What does everyone think of Fallout 4?

[Crossroads Inc.]

So didn't see a thread regarding it and wanted to discuss it.
Mostly because I have never played ANY of the Fallout games... But find myself strongly interested in this one. Why? Well it seems like a weird mix of a survival RPG... And Minecraft!!

I mean you can Build things! Guns, equipment, meds, gear, engines, and evidently whole Settlements! I like be making towns in minecraft, and in FO4 apparently they actually do stuff!!

As someone who had never played any of the othe games, what are the bored thoughts on it and how much enjoyments you all have been getting?

[Mr Bean]

Ahem
http://bbs.stardestroyer.net/viewtopic. ... 4&t=163260
And the full spoiler thread
http://bbs.stardestroyer.net/viewtopic. ... 4&t=164116

[Jub]

So didn't see a thread regarding it and wanted to discuss it.
Mostly because I have never played ANY of the Fallout games... But find myself strongly interested in this one. Why? Well it seems like a weird mix of a survival RPG... And Minecraft!!

I mean you can Build things! Guns, equipment, meds, gear, engines, and evidently whole Settlements! I like be making towns in minecraft, and in FO4 apparently they actually do stuff!!

As someone who had never played any of the othe games, what are the bored thoughts on it and how much enjoyments you all have been getting?

The best I can do is say that it's a broad but ultimately shallow experience.

Yes, you have the option to build settlements, but the settlements themselves never really feel alive. The building is also, finicky, so get used to things clipping, floating, or otherwise just not looking the way you figure they ought to. This could have been solved with some ability to change the terrain within the area of your settlement, but be ready for buildings you can't knock down and hills you can't build on. Plus, the only real reason to build settlements is to have them generate stuff for you, with the exception of a later quest that allows them to get artillery and encourages you to put an artillery piece in each settlement.

Yes, you can modify weapons and armor, but this just leads to the realization that there is basically one weapon type per caliber and that any given pistol will end up as a rifle if you so desire, and vice-versa. You'll also realize that while you can craft every part of a weapon you can't actually craft a weapon so you'll still need a base gun to attach your gun parts to. The same goes for armor. Also, forget crafting ammunition.

Yes, the world is massive, however, it's filled with very limited enemy types controlled by brain-dead AI. The locations can be neat, especially if you want to look for hidden easter eggs and are willing to write a story in your head that the devs never put to paper. Mostly get ready to trudge through a drab landscape that really needed a little more color and detail, while killing/running from the same double handful of enemies again.

Yes, you have a large number of companions, but each of them has all the depth of a sheet of cardboard. They aren't paper thin, but they're the next best thing to it, and none of this games writing is up to the standards of a Bioware RPG or even a Rockstar open world game. Plus, they share the same AI with the rest of the game, so expect them to target the nearest enemy within range and their vision cone, and then proceed to waste ammo firing at said target even if the target is in heavy cover, when engaged like this your companion rarely takes cover themselves and doesn't switch targets unless their first target runs away. The good news is that your companions are immortal, they'll never do worse than taking a knee after even the worst firefight, the bad news is that they often drag you into fights you don't want and need to be immortal to overcome the lacking AI.

Lastly the main quest. It's dumb as a sack of hammers and even once you're in good with any/all of the main factions, you're still nothing more than an errand boy sent running for procedurally generated fetch quests between story missions that usually task you with more go to x, kill y, return with z style quests. And don't expect any of your choices, aside from the can't miss it obvious one, to change the game in any meaningful way.

Now, all his said, it's still a game that one can sink a hundred hours into before mods. There is a lot to do, and playing on harder difficulties will prevent things from getting too easy too early. For all the flaws, a sandbox game is simply that much fun, and with mods the lifespan of the game will improve taking a 60 to 100-hour game out to a game one spends weeks of playtime with.

[Jub]

Or.

[TheFeniX]

The best I can do is say that it's a broad but ultimately shallow experience.

This is about the most succinct summary of the Fallout 4 experience. I think Whiterun alone had more NPC interactions and short side-quests than the entirety of Fallout 4. As small as that town was, it actually did feel like a town. And there were multiple towns like this. Diamond City feels like a quest hub in a modern MMO. You've got vendors and there's a few unnamed NPCs mucking about. I don't know what's more pathetic: that this is what passes for RPG these days or that people are eating it up as if it's praise worthy.

I can't think of a single non-companion NPC I give fucks about in F4. But just in Whiterun alone, I can name several. Many of them interact with each other as well. How sad is that: we're taking steps back from fucking Skyrim. Beth proves you can chop so god damned much out of the RPG genre and still find more to butcher.

And shallow, even on the non-RPG stuff: I've already fixed the armor system by loading mods that let me swap legendary mods and switch armor from light > medium > heavy. And the mod locks it behind perks. Why? Why was this not a thing by default? So we could burn more time hunting for a piece of gear with the specific material, weight, and perk we wanted? Fuck you.

Yes, the world is massive, however, it's filled with very limited enemy types controlled by brain-dead AI. The locations can be neat, especially if you want to look for hidden easter eggs and are willing to write a story in your head that the devs never put to paper. Mostly get ready to trudge through a drab landscape that really needed a little more color and detail, while killing/running from the same double handful of enemies again.

It really isn't. Pretty sure it's even smaller than Skyrim. And at least in Skyrim, it wasn't just a mostly flat plane you sprinted across to new locations.

Now, all his said, it's still a game that one can sink a hundred hours into before mods. There is a lot to do, and playing on harder difficulties will prevent things from getting too easy too early. For all the flaws, a sandbox game is simply that much fun, and with mods the lifespan of the game will improve taking a 60 to 100-hour game out to a game one spends weeks of playtime with.

Fallout 4 is a hard game to rate for me. How much weight do I give the world itself and my ability to dump a hundred hours into? Am I that starved for an open world game with guns that it makes me give it 7/10 when combined with the combat?

It's like a reverse Morrowind. Morrowind's combat was fucking garbage, even when it was new. However, the rest of the game was just great. You really could get lost in it and every other facet had way too much time devoted to it. Alchemy just for one. It was a complete package. Fallout 4 offers us some of the best FPS/RPG hybrid combat action and not much else.

[Vendetta]

I enjoyed it as far as it went, which was wandering around finding all of Bethesda's little vignettes of stuff, crafting weapons and armour, etc.

And then I couldn't be arsed with the main quest and am pretty much over it and bought Wasteland 2 instead.



If you want a cool post apocalyptic roleplaying game, play New Vegas again or buy Wasteland 2.

If you want a Bethesda game then go for it, it's got all of the good things and all of the bad things of the usual Bethesda game.