Everyone loves Fallout. Millions of people have watched the TV show in the week and a bit since its release, and now they’re turning to the games. Whether they’re completely new fans trying to work out 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:which Fallout game to play or an old veteran decidi༺ng to give 76 another chance during its free period, everyone’s living in a retrofuturistic paradise right now.

Everyone except me. I finished watching the 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Fallout show this week, and thought it was fine. I was very surprised, then, to learn the fervour with which fans were praising it. I saw people devouring its Easter Eggs and poring over its smallest moments to see whether it was canon (168澳洲幸运5开奖网:all of it is, apparently). I read reviews that labeled it as the “best video game adaptation since The Last of Us”, and all I could think about was how being bet🌜ter than Halo’s second series is the lowest possible bar to ꦦclear.

I’m not saying that there weren’t good things about the show. I enjoyed it! The characters were good, Walton Goggins makes an excellent ghoul (but was his performance really BAFTA-worthy?), Ella Purnell's American accent is incredibly convincing, and the show’s central premise was intriguing. I wanted to watch more, and that’s a good thing. But it’s not a show I can see myself ever watching again.

Whoever was in charge of casting Matt Berry a🔯s Cogsworth des🎃erves a raise.

People like Fallout because it’s a competent depiction of the game series they love. But I didn’t see anything great. The script was alright, the humour didn’t get any laughs from me, and the references were a little bit “omg it’s that thing from that game”. He called the dog Dogmeat! There’s a bobblehead on that shelf! That doesn’t a great TV show make. And I still think 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:the whole world is too clean.

Do Gamers Have Low Standards?

Standards for video game adaptations are on the floor. If gamers see a competent TV adaptation that stays true to the heart of a series, they hail it as the best thing to hit our screens since The Wire. By virtue of simply Not Bein🦋g Bad, there is nothing Fallout can do wrong. It is perfect, unblemished, unparalleled. When you hold it up to other a🍃daptations, The Last of Us notwithstanding, it does look good. But it deserves the respect of being measured against all TV, not just the fact it rises above the mediocrity of gaming TV.

All this got me thinking: what’s im♈portant to ꧑fans when it comes to an adaptation? Why is Fallout being praised so much? Why are fans lapping up something that made me feel so little? It’s because the Fallout show understands the universe it’s set in.

The Fallout TV Show Was Best When It Moved Away From The Games

The best thing about the Fallout show was that it didn’t retread a story from the games. While The Last of Us is obviously great – and I preferred it to Fallout, despite liking Fallout games more than Naughty Dog’s portrayal of the post-apocalypse – it followed the game’s story beat for beat, sometimes word for word and shot for shot.💞 It’s no coincidence that its best episodes were the flashbacks in which it extrapolated on hints the game left behind. But to create a brand new story in the Fallout universe and get fans on board, the show needed to understand the wasteland.

The show undeniably did that well. The dangers of the Fallout universe are always evident. It clearly shows t𓃲hat everyone, from the three protagonists to the side characters they come across on their travels, is out for themselves. The violence of the New California Republic is perfectly balanced by the misguided honour of the Brotherhood of Steel and the cultish capitalist scheming of Vault-Tec.

In the middle of this messed up world are three engaging, likeable characters. Yes, even the 𓂃Ghoul is likeable, in an anti-hero kind of way, and he carries some of the series’ most emotional scenes. All you need to get fans on board is well-written characters in an established universe that stays true(ish) to its source materiওal.

That’s fine! It’s good, even. I’m glad that people are enjoying the show. As a Fallout fan myself, however, I just don’t buy into the hype. I liked it, I hope it gets a second series, but I hope a renewal forces it to improve. I’d like a better script, for starters. I’d like fewer Leonardo di Caprio-pointing-at-the-screen references. I’d like more emotional scenes involving Cooper Howard and his daughter. But I wor🅷ry that the rave reviews will encourage an ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’ mindset. Fallout won’t fail if it continues as is, I and millions of others will continue to watch. But it will never move from good to become truly great.