Fallout 3 Game Logic Problems
A lot of things bugged me about Fallout 3, in many different areas. But ultimately they all came down to this: the world either kept doing utterly stupid things, or wouldn't let me do perfectly intelligent things, or both. Again and again, things would feel fake and primitively constructive, rather than alive and responsive. I'm going to give just a couple examples (documenting all of them could easily take hours), but just note there are many more logical issues where these came from, including numerous involving just pure quest logic and dialogue options, where the open-ended and unpredictable nature of player actions in combat is no excuse.
I was escaping the vault, and a security officer with a baton runs after me. Unable to escape without being clubbed, I raise my fists to ward him off. After throwing a few punches, I decide I'm overpowered, and pull out my 10mm pistol and point it at him. He continues swinging his baton. I open up VATS and shoot him in the leg. He keep coming. I open up VATS and shoot him in the other leg. He keeps coming. I open up VATS and shoot him in the leg again. And again. And again. His leg is crippled. He's limping along, dragging his feet to chase me. I give up and flee. I get to the overseer's office, picking the lock to get in. His pursuit pauses for about a minute while I learn to pick locks in a minigame. I go in. I break into the overseer's computer. He's about two feet away from me, swinging, as I do this. I spend about three or four minutes navigating the computer, pretending that he actually behaved intelligently and backed off somewhere prior to the third time I shot him the leg. I dance around the room as an escape tunnel opens, avoiding his baton swings. Eventually he is killed by an overgrown cockroach in the escape tunnel.
In a slightly later incident, a man suggests that I wouldn't mind if the town of megaton disappeared and that I'm a person who can get things done. Without hearing out his suggestion, I immediately tell him he's insane and our conversation is over. Later, I run into the mayor/sheriff, and discover a dialogue option to report the guy asked me to rig the nuclear bomb in the middle of town to blow up. Actually he didn't, but I guess I could have interpreted his remarks that way, so okay. The sheriff says something like "I always knew there was something off about him!" I actually have to prompt him with the idea that maybe this guy should be arrested before he actually hires somebody to do it, and he's like, "Good point! Come watch me arrest him."
So we go down there, he questions the guy, guy professes innocence, sheriff decides to arrest him anyway, guy agrees to go peacefully. This wasteland sheriff then turns his back on the guy he's arresting, and the guy whips out a silenced pistol and pumps a bunch of rounds into the back of the sheriff. Now, never mind that I'm standing to this guy's side with a pistol of my own at my side. Never mind that we're ten feet away from a bar patron with an assault rifle on his back. Never mind that the local prostitute is only a couple feet past that packing an assault rifle of her own. Never mind that the bar owner and barkeeper are both also standing in the room with access to who knows what weaponry. This guy's going to shoot the town sheriff, right here, right now, with a pistol. I raise my weapon and dump a whole bloody clip into this guy's shoulder at zero range and he's not even fazed, continuing to mow down the sheriff. Sheriff goes down and he breaks for the exit. I pull up VATS and target four successive shots at the back of his head as he runs. First two shots go into his head and neck with big bursts of gore without actually killing him. Third shot makes his head explode outright, and he goes down, body falling over the dead sheriff.
Okay, I just blew up a guy's head in the middle of this tiny bar, and his body is slumped over the sheriff he just gunned down. I holster my weapon and look around. Nobody has even the slightest reaction. Not to gunshots, not to the mayor/sheriff getting gunned down before their eyes, not to a guy's head exploding, not to acts of violence on my part, not to the overheard arrest of a guy trying to blow a nuclear bomb in the middle of town, nothing. Do the multiple gun-toting people in the room show any signs of intervening in the bloody murder of their mayor and sheriff? No. So what do I do? Naturally, I make the best of it, by looting the bodies. I strip the dead sheriff and headless bad guy, find both had weapons in horrible repair with almost no ammo (sheriff has 10 shots left in his assault rifle and no reloads). I try on the mayor's clothes, wearing his hat and trenchcoat. I find his trenchcoat has a nice law enforcement star on it. Sweet, now I look like I'm sheriff. I also look like I killed the now dead sheriff and took his clothes.
Did anybody respond to this? Any of it?
Hell no.
I was escaping the vault, and a security officer with a baton runs after me. Unable to escape without being clubbed, I raise my fists to ward him off. After throwing a few punches, I decide I'm overpowered, and pull out my 10mm pistol and point it at him. He continues swinging his baton. I open up VATS and shoot him in the leg. He keep coming. I open up VATS and shoot him in the other leg. He keeps coming. I open up VATS and shoot him in the leg again. And again. And again. His leg is crippled. He's limping along, dragging his feet to chase me. I give up and flee. I get to the overseer's office, picking the lock to get in. His pursuit pauses for about a minute while I learn to pick locks in a minigame. I go in. I break into the overseer's computer. He's about two feet away from me, swinging, as I do this. I spend about three or four minutes navigating the computer, pretending that he actually behaved intelligently and backed off somewhere prior to the third time I shot him the leg. I dance around the room as an escape tunnel opens, avoiding his baton swings. Eventually he is killed by an overgrown cockroach in the escape tunnel.
In a slightly later incident, a man suggests that I wouldn't mind if the town of megaton disappeared and that I'm a person who can get things done. Without hearing out his suggestion, I immediately tell him he's insane and our conversation is over. Later, I run into the mayor/sheriff, and discover a dialogue option to report the guy asked me to rig the nuclear bomb in the middle of town to blow up. Actually he didn't, but I guess I could have interpreted his remarks that way, so okay. The sheriff says something like "I always knew there was something off about him!" I actually have to prompt him with the idea that maybe this guy should be arrested before he actually hires somebody to do it, and he's like, "Good point! Come watch me arrest him."
So we go down there, he questions the guy, guy professes innocence, sheriff decides to arrest him anyway, guy agrees to go peacefully. This wasteland sheriff then turns his back on the guy he's arresting, and the guy whips out a silenced pistol and pumps a bunch of rounds into the back of the sheriff. Now, never mind that I'm standing to this guy's side with a pistol of my own at my side. Never mind that we're ten feet away from a bar patron with an assault rifle on his back. Never mind that the local prostitute is only a couple feet past that packing an assault rifle of her own. Never mind that the bar owner and barkeeper are both also standing in the room with access to who knows what weaponry. This guy's going to shoot the town sheriff, right here, right now, with a pistol. I raise my weapon and dump a whole bloody clip into this guy's shoulder at zero range and he's not even fazed, continuing to mow down the sheriff. Sheriff goes down and he breaks for the exit. I pull up VATS and target four successive shots at the back of his head as he runs. First two shots go into his head and neck with big bursts of gore without actually killing him. Third shot makes his head explode outright, and he goes down, body falling over the dead sheriff.
Okay, I just blew up a guy's head in the middle of this tiny bar, and his body is slumped over the sheriff he just gunned down. I holster my weapon and look around. Nobody has even the slightest reaction. Not to gunshots, not to the mayor/sheriff getting gunned down before their eyes, not to a guy's head exploding, not to acts of violence on my part, not to the overheard arrest of a guy trying to blow a nuclear bomb in the middle of town, nothing. Do the multiple gun-toting people in the room show any signs of intervening in the bloody murder of their mayor and sheriff? No. So what do I do? Naturally, I make the best of it, by looting the bodies. I strip the dead sheriff and headless bad guy, find both had weapons in horrible repair with almost no ammo (sheriff has 10 shots left in his assault rifle and no reloads). I try on the mayor's clothes, wearing his hat and trenchcoat. I find his trenchcoat has a nice law enforcement star on it. Sweet, now I look like I'm sheriff. I also look like I killed the now dead sheriff and took his clothes.
Did anybody respond to this? Any of it?
Hell no.