Fallout 4 review roundup #2

[Mr Fish]

So should we really be poking fun at what others define as RPG's then? Aren't we just a bunch of hypocritical assholes if we do that to what they like but we're so liberal with the label for games we happen to have a bias for?

 

[FearMonkey]

So should we really be poking fun at what others define as RPG's then? Aren't we just a bunch of hypocritical assholes if we do that to what they like but we're so liberal with the label for games we happen to have a bias for?

We all agree Fallout 4 isn't an RPG so I don't think it's hypocritical. It falls outside what most of us considers an RPG.

Also, reiablo, stats still matter on the capabilities of your character. In Fallout 4 they do not (with a few exceptions like carry weight). It just makes certain perks available to you and none of those perks are things that apply to character progression. They're just unlocks, like a skill tree in Borderlands, which I also don't consider an RPG. *shrug*

 

[Mr Fish]

So should we really be poking fun at what others define as RPG's then? Aren't we just a bunch of hypocritical assholes if we do that to what they like but we're so liberal with the label for games we happen to have a bias for?

1. We all agree Fallout 4 isn't an RPG so I don't think it's hypocritical. It falls outside what most of us considers an RPG.

2. Also, reiablo, stats still matter on the capabilities of your character. In Fallout 4 they do not (with a few exceptions like carry weight). It just makes certain perks available to you and none of those perks are things that apply to character progression. They're just unlocks, like a skill tree in Borderlands, which I also don't consider an RPG. *shrug*

1. I agree, Fallout 4 is not what I'd consider an RPG either. That's not really the point I was trying to make in my previous posts though. [edit: Honestly, in retrospect I don't even know what point I was trying to make. I had something, I was passionate and my fingers just went around the keyboard. Now that I look back on it I'm kind of like "...But what am I 'really' trying to say here?". A commentary on the futility of the opinion bickering that comes with the label of RPG's perhaps? I dunno.]

2. I agree, they do matter more on the capabilities of the character. It's just not enough for me to consider it an RPG. (I have a bias against that kind of stat-building. If my big beefy barbarian starts with 30 in Strength and by the end of the game he has 300 Strength then shouldn't he be a giant blob of muscle just rolling around? I mean, we're talking about 100x more strength. That strength can't come from nowhere, and that Barbarian was beefy enough at 30 so increase his strength a 100 times more? Either he's an animé character or he'd be a giant blob of muscle. I like clear defined limits. I'd play an RPG where you're just a giant house-sized blob of vein-y muscle rolling around though.)

Then, in the final death-knell of Bethesda's character assassination of The Brotherhood of Steel, the Brotherhood blow the institute up! Yeah, that's right, The Brotherhood of Steel, dedicated to recovering and utilizing lost technology, just blow up the most advanced facility remaining on the face of the planet, because robots are evil grr we gotta nuke 'em.

They blow up Raven Rock too.
And you have to missile the hell out of Crawler for Lyons Brotherhood, which they don't bat an eyebrow to.

 

[Gustav Kuriga]

So should we really be poking fun at what others define as RPG's then? Aren't we just a bunch of hypocritical assholes if we do that to what they like but we're so liberal with the label for games we happen to have a bias for?

Then, in the final death-knell of Bethesda's character assassination of The Brotherhood of Steel, the Brotherhood blow the institute up! Yeah, that's right, The Brotherhood of Steel, dedicated to recovering and utilizing lost technology, just blow up the most advanced facility remaining on the face of the planet, because robots are evil grr we gotta nuke 'em.

They blow up Raven Rock too.
And you have to missile the hell out of Crawler for Lyons Brotherhood, which they don't bat an eyebrow to.

For a site about fanboys of the original Fallouts, you guys sure don't recall the original mission of Brotherhood of Steel very well, nor their origins. Nor the fact that the Brotherhood of Steel is an organization made up of humans. That means no matter what their original intent, their mission and means to accomplish it will change over time as different leaders with different temperaments take control and leave their own legacy.

1. If there was such a huge deal about them blowing up high technology installations that were in enemy hands, would that not have been a big deal in Fallout 2, where they helped to destroy possibly the last remnant of offshore oil drilling technology? Along with who knows what kinds of enclave technology?

2. The Brotherhood of Steel was founded by a man who had witnessed FEV testing on humans. It can be safe to say that he left a lasting impression in the BoS that for certain lines of research, the only choice if they cannot completely secure it is destruction or risk humanity destroying civilization twice over.

Oh, it's hilarious all the talk of "Bethesda Fanboys", what with how much you guys act as fanboys yourselves. I bet half of you haven't even played the newest game.

 

[Askorti]

The BoS had absolutely no hand in blowing up the Oil Rig though...

 

[Jabberwok]

To be fair, Diablo used to be an RPG or at least more of one. In Diablo 1 (and 2 iirc) you had character stats and on level up you could pick which attributes to put points into. With Diablo III they got rid of that and it automatically updates your attributes based on what character class you picked so that dumb people wouldn't increase the wrong attributes and screw up their characters and they could focus more on items or some such nonsense.

I still like Diablo III, it's a fun game, it's just not an RPG.

Diablo 1 and 2 are ARPGs, which is very different. Diablo 3 is an arcade game. But yes, still fun. Except for the story VA. Blech.

 

[Jabberwok]

So should we really be poking fun at what others define as RPG's then? Aren't we just a bunch of hypocritical assholes if we do that to what they like but we're so liberal with the label for games we happen to have a bias for?

Then, in the final death-knell of Bethesda's character assassination of The Brotherhood of Steel, the Brotherhood blow the institute up! Yeah, that's right, The Brotherhood of Steel, dedicated to recovering and utilizing lost technology, just blow up the most advanced facility remaining on the face of the planet, because robots are evil grr we gotta nuke 'em.

They blow up Raven Rock too.
And you have to missile the hell out of Crawler for Lyons Brotherhood, which they don't bat an eyebrow to.

For a site about fanboys of the original Fallouts, you guys sure don't recall the original mission of Brotherhood of Steel very well, nor their origins. Nor the fact that the Brotherhood of Steel is an organization made up of humans. That means no matter what their original intent, their mission and means to accomplish it will change over time as different leaders with different temperaments take control and leave their own legacy.

1. If there was such a huge deal about them blowing up high technology installations that were in enemy hands, would that not have been a big deal in Fallout 2, where they helped to destroy possibly the last remnant of offshore oil drilling technology? Along with who knows what kinds of enclave technology?

2. The Brotherhood of Steel was founded by a man who had witnessed FEV testing on humans. It can be safe to say that he left a lasting impression in the BoS that for certain lines of research, the only choice if they cannot completely secure it is destruction or risk humanity destroying civilization twice over.

Oh, it's hilarious all the talk of "Bethesda Fanboys", what with how much you guys act as fanboys yourselves. I bet half of you haven't even played the newest game.

As someone else said, the Brotherhood had nothing to do with the Oil Rig or its destruction, that was all the player. They barely had any presence in the game at all. If I remember correctly, the remainder were being hunted down by the Enclave.

I definitely have not played the newest game, and have no plans to. Also, I'm not sure how that's related to the comment about fanboys?

 

[Jabberwok]

So should we really be poking fun at what others define as RPG's then? Aren't we just a bunch of hypocritical assholes if we do that to what they like but we're so liberal with the label for games we happen to have a bias for?

Personally, I am not liberal with what I consider to be an RPG. An RPG has character building (generally through stat systems) and a story built around player "choice and consequences" (as Fargo might put it). This is not the same as choice as in choosing whether or not to do a quest, which is the Bethesda version.

By my definition, Doom and Half-Life will never, ever be RPGs. Half-Life is awesome, but it's an FPS, not even cross-genre. And of course, my definition is the correct one. ;D

I suppose the argument can be made that it doesn't matter what label you put on something. But as you kind of already said, misusing these labels is flattening and dumbing down the conceptual landscape. Calling every open world shooter an RPG is training generations of console players, maybe even PC gamers, to expect flat and vapid experiences with some tacked on feature creep, meaningless collectibles, and flashy graphics. Gradually, this becomes the new standard of both developer and player freedom, when we start to lose the old definitions, and there is no longer a distinction between shooting and role-playing. This is why I think it's important to maintain an idea of what an RPG is.

 

[Crni Vuk]

You do more than just choosing whether you do or don't do the quest! You also have the choice which weapon you want to use, to do all the killing in the quest.

 

[Meurzh]

It's rather funny seeing many of these reviewers not give a glowing review yet give it a stellar rating. We all know what's at play here.

 

[Shardik]

You do more than just choosing whether you do or don't do the quest! You also have the choice which weapon you want to use, to do all the killing in the quest.

Don't forget the choice you have in deciding the order in which the members of the mob will be killed!

Such meaningful decisions ...

 

[TorontoReign]

I told Preston to fuck off when he wanted help in Concord but it gave me the quest anyway. He did act pretty pissed at least. First time I saw an emotion besides blind optimism in him the whole game. Such a shit voice actor.

 

[Walpknut]

He has shit writting too "Remember when we first met and you said X? Well you did it." Wow, the game remembers one dialogue choice I made 5 minutes prior, I am so impressed...

 

[Generic Dude 2.0]

Noah Gervais finally released his spoiler review/critique.

 

[Jabberwok]

Noah Gervais finally released his spoiler review/critique.

Paraphrasing him, but it's better in context: "In previous Fallouts, the prewar world is defined by how foreign and ridiculous it seems in relation to the world as it is. Things about the prewar world that earlier games might have constructed as absurd, this game constructs as lost wonders." [ 4:08 ] ..... "Fallout 4 is backward looking. Mired in nostalgia for the wrong things."

A pretty telling observation I think, and one that really hits at the core of the tonal shift that I noticed even from watching trailers and demos.

 

[Walpknut]

It's something I have always said about bethesda's Fallouts. While the first 2 and New Vegas were all about progress and the future of mankind in this new world 3 and 4 are overly obssesed with the pre war world, embracing it's values while the other Fallout games actually criticized them.

 

[Plzstandbuy]

That's because Bethesda couldn't make a clever criticism in its life.

Vaults have been reduced to zany maymays.

"Sir, why would we want to freeze people? What social data could we possibly get from that?"

"What do you mean? Were mean to people cuz were ebils!"

"Right, I forgot sir."

Clever portrayals of totalitarianism show how the ordinary people fall into them, and how the perpetrators convince themselves that the ends justify the means.

To dumb people, its because they were evil, and they of course never would be. Which is why we live in the good ole' freedom loving USA!

Long story short the original Fallout's tried to make people like the folks over at Bethesda take a step back and think.

 

[CRBASF23]

Modders please:

 

[Crni Vuk]

There could be so much done with this ... *le sigh*

 

[MercenarySnake]

Too bad it won't bring back all the things that made Fallout 1 & 2 amazing.