games to have fun and to experience what we otherwise couldn't in real life. To be honest, I do not wish for total realism in video games. If developers are looking forward to make their video games as realistic as possible, well, I think they're taking a wrong direction. Realistic graphics and sound, I don't really mind, but realistic mechanics? No. Please don't leave that line that divides realism and fun.

Having played the old games first, does that make me hate the new, --and if I'm not to bold-- less realistic and far, far less challenging Fallout games? No. Being a first-person shooter fan myself, does that mean I'm leaving the old games behind in favour of the more action-oriented Fallout 3 and New Vegas? No, hell no. Then why did I make comparisons? To show the weakness or strength of one game over another? To show that one game is better than the other? No. Why not? Because what's "better" for one person could be "worse" for another. You see, what I'm trying to do is to show what we could and should enjoy in these games.

To be completely one hundred percent unbiased is impossible. That's why I don't use score system or points when making conclusions on games. That's the same reason I avoid the word review but chose "afterplay" instead. When it comes to the Fallout series, it's a bit pathetic that people fight over which one is superior and what-not. Personally, I think arguing is pointless and won't prove any point. Why not just enjoy the games and respect each other's taste?


What to Take Out of This?

Fortunately, old players shouldn't feel so left out since V.A.T.S. help revive the good old tun-based combat system.

So you started with Fallout 3, but don't feel inclined to play the good ol' games because of the dated graphics? Fine, tag yourself as "a true wanderer" or "an expert player" or whatever you feel like. You can express what you don't like about the old games and what you enjoy in the new game. But undermining the old games and shoving negativity into the face of the old fans are just dumb. Technically limited they may be at that period of time, but without Fallout 1 or 2, there won't be any Fallout 3.

Or perhaps you're like me who started with the old games first. Do you feel like sticking to the goldies because the action in the new games is just too much for you? Nevermind, you can keep on being the "veteran" or "old breed player". But Bethesda has sold out the series, you say? I don't know about that, but why not try the new ones and see how far the series has go?

It's 2014, so I'd forgive you if you think I'm overreacting. Maybe I am, who knows? But a few years back, this whole "old Fallout vs new Fallout" thing was really a debate. Perhaps, to you, they're just video games. Perhaps, this is just a grammatically-horrible article from someone who happens to love video games and has a lot more to learn. But you see, I love the Fallout series.

I just hope that everyone enjoys it as much as I do...