Fallout 4 - Reviews thread

The world building makes a little more sense in Fallout 4, but it still very much feels like a bunch of loosely connected locations with different "themes." This is not helped by what feels like a smaller world. The Commonwealth is not a wasteland. It's packed full of stuff.

If you want the lore to follow FO1-2, you will be sad. No spoilers, but there is a massive lore breaking feature that is included as part of the core experience. It follows the lore of FO3 a bit more in that regard.

No karma is excellent. It's about time the series that is ostensibly about survival ditched it.

The voice acting is very good throughout, but the compressed dialogue choices lead to situations and experiences that RPG fans feared. You will pick a response and expect your player to say one thing and get another. Many of the choices you'll be able to pick are just "tones" like "Sarcastic." That is your dialogue choice. It has a massive effect (heh) on the roleplaying aspect. Some people don't care about that. I do.

The characters are the paper dolls from Fallout 3 and not the slightly more nuanced characters from New Vegas. So far, every character that can be a companion asks to join you literally 5 minutes after meeting them (with one notable exception). It's very off putting. Luckily, there is a lone wanderer perk that let's you avoid the companions altogether, if that's your thing.

Overall, as one of the RPG Old Guard, this is a disappointing step back from New Vegas in every way. On the other hand, I can have fun with it for what it is, which is a silly, nuclear sandbox to go play it. It's going to piss off the hardcore RPG fans immensely.

Well there you go, this was more useful for me than any of the reviews I'd gotten to. Sounds pretty much exactly like I expected. Dialog stuff isn't going to bother me of course since it sounds like the plot and characters are the usual throwaway stuff anyway. Certainly I wasn't expecting New Vegas 2 anyway.

Definitely rolling lone wanderer then. Can't fucking stand babysitting jankpanions.

How does the world feel smaller to you? I don't like the sound of that since that's pretty much 90% of what I'm actually going to enjoy out of this.

I was only kidding. :)

RPS has a few bits to say about the writing. Surprisingly positive... at least, in relative terms.

Well now I'm really confused. Will give it a read.
 
I want to like Bethesda games, I really do, but their amateurish writing and disjointed world design (theme parks as you call it) are what put me off this game. After playing The Witcher 3, which had incredible writing and an amazingly cohesive world, I just don't think I can settle for this. Combine that with the technical issues it apparently has and this game has definitely gone to being a skip.

Maybe I'll pick up the legendary edition in a year or two when it's on sale for $20.

On top of that, by the time it reaches 20 bucks, it'll hopefully have patches. Maybe some incoming DLC?

Also, is it true modders can't access the dev kit until next year?
 
What about factions? One review claimed that they do play some role in how the main quest turns out. To what degree? Can you piss them off?

Honestly, that's impossible to say without two playthroughs or collected data from other players who chose to do different things. One positive I would like to mention again is the lack of karma. It really keeps the feeling of being railroaded to a minimum. You can just play how you want.

Probably a side effect of how junk is actually useful (if you indulge in the side project building stuff) so they wanted you to be able to steal shit as much as possible.
 
I'm really happy with these reviews but not for the obvious reasons.

I knew that I was probably going to like this game regardless of the scores, and I am happy that the critical consensus is coloring it in a way that is satisfying as a fan of Bethesda and the Fallout series...

However, I'm even more happy that it isn't simply just a train-ride straight into perfect 10's and widespread worship like Skyrim was. I adore Skyrim and think it's a great game, and I spent over 450 hours playing it. However, it's very obvious as it has aged how the game is flawed and where changes need to be made. It's clear that Fallout 4 has remained rather conservative, and with good reason, as it is a case for Bethesda to make the argument "If it ain't broke, don't fix it."

Now that they've had more than a couple shots, Bethesda's game design is starting to really show the rough around some of its edges, and whatever innocence they had in "being the only ones that do what they do" is starting to wear off on critics, or at least the sentiment is being kept in mind for many of them so far.

I really want Bethesda to see a <90 MetaCritic and go "Okay, we need to look at things we're need to improve on." And if this is the case, this makes me happy, as I'm far more invested than The Elder Scrolls series than I am the Fallout series (still over 400 hours between FO3 and NV but only 20 or so on Fallout 2.)

I feel like, in spite of both extremes here on NeoGaf in terms of praise and "hatred" for this game and Bethesda, that the way Fallout 4 stands as of right now is a good middle ground.

Hopefully, by the time TES 6 comes around, we can all get a great game that players deserve and the developers equally so when their effort pays off.
 
The world building makes a little more sense in Fallout 4, but it still very much feels like a bunch of loosely connected locations with different "themes." This is not helped by what feels like a smaller world. The Commonwealth is not a wasteland. It's packed full of stuff.

If you want the lore to follow FO1-2, you will be sad. No spoilers, but there is a massive lore breaking feature that is included as part of the core experience. It follows the lore of FO3 a bit more in that regard.

No karma is excellent. It's about time the series that is ostensibly about survival ditched it.

The voice acting is very good throughout, but the compressed dialogue choices lead to situations and experiences that RPG fans feared. You will pick a response and expect your player to say one thing and get another. Many of the choices you'll be able to pick are just "tones" like "Sarcastic." That is your dialogue choice. It has a massive effect (heh) on the roleplaying aspect. Some people don't care about that. I do.

The characters are the paper dolls from Fallout 3 and not the slightly more nuanced characters from New Vegas. So far, every character that can be a companion asks to join you literally 5 minutes after meeting them (with one notable exception). It's very off putting. Luckily, there is a lone wanderer perk that let's you avoid the companions altogether, if that's your thing.

Overall, as one of the RPG Old Guard, this is a disappointing step back from New Vegas in every way. On the other hand, I can have fun with it for what it is, which is a silly, nuclear sandbox to go play it. It's going to piss off the hardcore RPG fans immensely.

Aww man. Thanks for this, by the way. Debating on whether I should get my Steam pre-order refunded or just play the game and attempt to appreciate it for what it is but I'm not very good at doing that.
 
I'm guessing the answer is no, but is there any word on how loud the PS4 runs while playing this?


Wish you could do full installs, my PS4 has been struggling recently

It's difficult to say as it's always going to vary per PS4. Like, other than Rocket Leagues title screen, a lot of the things people say make their PS4 loud just don't with me.
 
Yeah, everything I've seen and read has cemented in me that Fallout 4 continues Bethesda's trend of not delivering role-playing games where it's actually fun to...YOU KNOW ROLE PLAY
What? If anything Bethesda games are some of the better games out there for outright role playing. You make a blank character in a fictional setting and explore a world at your own pace. Many players ignore the main quest fairly early on and just immerse themselves in their characters. Fallout 4 admittedly voiced the main character and gave him an actual background, but once you're past that initial backstory section you're likely free to make your character do whatever you want
 
I feel like GAF wants this game to be bad for some reason.

Every big AAA game gets this. A good way to tell if GAF really likes a game is to wait a month when the people who just need attention are gone and see if there are still people playing it. Some people can't deal with imperfections and want outrage.
 
Every big AAA game gets this. A good way to tell if GAF really likes a game is to wait a month when the people who just need attention are gone and see if there are still people playing it. Some people can't deal with imperfections and want outrage.

Have to wait out the infatuation period before relevant criticism can take place.

Skyrim is a good example, just after release jumped into the top 5 on the greatest RPGs of all time list on GAF. Now, it's out of the top 30.

Games that can stand up on their mechanics can weather the test of time and still be held in high regard.
 
Not a review from The Verge:
Nine hours into Fallout 4 I found myself stuck inside an elevator.

By this point, I had built a bond with my character along with a respectable inventory of items, most notably an automatic pistol with a bottomless clip. I eat the crust first in open-world games, grinding my stats and finding overpowered weapons before taking on the main missions. The crust of Fallout 4 is enjoyable, but I was ready for something more challenging, so I hiked east toward a side quest, something involving a man imprisoned atop a tower full of super mutants.

Whatever I do, I feel as though the game could break at any moment, making any additional investment meaningless. At best, I'm treating my play time like an unpaid quality testing assignment. At worse, my investment proves to be awash, and late in the game this bug prevents me from reaching the conclusion.

So that's where I'm at. Nine hours in, I'm stuck in an elevator wondering if it's even worth getting out.

Good old Bethesda.
 
Just came back home and I'm seeing these awesome reviews but also some serious salt on GAF. What is it with people getting so seriously angry because a Bethesda game gets good reviews? I know that there was a lot of criticism before the release now but gosh some get so invested it's unbelievable.

I'm happy to start playing now with these reviews. See you in two weeks GAF!
 
http://www.rpgfan.com/reviews/Fallout_4/index.html
RPGFan's is up (85%)
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Each copy of the game is the same. It's not like he obtained some magical copy of the game that has higher fps than the others. The fps drops are there, and it's apparent from any damn video you watch.

Many times companies will tell reviews 'yeah, ignore that, it'll be fixed by launch', or they just make sure things are working pre release, eg MCC.
 
I guess it speaks volumes about the rest of the game if those flaws can be overlooked to produce something worthy of a 9/10.

Flawed Diamonds are still Diamonds.

But we're not talking about flawed like Ulysses, but 'srsly' flawed. Isn't that a deal breaker?

I'm not saying it is a broken game, but l think VG reviews have been 'srsly' flawed for a long time now.
 
What? If anything Bethesda games are some of the better games out there for outright role playing. You make a blank character in a fictional setting and explore a world at your own pace. Many players ignore the main quest fairly early on and just immerse themselves in their characters. Fallout 4 admittedly voiced the main character and gave him an actual background, but once you're past that initial backstory section you're likely free to make your character do whatever you want

I can't immerse myself when

1. I know my characters backstory as is presented to me for the first few hours of the game, and the whole main question and main motivation is still that main quest.

2. The character has a voice and a personality I can't imagine in my mind, and not only that, but my responses to dialogue aren't actually what I was hoping my character would say and I have to just guess.

NV was much better about immersing any character you want in a role, and allowing you to have no misconceptions about what you would say in dialogue.
 
Aww man. Thanks for this, by the way. Debating on whether I should get my Steam pre-order refunded or just play the game and attempt to appreciate it for what it is but I'm not very good at doing that.

I want to stress that those points are for hardcore RPG fans. I'm one of them. I'm also okay with stuff like Fallout 3, but I put that into a separate category than I would for something like Dragonfall or Pillars of Eternity. Fallout 4 is not what a hardcore RPG fan is looking for, or for somebody who wants more New Vegas. It's very much a direct sequel to Fallout 3. I'm still having fun with it. As long as you don't expect great companions, extensively dialogue checks, weapon fixing, etc. you'll be fine.

tl:dr: If you like Fallout 3, you'll like this. If you hated Fallout 3 or loved New Vegas more, understand what you're getting into.

I'm not here to shit on the game. Again, I'd generally recommend it. But not to people whose enjoyment is predicated on well-done RPG mechanics.
 
Iam kinda new here, is that a normal neogaf thread? Some posts are really shocking me, especially the "race" one.

I feel like GAF wants this game to be bad for some reason.

A lot of it is Bethesda hate. I'd guess that some of it is the PC elite here can't stand the idea of a game not being the pure 1080 60fps. Maybe fallout is becoming too mainstream. I have no idea, but sadly I'm thinking this is more normal than I initially thought from GAF.
 
I dont know if this is old news, but I just saw the "Shield animation" on the Clipboard guy in the opening scene. Kinda disappointing that the animations look and feel a generation or two behind.

Judging by the overall tone, I think Witcher has had much more positive acclaim during its release, considering that it really did improve remarkably on the predecessor.

I'm curious to see which of the two will be winning RPG of the year from media/fans.
 
We knew this game would be good. Only cynics want to believe or convince so some that this won't be a legit game. Beth bugs and all, it looks on par, if not better than F3 to me.
 
People know that most review scores are bullshit right? I'm not saying this game deserves a lower score, but people have to know by now that the actual score number means jack shit.
 
Just an FYI, Chris Avellone was on designer notes last month, good listen. He says the hidden secret of these kinds of games is that quality of writing really dosent matter to 99%.
 
So what are the bets on how long the honeymoon period is going to last and when we'll see people actually looking at the game from a critical standpoint?

I know it took Bioshock Infinite awhile, but MGSV was pretty quick to the "You know this game isn't really all that amazing" sentiment from people (although really that's thanks to Konami partly)

A lot of it is Bethesda hate. I'd guess that some of it is the PC elite here can't stand the idea of a game not being the pure 1080 60fps. Maybe fallout is becoming too mainstream. I have no idea, but sadly I'm thinking this is more normal than I initially thought from GAF.

Considering people are complaining about the game dipping from 30fps, and not 60, but yeah, sure, let's go with that. It's not like we need more excuses for both sides of the argument.
 
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