Armed Polite Society
Main Forums => The Roundtable => Topic started by: Ben on March 13, 2024, 09:39:49 AM
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Amazon Prime is doing a Fallout series starting next month. While it could be good, from the teaser, I can't figure out if it's serious or a comedy. It also bodes to potentially being drowned in wokeness. I'll give it a go when it premieres, but if there's even one work thing in the first episode, I'm out. I just don't have the time or desire to sit through that crap anymore.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt12637874/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0_tt_5_nm_3_q_fallo
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Saw the commercial. Never played the game, but the commercial seems to indicate it being decently entertaining. I'm with you on the WQ (wokeness quotient). I'm done with that mess.
Brad
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I like the Fallout games, but I'm not a lore junkie, so I won't be picking this apart with weaponized autisim.
They get a free two or three episodes out of me just from Walton Goggins. I love that guy's acting. after that it better have a decent story and some decently written charectors.
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They get a free two or three episodes out of me just from Walton Goggins. I love that guy's acting. after that it better have a decent story and some decently written charectors.
Same here. I really like Goggins' acting.
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Bringing this back up because the series dropped and I watched the first wo episodes last night. My thoughts:
Coming from the games: I played Fallout 3, New Vegas, and 4. Multiple run throughs of 4. There is definitely some lore that they got wrong, as the folks online were saying about the previews. The biggest seems to be that the NCR is nowhere to be found so far. I didn't really love New Vegas anyways, so it doesn't bother me that much. They ripped Megaton off kinda wholesale from Fallout 3, and the Prydwen from fallout 4 (which was supposed to be a one of a kind airship if I remember the game correctly). But for all the lore tweaking I think they got the feel right. The vibe is certainly there, and is helped by the music which is a mix of the music from the games, and some real life old timey music. (Heard some vintage Man in Black in there) So if you like the feel and aesthetic of the games I would say don't worry too much about every detail lineing up and just enjoy this entry in the game. There were also some Bethesda gamer fan service Easter eggs which I enjoyed.
Acting: Acting was passable to good. The two "main" characters are OK. Ella Purnell pulls off the earnest rube passibly. I thought she was better in Arcane, but there's room for development here. I don't know much about Aaron Moten, and his charector is giving me strong "Finn from force awakens" vibes. That's not neccessarilly a bad thing as Finn had a lot of potential in Force Awakens and was done wrong in the follow on movies. Hopefully Fallout let's this character grow. There's some supporting cast that are solid professionals and turn in good performances (Kyle MacLachlan, Michael Rappaport, and Michael Emmerson). Walton Goggins, as predicted, is a gem. Every scene with The Ghoul in it is fun too watch, and he brings all of his charisma to the part.
Two episodes in I can't say much for the Story or writing yet. The story is still forming up. Episode one was all back story and the inciting event, and episode two was a lot of setting the world and expectations. The barebones of the story is a basic young person on quest to dangerous world to save someone with a side of overarching Mystery they will Discover along the way. How well they pull it off remains to be seen. I was happy to see that they let their "Strong Female Character" tm get her ass kicked when the story needed it, cast diversity works within the world they are creating, and they have not beat the story into subservience to "The Message" as Critical Drinker would say. I'm sure if you went looking for woke points you could find some, but you don't have to look, and they don't slap you in the face.
So far, it's fun to watch, doesn't piss me off as an average level of nerdy fan of the games, and pulls off the Fallout vibe well IMO. I will watch more episodes.
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I have only the vaguest knowledge of the game, so were I to watch this I'd be going in completely cold and with no preconceptions.
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Thanks for the review Dogmush. It sounds like it is not overly woke. These days, "sticking to the lore/book/whatever" is about 10% of my critique, and "wokeness per minute" is about 90%. I will no longer sit through anything that forces activism down my throat. It sounds like this is at the very least "turn my brain off" entertainment. so I will be checking it out.
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So....
Gay cross-dressing midget elves of color wielding pride flags aren't your thing?
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So....
Gay cross midget elves of color wielding pride flags aren't your thing?
Exactly why I never watched Amazon's Rings of Power. =)
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Exactly why I never watched Amazon's Rings of Power. =)
Fascist hate monger!
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As someone who is completely unfamiliar with the Fallout universe, but enjoys science fiction, should I give it a go? Or do you have to be into Fallout to understand and enjoy it?
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I would say you could give it a shot.
Basic premise of Fallout Universe: It's an alternate universe where the aesthetics of the 50's stayed, and Nuclear Power progressed to the point that it was safe and small enough for there to be Nuclear cars, robots and power armor run by nuclear batteries, and other stuff. Think advanced tech with an art deco feel. in 2077 this alternate Earth engaged in Nuclear War that wiped out almost all the people. Rich folks bought places in underground vaults run by Vault-Tec that were designed to be livable and sustainable forever.
It's now 200(ish) years after the war, and some Vault Dwellers have left their vaults to make their way in the surface world that is overrun with Mutated Dangerous Animals, lawlessness from humans whose ancestor survived the war, and mutated humans (Ghouls and Super-Mutants). There are also competing factions of (mostly) Humans that try to more or less govern parts of the world. The Games and TV show take place in that backdrop.
If that sounds interesting to you, give it a shot. I don't think you HAVE to know anything more than that to grok what's happening.
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^^^Two thumbs up, Dogmush! Based on your description, it sounds interesting and I will give it a go.
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Thanks for this thread & reviews! I'm about 10 minutes into the first episode & it's looking OK so far.
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OK, sounds like it could be interesting, at least for a few episodes.
Hopefully it doesn't devolve into the same lazy assed writing and repetitive plot lines that finally made me give up on The Walking Dead.
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Rich folks bought places in underground vaults run by Vault-Tec that were designed to be livable and sustainable forever.
Just a side note, it wasn't only rich people who made it into the vaults. Every vault was designed to be a social experiment of some sort, usually something unethical as hell. Things like putting a bunch of former junkies going through rehab into one vault, waiting until they were basically clean, then introducing a bunch of drugs to see what happens, or having a vault that's supposed to mash together the very poor with the very rich to see what happens, etc. As such you have a mix of the sort of people that are in each vault, based on whatever experiment was being run.
The only vaults that did well and lasted are the ones where the Overseers decided not to go through with the experiment. The rest usually ended poorly.
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^^^
Yeah, I considered adding some more info on vault-tec in the cliffs notes, but decided that was a rabbit hole that I didn't need to travel to set up the universe.
In the games, as you explore the vaults, you find some truly heinous stuff planned by Vault-tec.
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Bumping this back to the top. I just finished Episode 8, and am really enjoying it so far. Lucy's charector is progressing belivably. FWIW, Mrs. Mush is watching it with me, never having played Fallout, and not a huge fan of gory violence and is following along fine and enjoying it. I think Amazon got this one right, and can only hope the team making it continue down this path. It's pretty enjoyable.
Side note: I saw an interview with Ella Purnell, and she mentioned that the production tried to do a lot of practical effects. Specifically, they found some places in Africa that were tore up and covered in sand to be the wasteland, instead of CGIing shitty towns, and they built a 7.5' tall suit of power armor that an actor is in running, fighting, and interacting. I think that's a good call, the practical effects look good. Especially as some of the CGI they did use isn't amazing, the more practical the better IMO
Here's an interview with some of the cast and crew talking about the making of: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lmFuRJCvq2k
Walton Goggins talks about being the guy at the table making sure the story works outside just the gamers that know the backstory, and Graham Wagner, the showrunner, talks about not trying to stuff everything in, but just doing what they did as well as they could. That's an attidtude that I think is really good. Also, in stark contrast to The Witcher, It's mentioned that the whole crew "had the gamer's backs" and are treating the source material with respect.
Critical Drinker agrees with me (mostly): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DiuuglRCchQ
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OK, so I finally got around to watching the first three episodes of Fallout yesterday.
Holy creeping crap is it weird!
But really, really enjoyable so far.
As I noted below, I never played Fallout, although I may think about getting it for XBox One.
The 1950s atmospheric vibe, especially in the Vaults, though, REALLY reminded me of Bioshock, which is one of my all-time favorite games.
The knights are kind of like Big Daddies (although with a very different purpose), etc.
I'm liking where it's going. It's always fun seeing Walton Goggins.
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I finished the available episodes.
I liked it. At first the characters didn't feel right for Fallout, but the atmosphere was well done and I think the storyline ended up fitting. Ish.
Definitely suspect we'll see start seeing tweets parroting the "[Communism is] just a dirty word they use to describe people who aren't insane" line, though.
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I just finished it yesterday. I am in the "never played Fallout" crowd so came into it tabula rasa.
I will say that I almost turned it off after episode 1 because of the tranny. I have so absolutely had it with the gender stuff being injected in everything, that I am just scorched Earth whenever I see it in something I might otherwise enjoy. I did, however, trudge past it and watched the rest. It took a few episodes for me to get invested, but I ended up liking it by the end.
I thought the "alternate Earth" 1950s stuff was kinda neat. Also, while I'm normally not a fan of "the bad guy is really the good guy and the good guy is really the bad guy and there's a bunch of grey between good and bad", I thought they did that pretty well with those characters.
It seems they set it up for a season 2, so I will certainly watch that when it drops. Okie dokie then.
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I totally missed the tranny.
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I totally missed the tranny.
Character name Dane.
The one who got the razor blade in the boot treatment.
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I just assumed that was a chick. huh.
ETA: Just googled and discovered the actor and the charector were supposed to be "non-binary". I've played the games, and despite being a "Brotherhood" the BoS has female knights, and I've run into them on my adventures. So when I saw that character as an aspirant, I just assumed she was a female, working her way through the BoS.
The actor probably needs to work on projecting non-binary, because she just comes off as a tomboy.
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I wasn't sure so I went the google route for information on the cast.
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My only complaint after watching the first episode is "where's the titties?" Sex,hand to glans combat in a barracks scene and a fork in the eye yet no gratuitous flesh! I don't know. :laugh:
I will watch it, it beats the hell out of reruns of Leave It to Beaver and Perry Mason.
bob
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Well, Bob, I just saw an episode with a lot of titties.
But very few are ones you really want to see.
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Anyone catch the call out to the Simpsons in Episode 5?
Coop plugs a video tape into a TV...
The TV's brand name is the Radiation King.
That's from an episode of the Simpsons in the mid 1990s.
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How about about the little kid climbing out of a refrigerator, having supposedly survived an atomic bomb blast? It was a callout to the "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull" movie where Jones survived an atomic bomb blast inside a refrigerator.
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How about about the little kid climbing out of a refrigerator, having supposedly survived an atomic bomb blast? It was a callout to the "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull" movie where Jones survived an atomic bomb blast inside a refrigerator.
Damn it, I KNEW that scene was plucking a memory fiber! I just couldn't place it.
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Damn it, I KNEW that scene was plucking a memory fiber! I just couldn't place it.
When I first saw that scene, my faulty memory thought it was a callout to an old Quantum Leap episode. Then I realized where it came from.
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Just finished season 1.
Wow, what a trippy experience that was! But man did I REALLY like it. In fact, I liked it a LOT more than I liked The Last of Us.
The atmospheric nature of it, as I mentioned below, so much reminded me of Bioshock. The soundtrack, primarily from the 1950s and very early 1960s, was absolutely stellar.
And the neat little twists and turns were really exceptional. I suppose I would have seen a lot of them coming had I had experience with the game, but every time I thought I had it figured out what was going on... BAM! Plot twist completely from left field.
I can't wait for season 2.
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KFrame, I think you would probably like Fallout as a game. Fair warning Fallout 76 is a quite different game from the others because it is a multiplayer game. I personally am not a fan of multiplayer and prefer the Fallout 3, Fallout New Vegas, and Fallout 4 games. The first two of those are Xbox 360 era games and I don’t know the availability of them for the current XBox (PlayStation players can play them on PlayStation’s yearly subscription service)
FO76 is set in West Virginia. FO4 in Boston area. New Vegas the area surrounding LV and Hoover Dam, and FO3 the DC area. I can vouch for 3, NV, and 4 as being a ton of fun, especially if you like a mix of combat, problem solving, and exploration in your games.
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I was reading an article online this evening that copies of the various Fallout games are in short supply.
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If you wanted to try one, I would recommend Fallout 4. I tried to fire up New Vegas a a week or so ago on my PS5 and it was ROUGH. It still has some of the best video game storytelling of the series, but man the game design and engine have not aged well. It just looks bad.
F4 is 9 years old now, and New Vegas is almost 15 years old and feels it.
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If you wanted to try one, I would recommend Fallout 4. I tried to fire up New Vegas a a week or so ago on my PS5 and it was ROUGH. It still has some of the best video game storytelling of the series, but man the game design and engine have not aged well. It just looks bad.
F4 is 9 years old now, and New Vegas is almost 15 years old and feels it.
I really wish they would remaster New Vegas. It has been my favorite so far.
Bethesda recently released a major update for FO4, I assume due to the popularity of the show. Maybe that will encourage some other nice updates as well. After all The Last of Us got two updates to the first game, a minor and a major remaster.
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OK, I just bought Fallout 4 for Xbox One.
Should be here tomorrow.
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Now this is neat!
That yellow convertible that Coop was driving?
It's an actual car. I figured it was some sort of concept dreamed up by the studio for the series, but damned if it's not a real thing, including the sliding driver's side door.
A Kaiser Darrin.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaiser_Darrin
(https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/47/1954_Kaiser_Darrin_front_concours_6.1.19_der.jpg/1920px-1954_Kaiser_Darrin_front_concours_6.1.19_der.jpg)
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^^^Boy, that is beautiful!
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I don't much like yellow as a color for much of anything, but that is absolutely GORGEOUS.
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Even better, it had a 6-cylinder F-head engine with an earth shattering 90 horsepower...
And an early fiberglass body.
Fewer than 500 produced, about 300 survive.
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So, I got Fallout 4 last night for my Xbox One.
Popped the disk in, and I immediately had an update that needed to be installed in addition to the game installing.
So, is Fallout 4 fun?
Beats the hell out of me.
By the time I finally said screw it and started getting ready for bed the damned thing had been installing for over 2 hours and was still only 50% done.
I had the same issue with Diablo 3 when I bought it last year. Took for freaking ever for it to install.
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I watched episode 1 last night. I'm not familiar with the game. Was "The Ghoul" introduced near the end of the episode the birthday party cowboy from the opening scene? (I think it was) I hope we get the rest of his backstory. He gave too much of it already talking to the little girl in that first scene to be a throwaway character.
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Nope, you never see that character again...
:rofl:
Yes, Walton Goggins is the Cowboy/Ghoul.
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Nope, you never see that character again...
:rofl:
Yes, Walton Goggins is the Cowboy/Ghoul.
And you get more backstory on The Ghoul in episodes 4 and 5. He is becoming much more interesting as the series progresses.
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Good lord... this may be the slowest paced game I've ever played.
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Good lord... this may be the slowest paced game I've ever played.
If you do most of the side quests it's like 100-130 hours of gameplay. If you build settlements and a trade network longer. Plus if you just bought it I think there's two DLC's you probably got. You could realistically spend 175-200 hours to do everything.
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One thing I didn't realize is that this copy also came with the full downloadable version of Fallout 3.
And good lord... that's a lot of play time.
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Bethesda gonna Bethesda. Slightly buggy with a wonky engine, but you gonna be in their games for years. There's still stuff in Skyrim I haven't gotten to.
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(https://yt3.ggpht.com/Xgf4Q1ebGsLLEze-eNnTOd2WAymHkCDHr_6vPExxUnJ2m14hoPXmgSrJY2dospqqlNaf3x8-M7xz=s1165-rw-nd-v1)
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Those bombs in the opening scene were awfully low yield (Davy Crocketts?) and it's interesting that they were ground bursts.
I'm about 5 or 6 episodes in. I'm beginning to think Vault Tec might have been behind the initial blasts, then it got out-of-hand.
The Ghoul is the only really interesting character so far. Lucy has too much plot armor. Maximus hasn't been developed enough yet but might be eventually.
The Dog is absolutely gorgeous.
I like the old-timey music, even tho' I don't know some of it. Maybe especially because I don't know some of it but I know a lot of it.
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and it's interesting that they were ground bursts.
If you want to maximize fallout you go for ground bursts. If you have no plan to occupy the land poison it. Plus ground bursts are more effective at taking out bunkers and shelters.
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If you want to maximize fallout you go for ground bursts. If you have no plan to occupy the land poison it. Plus ground bursts are more effective at taking out bunkers and shelters.
Yes, plus ground bursts are easier if you have no delivery system. That's why I think Vault Tec was behind it [tinfoil] :laugh:
Watching it now, end of episode 6 is getting weird.
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Enter Brandon Herrera
The Fallout NCR Service Rifle - New Vegas Clone Build
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6hdlLsJSeD8
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I'm gonna have to watch that last episode again to figure out WTF happened. :laugh: I understood maybe half of it, and I'd figured out part of it ahead of time but not the reasons.
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Stopped by my local grocery this morning to pick up some bagels and cream cheese.
The normal cadre of pickers was going around the store grabbing people's online orders.
I realized they're wearing these armbands with almost a minitablet on it, which they're using to keep track of the orders they're picking.
I guess the Grocery-Tec Corporation has invented a real-life Pip-Boy...
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Those bombs in the opening scene were awfully low yield (Davy Crocketts?) and it's interesting that they were ground bursts.
I'm about 5 or 6 episodes in. I'm beginning to think Vault Tec might have been behind the initial blasts, then it got out-of-hand.
The Ghoul is the only really interesting character so far. Lucy has too much plot armor. Maximus hasn't been developed enough yet but might be eventually.
The Dog is absolutely gorgeous.
I like the old-timey music, even tho' I don't know some of it. Maybe especially because I don't know some of it but I know a lot of it.
I haven’t seen this scene but one of the core weapons in the Fallout games is the Fat Man mini nuke launcher, heavily inspired by the Davey Crockett