darthspudius: Ah you're one of those. Fan boys man. urgh.
Elmofongo: I was properly introduced to Fallout through Fallout 3 (I was 5 years old by the time Fallout 1 came out)
And I liked the more darker,serious, and depressing vibe of Fallout than the Humor, "let's have a laugh in the apocalypse."
Fallout 1 and especially 2 have a style of humor that balances between 'dark & dry' and 'darkly over the top', but both styles were quite smoothly intergrated with the world. You are alone in a mad world and the designers play with the fact that the player will understand references and homages while the player character does not. That means that even when the humor goes to some extreme it doesn't necessarily hurt the in-game universe because the jokes are for the player, not the character. I think this is partly helped by how most conversations in the games are not voice acted, so the player will be reading them for himself and internalising it. The fun is happening on the inside.
Enter the first 20 minutes with Fallout 3 and the humor is swaying between some dark and dry irony to really awkward and unfunny over the top comedy. Time to take the G.O.A.T! The player is asked (in character) to answer some really bizarre questions with very violent and morally deplorable ABCD answers... in character, in universe... Yes, in really obscure moments the original games did stuff like this too but those were often in random encounters that had nothing to do with the plot and could perhaps be discarded as not truly happening, that they are just the imaginings of a lonely desert wanderer. Here in Fallout 3 this is really happening in the main narrative. The game designers are saying "Look, we have over the top dark humor juuuuust like the originals! Classic Fallout humor!". No. You really don't. No one can believe in the universe you have created when you have voice acted characters participating in something so uncharacteristic for the setting. It is a farce. It is impossible that something so goofy and hamfisted can be taken seriously by other characters in the game as if it is actually happening. There is even one guy still struggling with the last question where all answers are identical. No. That could not happen. It would have been worth a chuckle if the G.O.A.T was something you stumbled upon in written form in the desert, then it would serve as commentary for you as a player on life in the vault as well as be a crude throwaway gag. But it is not an easter egg. It takes place in a verifiable in-universe reality with other characters. Your character is doing this, it is not the game breaking the fourth wall talking to the player, but it is something completely ridiculous and implausible happening in the story.
I can imagine that for a first time Fallout player the unfunny and crass attempt at humor comes from nowhere. For a veteran player it is obviously a failed attempt at capturing the nuances of Fallout by a team who do not know what they are doing.
