Fallout 4 Automatron is out

[Risewild]

Because it's impossible for a game to show me the effects my actions will have in a hundred years without a slideshow. If Fallout 2 didn't have the slideshow explain that my diplomatic maneuverings assisted the NCR to become a superpower then there'd have been no point in doing it in the first place.
An instant reaction to my actions is all well and good but I want to know how my actions will affect the future.

Exactly, good RPGs are not just about the main character, it is also about the game world.
It is playing your character and see how it influences that world during the game time-frame and beyond, it is caring for what happens and why it happens.

 

[MercenarySnake]

Slideshows are a way of showing the impact of your actions without having to continue playing the game and to show what the fate each person/place/thing left off with after you made an impact/did nothing at all.

 

[ZigzagPX4]

Slideshows are a way of showing the impact of your actions without having to continue playing the game and to show what the fate each person/place/thing left off with after you made an impact/did nothing at all.

They sort of got succeeded by pan-fade narrated cutscenes shortly after games entered the 3D phase, so they were mostly in Fallout 3 to justify it being a Fallout game, and in New Vegas for both old times sake and because Fallout 3's engine was fucked.

 

[Akratus]

I think the final fight/area is the culmination of the gameplay, and the ending cutscenes are the culmination of the storytelling. Therefore I think it's perfectly fine that they're 'just' a slideshow.