Fallout 4 - Reviews thread

Admiral Woofington said:
*shrugs*

I can see the argument on both sides. My point is that unlike taking game mechanics or improvements to the experience from another studio, writing capability isn't something they can improve and reach the highs of Obsidian unless they start hiring people with the capabilities. They had all the time in the world to come up with the writing in this and apparently they failed, so at this point I don't think 'take more time' is even an excuse. I can't think of a Bethesda game where the main story or consequences ever felt as fleshed out as something Obsidian did.
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They were willing to waste tons of money on years of voice acting over 111k lines. They should have spent a little of that money on good writers, or maybe took some lessons from Obsidian.
 
Ellite25 said:
Someone quickly tell me why so many people are upset?? This thread is too long to figure it out and reviews are good.
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The story and everything involved around are terrible and Bethesda dumbed down the character building and combat mechanics severely.

My question is:

Does F4 address the eternal question:

What do they eat ?

If not...that would be disappointing.
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Clam Chowda
 
Octavianus said:
That's fine.

Have fun role-playing like your favourite developer who create games filled with terrible dialogue, bugs, stories, nonsensical game worlds, high school level model and texture work, etc actuallymakes enjoyable games. I'll be playing actual good games instead.
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What is it about review threads that makes people act like 12 year olds?
 
Ellite25 said:
Someone quickly tell me why so many people are upset?? This thread is too long to figure it out and reviews are good.
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  • There appears to be a disconnect between review scores and what is said in the reviews.
  • The game looks like an HD remaster of Fallout 3 at best.
  • Tons of technical issues.
  • Appears to be an expansion pack to Fallout 3 in content.
 
Sou Da said:
The story and everything involved around are terrible and Bethesda dumbed down the character building and combat mechanics severely.
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And how do we know these things if it's not even out and the game is getting good reviews? I'm guess that's not coming from reviewers since it's getting good scores.
 
Well people weren't lying. The review thread WOULD be something special alright. People seem so angry that this game scored very well. The complaints about bugs, frame drops are valid but are said with a tone of making the game a bad game instead of hoping they get fixed. It seems like people can't accept that others will enjoy the game and it pisses them off for some reason. Oh well, I know I'll be happy come a few hours.
 
I imagine the same people in this thread stunned that a game with technical flaws can still be an awesome game to some people are the same people in fps threads going "I literally started vomiting BLOOD and BRAIN FLUID the moment I saw it running at 59 fps."
 
Mushroomer25 said:
Most people do not care are about technical issues.

Sure, the slice that exists in the Neogaf.com bubble is very sensitive to them. But for the vast majority of players, it's just not something they consider. They're more concerned with the quality and quantity of content, which the game seems to be delivering in droves.

You're not wrong to be turned off by the game for tech issues. Others aren't wrong for not considering them a deal breaker.
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Yeah, I am one of those people who actually don't mind performance hiccups (able to enjoy games even when it drops fps down to 10) untill it hurts the gameplay and makes me lose whatever battle I am in (in regards to LoL for instance)

I guess some people are more sensitive to these kind of things than others.
 
Cloyster said:
They were willing to waste tons of money on years of voice acting over 111k lines. They should have spent a little of that money on good writers.
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I'll agree with you there, I'm more story and character driven than sandbox gaming/freedom driven. But regardless Bethesda has different priorities if they haven't done it by now. So I'll find enjoyment elsewhere. Criticizing the writing is fine, I was wrong in that regard. I just find it fruitless to do so and directly compare it to someone else who does it better. I don't think anyone ever expected them to do better than Obsidian.

animlboogy said:
The last Fallout was New Vegas! The have your cake and eat it too of open world RPGs. Don't handwave off all criticism as just people demanding games be like they were in 2000.
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Did I say I'm handwaving off all criticism?
 
Ellite25 said:
And how do we know these things if it's not even out and the game is getting good reviews? I'm guess that's not coming from reviewers since it's getting good scores.
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I am curious too .. seems that other than reviewers and a small handful of people, many gamers are actually still waiting to play it. And we already blasting it for the negativity and "lies" in the reviews.
 
Honestly with the way the thread was going, I thought we might actually make it through without anyone actually getting banned.

Aside from maybe the "I wanted this game to fail to punish them" poster.
 
Papacheeks said:
Here's food for thought on the matter That I think you are omitting. That game has gone through so many changes up till it's release in a 4-5 year development cycle.

It changed a lot, was re-developed mid cycle because current version of their engine could not run properly on PS3,360. Then that it got delayed a second time for Ken levine to try and put multiuplayer in. Then that got scrapped and they were still having performance issues. Then they hire outside the company Rod to get the game in shape to ship?

Huge red flag. Also add in people that had been with the company 12+ years left, with some going over to naughty dog. The changes and delay's are because of Ken, and him biting off more than he could chew. People left that place because I think they knew the outcome of how long production was.

The fact it took them almost over a year after the games release to complete the story with DLC. SHows how that game was a great idea in Ken's mind, but he himself was the biggest contributing factor to it being a un-inspired shooter, that IMHO was praised by people like Adam Sessler to try and save the studio.
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Yes? I mean I agree with most of what you said here. I mentioned Rod as a way of saying that the game was so fucked that they had to get a guy famous for getting games done no matter what.

I don't really agree with the last part, since I think people often forget that the original Bioshock was also a woeful shooter and Infinite actually improved that aspect of the game. The rebooting was unfortunately most felt on the story and that's why you have so many conflicting story threads in the game, like the rebellion that just ends abruptly.

As far as I know Jeff from Giant Bomb, also had it as his game of the year, and he is one of the last people you would expect to like it just to save the studio, so I think your assumption on Sessler is pretty baseless. There are probably people that can focus much more on the atmosphere and style of Infinite than gameplay, and I understand why to them it would be an amazing game, but I also understand that a lot of people don't like it because of the gameplay.

I just wanted to point out that the "shittines" of the game was not the reason why Irrational was closed.

In fact the closure of both Irrational and Kojima studios is maybe one of the reasons why Betheseda changes so little in their games.

I can imagine changing huge systems in a game like fallout and having them not work out would be incredibly costly.
 
zoukka said:
Devs aren't lazy. Publishers are greedy and understand little of game development. So just replace every "lazy dev" with "greedy pub" and be done with it.
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Yeah, I notice it is less lazy and more no budget.
I mean there is a reason why High Voltage Studios are priced so cheap.
You can make good games with no budget, but it takes lot of time for that.
 
Actually just wanted to note that Voice Acting is one of the two things that they have really improved upon, the second one being artstyle.
 
Admiral Woofington said:
I'll agree with you there, I'm more story and character driven than sandbox gaming/freedom driven. But regardless Bethesda has different priorities if they haven't done it by now. So I'll find enjoyment elsewhere. Criticizing the writing is fine, I was wrong in that regard. I just find it fruitless to do so and directly compare it to someone else who does it better. I don't think anyone ever expected them to do better than Obsidian.



Did I say I'm handwaving off all criticism?
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I disagree. When Bethesda decided "We are going to let Obsidian represent the Fallout series in our stead" there were effectively making a statement.

Coming back and not meeting the same level of quality, yes it shows that Bethesda prioritizes different things, as they always have. But no one should be surprised when people say "I liked Fallout better when Obsidian was doing it"
 
DeepEnigma said:
I guess certain games get free passes to hover in the 9's with arguably dated graphics and performance/bug issues, while others get docked for those very same issues. That gaming cultural hype effect.
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Or maybe some people play games to game fun and rate more heavily based on that?
 
Why can't we get revolutionary sequels anymore?

The last one I can think of is Tomb Raider (that was successful).

I miss the transition that was Super Mario 64, The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, Grand Theft Auto 3 and Fallout 3
 
If only Bethesda and Obsidian would co-develop the game. Todd Howard for over world layout and turning goggles into flamethrowers and Josh Sawyer for everything else.
 
Did people really expect this game to not have bugs. Witcher 3 has had like, what, 15 patches so far, and Fallout is a far more complex beast.

As for a lack of innovation, be careful of what you wish for. There are so many franchises that have innovated themselves into vastly inferior sequels, I've lost count.
 
Durante said:
The RPGamer review is unfair:
Comparing "storytelling and intricacy of choice" in a Bethesda game to an Obsidian game is clearly a sign of bias.
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I dunno. Todd Howard was making noises that they were going to improve the writing in FO4.

Perhaps I was being optimistic when I thought he was aspiring to NV, instead of more FO3.
 
Obliterator said:
This may be the most negative thread for a game with a 90 Metacritic I've ever seen. Well this or MGSV threads probably
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Can't wait til Witcher 3 or this win some GOTYs and people have meltdowns because Witcher 3 was "totally unplayable" due to the framerate, and bugs should totally disqualify Fallout 4.

It's ridiculous. Fallout 3 was loaded with bugs. It's also considered one of the landmark games of history. GASP it's almost like bugs, while annoying, don't keep us from enjoying games.
 
RDreamer said:
I'm not saying those that like the games are incorrect, necessarily. There are people that will like any game. As a fan of JRPGs I'm used to games that I really like getting bad or middling scores, and the thing is I can admit that those things are probably problems, but the games still click with me. I just don't think, given the structure of Bethesda games, improving the writing and particularly the main story would really hinder the game clicking for people like you. It's not like they don't have a main story and I'm telling them to add it. It's there. They're already spending resources on it. You're already ignoring it or not. I'm saying improve that. Make characters memorable. That should help you click with it even more.

I think the annoying thing for some of us is the "It's a Bethesda game, you know what you're getting" as a defense for high scores when it really should mean the game gets lower scores. The fans know what they're getting. They'll still buy it and play it and love it. The critics should critique what's wrong with it, though. As I mentioned, I was a long time fan of JRPGs. Those consistently got pretty middling scores, but I wasn't saying they should get better ones just because you know what you're getting when you pick up a JRPG! I was saying I'm fine with the lower scores and people giving their critiques on how to improve them. Same should go to Bethesda.

The consensus on the game so far seems to be literally "This game has some serious flaws... 9/10" and that's just really strange for me.



Trust that it's just literally Fallout 3 again. It's every Bethesda game we've got before, slightly more or slightly less. The consensus is that not much has changed.
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I like you. You actually explain and go into detail the problems you have with their games. I think it would be naive to admit there aren't some influencing factors that come in to play with reviews. Still, I'd like to think that most reviewers ultimately rate their score on how much fun they had overall. They may recognize problems and shortcomings, but did they enjoy the hell out of the game despite them? If so then I see no reason a game can't get a 90 or even a 95 if the reviewer thinks the highest purpose of a game is to actually have fun out them.
 
Is this the moment where we start discussing where these sandbox RPGs with loads of quests and content need to start getting together and coming up with a better way/timeframe to search for major bugs and issues?

I love Witcher 3 but the switch to open world gave us a really buggy game where quests were at points outright broken and progression was stopped for many. Bethesda always has bugs. They seem to have stopped game breaking bugs like what we experienced back in Oblivion, but still. It's clear that testers aren't enough.
 
Ghostmaster said:
Yes? I mean I agree with most of what you said here. I mentioned Rod as a way of saying that the game was so fucked that they had to get a guy famous for getting games done no matter what.

I don't really agree with the last part, since I think people often forget that the original Bioshock was also a woeful shooter and Infinite actually improved that aspect of the game. The rebooting was unfortunately most felt on the story and that's why you have so many conflicting story threads in the game, like the rebellion that just ends abruptly.

As far as I know Jeff from Giant Bomb, also had it as his game of the year, and he is one of the last people you would expect to like it just to save the studio, so I think your assumption on Sessler is pretty baseless. There are probably people that can focus much more on the atmosphere and style of Infinite than gameplay, and I understand why to them it would be an amazing game, but I also understand that a lot of people don't like it because of the gameplay.

I just wanted to point out that the "shittines" of the game was not the reason why Irrational was closed.

In fact the closure of both Irrational and Kojima studios is maybe one of the reasons why Betheseda changes so little in their games.

I can imagine changing huge systems in a game like fallout and having them not work out would be incredibly costly.
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Thing is Jeff loves shooters, and knows Ken just like Sessler, I know it's baseless. But I have a huge network of friends who love system shock, and bioshock games, but seriously were dumb-founded on what we got when BI rolled out. It played like a by teh numbers shooter.

Something I think that might have resonated with jeff. But to me and other's expecting some kind of swan song masterpeice, it left us scratching our heads.
 
I think an argument can be made that Bethesda was lazy, not in effort, but in ambition. They aimed so incredibly low for this heavily-anticipated sequel. Can anyone honestly disagree with that?
 
Question:

2 options to play this game, what would you choose? Ultimately I want to play Fallout 4 from the comfort of my couch.

1. Play Fallout 4 on PS4

2. Play Fallout 4 on PC streaming to TV with Steam Link (wired 100mb down).
PC - i5 4670k
16gb ram
gtx 970 G1

What would you choose?

On topic, very happy to hear the reviews went well! Please relax people and enjoy the game! :)
 
So far, the most honest review I have seen thus far.
http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2015/...your-next-gen-expectations-at-the-vault-door/

With an honest verdict

The good
•Lots of content to grind through, if you're looking for a single game to kill a lot of time.
•Major game locations offer payoffs in beautiful designs, memorable missions.
•Plot includes some incredibly captivating highlights, buffered by massive, terminal-powered series of side story content.
•Your new dog companion and a new power-armor system are welcome tweaks to the series' tried-and-true VATS-powered combat.

The bad
•Missions and plot suffer from miserable pacing, lack of compelling NPCs, redundant battle locations.
•Want to be a bad guy? Fallout 4 will let you, but it doesn't offer as many satisfying paths to the dark side as prior entries.
•SPECIAL system of traits offers lots of options but is cramped by most missions clearly favoring strength over other attributes.
•New crafting and settlement options offer lots of tedium with little plot or power payoff.

The ugly
•This game. As in, this game looks U-G-L-Y, and it ain't got no alibi.

Verdict: Don't cancel your pre-order, but don't rush to buy Fallout 4 if you didn't place an order already either.
 
Admiral Woofington said:
They seem to have stopped game breaking bugs like what we experienced back in Oblivion, but still. It's clear that testers aren't enough.
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I wouldn't make that kind of statement yet, considering the game isn't out in the hands of the public. Even if it's only a 1 in 1000 occurance for players to hit something catastrophically broken, that would still be a couple thousand players (assuming the game sells millions) and could conceivably slip by reviewers.
 
LowKeyedUp said:
"..technical issues are frequent and severe"

-Gametrailers, 9/10

How? The discrepancy between metacritic and impressions here and elsewhere is getting huge. Who to trust??
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This is why review scores are bullshit. If I were reviewing a game which still had all the serious technical flaws as its 7-year predecessor (and character models and animations which frankly would have been unimpressive on last-gen consoles) I couldn't give it a near maximum score because it's misleading to people who don't realise they're buying a buggy mess.
 
TurboCooler said:
So far, the most honest review I have seen thus far.
http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2015/...your-next-gen-expectations-at-the-vault-door/

With an honest verdict

The good
•Lots of content to grind through, if you're looking for a single game to kill a lot of time.
•Major game locations offer payoffs in beautiful designs, memorable missions.
•Plot includes some incredibly captivating highlights, buffered by massive, terminal-powered series of side story content.
•Your new dog companion and a new power-armor system are welcome tweaks to the series' tried-and-true VATS-powered combat.

The bad
•Missions and plot suffer from miserable pacing, lack of compelling NPCs, redundant battle locations.
•Want to be a bad guy? Fallout 4 will let you, but it doesn't offer as many satisfying paths to the dark side as prior entries.
•SPECIAL system of traits offers lots of options but is cramped by most missions clearly favoring strength over other attributes.
•New crafting and settlement options offer lots of tedium with little plot or power payoff.

The ugly
•This game. As in, this game looks U-G-L-Y, and it ain't got no alibi.

Verdict: Don't cancel your pre-order, but don't rush to buy Fallout 4 if you didn't place an order already either.
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What makes this review any more honest than any other review?
 
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