Fallout 4 Review - Post-Apocalyptic Warlord Simulator 2287

Do4600

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Kajin said:
Do4600 said:
Also just like sports fans, if you only like the team when it's winning you aren't a true fan.
That's sports. This is games. If a game wasn't winning before then obviously it did something wrong to keep it from winning. Maybe it just wasn't as good a game as you thought it was?

It's okay to not like certain games in a franchise, but calling the new Fallout games "not Fallout" because they've departed somewhat from the old games is an incredibly ignorant statement to make.
Somewhat? It's a completely new format, in a new setting developed by a totally different team, it's a spin-off. It's like saying that X-Com:Enforcer was a totally legitimate sequel to X-Com Apocalypse because it had X-Com in the title and had things that looked like sectoids, snakemen and ethereals in it.

X-com: UFO Defence was a turn based tactical strategy game with deep management mechanics and X-com: Enforcer was an arcade action third person shooter where the enemies drop colorful heart shaped life icons and kill streak bonuses. That's about as similar as Fallout is to Fallout 3
True, you might not like the new things in the new games, but that doesn't discount the new games from being just as much Fallout as the older games.
Who said I don't like the new games? They're very good games, I've beaten both and spent at least 175 hours in each of them, but apart from cosmetics they're totally different experiences and the new games just don't at all remind me of Fallout. I don't even feel nostalgia for the old games when I play the new games, besides just a few parts in New Vegas where the music and story line up, but that's because it was designed by the same people who made Fallout. Bethesda, never.
 

Do4600

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CaitSeith said:
Do4600 said:
Kajin said:
snip...

I don't see the new games as Fallout games, and you see that as a slur because you LOVE Fallout, but for 11 years before Fallout 3 Fallout 1-Tactics WAS fallout, and that's my perspective. That's my Fallout, not your fallout. So when you look at old Fallout you say, "That's not Fallout, Fallout 3 is Fallout" If they had just named it OBLIVIOUT, or Daughter Particles or Black Rain or Thyroid Melter we wouldn't even be having this conversation.

Also just like sports fans, if you only like the team when it's winning you aren't a true fan.
Oh, the irony in that last sentence... delightful!
Don't forget cynicism and sarcasm as well : )
 

Zydrate

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I've been a player since FO3, but I think I'll enjoy the game. The perk system looks like it will take some getting used to, though.

I did try Fallout 1 and 2 once, briefly. Like trying with Daggerfall, I can't seem to 'get' older games. I can't figure out how to actually kill any enemies. Couldn't kill a rat or radroach in those older games.

Captcha: Genghis khan. Topic title. Heh.
 

danielcofour

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Conrad Zimmerman said:
Naqel said:
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.
I'm sorry, but it's not soundly designed. It's haphazardly designed and poorly implemented. Which "sound design" doesn't implement a top-down view and/or free camera angles for town building? Which "sound design" doesn't improve on and/or completely redo the janky inventory system? Or the janky map? Or the janky quest system? Or the janky gunplay? Or the unintuitive environment and world design? Or, let's not even mention, the melee combat? Or I could go on.

Fact is, this game is more reminiscent of something an amatour mod team(because a veteran team would do far, far better) thought of and coded, rather than something professionals made. It's not about what "you want". It's just simply a bad game. And by bad, I don't mean mediocre, it's actually bad.
 

Secondhand Revenant

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I'm liking it better than 3 to be honest. Quite like the locations, found fighting raiders on the rooftops pretty cool and stuff. Settlements could be better but I find it a bit enjoyable. Need to see more as far as story goes. Settlements side tracked me as well as a few of the quests that were more shoot em up.
 

pookie101

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Reasonable Atheist said:
An i the only one who thinks fallout 4is great? Im having a blast.
i agreed with that a few hours ago. had 30+ hours without any issues apart from a single ctd and for some reason cant play more than 2 minutes now without a crash. so im very much over it at the moment. great game when it works
 

Sleepy Sol

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I'm loving this game...a lot. Like "playing it overnight several nights in a row" love. But there's seriously so many things that I believe could have been done better (clarity in dialogue choices or more choices in general, wonky construction system for settlements, and the relative uselessness of V.A.T.S. now without investments in certain perks to make it more worthwhile, the abruptness of the game's intro, to name a few).

I think they nailed it on the art direction and world design this time around, though. Was definitely nice to have a more expanded color palette, and map locations feel pretty perfectly spaced out to me (as in not too far apart and not so close that it feels cramped). Even if Fallout 4's map is "smaller" than 3 or NV's, 4's map didn't feel nearly as sparse. Another thing I generally enjoyed was companion interaction and dialogues, even if the way companions grow to like or dislike you is pretty damn simplistic. At any rate, I was more than a little pleasantly surprised that companions comment on your actions and your conversations, and have quite the number of unique lines for specific regions or locations.

Adding to the positives, combat feels massively improved save for how gutted V.A.T.S. seems without the perk investments to make it better. I rather like knowing that my shot will almost assuredly hit given enough patience to line up the shot...instead of having the potential to fly all over the place like 3 or NV. That and it just feels appropriately weightier.

Overall, I'd say it feels like two or three steps forward, one sometimes confusing step back. But still most definitely worth the time and money invested. Just hope the DLC is pretty solid as well. And a decent bit more dense in content than the DLC offerings in 3 and New Vegas, as memorable as most of them were.
 

Thyunda

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Charcharo said:
So far I am very jaded. Even more than before.

This is Bethesda's fourth time. And the SAME damned mistakes. Not new ones. Not old ones. The same. Ohh and one more (or at least more sever than before) - terrible performance on all hardware, but worst on AMD and consoles. GG.

Lets see:
-No FOV slider. One of the rare times this affected me... why cant it be in an options menu?
-Mouse acceleration and smoothing. Why can I not turn them on and off in a menu? Why is it on by default?
-Vsyncs to either 30 or 60. Why is this not an option? Why can it not be like in the Witcher 3? Why can I not set it on/off and also choose a cap to my frame rate? Why is this not in the options menu?
-Game logic is tied to frame rate. This... is amateurish. FFS, this is a rookie mistake, why did it happen to a AAA game in 2015?

Add in:
- Bad selection of gameworks features. That AND bad implementation. This is crippling to AMD users... and the saddest thing is, games like Metro Last Light STILL have better god rays and illumination. Except they dont cripple neither AMD nor Nvidia hardware with it.
Speaking of which, even Nvidia cards with the latest drivers are having issues with these features. Not as severe as AMD, true, but ... it is not well either.

- Bad CPU utilization.

- Despite all of these optimization issues, the game does not look good. In many areas, STALKER from 2007 and 2008 actually is objectively superior (graphical fidelity, not art style, that is subjective and dont confuse the two). FO4's AI is absolutely abysmal. This is not an issue ... the fact that it runs this badly though, whilst having nothing to show for it? that is a problem.

This is acceptable once. Or from a smaller studio with little money. Or a young studio at least. Bethesda is neither of those.
This means they are fucking idiots. That or lazy morons who know no matter what they release they will get accolades and their fans will defend them. Pick one.

There is a good game in there. However the appalling idiots at Bethesda seem to be too incompetent to make a decent game experience. Fuck them. If we forgive them now, they will never learn to do their job properly. So TES VI will be the same shit on release. So yeah, be negative as fuck to them now.

Ignoring that I'm pretty sure this is a copy-pasted comment you've shared multiple times now, I love that you're insisting Bethesda are too incompetent to make a decent game experience when your complaints boil down to "there's no FOV slider."

And STALKER looked like arse. Clear Sky won't even work on my laptop even on the lowest settings, which is fucking madness.
 

Quellist

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Fuck you Bethesda. I've had enough 'streamlined' and 'simplified' RPG's. Guess I'm gonna have to wait for Torment for something to really get my teeth into
 

Shamanic Rhythm

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I feel like the review text and the final score don't quite match up. Let me see if my recollection is correct:
-The SPECIAL system has been neutered
-VATS doesn't do much for certain builds
-Dialogue choices have been 'Biowared'
-The game has taken on some Sim City elements
-The usual Bugthesda malarky

And that's somehow worth 4.5? What am I missing?
 

Flippincrazy

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Cheers for the review, possibly could've focused a bit more on what you actually liked at the game, as there does appear to be a discrepancy between the review text and the score. Probably just your choosing to inform people about changes that they likely will not like (which these comments seem to illustrate).

Personally, I'm having a blast with the game. Played for 25+ hours now and it really feels like a perfect sequel to Fallout 3. Simply put, everything that I liked about Fallout 3 has been expanded upon and improved, great new content has been added and Bethesda clearly learned a few things from the writing of New Vegas (at least in relation to companions). Environments are pretty, the color palette has been thankfully expanded, areas are a little more diverse and the models of all creatures look pretty damn good. To add to this, game hasn't crashed once on PS4, not sure how true this holds for others. Also, the voice-acting of the female protaganist is pretty good.

I'd just finished playing Witcher 3, and was worried that Fallout 4 wouldn't hold up. Sure, the writing isn't as good, but it doesn't detract from the experience of exploring a brand new Wasteland again.
 

Denamic

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Shamanic Rhythm said:
-The SPECIAL system has been neutered
Wait, you think the SPECIAL system actually did things in FO3 and NV? Strength game you carrying capacity, Intelligence gave you skill points, and Luck gave you damage. Everything else was basically useless beyond being perk requirements. They are far more impactful in Fallout 4 than they have ever been. In what way is SPECIAL worse in FO4 than in any other game in the series? What do the former revisions provide that the current one does not?
 

WolfThomas

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Shamanic Rhythm said:
-The SPECIAL system has been neutered
Honestly SPECIAL was broken all the way back in Fallout 2. Yes you could make an idiot character. But it was very easy to work out what minimum level you needed in each thing for perks combined with the benefits you'd get from power armor, implants, the bonus from the hubologist (+2 Luck for nothing!) items like the lucky sunglasses.

For example you only needed if recall a max of 6strength to use all guns. Because you could get power armour + 1, implant + 1 and perk weapon handling + 2 strength with weapons.

Fallout 3 + NV were even more broken bobble heads, implants etc, then the right combination of books and clothing to boost the last few SPECIAL or skills. You never needed 100 in lockpick, because 90+ a book would do. Then if you had clothing that was +10 you only needed 80 etc.
 

kenu12345

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Denamic said:
Shamanic Rhythm said:
-The SPECIAL system has been neutered
Wait, you think the SPECIAL system actually did things in FO3 and NV? Strength game you carrying capacity, Intelligence gave you skill points, and Luck gave you damage. Everything else was basically useless beyond being perk requirements. They are far more impactful in Fallout 4 than they have ever been. In what way is SPECIAL worse in FO4 than in any other game in the series? What do the former revisions provide that the current one does not?
You do realie that they are still just barriers for perks in this game too. Btw Perception changes how far you can see enemies from on the radar. Endurance changed base damage threshold and how much health you had and how much resistance you had. Charisma changed stats on your companions. Agility affected your amount of action points, weapon reload speeds, and draw speed. Just cause you didn't know they did these doesn't mean they didn't do these things
 

Denamic

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kenu12345 said:
Denamic said:
Shamanic Rhythm said:
-The SPECIAL system has been neutered
Wait, you think the SPECIAL system actually did things in FO3 and NV? Strength game you carrying capacity, Intelligence gave you skill points, and Luck gave you damage. Everything else was basically useless beyond being perk requirements. They are far more impactful in Fallout 4 than they have ever been. In what way is SPECIAL worse in FO4 than in any other game in the series? What do the former revisions provide that the current one does not?
You do realie that they are still just barriers for perks in this game too. Btw Perception changes how far you can see enemies from on the radar. Endurance changed base damage threshold and how much health you had and how much resistance you had. Charisma changed stats on your companions. Agility affected your amount of action points, weapon reload speeds, and draw speed. Just cause you didn't know they did these doesn't mean they didn't do these things
I know these things, but the thing is that these things are so minuscule that you would never even notice if the effect vanished entirely, save for maybe the AP bonus from agility. My point is that when compared to strength, intelligence, and luck, no SPECIAL attribute have any value beside meeting perk requirements. And if you allocate a special point wrong, you'll be permanently locked out of certain perks. Without meta game knowledge, there's no way for you to anticipate this and the only option you have is to restart, cheat, or just never get those perks. In FO4, SPECIAL attributes are much less arbitrary, yet they all have significant, noticeable benefits beyond unlocking perks.
 

Shamanic Rhythm

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Denamic said:
kenu12345 said:
Denamic said:
Shamanic Rhythm said:
-The SPECIAL system has been neutered
Wait, you think the SPECIAL system actually did things in FO3 and NV? Strength game you carrying capacity, Intelligence gave you skill points, and Luck gave you damage. Everything else was basically useless beyond being perk requirements. They are far more impactful in Fallout 4 than they have ever been. In what way is SPECIAL worse in FO4 than in any other game in the series? What do the former revisions provide that the current one does not?
You do realie that they are still just barriers for perks in this game too. Btw Perception changes how far you can see enemies from on the radar. Endurance changed base damage threshold and how much health you had and how much resistance you had. Charisma changed stats on your companions. Agility affected your amount of action points, weapon reload speeds, and draw speed. Just cause you didn't know they did these doesn't mean they didn't do these things
I know these things, but the thing is that these things are so minuscule that you would never even notice if the effect vanished entirely, save for maybe the AP bonus from agility. My point is that when compared to strength, intelligence, and luck, no SPECIAL attribute have any value beside meeting perk requirements. And if you allocate a special point wrong, you'll be permanently locked out of certain perks. Without meta game knowledge, there's no way for you to anticipate this and the only option you have is to restart, cheat, or just never get those perks. In FO4, SPECIAL attributes are much less arbitrary, yet they all have significant, noticeable benefits beyond unlocking perks.
Out of interest, what is your idea of a stats system which has meaningful interaction with the rest of the statistics, and/or tangible impact on the game?

And the way you're talking about strength, luck and intelligence sounds like you're taking what is the 'optimal' playthrough and from that deriving that anything else is worthless. Which is like saying that any Pokemon lineup that doesn't include Dragonite or Alakazam is useless. Or that any Sorceress build in Diablo 2 without Frozen Orb is useless. The other stats in Fallout 3 had some worthwhile benefits that made for interesting character choices, if you weren't just playing for minmaxing.
 

Denamic

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Shamanic Rhythm said:
Out of interest, what is your idea of a stats system which has meaningful interaction with the rest of the statistics, and/or tangible impact on the game?

And the way you're talking about strength, luck and intelligence sounds like you're taking what is the 'optimal' playthrough and from that deriving that anything else is worthless. Which is like saying that any Pokemon lineup that doesn't include Dragonite or Alakazam is useless. Or that any Sorceress build in Diablo 2 without Frozen Orb is useless. The other stats in Fallout 3 had some worthwhile benefits that made for interesting character choices, if you weren't just playing for minmaxing.
A meaningful interaction would be when one attribute doesn't have a clear and obvious more useful application than another. For example, the difference between 10 and 1 int at level 20+ is astronomical in previous Fallouts. The skill point gain per level makes an enormous difference. The difference between 1 and 10 luck is "barely ever getting a crit" and "almost always getting a crit", because each point is multiplied by the weapon you use. Luck is by far the most important attribute for doing damage. And strength is just too useful to pass up. The inventory weight limit alone makes it vital if you don't want to be encumbered by just the weapons and armor you use. Contrast this to the difference between 1 and 10 perception. The only difference is the red blips on the compass. That is literally it. Endurance? The difference between 1 and 10 endurance is 180 health and some rad resistance. That makes very, very little difference beyond the very start of the game, because you get the same amount of health when you level up regardless of your endurance, eventually rendering the impact endurance has basically null. Rad resistance can be easily maxed out with rad-x when you need it anyway. Agility is the most 'useful' attribute out of the useless attributes. It makes reloading 10% faster or slower per point if above or below 5 points, and it gives a whole 3 AP per attribute point. It shouldn't be below 6 in any case, because it's necessary for some vital perks. Charisma just increases companion damage by 5% per point, which is extremely boring.

To make a meaningful difference, each attribute needs to have a tangible benefit. It's much better in FO4, because now each point in every attribute provide a tangible difference. Strength is the same as before, but perception, endurance, charisma, and agility has been buffed/changed to bring them up to par with the benefits of strength. Luck and intelligence has likewise been nerfed to bring them down to par. You're no longer crippling yourself by having less than 10 int, because it's no longer the single most important attribute, and putting points in charisma actually has value beyond roleplaying and perks. I won't say it's perfect, but it's absolutely better than what it used to be.