Many find Fallout 3 similar to Philip K. Dick's 'The Penultimate Truth'

Would not surprise me, and in fact it'd make me very gald. PKD was an incredibly diverse and pioneering author. He was recognized as one of the greatest authors of alternate history/speculative fiction, his sci-fi work was incredible, and he basically invented the genre of cyberpunk before it even had a name.

BTW, what the hell is Bethesda waiting for to create a cyberpunk RPG?? Wouldn't a Havok-powered cyberpunk RPG set in a future city rock face? I'd definitely pay for that! :-) Imagine, being able to plug yourself into the net to hack at computers, being able to use nanomeds and cybernetics to become superhuman, fighting gangs of punks and juicers on the streets, sticking it to the big companies! Sure, Fallout 3 already covered many of these things, but the setting, aesthetic and idea would be totally different. Imagine playing in a city like Blade Runner's LA, or Bubblegum Crisis's Mega-Tokyo, full of neon and urban decay. Goosebumps!

I found Cormac McCarthy's the road similar to Fallout 3. The description of the empty houses, the roads traveled, cannibals, etc. All eerily like FO3.

how else are we expected to receive bad karma. It would be a waste to not steal from him especially with level 100 pickpocket.

No one plagerised anyone. Philip K. Dick doesn't own a copywrite over living beings hiding out in holes in the ground until a crisis is over, then coming out to witness the harsh aftermath.

Underground bunkers and fallout shelters have existed in literature and in real life (military use) LOOOOONG before Philip K. Dick wrote The Penultimate Truth. In fact, the earliest know use (though religious fanatics will disagree with their "6000+ year old planet" theory) are rats and other rodents digging burrows in the ground to sirvive the asteroid that killed larger species like Dinosaurs. Underground shelters used by humans originated THERE, not a sci-fi novel by Philip K. Dick.

Having played Fallout 3, I can safely say that the people at Bethesda are completely unaware of any post-apocalyptic fiction besides The Road Warrior and A Boy and his Dog.

People should go watch Six-String Samurai, there's more than a few similarities between it and Fallout 3. Post Apocalyptic, check. Oldschool music selection, check. Over the top radio personality broadcasting one of the only stations that still work, check.

Even though FO3 may be very similar to "The Penultimate Truth", you still can't deny the fact that the game is freaking awesome and is just a beautiful game to behold.

But seriously, everyone steals from this guy, obviously. Look at all of these post-apocalyptic films these days. I have the deed to his house...but then someone stole that from me, dang it.

It's not the originality of a story, but how the same old worn out story can be retold in a gripping fashion.

After all, there are only 36 stories on earth, and they're all being retold over and over in real life circumstances and within the arts.

(Potential spoiler ahead?)

Fallout 3 is a combination of lots of things, you can't just point to one sci-fi work. I mean you could call the whole virtual reality thing Liam Neeson/"Dad" is trapped in a rip-off of The Matrix. Was that part probably inspired by The Matrix? Sure. Does anyone really care if it was? No. There are just a lot of references to various films/novels, and they come together to shape the Fallout 3 world. I wish they had worked in a "You're going to have to answer to the Nuka-Cola company"-ish line as a reference to Strangelove.

Ehhhhhh I read the synopses and its close but what future end of the world story doesnt sound similiar? Fallout uses alot of cliched plots but its all put together well enough to make it enjoyable.

I don't think that the 1950's can be copyrighted/plagiarized. Nuclear destruction is a very prevalent topic in all types of media; no one ripped off anyone.

Has anyone ever noticed that Fallout is eerily similar to Wall-e? With spaceships instead of vaults.

It's a good book but the concept of people living long-term in underground cities to escape from nuclear destruction was certainly around in the 1950s, in fact such a shelter was actually built in Sweden with room for 20,000 people:

http://www.bunkertours.co.uk/Stockholm%20CD%20Shelter.htm

More here:

http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=nHFCKmo2PH8C&pg=PP1#PPA125,M1

Also in Dick's book those on the surface are feeding misinformation to the people underground to make them stay there, that isn't the case in Fallout 3.

The Lion King plagurized an old Japanese cartoon called Akimba the White Lion. And it was hyped as one of Disney's first original animated movies.

Actually, it would have been nice if they HAD plagiarized Dick. Fallout 3 was an awesome game to play, but the story was pretty crude, writing-wise. Most Troma films have better scripts. Paying a decent writer to write a good story for their games, is something most game developers don't seem to be able to bring themselves to do. What writing there was, seems to have been scripted in little vignettes, probably by committee.

This is kind of strange because i recently really got into Phillip K Dick after watching a scanner darkly and then realising he's inspired alot of films and books and gaems that i adore, so iv read alot of his books recently. A penultimate truth isnt the only thing fallout took inspiration from; the quest "the replicated man" is very reminiscent of "do anroids dream of electric sheep" among others.

http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Cultural_references_in_Fallout_3

CASA BONITA!

(South Park fans will get that...)

slow news day or something?

"a boy and his dog" anybody? Post apocalyptic, dark humor, and the boy even calls his dog "dogmeat" the entire movie.

has anyone made the connection of the Ringworld series and halo? ive not read these books but the cover art looks alot like the rings in halo. and the fact that there are ghouls(the flood)!!! *gasp* fallout ripped this book off too!!! geez.... Why don't they just go after Brita water filters next.... *GASP*.

Am I the only one who saw the word "PenUltimate" and thought of The Dig? Fine, fine game there.