As always, make sure to tell me what you thought of this so that I can improve later content. Apologies for this taking so long, been a bit of a stressful month. But the Uni year is done, so that should give me a little more time to work on stuff for you guys. I have like 6 scripts in the works right now, some of them are mod reviews, some of them are different, more unique content. IF you have anything you'd like to see, drop it below or hit me up via the discord link the description. I appreciate yall so much, thanks for watching and have a great day :)

Man, I don't think I could've managed to do what you did here. To actually criticize this would be impossible for me. I would've been all, "OHMYGODHE'SSOPRECIOUS, GOOD JOB!" Which is, sure, much more *nice* but not exactly helpful. It's frankly mind-blowing that some high schooler managed to make this, and the kind of person that would've made this has clear ambition. I'm sure he wanted actual feedback, as opposed to the "attaboy" which myself and others like me would've supplied. great video, fascinating mod, and a really respectful and genuine critique which I hope the original author sees.

Hey Ramblelime! A buddy of mine linked me to the vid. This is a super thoughtful (and accurate!) analysis of, indeed, a bad story written by a teenager wrapped in a hopefully nice looking world. Regardless of the fact that it has countless rough edges and nonsensical story decisions, it’s still cool to see people playing Alton so many years later. And hopefully after 10 years, I’ve got something a bit more interesting coming up for my next project ;)

Wild to see this, the creator is a friend of mine and I voice acted for the mod

The use of "Underground Railroad" in Alton is not a "bizarre" choice: the real Alton has an extensive system of underground tunnels that were a part of the historic American Underground Railroad. It's not at all weird to imagine the in-game UR would have named themselves after the actual UR tunnels they are using.

Ramblelime destroys an 17 year old's mod with facts and logic

I agree with all of your points. That being said, holy fuck man this kid is going to help make some sweeeet games in the next several decades. I can't imagine having that much drive at 17, kudos to him. Fucking phenomenal teenager.

as someone with tons of unfinished personal projects, shoutouts to this mod author

It’s interesting to see this, as a lot of the stuff you talk about that where the bad parts of Alton, are things we exactly reference when talking about development and Elijah’s current work on A Better World. I originally voiced Hartrick and I can tell you that fake Australian Batman accent is without a doubt one of the worst things I’ve ever done. There was a lot of improvement in world and audio design when Eli and I were originally developing (the now dead) project Ethas. And Eli’s gotten even far better at world design since then. Hope to see your video on A Better World, as that will be a whole different experience from Alton. Modding and game design was a whole brand new world to us when Alton first came out.

BTW there is an updated converted version of this mod made for Tale of Two Wastelands, it's really awesome

In a world where we get the Sseth trio of Mandalore and Uberdanger, we're finally unearthing the Peach Cobbler posse. C'mon now, debut your third underling!!

Wow, I just looked at his next mod and I'm impressed, he's really talented

Fallout 3 is a weird beast, in a way it does feel like there are some parts here and there where Bethesda really tried to make a decent Fallout game, it certainly has more heart in terms of quest design than F4. But it definitely is rough going back to.

It's so funny that this is set in Alton of all places. I grew up around there and was a huge fallout fan as a kid. It was surreal to see this when I was younger.

I watched Alchestbreach played this mod back then.. it's kinda nostalgia seeing this review.

As a person who's spent a greater percentage of my life in the actual Alton, IL than any other location on earth, this is super strange. However, spend enough time there and you absolutely will want to make a fictional dystopia based off of it. Even if you could release a fully unmodified copy of Fallout 3 and have denizens of Alton say "yup that looks like Alton" Heartwarming to see someone go through with something that has been a possibility in my mind for a while. Unfortunately i never met the mod author as i only spent freshman year in Alton High School before moving quite a bit, then joining the navy active duty at 19 years old in 2007 to escape the area. Corona kicked me out of Alton and all the way past Godfrey to my farming roots. However, i recognize the last names of mod collaborators. After all, the Darr's gas station is now just down the road from me. Congratulations to the mod authors and i can't wait to see what they make next. Love from macoupin county! 👍

It is interesting to see this mod. Not exactly good, but interesting.

It's so nice to see thoughtful analysis of quest mods. However niche they are, thousands of hours go into creating these stories and I think they're worth taking a closer look at. Thanks very much!

One of the best game criticism/review video ive seen in few years... I wish there were more in depth videos like this one on most modern indie games, it would help a lot to study various perspective & shortcomings for future reference ♥️ thanks man

Altonian here! The map isn't TOO bad all things considered. The Clark Bridge around 9:40 looks okay. The building the player is going into next to the bridge is the Marion "Heights" building. I put quotes there because it is only about 6 stories and built right down at floodplain level.

Love the content! I remember seeing this mod years ago when Al played through it. Seeing FO3 exclusive mods reminded me of Terran Starship Command (Mothership Zeta Crew), I was pretty young when I played through it but I remember enjoying the story, even though its was unfinished at that point.

Terran Starship Command was fun. No, really. It's also Fo3 exclusive, features some neat quests and stuff. I liked it.

Just watched peachcobblers video now It’s time to watch you off his recommendation YEEEHAWWWW.

I remember my dad talking to me about this! Like, more than 10 years ago ;3; Weird to think that anything good, cool, or interesting came from IL, but great!

On some level, I like any mod of this size that even make it to the light of day.

literally heard about alton il like 2 days ago. this is quite literally the only comprehensive media form i've found covering this mod LMFAO. really well put together video btw, laughed at a few points and fully agree with your assessment

Such a cool video! I'm from close by and in the modding community and had no idea about any of this.

As someone from Alton Illinois (or at least went to highschool here) one thing that tripped me up is the map is upside down. The Mississippi river is to the south of Alton not the north as is in game.

man, this brings me back. I remember liking this mod even despite its flaws and wished it gotten more expansions/addons to it from other modders. Hope you'll review other not so well known mods like The Institute quest mod for Fallout 3.

Picked up the TTW version of this, excited to check it out for myself (Edit: finished it. Honestly I loved the world space but yeah the dialogue and story did draw me out of the experience quite a bit. But honestly my enjoyment of the open world of Alton made up for any flaws for me)

I Love how i saw Alton and immediately clicked thinking "Oh yeah, that place still exists"

This is impressive, even with the issues and weaknesses. Have you ever played "Into the Ark"? for Fallout 3? It's also got weaknesses, but I genuinely enjoyed it.

Good video; nice to see what mod player want out of a Fallout mod.

It’s so cool to hear about a mod based on my hometown

Your bewilderment at the usage of the name underground railroad is bewildering me. It is a totally organic sounding name one in the universe can imagine, simple as.

I know this video is bit old, but if we're talking about DLC sized mods for Fallout 3 that were mediocre, overly ambitious messes, the Mothership Zeta Crew mod comes to mind. I forget it's exact story, but the premise was the Enclave had captured one of the crashed Zetan warships and began exploring space. It even spawned a sequel mod that found it's way to New Vegas. I hope I'm not the only one that remembers it, it was super divisive in the community at the time.

You should make a review of another major Fallout 3 total conversion mod called Fallout New York, it's... Also similar to this mod in terms of quality but still better, more quests, story makes more sense etc

Probably get this requested a lot, you should look at Havasu Blues or Tales of New Reno (or really any major, semi-popular FNV quest/area expansion mod)

mr pogchamp with the amazing legal editing!!!!!!

Was getting worried we weren’t gonna hear from you again!

I remember playing Alton a few years ago, not sure if I ever finished it as I think the voice acting grated on me.

Oh crap, I didn't realize this guy was working on A Better World! I remember seeing the first few bits of that mod getting shown off a couple years ago, and it's one I'm really looking forward to checking out once it releases. Hopefully they haven't been too screwed by the next gen update!

Random video shows up on my feed while on a Fallout binge and this is pretty interesting to me. It’s awesome that a teenager even had the skill to pull this off, even if it didn’t end up amazing, and even recreated parts of his town and own home just makes me smile. I’m also from Illinois and a lot of things, both in terms of Fallout and most other media, focus solely on Chicago when were brought up. So it’s…weird and yet kind of cool to see one of the only ‘complete’ conversion mods for Fallout 3 is centered on a little town here. Honestly if you told me something like this existed ahead of time I would have guessed it have been focused on the capital city of Springfield, just so someone can shove in a crap ton of references to Abe Lincoln. Could have it been better? Absolutely. But I still applaud the kid for doing something not many else would have been able to do, and I hope he’s going far this many years later.

I love this video Could you possibly do the mothership zeta crew next ?

Nice touch of the background music I like it

Thanks for this. I started playing FO3 with a bunch of mods installed 10 years ago. I'd play it a bit, put it down for a few years, and then continue my game. The desktop PC is old now and I want to get rid of it, but I don't think my modded FO3 will transfer over from Windows 7 to Windows 11 without something going wrong, so I am determined to finish my game now. I looked in my quest log and I have three quests: one is obviously Brotherhood of Steel, one is Point Lookout and one was a mystery - "She Runs on Motivation". So I Googled it, and vaguely remembered the mod "Alton, IL", but I couldn't remember anything about it. Anyway, watching this video has helped me a lot because I can safely skip Alton and just do the other two. I have 450 hours in this playthrough and I've done almost everything including some quest mods, but now I want to do Point Lookout and finish the main quest.

I personally found this mod pretty fun for such a small project

I remember this! I haven't found anything on this in years!

LETS HOOO ANOTHER VIDEO BABBYYYYY

So, as to why the plague doctor outfit is used by "The Plague" is because the plague doctors might try to cure people and their suits are protective... But their suits did carry the plague on them and they would spread the plague by accident while trying to cure it instead.

Would you ever consider doing videos for cube experimental or return to shady sands?

So weird seeing my home as a fallout 3 mod We have a neat little River town but most of our big history is well in the past. But it is a neat town We even have our own cryptid the Piasa Bird

Cobbler has sent me to view your video. You're welcome for this unique and original comment that noone else has made (haven't checked but I imagine I'm right)

"Point Lookout, my favorite DLC of the base game." Patrician taste. Subbed.

I wanna know who made this mod. I was going to the Alton IL highschool when this came out.

He made a second mod called Washingtons Malevolence which is supposed to be way better

My head cannon for the reason the underground rail road calls them selves that but isn't anything like the on from our world is that they say mention of the underground rail road and figure the literal rail roads under ground are what they are referencing

they should've just made ur character an outcast defender. also the brotherhood being in illinois kinda makes sense bc im pretty sure the brotherhood was in chicago for fallout tactics

Do you have a list of all the mods your doing? Also what about terran starship command?

man I couldn't remember which mod it was but i've played this for sure

I do remember seeing a mod called fallout zero for fo3 but I don't remember if it was a tc or If it was even finished

This is so strange given that I live in this area. Not sure exactly what areas it's supposed to be looking at any given location though, especially since there's no literal underground railroad (aka subway), but the historical underground railroad was pretty involved there. It's super close to St.Louis rather than Chicago by the way.

You said you're going to review a few other mods, i hope dust is one of them, its a really cool premise, it'll be cool to see someone talk about it.

The way you were talking about the “kid” who made this mod, I thought he was gonna have a squeaker voice. This dude sounds like he’s got a full beard and car payments lol

When u beat the mod can u walk back & shoot stuf in Alton?

I hav seen much of the Alton ill level it looks great

Well it's second most endorsed mod in the New Lands and Locations category of Nexus Mods - there's a few others that look worth checking out like the Mothership Zeta crew mod and I think there was a mod where you do the MQ but from the perspective of the Enclave. Besides a few here and there in that category, there aren't many decent ones in Quests and Adventures category either. Is it really that bad? For years I've been waiting to find the time to sit down and play through some awesome mods and I was always under the impression there were a bunch that would increase my playtime by 1000+ hours even but the reality is the opposite? There's like maybe ten and everything else is rubbish or unfinished, alpha/beta stuff. Please tell me I'm missing something. It's the same with NV tbf. 99% of mods are armor/weapons mods, body mods and UI or some junk. I'm mostly interested in quest mods, new factions and lands to explore.

4:09 Haha! Chill, dude (I did laugh though, so good job)

Honestly I enjoyed the Mods story. Nothing fantastic but maybe I was just happy to get something that gave me a choice after playing through fo3's main story again

That Ratatouille Snyder Cut joke got me, you earned a sub. Will you do Washington's Malevolence and Zeta Crew (still pissed what happened to it) next since they are the only other BIG mods for 3?

I just couldn't beat this mod due to an auto-ctd that I would get after getting jumped by the psychos in the cowl masks, they'd take me somewhere or fight me, but the game would just crash beyond that point, I would've setstage up to the next quest but since this is a mod I did not know their ID, also I didn't know anything about FO3edit

I like everything about the alton Illinois mod

this is on the new vegas nexus for those who run ttw instead of fallout 3 :)

I'd like to counter your point about the underground railroad being named wildly because they simply live in an underground railroad with fallouts cannon depictions of baseball, Mormonism, hell look at half of the references in the classic fallouts.

While you are right about the 76 map, the map design itself, while exploring, is probably one of the series best. It's just really well designed, imo.

Subscribed.

Dude, I keep reading it as Afton IL

Alright ramblelime I have binged all of your videos. Now can you please upload about 20 more so I don't go into withdraw?

Glad to see someone critiquing the work instead of mindlessly mopping the kid off for slapping the mod together solo

''A Fallout 3 mod by Elijah Houck'' Well isnt that a coinkydink?

Daddy cobbler left me here but he's just going out for cigarettes...

To be fair, the world is after a nuclear war, information could be distorted (I doubt the mod dev thought of that, but it could explain it).

There wasn't much discussion on what was good about the mod

There 2 other major fallout 3 mods salt lake stories and obscurim, obscurim is a total conversion and it's a mess but it's out there

Hey it’s me!

I think reusing historical names like the underground railroad but having no connection to the meaning would be fine if the story itself explained that the original context is lost or who ignored it.

This is literally me when joe cobbler

I only clicked on this because ive lived in like 20 different cities in Illinois and never heard of Alton. I'm guessing its down south.. *Holy shit i called it, its at the very southern tip of Illinois, about 5 hour drive from Chicago, near St Louis Missouri. ❤

I'll watch anything about a game with my town in it

7:32 so it feels like Fallout 3's world.

Shows that 3 was liked by the players and hating on the game is a new thing

16:11 bro thinks he’s Albert Wesker☠️☠️

You should review Killap’s patch.

I played this on og fallout 3, it ran like shit in my hp dv4000 , I loved it, it was one of the reasons I started modding every game I played on PC. It really isn't that great indeed as a narrative mod, but the map was great and for a starved teen for more postapoc content back in 2009, it was enough. To this day I keep Alton in my load order even in a TTW install. I play it when I'm brain dead and I just want to see quest makers and xp go up.

Here from dj peach cobbler.

Trinston was here..

Neat

Bro i live in Alton. Plz help me

ya know its wild when people say new vegas is the more stable of the 2 games cuz i first played them both on ps3. never finished new vegas due to a memory leak issue where instead of overwriting saves it just made a new one and causing it to crash constantly after saving so many times and getting so far. i was trying to do the hoover dam with 2 fps and it crashed everytime i hit the welcome center it was literally unfinishable on ps3(i also beat big MT with 2 fps whenever i was outside a building) and no deleting saves from the hard drive didnt work at all i tried that. it gave me a bug of all the ncr being hostile to me in my current save even with max good affinity with them and wearing ncr armor. fallout 3 on the other hand (my first fallout game) i beat almost a dozen times before broken steel came out without issues and it wasnt until i got to the ghoul president tunnels to get to the final mission did it start crashing on me and then infect all my other saves. i know a lot of 3rd party publishers had issues with the ps3 and its much easier to play them on pc (which i do now) and new vegas is now my favorite fallout game but the juxaposition of my memories with how much a mess new vegas was and how when fallout 3 started acting the same way i thought new vegas somehow infected my fallout 3 game. yes i was a teenager when it happened but i had no actual reason other than that why it suddenly stopped working after almost 100% the game with the extended ending fter 100% it repeatedly before hand. i never beat fallout 3 with broken steel since its so unstable on pc when i could just play a barely held together with spit and prayer overly modded version of new vegas instead.

I ❤ the Alton level