Fallout 4 Review - Post-Apocalyptic Warlord Simulator 2287

[Conrad Zimmerman]

Fallout 4 Review - Post-Apocalyptic Warlord Simulator 2287

Fallout 4 has some concessions to make a more accessible game, but the wasteland is as alluring as ever.

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[Barbas]

Not long now, my pretty...not long at all.

Thanks for the words, Paladin Rad.

 

[Naqel]

Disappointingly high final score for a disappointingly lacking final product(I've seen the leaks).

Even on a scale from 7 to 10, Fallout 4 is a 6 at best.

 

[ShakerSilver]

Disappointingly high final score for a disappointingly lacking final product(I've seen the leaks).

Even on a scale from 7 to 10, Fallout 4 is a 6 at best.

Same. It's a pretty lackluster game. Map is somehow smaller than Fallout 3 and just as empty. Gunplay is rather subpar. RPG mechanics seem like last minute additions hastily shoved in there. The real dealbreaker is how awful the story and characters are. It's just so laughably bad, especially the main story's ending.

That's not even mentioning the bugs and poor performance on some platforms. And yet people will gobble it up and when confronted with something bad they'll state "mods will fix it". They better hope they don't have to pay for them too.

Oh, and just like Fallout 3 before it, the ending is only influenced by a binary choice you make at the very end of the game. No nuance, no taking accordance of your previous choices in the story, just ending A or ending B. Just as bad as Mass Effect, but at least this didn't have a whole trinity of choice-making to ignore.

 

[Andy Shandy]

Sounds closer to Fallout 3 than New Vegas.

Ah well. I'll probably pick it up at some point, but it can wait.

 

[Erttheking]

Doesn't seem that bad. The streamlined dialogue sucks but you said the characters are interesting, so I think I can get over it.

Settlements sound like a bucket of fun.

 

[Naqel]

In what way are we going to be dissapointed, apart from the minimalized dialogue options?
Will someone like me who obsessively keeps an eye out for details be wasting all my time actually discovering the game?
Is it just a sandbox shooter without actual content?

It drifts further away from the style of writing from the originals/NV, it is mechanically less RPG and more shooter than F3.
The world is about as detailed as it was in F3, there's things to find, but they have little meaning and lack impact.
For the most part, yes: you're engaged primarily through gunplay, rather than intellectually or emotionally.

 

[Conrad Zimmerman]

Disappointingly high final score for a disappointingly lacking final product(I've seen the leaks).

Even on a scale from 7 to 10, Fallout 4 is a 6 at best.

Oh, well, if you've seen the leaks, that's exactly the same as having played it. Despite effectively killing myself to play this thing for 60 hours in a week to write this, I'll bow to your superior knowledge.

Setting aside that numerical scores in reviews are pretty much bullshit, sorry, the game is really good. It may not be the game you wanted. It's not the game I wanted in many, many ways, but I cannot deny that it is a soundly designed game that does the most important things in Fallout right.

 

[Erttheking]

The real fans

Oh don't pull that No True Scotsman ploy. I got into the series on Fallout 3, loved New Vegas, tried to go back to 1 and 2 and thought they were boring as sin. Do I have to revoke my true Fallout fan card?

 

[Conrad Zimmerman]

I'm guessing that this review had to be churned out in no time, but I miss more information on a lot of things like how varied the locations are, if factions are interesting and lock eachother out or not, does the setting make sense (What do they eat? [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wvwlt4FqmS0]) and more things of that nature.

It's also already over 3000 words. There's a limit to how much you can expect the average person to want to read. The setting doesn't make sense because Fallout has never made sense, so there's no problem there. The locations are decently varied, though the game classifies them in some different ways based on their function pre-war to help you figure out what materials you may scavenge there.

How mature is the game? Is prostitution still around or has it been shoved to the side in this age of political correctness?

If it's still there, is it cheesy or does it aptly show the desperate situation of the wasteland?

I can't confirm prostitution, as I haven't run across it (and I wouldn't say the inclusion of it makes a game mature; hate it when used as a catch-all for sexual content, as sexual content can be totally juvenile) but the game does feature some romance options that can develop with companions, and you can be in a polyamorous relationship, so it's really kind of progressive in some ways.

Believe it or not, Fallout used to be an RPG and that meant being in an immersive setting and not just a gimmicky shooter]

Believe it or not, Fallout is still an RPG, and Fallout 3 was too. The application of first-person shooting in combat doesn't invalidate the RPG elements of a game.

Long time fans may be disappointed with the game's new direction.

In what way are we going to be dissapointed, apart from the minimalized dialogue options?
Will someone like me who obsessively keeps an eye out for details be wasting all my time actually discovering the game?
Is it just a sandbox shooter without actual content?

If you hated the direction Fallout 3 went, then I wouldn't even bother. Just go No Mutants Allowed and grumble with the other people who have been left behind.

 

[Bob_McMillan]

So many differing opinions... Eugh.

Then again why do I care, the only time I would pick up this game is when Bethesda (more likely modders) fix and polish the game and when I (if ever) get a gaming PC. Mods on Skyrim and New Vegas are just amazing.

Oh, well, if you've seen the leaks, that's exactly the same as having played it. Despite effectively killing myself to play this thing for 60 hours in a week to write this, I'll bow to your superior knowledge.

Setting aside that numerical scores in reviews are pretty much bullshit, sorry, the game is really good. It may not be the game you wanted. It's not the game I wanted in many, many ways, but I cannot deny that it is a soundly designed game that does the most important things in Fallout right.

I can't really see how a 5 star rating system is any way better/different from numerical scores.

 

[Erttheking]

So many differing opinions... Eugh.

Then again why do I care, the only time I would pick up this game is when Bethesda (more likely modders) fix and polish the game and when I (if ever) get a gaming PC. Mods on Skyrim and New Vegas are just amazing.

Oh, well, if you've seen the leaks, that's exactly the same as having played it. Despite effectively killing myself to play this thing for 60 hours in a week to write this, I'll bow to your superior knowledge.

Setting aside that numerical scores in reviews are pretty much bullshit, sorry, the game is really good. It may not be the game you wanted. It's not the game I wanted in many, many ways, but I cannot deny that it is a soundly designed game that does the most important things in Fallout right.

I can't really see how a 5 star rating system is any way better/different from numerical scores.

I don't think he's saying it is. He's just stuck with it because of Metacritic.

 

[Conrad Zimmerman]

So many differing opinions... Eugh.

Yeah, I haven't read any other reviews just yet (need my coffee), but I was sure this would be a game that gets generally high praise, with strong feelings about the things people didn't like and people not agreeing on which things to like or dislike.

I can't really see how a 5 star rating system is any way better/different from numerical scores.

It's not. In fact, I didn't even remember that Escapist uses stars when I made the comment. It certainly wasn't to indicate that stars are somehow better. Any distillation of complex, nuanced ideas into a number is pretty gross to me, but I don't set editorial policy.

 

[Darth Rosenberg]

snip

Nice review, and kinda what I expected, so I doubt I'll either be disappointed or blown away when I get to play it.

Could you - or anyone else - confirm whether components of the HUD can be disabled individually? I kinda detest Bethesda's HUD's post-Morrowind, and would love to learn I can make it so locations and enemy don't show up on a realtime radar/navbar. I know [some] mods are coming to console, but I've no idea if tweaked UI's are something that'll be supported.

 

[Naqel]

It's not the game I wanted in many, many ways, but I cannot deny that it is a soundly designed game that does the most important things in Fallout right.

Soundly designed, yes, but a minimum of competence achieved through rather heavy handed methods is not something that should get 9/10.

It doesn't really do Fallout things right, since the writing is done by Bethesda again(they aren't particularly famous for being good at it, don't want to spoil anything though), and the whole SPECIAL thing becomes much less meaningful.

It doesn't really do the Gamebryo/Bethesda thing right either, since modding tools are going to only come in a few months, and the game's core design choices prevent anything substantial from being made.

It's lacking in pretty much all technical aspects as well, with plenty of the usual glitches and bugs, some of which date back to TES: Oblivion, and graphical fidelity from half a decade ago.

 

[Fcbook Del Orto]

If you hated the direction Fallout 3 went, then I wouldn't even bother. Just go No Mutants Allowed and grumble with the other people who have been left behind.



The real fans of the series have ever since before the release of Fallout 3 forseen pretty much all that has happened, that Fallout has become an eyecandy shooter with little else to offer. So whenever a new Fallout game comes out, this should be the focus of any and all reviews - how the series has changed and not just a short statement that it has somehow.

Yeah, we'd love to consider New Vegas the third fallout but it seems that we can't have nice things anymore (Thanks to Metacritic ratings and Bethesda). At least they took us into account one time.

 

[Conrad Zimmerman]

Whoops! I managed to miss some tagging in this here forum post. Just noting that I didn't say the second bit in the preceding quote. Here's how it probably should have looked.

If you hated the direction Fallout 3 went, then I wouldn't even bother. Just go No Mutants Allowed and grumble with the other people who have been left behind.

The real fans of the series have ever since before the release of Fallout 3 forseen pretty much all that has happened, that Fallout has become an eyecandy shooter with little else to offer. So whenever a new Fallout game comes out, this should be the focus of any and all reviews - how the series has changed and not just a short statement that it has somehow.

Yeah, we'd love to consider New Vegas the third fallout but it seems that we can't have nice things anymore (Thanks to Metacritic ratings and Bethesda). At least they took us into account one time.

 

[Poetic Nova]

I'll probably buy it 2 years down the line when it lies in the bargain bin and FO5 is released/underway.
Rule of thumb with Bethesda games is waiting a year or 2 when the biggest issue are patched. In my book atleast.

 

[urishima]

The dumbed down dialoge system just breaks my heart. I mean, I kinda saw it coming, but it's still incredibly disappointing.

Welp, imma stick with New Vegas for now.

 

[Conrad Zimmerman]

I can't confirm prostitution, as I haven't run across it (and I wouldn't say the inclusion of it makes a game mature; hate it when used as a catch-all for sexual content, as sexual content can be totally juvenile) but the game does feature some romance options that can develop with companions, and you can be in a polyamorous relationship, so it's really kind of progressive in some ways.

If you haven't come across it in 60 hours, I'd say it's safe to assume that it's not there - good to know.

To me it's part of the setting, it's something that belongs in a dystopian world where your survival hinges on what's available to you. It's not unreasonable to include at all and the absence of it is telling.
I don't see how it can't be mature because we know that there wouldn't be any porn included anyway, which was never the point - none of the previous games had sexual content in them (any that you'd see anyway).
The potential sexual visuals don't interest me, but I do care whether building a settlement and having prostitutes would have an effect, such as heightening morale and making settlers work harder.

It's certainly setting appropriate and, I agree, it wouldn't be unreasonable to see included. Having prostitution as a settlement feature, however, that might be a bit more exploitative than I think anybody would take a risk on, let alone a major publisher.

Believe it or not, Fallout is still an RPG, and Fallout 3 was too. The application of first-person shooting in combat doesn't invalidate the RPG elements of a game.

Technically, you're right. In practice however, the time spent making the shooter portion work (which you wrote it didn't in many cases) means less money for the other departments.
Besides that, there's certainly something to be said for immersion and how playing it as an FPS has a large influence on how you perceive the world.

I think that's a pretty simplified view on how game development works. It isn't necessarily just a money/time budgeting issue. It could simply be the developer putting effort where it thinks efforts are best applied. I certainly wouldn't want to assume anything about that process.

If you hated the direction Fallout 3 went, then I wouldn't even bother. Just go No Mutants Allowed and grumble with the other people who have been left behind.

The entitlement of my fandom is very strong, I agree. Too bad it's often seen as all negative, when there are several very valid points to the grumbling
It's interesting that you say I shouldn't bother at all though, I take it the story and setting is that bad?

If you're an old school Fallout fan and hated what happend with Fallout 3, you'll probably hate this too. It goes further in directions established by that game. There are too many games out there, in my view, to waste time on something that you no longer like.