Zero Punctuation: Fallout 4

remnant_phoenix

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Weird. He seemed to lament the absence of a karma meter, yet in the past he's said, direct quoting here, "karma meters are bulls***". I wonder if he's changed his mind about moral choice systems.
 

sirkai007

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remnant_phoenix said:
Weird. He seemed to lament the absence of a karma meter, yet in the past he's said, direct quoting here, "karma meters are bulls***". I wonder if he's changed his mind about moral choice systems.
In previous Fallout installments, Karma had an effect on who would help you and what they did for you. It was more than an arbitrary measure of how good or bad you were, It changed the way the game unfolded.

Also, I'm disappointed that they dumbed down the skill system.
 

phogue

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remnant_phoenix said:
Weird. He seemed to lament the absence of a karma meter, yet in the past he's said, direct quoting here, "karma meters are bulls***". I wonder if he's changed his mind about moral choice systems.
I think this time is because Karma in fallout wasn't exactly a locked in thing where you only got the best weapon if you were all good or all evil. It made certain quests or companions unavailable, but they tended to be the same quest dressed up differently. Plus you could always have a change of heart: like blow up Megaton so you could get a suite in Tenpenny Tower, but then rescue every fair maiden in the land out of pure selflessness and get max Karma.
 

Cartographer

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remnant_phoenix said:
Weird. He seemed to lament the absence of a karma meter, yet in the past he's said, direct quoting here, "karma meters are bulls***". I wonder if he's changed his mind about moral choice systems.
Given the context, I think it was more a case of the complete lack of consequence to the actions that annoyed. While a Karma system is basically cr4p, a reputation system whereby you're punished/rewarded for certain actions (Which had better be well signposted!) by various factions within a game and you can tailor your play to side with/antagonise whomever you so choose is generally speaking a good thing. Y'know, all that player agency and meaningful choice jazz that reviewers are always going on about. Look at the Tomb Raider review, the upgrade choices are meaningless as you can get everything anyway, all you're picking is the order in which they are unlocked (outside of the enforced gating). You don't get to make Lara a sneaky/stealthy Archaeo-ninja at the expense of melee prowess/weapon proficiency so the choice is basically irrelevant.
 

Marik Bentusi

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remnant_phoenix said:
Weird. He seemed to lament the absence of a karma meter, yet in the past he's said, direct quoting here, "karma meters are bulls***". I wonder if he's changed his mind about moral choice systems.
He think he just cited them because they were Fallout's previous way of having players feel consequences about the morality of their actions. If the series had had a different way of doing that, he'd have cited that one instead. I don't think it's so much that he's missing the karma meter in particular, but rather than he's missing any consequence, any feedback for roleplaying an asshole.
 

Pseudonym

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remnant_phoenix said:
Weird. He seemed to lament the absence of a karma meter, yet in the past he's said, direct quoting here, "karma meters are bulls***". I wonder if he's changed his mind about moral choice systems.
I'd say, that karma systems are a shallow and unimmersive way to handle consequences for your actions, but still deeper and more immersive than your actions having no consequences at all which was what he was complaining about here. That's my opinion though; I don't really know what Yahtzee thinks on the matter.
 

geizr

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There is a guy on my PS4 friends list who plays this game. From all his description of it, I'm glad I had no desire to buy the game. Played Fallout 3, was far from impressed and was thus left with no desire to attempt Fallout 4 in the hopes of it maybe being better. Skyrim held my attention better (even though I have yet to actually finish the main quest, I have done a ton of the side-missions), and so far, that's really the only Bethesda game for which I've had any real liking. I'm dabbling in ESO. My current impression: glad I bought this for $24.99 during the Black Friday sales and not the regular $59.99, and even that is now starting to feel like I paid too much. I've been spending more time playing FFXIV, instead (which has a subscription fee, even, compared to ESO which is F2P!). Point being, Bethesda games, in general, have just been generally unimpressive to me. But, that's only me; others will likely have a different opinion.
 

rocker1600

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Yahtzee Croshaw said:
Fallout 4

This week, Zero Punctuation reviews Fallout 4.

Watch Video
(SPOILERS FOR THOSE WHO HAVEN'T PLAY FO4 YET)

Isn't the fact that your child is one the main leaders of one of the factions a big emotional investment for your character.
 

Covarr

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This is pretty much the same as my response to Bethesda RPGs. So much emphasis on what you can do, but none on why you should do it. But then, I've never been a huge fan of sandboxes in general; Minecraft was a huge exception for me, but it was just that: an exception.

P.S. Thanks
 

Neurotic Void Melody

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There is a karma-ish system though, silly yahtzee! It depends what actions you perform around which non-canine companions you have in view. They judge differently based on their personality traits, which you only learn by experimenting. Did one rush through the game a little too hastily? ;)

Edit: I have been tempted to get Wasteland 2: director's cut, but it is pricier than the average indie darling...can't seem to find many reviews on it though. Sterling or Yahtzee i haven't seen them mention it at all either. Does anyone know what it is like? It appears to be XCOM mixed with fallout, which are both pretty good, i believe.
 

remnant_phoenix

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Marik Bentusi said:
remnant_phoenix said:
Weird. He seemed to lament the absence of a karma meter, yet in the past he's said, direct quoting here, "karma meters are bulls***". I wonder if he's changed his mind about moral choice systems.
He think he just cited them because they were Fallout's previous way of having players feel consequences about the morality of their actions. If the series had had a different way of doing that, he'd have cited that one instead. I don't think it's so much that he's missing the karma meter in particular, but rather than he's missing any consequence, any feedback for roleplaying an asshole.
Pseudonym said:
remnant_phoenix said:
Weird. He seemed to lament the absence of a karma meter, yet in the past he's said, direct quoting here, "karma meters are bulls***". I wonder if he's changed his mind about moral choice systems.
I'd say, that karma systems are a shallow and unimmersive way to handle consequences for your actions, but still deeper and more immersive than your actions having no consequences at all which was what he was complaining about here. That's my opinion though; I don't really know what Yahtzee thinks on the matter.
That makes sense. Maybe I should let my thoughts marinate more before posting them.
 

Freedom153

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Given everything he said in this, and the fact that (aside from apparent downward trend in quality and the building stuff) everything said about it was said in his Fallout 3 and Skyrim reviews... I'm sort of surprised he reviewed it at all.

"See, the problem with Bethesda RPGs is that they always load them up with a whole bunch of sh*t that's completely detached from each other" - I guess that was exactly my problem with the post-plot gameplay of Skyrim. Sure, you could become a werewolf, or whatever they called a vampire, or see how badly you can break the game with console commands(answer - "a lot, plus infinitely spawning cheese and cabbage"), or do this quest for cool looking armor... but what's the point, beyond screwing around in the world, and with the crappy friendly NPC AI?

Best part was the dancing disco beans. I thought the Kardashian and Scientology stuff was good... but it just beats those, and I don't know why.
 

Cowabungaa

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It does however say a lot about the value for money this game offers in term of content when this video made me go "Factions? There's factions in FA4?" after 57 hours of play. Maybe I should progress some of the bigger quests already.

Well, I will later. If you'll excuse me, I have a completely optional town to construct and decorate.
 

thewatergamer

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remnant_phoenix said:
Weird. He seemed to lament the absence of a karma meter, yet in the past he's said, direct quoting here, "karma meters are bulls***". I wonder if he's changed his mind about moral choice systems.
As many have stated there are two major factors, one the fallout karma meters actually have an effect on gameplay, NPC's will react differently to you and the game unfolds differently, and two, in a game where Yahtzee criticized the moral choice system (Dishonored) the game wasn't an RPG and the "moral choice" system was merely a gate that forced you to deliberately ignore game mechanics just for the sake of not getting the bad ending

anyway, Fallout 4? Feh, maybe I'll get the GOTY when it's 5$ or something, from what I've heard Fallout 4 is even less of an RPG then the previous games which to me is very disappointing, especially with the dialogue system being gutted and the karma system being removed, which to me removes why I play Bethesda RPG's, maybe that's why I liked New Vegas so much, because it had alot more RPG elements in it
 

SlumlordThanatos

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rocker1600 said:
(SPOILERS FOR THOSE WHO HAVEN'T PLAY FO4 YET)

Isn't the fact that your child is one the main leaders of one of the factions a big emotional investment for your character.
I spoiler-tagged your question for you. To answer:

Yes...and also no. It can if you want it to be, but given the fact that your child is now 60+ years old and dying of cancer, it's really hard to make the connection that the doddering old fart standing in front of you is your child...because he started aging while your character is still stuck in the vault. So, by the time you get out, you're still in your late 20s or so (probably) and he's almost three times your age.

Your mileage may vary with this. Still, the fact that Father is basically your son from the future helps to humanize the Institute and give you a reason you might want to ally with them.

You know, despite the fact that they're playing God and have exactly zero regard for their creations.
 

EXos

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I completely agree with Yahtzee this time. I love F3 and F:NV and all of TES (except online ofc) but I just couldn't get into this one as much as the others.
The world is just so... bland and the remark about the quests is spot on. It feels like an MMORPG worse even than the first witcher. There you'd atleast have a fleshed out story per area.
 

JagerBombastic

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I understand why people like Fallout as a game series, I just never really got on with it personally.
I played Fallout New Vegas, which is supposedly the best one of the series and I thought, 'to hell with this' in about 2 levels worth. Still far be it for me to have a go on other peoples favourite games I love playing Destiny and MMORPG's in general.