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Fantasy Wasteland - 12 - HD
🕑 Added 2019-05-03 18:44:28 +0000 UTCAnd now to petition every game with enemy markers on compasses and mini-maps to give the enemy markets little horns.
Commentary
Fallout 3 was my first exposure to a Bethesda-style Role Playing Game, and the first RPG in general I'd played with so much depth and choice. As much as some criticize Fallout 3 for not being as open in choice as previous Fallout games, or its spin-off game created by Obsidian Entertainment, Fallout: New Vegas, it was leagues beyond my own experiences with Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest, and Fable games.
Which is why I was somewhat disappointed with my first encounter with a super mutant.
I had gone in to Fallout 3 knowing very little about the game beyond the basic premise, and a bit about the settlement of Megaton after having seen someone else play the game. When I first encountered a super mutant, I had no idea what it was. I mostly just knew I'd been approaching a truck with the hope of finding something to scavenge when an enormous yellow-green humanoid emerged from it.
I also knew it was my enemy, because the red marker on my compass had told me so.
I didn't like being told the super mutant was an enemy. I would've figured it out soon enough, certainly, but that's my point. I would have preferred to learn that the hard way, and potentially approached the brute without any knowledge of whether they were friend or foe.
Granted, there's a reason they made it work that way, and various fixes I can think of are somewhat convoluted, and/or potentially contrary to smooth gameplay. I was just personally disappointed that I didn't learn that super mutant was my enemy by virtue of it trying to hit me with something.
Comments
David Howe
How would they even KNOW Grace's Grandmother?
Daryl Sawyer
Reminds me of my transition from Daggerfall to Morrowind. In Daggerfall, there was no battle music, just infinite* atmospheric tracks. Enemies could and did hit you from behind in those insane labyrinths the game had. Switch to Morrowind, and suddenly you've got a cue indicating that hostility exists somewhere within your music radius. I found it a disappointing shift. * may be slightly exaggerated
Changer
I haven't played fallout 3, but they might have fixed that in 4? As far as I could tell, enemies only got marked on the compass after they notice you and become openly hostile.
IvyReed
For a moment I thought it said "WE SMASH BAD GRAMMAR!" and was trying to figure out what Grace had said that was grammatically incorrect. (the extra exclamation point in We Smash! indicates that it is a separate thought from Bad Grammar!)
Stephen Gilberg
And it doesn't shout, "Hey! Listen!"
Copper Hamster
There's a great video by someone else I follow on patreon, called 'Fallout 3 is Better Than You Think'. Well worth a watch imho.
Michael C.
That is one of the reasons I always install a mod to drastically lower the compass detection range. I won't know there are enemies nearby until I am practically on top of them.
McZed
At least your compass can't snark at you, Grace!
