Fallout 4 critic vs audience reviews for pc port.

[Hawki]

None of this is surprising. It's why I prefer critic over user reviews at the end of the day.

Let's say that the grieviances the reviewers have against Fallout 4 are legitimate, and not stemming from irrational bias/dislike. No doubt a few are. But are you really saying that this game deserves 0/10? Really?

It's the same reaction that Diablo III had when it came out, and the same reason why Black Ops 3 is rated so low, by virtue of being a CoD game. Now, I'm not that interested in either F4 or the CoD series, but being an intelligent individual (I hope), I can see the difference between reviewing and review bombing. And I'll hazard a guess that F4 is suffering the latter.

 

[FirstNameLastName]

I have no idea what people are criticizing, the "problems" people have with the game have mostly existed in Fallout since...forever...I think what we have here is a bunch of people that primarily play CoD or whatever shooter is popular trotting over to Fallout 4 because they heard the fallout series is good, and then complaining when it's not what they like...I'm obviously generalizing massively, but again the "criticism" I've seen is so all over the place that I just have no idea what people are even talking about half the time...

Considering many of the negative reviews complain that it's becoming too "CoD-ified", I think your assumptions are way off mark. Many of the negative reviews seem to be from fans of the older Fallout games, unhappy with the stripping of RPG mechanics, and many others are down rating it for various technical issues it has.

 

[EternallyBored]

It's Fallout 3 again, but prettier and with a few differences that haven't really impacted the core of it.

The negativity is...well...to be expected? Welcome to AAA.

But I will agree with some of the bitching about the PC port.

Arrow keys to select conversation options? Tab to go backwards in menus? Iffy response to clicks on UI items that makes it readily apparent that it's designed for a controller?

Annoying me, Bethesda.

Performance wise?

I'm running an i5-2500k at about 4GHZ with a GTX 970 on Ultra everything.
No problems whatsoever.
Smooth framerate.
All good.

Some bugs. Mostly camera related. It's Bethesda though so I'm not really bothered.

Just to let you know, you can hold shift and use WASD to select conversation options, same for the workshop menu. Still makes no sense to default to it, but they did it so that you can use WASD to just walk away from conversations whenever you want. I don't know why they wouldn't just make something like tab or shift immediately end the conversation then let you walk away. I've heard you can use the number keys for conversations as well but haven't tested that one myself


OT: This is common for AAA games, some small portion of gamers have a bug up their ass about something and have decided to express their outrage in the most childish way possible, by giving a game a ridiculously low score and making even the shadiest of big reviewers look like bastions of critical integrity by comparison. Some of the negative reviews are well written and eloquently express the problems of the game, and even manage to bring up points I never really considered before; the other 99.99% of reviews are throwing out 1's and 2's with no actual thought or reason beyond they didn't like it, or even worse, because they don't think the game deserves its hype or praise so post just to be contradictory.

Ah well, I have thoroughly enjoyed both Fallout 4 on PC and the New Tomb Raider on Xbox 1, neither are perfect games, and big review sites seem to suffer from score inflation where anything under a 7 might as well not exist, but Fallout 4 definitely is scratching my RPG itch, between this, Witcher 3, Bloodborne, Arkham Knight, and Pillars of Eternity, this has been a damn good year for me. I haven't had this many games I've wanted to play so badly since the early 2000's.

 

[ryan_cs]

The original Pip Boy was a tablet like device. Because Beth came up with the fucking idiotic ergonomically armband idea, they had to retroactively change the armband to be the original incarnation of the Pip Boy in the intro.

Yes and no. According to the fallout wiki:
The original Pip-Boy 2000 was a hand-held device[2], though some very cumbersome models were made to be worn on the arm. These models were unofficially called Pip-Boy 2000 Plus, and one of them was owned by the Vault Dweller and later the Chosen One[3].

 

[IceForce]

My main surprise is Bethesda regressed from earlier games to game logic/speed seemingly being tied to framerate,

It looks very much like this is a problem with the Gamebryo/Creation engine, rather than with FO4 specifically.

Because, believe it or not, Skyrim had exactly the same issue: http://forums.bethsoft.com/topic/1280991-do-not-disable-vsync/
Check the date on that thread; November 2011.

 

[fenrizz]

Fallout 4 is, so far, the best thing since sliced bread.

This is the 3rd Fallout game from Bethesda, and some people are still complainingn that they changed teh view from isometric to first person.
Metracritic is garbage anyway,I trust professional reviews more.

Many of the negative reviews seem to be from fans of the older Fallout games, unhappy with the stripping of RPG mechanics, and many others are down rating it for various technical issues it has.

It's been 3 games now, so complaining that it's not still an isometric 90's style RPG is getting a little old.

Played Fallout 4, still wasn't isometric.
1/10

 

[MrCalavera_v1legacy]

The 0/10 scores are obviou trolling/frustration venting. I mean, unless your game litteraly doesn't work... But they're not that surprising. With hype treatment every big release seems to be getting these days, backlash is almost guaranteed. CoD for example is getting it every year, and Fallout isn't an exception.

That being said, i doubt low scores can be only atributed to angry people at NMA. I think they're too small to affect user reviews like that.

 

[distortedreality]

I paid for a physical copy of the game because I have horrible Internet services in my area. A physical copy that only installed about 5gb of content, forcing me to download 19gb of content. For a physical copy. This is why I hate the game.

Has absolutely nothing to do with the game, hate Valve if you must.

 

[008Zulu_v1legacy]

Has absolutely nothing to do with the game, hate Valve if you must.

The topic originally started out about how some people do and don't like the game. How is me stating what I don't like about it, not relevant?

 

[Zulnam]

Well, yeah, but... 78% on Steam Store. That's not so bad, right?

Still waiting for a price cut though.

 

[Xyebane]

Like they did with Assassin's Creed Unity?

Exactly. I am glad to see we agree.

 

[distortedreality]

Has absolutely nothing to do with the game, hate Valve if you must.

The topic originally started out about how some people do and don't like the game. How is me stating what I don't like about it, not relevant?

Your reason for not liking the game is about as relevant as why a baby vomits.

Couldn't care less if you don't like the game. But you didn't actually give a reason for not liking the game that actually had anything to do with the game.

Would be like me saying "I don't like the sun because cinnamon".

 

[DoPo]

Has absolutely nothing to do with the game, hate Valve if you must.

The topic originally started out about how some people do and don't like the game. How is me stating what I don't like about it, not relevant?

Your reason for not liking the game is about as relevant as why a baby vomits.

Couldn't care less if you don't like the game. But you didn't actually give a reason for not liking the game that actually had anything to do with the game.

Would be like me saying "I don't like the sun because cinnamon".

Wait, so how is Valve relevant in that case? Did Gabe go to the Bethesda and force them at gunpoint to have a big chunk of their game still need to be downloaded?

 

[pookie101]

i miss the skill checks with things, it added a dimension thats missing in FO4, but that said im enjoying the new perk system as well, love the settlement construction even if it is a fiddly ***** of a thing and the so far the only bugs ive had is a single CTD and a quarry had texture issues that was fixed with a reload.

all up id give it a solid 7 or 8 out of 10

*edit* thats now dropped to a solid 4 or 5 after spending the last 5 hours getting the damn thing to not crash and to run including 2 reinstalls, saying its annoying after 30+ hours is an understatement

 

[MysticSlayer]

A 4.8 on a site where it is well-known that users will do everything from writing protest reviews, troll reviews, not-played-the-game reviews, and exaggerated-negativity reviews seems OK.

Still playing FO4 so can't contribute itt yet, but here's some old stuff.

http://www.shacknews.com/article/50134/report-gamespots-gerstmann-fired-due
http://imgur.com/SKPqAll
http://i.imgur.com/44GtP.jpg

A basic concern with professional reviews is that they get blacklisted out of early game access if they are known for critical reviews, and getting your review on the market early is considered key for some companies. Anyway that's the tinfoil theory on pro reviews that everybody here probably already knows, just posting it just in case.

I'm aware of some of the concerns and have my own thoughts about them. However, I don't really see the point in trusting random users on a site that people have, in the past, used to protest something they didn't like, propagate their fanboy wars, "even out" the positive or negative skew of reviews, and complain about ridiculous stuff such as whether or not the game got to them on time.

I can at least, over time, begin to understand how much I agree with critics both at major publications and that are self-employed. I can't do that with Metacritic user reviews.

 

[happyninja42]

I've yet to complete it. What i'm excited about is the difference between critics and consumers, which is rare on AAA games.

And you're apparently also excited to see Bethesda burn, based on what you said in your OP.

I'm enjoying the game just fine, as I have very few issues with Bethesda games. I know people talk left and right about the bugginess of the various FO titles, or Skyrim, but personally, I've never experienced the game breaking, or simply annoying bugs that people talk about.

The most serious bug I've experienced so far, is with FO 4, and it's the "You can't fast travel from here" bug. But honestly, in a way it's made the game a bit more fun. I can't magically teleport around the world, so the supply lines between my settlements is actually a useful feature. I also have to actually worry about the weather (Radiation Storms!! God I love those things!!). When the radiation storms hit, and I'm out in the middle of nowhere, it's a genuine threat to me if I can't find shelter. It's quite fun actually xD

So yeah, I don't really understand the hate for the game either, but then there are a lot of people who just don't like the Fallout series as made by Bethesda/Obsidian. *shrugs* To each his own I guess.

 

[Fappy]

I'm 28ish hours in and my only two criticisms so far are: the inventory system is a mess and "insert typical unstable Bethesda performance/bugs here". I heard the game utterly breaks with G-Sync enabled, which is a shame. The game runs at 60fps for me 90% of the time with V-Sync enabled, though for some reason I have to play in windowed borderless mode. Not sure why, but I have to do that for a couple other games too.

 

[Nimcha]

I'm not sure when everyone decided that rabid fans were the most unbiased reviewers for a game anyway. A fan is, by definition, biased. They have an idea of what is "acceptable" in a squeal and anything that doesn't fit that narrow definition is considered sacrilegious. Seems to me like the people who review games as a job will be more likely to give you a balanced review.

Fallout 4 has a lot of issues, but this is right on the money. User reviews are, have always been, and will continue to be extraordinarily useless. You have to shift through a lot of dross to mine one or two nugget of gold, and since it's very rare that users post consistently and can be recognized by name, it's pretty hard to track one guy and find out if his tastes happen to align with yours.

Anyone holding up the user review as the "honest" face of games criticism is out of their fucking mind.

Heck, a majority of user reviews are complete garbage. That's true for any user review, not just games/metacritic. An XKCD comic nicely encapsulates and summarises the issue in this strip


OK, sure, it doesn't give the complete picture of how shit the reviews can be, but, hey, it accomplishes enough in that one image. Go to Amazon or something and a bunch of the reviews are going to be as useless as those five star reviews in the comic:

Bought it, doesn't work, but it arrived really fast and it was the right colour 5/5

Got it for my son. Don't know if he still uses it. 5/5

Haven't tried it yet, but the box looks nice 5/5

These are just examples. I can't be bothered to find real reviews but such ones existed. The one with the son was especially baffling to me - I did try to find it but I can't remember the product it was on.

But these aren't the only useless ones - there are layers and layers of garbage reviews - you can have a look at the one star reviews and find a bunch of them, as well

Works perfect, it's exactly as described, but arrived a day late 1/5

Received the item, dropped it, then the seller refused to give me a refund 1/5

Or even

Got the item, it was damaged, the seller immediately sent me a replacement, didn't charge me and even let me keep the previous one. Works perfect now. 1/5

and that's before getting into the really fucking stupid one

Didn't like the colour 1/5

Didn't know that it was made of <fucking obvious material, which you can SEE on the screenshots AND it's mentioned in the description> 1/5

But wait, those aren't even the only ones! The two stupid extremes manage to actually inspire opposing stupid extremes to exist. Reviews that literally go something like "I gave it 5 (or 1) stars just because there are too many 1 (or 5) star reviews".

And, of course, there is the whole range between 1 and 5 where all sorts of crap exists - including a continuation of the above trend only with slightly different numbers, for example, it may go "doesn't work the least but I like the colour". And that review can have any number of stars, you can't even guess whether it would be 2, 3, or 4 (as well as 1 or 5, of course, but I've covered those).

That's just Amazon and it doesn't even cover the full range of inaccurate reviews. It's worth noting the "joke reviews" being a thing - there seems to be an entire trend of doing those in a particular style for a given range of products, as an example, there is a fairly famous review titled "DO NOT PUT ON KNOB AND BOLLOCKS" that is for a hair removal cream for men. It's not the only one, though - most hair removal creams for men seem to have a bunch of reviews that go to great poetic lengths to describe how painful and bad it is to apply them to...well, the knob and bollocks. It's some sort of bizarre trend that nevertheless floods the user reviews with just noise that is, at the end of the day, useless at being a user review. Even if some are quite amusing.

Anyway, there are even more examples of user reviews being crap. Quite frankly, the whole system with ratings out of five (or ten, or a hundred. Or a hundred but masked as a ten. Or few other popular variations and permutations of those.) is pretty much fundamentally broken. Probably "the best" (and I'm putting this in quotes for a reason) rating system is what Steam has with limiting the choices to two - good or bad. An alternative is to also allow neutral, but still - it's not like that is bound to only give useful reviews either - there quite a few infamously crap ones that go along the lines of "EARLY ACCESS: haven't played it yet, but I like the concept. (thumbs up)" among other bullshit ones. At least overall, there seem to be a bigger percentage of them that are useful, as opposed to the incompetent shlock that the 5+ available rating systems inspire.

User reviews are broken, have been broken, and would continue to be broken. Some of them would be useful but the amount of pure flood of worthless, ineffectual, inept, inadequate, hopeless, weak and bad ones pretty much dooms the taking any sort of aggregation to be mostly irrelevant.

Excellent post, I think you pretty much said it all! And made me laugh a few times too

 

[nomotog_v1legacy]

I must be like the only one in the world, but I never found Bethesda games that buggy. (Except fallout NV, but that wasn't made by them so ya.) I think I found one bug where a dead ghoul didn't rag-doll and every now and then I kind of get stuck in a place and have to jump my way out.

The controls is murder on PC though. That melee/grenade button is bad, and all the menus are slow to work by mouse and a little twitchy.

 

[Something Amyss]

I've yet to complete it. What i'm excited about is the difference between critics and consumers, which is rare on AAA games.

Except when a good chunk of people are simply posting crap like "OVERHYPED!!!!!" it's not so much a difference of opinion as it is the usual histrionics one should expect.

I mean, seriously, why is this a good thing?

Some of us were shouting loudly and proudly not to listen to hype. "Remember New Vegas and your disappointment!" we said.
We were called pessimistic and that we just don't like video games.
Well at least we knew this train crash was coming, eh?

And yet, half my FL has gone MIA since the game dropped.