Toxicfluff on 13/1/2009 at 22:27

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Wut indeed. Putting "This is quite beautifully written, with dialogue so involving and so nuanced that it would be mesmeric even without the ability to get involved and control the action." to Fallout 3's dialogue is dribble-sodden idiocy that a thousand toss offs to high brow references won't reedeem you from.

Rogue Keeper on 14/1/2009 at 09:14

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No, it's barely average. Just out of curiosity to better understand the scale of your standards of writing, what was a game with the best dialogue you ever played?

Rogue Keeper on 14/1/2009 at 10:48

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Ok, I've heard enough.

Recommendation : Try to reacquaint yourself with classic Black Isle / Bioware / Troika RPGs to discover what a good dialogue writing and character depth is. Or the original Fallouts. And I can't believe you didn't play Deus Ex, that would put your standards high enough.

Because I can tell you, most of the 64x64 pixel models of important characters seen from isometric perspective had much better depth of personality and the facial expressions of the actual 2D talking heads expressed much wider range of emotions than all those Bethesda's clones produced in massive quantities by NPC software generator or something.

Aja on 14/1/2009 at 15:24

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Sorry. I missed one word in your post and it changed the meaning.



Oh please. I've been studying literature for four years now. I can tell the difference between good and bad dialogue (Deus Ex's, by the way, is good, but I didn't find the gameplay as engaging). The problem with those Black Isle/Bioware/Troika games is that they set out to be an interactive novel. If I want that, I'll read a fucking novel with meaningful characterizations. I deliberately chose games whose writing works well within the context of their medium. Maybe you prefer reams of text to quick and effective dialogue, but don't try to claim from your pedestal that Bioshock or Half Life's writing is in any way inferior to the games you list.

Fallout 3 falls well below all of these games in terms of quality of dialogue, but by virtue of the sheer amount of it, as well as the generally high quality of the voice acting, it still manages to engage.

Aja on 14/1/2009 at 21:09

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This time I actually wasn't trying to bait. Apart from a few standouts, I enjoy the voice acting in F3. It's cheesy, but I think it fits well (especially voices like Three-Dog's) with the inherently goofy aesthetic of the game. I dunno, I can understand why some people might be put off, but... let me give an example:

in Rivet City I was attending a wedding that I deviously arranged, and all of the town came out to see it... except for the groom. The bride stood by herself in front of the preacher, and said "I do" at the appropriate moment. No matter, though, the wedding finished as planned, and when I eventually did find the groom he acted as though he had been there (I assume he got stuck or something). And yet, as ridiculous as it sounds, the whole incident wasn't especially immersion breaking. It's like, F3 sets itself up as having a certain type of atmosphere, one that isn't really dented by things like minor glitches or hammy acting. On the contrary, those things almost contribute to it. It's weird, I know, and I wouldn't be surprised if noone agrees with me on this, but that's the vibe I get from this game, and I think it's a major reason why I'm enjoying it so much.

So while the voice acting is several cuts below something like Bioshock or Psychonauts, in this particular instance it's almost as though it's fooling me into thinking it's of a better quality than it actually is, simply because it meshes so well with the un-serious aesthetic.

Do you all hate me now?