Fallout 3 Impressions

Aja on 30/12/2008 at 10:41

Quote Posted by snauty

Oh and the score is abysmal. Had to turn it off. No class or atmospheric value either.

Out of curiosity, what do you consider a good score? Because what I've heard of F3's so far (I'm about five hours in), has been superb -- atmospheric and still melodic, without ever intruding. Abysmal is about the last word I'd use to describe it.

van HellSing on 30/12/2008 at 16:21

The music itself is ok, it's just that it doesn't fit the game at all. Sounds more like Morrowind or Oblivion than a post-nuclear wasteland. Now, I'm not one of the folks who whine about F3 being "Oblivion with guns", but that music can and does produce this feeling. Those calm, wistful melodies while travelling are just plain wrong.

So have you played the first two Fallout games? I pretty much haven't (due to inability of getting used to the interface mostly), but the soundtracks are quite dear to my heart. You can get both in mp3 form at the (http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Fallout_Wiki) Fallout wiki:

(http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Fallout_soundtrack) Fallout
(http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Fallout_2_soundtrack) Fallout 2

Aja on 30/12/2008 at 17:36

I didn't even know what Fallout was until this year. So I'm going into this game with absolutely no preconceptions (well, except for maybe Morrowind). I suppose if you're expecting a certain type of music then you might be disappointed, but I wasn't, and I never noticed any inconsistency.

The_Raven on 30/12/2008 at 17:44

Quote:

I didn't even know what Fallout was until this year.

You are a terrible human being.

Rogue Keeper on 30/12/2008 at 18:15

If somebody asks me about essential F3 mods, if not anything else I surely recommend to replace the mediocre uplifting epic score with original Mark Morgan's compositions. Atmosphere boost by 50 percent.

I'm level 20 for some time now, got about 20 000 caps, reached Rescue from Paradise main plotline quest and still I have 1/3 of the map to explore. Well I'm a scout character so I must, even though it's often tedious. Random encounters sometimes create unique bizarre situations. So it looks like I'll play it for one more month at least. Otherwise I still do this :tsktsk: from time to time over botched RPG system features and points where logic of that world is debilized. I give it a point for holding my attention despite all that tunderground repetition. Oblivion didn't manage to do it for me. Sometimes I'm amused or even excited by various things ("Hey, they didn't forget to bring this back..."), while some other time I think "So if this is current peak of computer role-playing, then Holy Flame helps us all, because this is like RPGFR (role-playing game for retarded)." Quite a controversial game, I'd say.

van HellSing on 30/12/2008 at 18:22

I'm usually not one for removing stuff from games, so instead I added Mark Morgan's classic F1/F2/Tactics music to the vanilla Fallout 3 Inon Zur via the "Ultimate Fallout 3 Music Mod". Works pretty nice and gives a lot more variation.

Jason Moyer on 30/12/2008 at 19:04

I don't see how the FO3 score is in any way comparable to the Morrowind or Oblivion scores. I'm sure part of that is having been composed by an entirely different person, although being done in an entirely different style probably helps too. The music to FO3 actually reminds me of someone redoing the Hexen 2 score with better equipment. Especially the dungeon stuff, which is eerie as hell.

Edit: Somehow I didn't notice this before, but he also did the soundtrack to Tactics, which I don't remember being especially bad or out of character for the series.

Aja on 30/12/2008 at 19:07

Listening to these Mark Morgan tracks on Youtube, I don't think they'd fit especially well in Fallout 3. The game has a kind of wild-west style, which the soundtrack accentuates... almost Copeland-esque, but for the occasional synthesizer parts that subtly remind you of the time period you're in.

As for the original soundtracks -- if American culture somehow froze in a 1950s aesthetic, why would the music evolve into (somewhat generic) 90s electro/ambient (or is this aphex twin)? Some of it's good, I guess, but apart from nostalgia I don't think it's really appropriate for the atmosphere of F3. I suppose it depends on what you're used to, but so far the F3 soundtrack has fitted it perfectly -- makes me feel like a gunslinger. Kinda sad that so many of you are dismissing it as mediocre, when it's easily some of the best composed game music in recent memory. To claim that it "has no class" is just an elegant way of whining that it isn't what you expected.

Jason Moyer on 30/12/2008 at 19:34

If Aphex Twin has released anything that shitty I'd be interested in hearing it. That isn't to say it doesn't work in the context of the games, I just don't see the comparison unless RDJ is the only electronic music you've ever heard.

TF on 30/12/2008 at 19:58

Quote Posted by Aja

As for the original soundtracks -- if American culture somehow froze in a 1950s aesthetic, why would the music evolve into (somewhat generic) 90s electro/ambient (or is this aphex twin)?

Simple, because it's difficult to stay in tune with such a vague theme like 'oh it's the 1950s but in the future' and there are always many breaks from it, sometimes merely because having everything themed like that would get old or you'd paint yourself into a corner by using up all the gamey ideas you could squeeze out of it. And Fallout never did rely mainly on this aesthetic to get by because there isn't enough in it to make a really popular game, it's always the clash between the 1950s and what the later years brought in, like glamourization of violence, real artificial intelligence, ruined rusty underground military facilities with glowing green barrels of waste. Going through all that while orchestral or fifties music plays isn't especially poignant, same way a black and white filter with simulated nicks and scratches wouldn't add much either, and it certainly wouldn't make it more fallout than fallout.

Quote Posted by Jason Moyer

It vaguely sounds like AFX, some of the fallout tracks do however rip-off significant parts of the melody of some AFX songs, like Tassels and Window Sill, if not the actual samples.