@Friskybar: OK, but semantics, really. People can't really go "inaccurate!" in a series with aliens and whatnot was my point. Popes and George Washington and Pythagoras being Templars and aliens, no one cares, but a black "samurai" and "how dare they be inaccurate!"
AC has never been about realism or accuracy. It's the most bananas franchise in games (that isn't made my Hideo Kojima). People gotta chill.
@makchady: Yeah, but for what? As you say, uniqueness was a part of their appeal. Assimilating to another place stifles that uniqueness unless you give them free reign and, if you are going to give them free reign, why shut them down in the first place?
I hope these people find jobs. I also hope they find jobs where they can express their creativity.
@esqueejy: Agreed on all points. The problem is, when shows are damned if they do, damned if they don't, they often try to thread the needle, which is the worst thing you can do. You're right, having a show that mimics the side tracking would be too much of an ask in eight hours. But, as Phil points out, they still tried to do some of that, underbaked it and interrupted the overall narrative. They tried to avoid everyone's tantrums and, when any medium tries to do that, it winds up taking away from everything they did well.
I mean, we see that "try to be everything to everyone" just in games alone, he said, looking at Ubisoft. When you try to make everyone happy, you just end up annoying more people.
@MigGui: Keaton did it because Douglas was already used. Can't have more than one person on a SAG card. Why Michael B Jordan has to use the B, cuz the basketball player did movies in the 90s. Most famous example was Michael J Fox. Michael Fox was already an actor (who disappeared to time). The J stands for nothing as he has no middle name. Just had to throw it in there to get a union card.
@brianericford: Sure, it is subjective. All I was saying is that the take was something I feared.
I think, too, that different reviewers across media will have different thoughts on this depending on whether they played/liked/disliked the games. Some TV critic who has never played a Fallout game and is just looking at this as any other show is going to have a different response than someone who has played the crap out of the games. Sort of like an intense comic book fan is going to react differently to Marvel movies than some critic who doesn't know Iron Man from Mr. Clean. That may be why you're seeing so many different takes. I kind of wish that non game site reviews (like the really bad one I just read on CNN) would say whether the reviewer was familiar with the games. Would inform our decisions as to who to listen to, I think.
@s0ldier69: Might have, but I was worried it would fall into the very traps Phil mentions. Fallout has always been about finding things, discovery, finding YOUR way. It isn't a game about telling a singular story, like the Last of Us. The best a TV show can do with a game like Fallout is to tell a singular story in that world, with ghouls and the Brotherhood and vaults, etc. That's just plain what Fallout isn't.
Now, you CAN make a good show just telling a singular story in a world, but when you have a game like Fallout that has such a following (and I am someone who sang Maybe to my kids as a lullaby, so count me in the following), show producers seem to have this need to make it as "true" to the games as possible. Thus, they mash everything they can about the experience into it. Once they succumb to that, mashing everything about four massive games into eight hours, it's just can't be good. Too much will get glossed over.
Seems, based on this review, that's exactly what they did.
OldDadGamer's comments