It's not that bad, based on what I've seen of Amazon's track record. If it's like The Expanse, it'll be really great (though Expanse s4-6 wasn't quite as good as s1-3 IMO, with s4 being the weakest; it seemed like the budget was kinda low there). On the other hand, if it's like Rings of Power, it'll be visually fantastic but with an uninspired story and an overall bland, paint-by-numbers feeling.
The place where something can be either a masterpiece, or utter trash, is the SyFy Channel. SyFy is where s1-3 of The Expanse came from. But it's also the company that recently gave us "The Ark", which is possibly the worst sci-fi TV show I have ever seen, and that includes some seriously ridiculous TV shows in the 1970s and 80s. And somehow, they've even ordered a second season for this vile excuse for sci-fi.
With tze difference that The Expense had great writing and is based on great books. The LotR series was, well, not good. And video game adaptions are incredibly difficult to do well. But there is hope in deed, even it is going to be yet another post-apocalyptic setting.
Generally I think Amazon does a good job with the prime original series.
I liked the Expanse. The peripheral was interesting.
Even the LotR “rings of power” I found enjoyable, and maybe better than expected after those hobit movies.. Not perfect but it had heart, some humor, good music (Bear Mccready, Fiona apple!) thought a bit too sentimental as LOTR tends to be..
HBO took the “last of us” and did something decent I fall into hope springs eternal camp. But I’d rather play the story than just watch it… I loved the uncharted games, but am never going to see an uncharted movie.
In this case I watched my partner play fallout. It had a story, but you play you, not a specific character. But a settlement always needs your help.
Having recently watched Sentinel and Jack Ryan, and previously The Expanse and TRoP (it's most certainly not LotR), it looks like Amazon is trying to replicate the same formula over and over:
1. Cliffhangers at the end of each episode.
2. Multiple red herrings and 180 degree turns.
3. One *huge* reveal towards the end.
4. A mixture of grim realism and cynical humour.
5. Dramatic and often extreme action scenes.
It works for some series, and combined with good writing/acting/directing can result in a solid product (see Jack Ryan, The Expanse); but in other cases it either fails with bad filmmaking (see Sentinel), or simply doesn't fit the underlying material (see TRoP).
I recall the games managing to channel some of the bleakness into dark humor. I don't have a lot of hope that the writers will be able to achieve that with live-action characters. If they don't go down the comedy route, it seems certain to be an incredibly grim trudge.
Yeah no, I didn't laught when the protagonist gf got killed by a "train", or when the Nazi girl cries deformed and powerless in bed before deciding to commit suicide. I did laugh a few other times but categorizing it as a comedy is a disservice, maybe a tragicomedy or something like that would be more accurate.
I wanted to enjoy that show but most of the characters personalities map perfectly onto some people I used to work with. I have to wonder if corporate culture is what inspired the foundation for the characters.
The main quest of 4 was shallow, but i really loved the idea behind Minutemen and the raiders (and Nuka world was nice), and the Far harbor DLC was really good (flashback of Necropolis).
The idea behind the cryogenized survivor was interesting, but imho they flunked both the main "villain" and the synth idea. Once again i found that the Brotherhood is just a bad idea 99% of the time (with the exception of what was done in NV, each game it was just lazy writing), but this time it's just a useless faction (except for the "Giant robot fight with PA" part, but tbh, that could have worked as a Railroad vs Institute without the Brotherhood ever being mentionned). The Railroad idea could have been good, but their opposition (the institute) brought them down, and finally, the only faction who does not suffer that much lore-wise from the poor main storyline are the Minutemen, because like the Brotherhood, they are not _really_ involved with the synth, but unlike the BH, they have another reason to be here.
Didn't love the 3 either. I did like ?Megaton city? (sorry, i had the game in French the last time i played) better than most places in NV and 4, but except for that, the alien stuff, the submarine... I think Oblivion had better writing sometimes (i'm joking, but not that much).
Just thinking about that makes me want to play Morrowind again, i think i would totally buy a remaster on a newer engine :/ I'm a sucker sometimes.
Fallout 1 was excellent too, and the series still suffers from the decisions made in Fallout 2 - particularly the timeline jump, the tribals, and the Enclave (which is fun but even more implausible than many of the series' other elements).
Fallout 1 was 84 years after the war, and it was easier to imagine that functioning structures, robots etc. still exist. Fallout 2 was set 164 years after the blast, sadly, and the rest of the series has been stuck there for continuity's sake.
is there a way to play New Vegas on PC? The last time I tried it there was some issue with more than 2 enemy characters being involved in combat at any time. The frame rate would drop to less than 10.
Using the Viva New Vegas Guide, you can get a very functional install of New Vegas. I'd recommend the steam version, because most mods are made for that one.
Depends on the story, but yeah, the comedy aspects are the absolute core of the universe. 1950s nuclear hubris. FNV had this whole "Old West" vibe as well, which was lovely.
I hope they don't take all their writing ideas and atmosphere from the Bethesda games.
Fallout 1 and 2 have a very different vibe than the subsequent games by Bethesda (with the exception of New Vegas, which was made by the Obsidian Entertainment team)
Would be neat if the show ends up being parallel universe seasons where each is the same starting situation with a different character.
Basically each season would be a speed run through the show with different starting stats. The dialog for the original is riveting if you start with the bare min minimum intelligence.
Fallout 1 and 2 were master pieces precisely because they let you write your own story more or less.
You could finish Fallout 1 without killing anybody, or massacre any young kids with a sadistic touch. You could go directly to the end game zone using stealth, or fast run to a ghoul infested city to save them for annihilation with the right timing. And when you succeeded in what you believed was your final mission, you were betrayed by your own family and discovered that's where the game really started! Hell, you could win the game by enrolling in the end boss team or convince him to suicide!
Bethesda's fallout is nothing like that, it's a vanilla yogurt. Fallout 3 is a disgrace of hidden linearity where children are immortal and the world is mostly static. Characters are Manichean and simplistic. The conclusion of the scenario falls so flat it's not even on the C major scale.
Writing a good Fallout is not following the game story, which is very vague, but rather embracing the twisted spirit, ludicrous humour and weird lore of the universe. If they go full "the boyz" + "z nation", amazon could pull it off. Not so much if they go "ring of power" + "the walking dead".
You cannot write a good fallout story with good vs bad characters.
The reality is that fo 3/4 reached more people than 1/2 ever did. Hence the popularity.
In any case... People need to write stories vs just rehashing all the ones we already got. I mean how many resident evil movies and shows are there? Far more than there should have been.
After all, mass effect was a tremendous success because and most people playing it thought it was a fantastic RPG experience despite tunnel like gameplay, stolen storyline, blend characters and horrible UI. Halo was more emotionally engaging and it was bloody FPS! But they didn't know how incredibly deeper RPG were 10 years before it when it was a niche genre.
Anything that is reaching mass adoption is at the risk of being a shadow of itself.
Baldur's gate 3 is the delightful exception, not the rule.
Fallout 2 let you become a drug dealer, a porn star, enroll in a cult or trigger the end of the world, and they could only display 960x540 pixels.
Fallout 3 lets you look at a mushroom cloud in HD from a distance with zero emotional impact, and call that being a bad boy because of all the anonymous zeros and ones you killed.
New Vegas was good though. And Fallout4 was lazy writing, but good ideas overall. And the best Bethseda DLC ever was Far Harbor, it isn't even close. To me it's the best DLC, or at least the content DLC that added the most interesting story to any game.
> that it would adhere tightly to the games' visual and narrative style
Mmm... Which game's visual style? Beyond the surface "wasteland" similarity, they are wildly different. The narrative has been simplified from NV to 4 as well.
Chris Stuckmann did a video entitled "The Video Game Adaptation Curse" where he points out that there have been a number of successful adaptations (animated, live-action):
The fact that it's set in California makes me hopeful that it's more in the dreary and morbid Classic Fallout style, rather than the modern Bethesda interpretation, but that's probably wishful thinking.
Fallout show is going to suck. There's no chance it's remotely as good as Silo. Amazon has done pretty well on one front. Throwback movies. Recently, Totally Killer and The Other Zoey.
65 comments
[ 3.2 ms ] story [ 130 ms ] threadThe place where something can be either a masterpiece, or utter trash, is the SyFy Channel. SyFy is where s1-3 of The Expanse came from. But it's also the company that recently gave us "The Ark", which is possibly the worst sci-fi TV show I have ever seen, and that includes some seriously ridiculous TV shows in the 1970s and 80s. And somehow, they've even ordered a second season for this vile excuse for sci-fi.
https://www.thehugoawards.org/hugo-history/2023-hugo-awards/
so there's hope!
Also, the authors of the book were writers and producers of the show.
Generally I think Amazon does a good job with the prime original series.
I liked the Expanse. The peripheral was interesting. Even the LotR “rings of power” I found enjoyable, and maybe better than expected after those hobit movies.. Not perfect but it had heart, some humor, good music (Bear Mccready, Fiona apple!) thought a bit too sentimental as LOTR tends to be..
HBO took the “last of us” and did something decent I fall into hope springs eternal camp. But I’d rather play the story than just watch it… I loved the uncharted games, but am never going to see an uncharted movie.
In this case I watched my partner play fallout. It had a story, but you play you, not a specific character. But a settlement always needs your help.
EDIT:
More precisely; https://starshiptroopers.fandom.com/wiki/Recruiting_Sergeant
4 was shallow but beautiful.
I bet they are going to spend a couple episodes building a base.
The idea behind the cryogenized survivor was interesting, but imho they flunked both the main "villain" and the synth idea. Once again i found that the Brotherhood is just a bad idea 99% of the time (with the exception of what was done in NV, each game it was just lazy writing), but this time it's just a useless faction (except for the "Giant robot fight with PA" part, but tbh, that could have worked as a Railroad vs Institute without the Brotherhood ever being mentionned). The Railroad idea could have been good, but their opposition (the institute) brought them down, and finally, the only faction who does not suffer that much lore-wise from the poor main storyline are the Minutemen, because like the Brotherhood, they are not _really_ involved with the synth, but unlike the BH, they have another reason to be here.
Didn't love the 3 either. I did like ?Megaton city? (sorry, i had the game in French the last time i played) better than most places in NV and 4, but except for that, the alien stuff, the submarine... I think Oblivion had better writing sometimes (i'm joking, but not that much).
Just thinking about that makes me want to play Morrowind again, i think i would totally buy a remaster on a newer engine :/ I'm a sucker sometimes.
Fallout 1 was 84 years after the war, and it was easier to imagine that functioning structures, robots etc. still exist. Fallout 2 was set 164 years after the blast, sadly, and the rest of the series has been stuck there for continuity's sake.
It just works as far as I remember. A good time to grab a bundle at a discount as well.
https://vivanewvegas.moddinglinked.com/index.html
https://www.gog.com/en/game/fallout_new_vegas_ultimate_editi...
Fallout 1 and 2 have a very different vibe than the subsequent games by Bethesda (with the exception of New Vegas, which was made by the Obsidian Entertainment team)
Most adaptations being abysmal just shows how bad the story writing is for almost all video games, even those that are lauded for their story.
Basically each season would be a speed run through the show with different starting stats. The dialog for the original is riveting if you start with the bare min minimum intelligence.
Hopefully it just does the scale well enough and do not aim for anything too big. Fallout is a setting where even bit more mundane story could work.
Fallout 1 and 2 were master pieces precisely because they let you write your own story more or less.
You could finish Fallout 1 without killing anybody, or massacre any young kids with a sadistic touch. You could go directly to the end game zone using stealth, or fast run to a ghoul infested city to save them for annihilation with the right timing. And when you succeeded in what you believed was your final mission, you were betrayed by your own family and discovered that's where the game really started! Hell, you could win the game by enrolling in the end boss team or convince him to suicide!
Bethesda's fallout is nothing like that, it's a vanilla yogurt. Fallout 3 is a disgrace of hidden linearity where children are immortal and the world is mostly static. Characters are Manichean and simplistic. The conclusion of the scenario falls so flat it's not even on the C major scale.
Writing a good Fallout is not following the game story, which is very vague, but rather embracing the twisted spirit, ludicrous humour and weird lore of the universe. If they go full "the boyz" + "z nation", amazon could pull it off. Not so much if they go "ring of power" + "the walking dead".
You cannot write a good fallout story with good vs bad characters.
In any case... People need to write stories vs just rehashing all the ones we already got. I mean how many resident evil movies and shows are there? Far more than there should have been.
After all, mass effect was a tremendous success because and most people playing it thought it was a fantastic RPG experience despite tunnel like gameplay, stolen storyline, blend characters and horrible UI. Halo was more emotionally engaging and it was bloody FPS! But they didn't know how incredibly deeper RPG were 10 years before it when it was a niche genre.
Anything that is reaching mass adoption is at the risk of being a shadow of itself.
Baldur's gate 3 is the delightful exception, not the rule.
Fallout 2 let you become a drug dealer, a porn star, enroll in a cult or trigger the end of the world, and they could only display 960x540 pixels.
Fallout 3 lets you look at a mushroom cloud in HD from a distance with zero emotional impact, and call that being a bad boy because of all the anonymous zeros and ones you killed.
Wasteland 2 was what fallout 3 should have been.
Mmm... Which game's visual style? Beyond the surface "wasteland" similarity, they are wildly different. The narrative has been simplified from NV to 4 as well.
* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S1e0q5Dwh18
Certainly not all adaptions, or maybe even the majority of them, but we shouldn't be completely surprised that they happen.