First round of Fallout 4 Reviews

[Graham2077]

The ArsTechnica review is the best I've seen so far.

Can't post a link?

Anyway: miserable pacing, boring NPCs, redundant, crafting/settlement stuff tedious & unrewarding, But some major story & atmosphere payoffs amongst all the glitchy stodge.

Here it is.

This is the best review so far. Most people seem to think that the settlements take away the enjoyment of the game and make it more of a chore than anything. Kinda disappointing

Really not looking forward to the weapon building either. Every gun looks ugly as shit that I've seen and the customization just looks tedious.

 

[whirlingdervish]

So I have now played it for about an hour, and it's a piece of shit. That's all folks.

Great review, I don't believe you. That's all fffffoooollllllllllllllllllllllkssss

What a surprise, you don't "believe" his opinion.

In case you weren't sure, nobody needs your belief.

Thanks little one, now mind your own business.

My business is to sit around watching you deny reality every day.
Just like with the 2 endings, the stupid map design and other stuff you don't want to be believe.

 

[Crni Vuk]

Well depends on the way how it's done. It seems that it doesn't play any role in Fallout 4, outside of, yeah ... it's there ... and youcan build some shacks'n stuff. But it seems to be more a gimick then a real feature.

 

[whirlingdervish]

Base/Home building was pretty much just masturbation in Skyrim too.

Hours of gameplay to slowly build yet another place to pile up your heaps of useless items and loot, 99% of which you will never use for crafting.

It adds nothing to a game world where every thing you drop will stay where you dropped it, so such a feature is completely superfluous.

 

[joevonzombie]

Game Informer: 9/10

Paraphrase: "I was never forced to read anything. I like that"

I fucking called it!

Game Informer is probably the worst publication out there. They're fucking owned by Gamestop.

 

[culot]

At last, a game where crafting is a major gameplay element!

A game can still be fun with bad or average writing and bugs right?

Well...yeah. I mean this could just as easily describe Fallout 2. Maybe not so much "bad writing" as "rooms full of nothing" and "unfinished", and definitely broken as all hell. Was it also fun? It's always fun to hoard ammo and get shot in the back by an overzealous super mutant. If I'd known how I would feel about it after 15 years of community patches I'd not have traded the game back to EB for store credit a month after launch. (Maybe.)

So... maybe some mods will make F4 desirable. They certainly helped F3 and NV a lot.

Jeez, I traded mine for a copy of Twinsen's Odyssey way back then. Bad move.

It *will* be interesting to see what modders can salvage from this wreck. It almost like why bother though. meh.

 

[tekhedd]

I'm looking forward to actually reading actual end user reviews. The critic reviews are as usual useless and the metacritic composite score doesn't tell you anything. I mean, to me Skyrim is one huge yawning festival, but it still has a 95 or something on metacritic.

Skyrim. I was curious and it was on sale. It really is huge, but so is the ocean or space. Bethesda's writers truly have no humor in their souls.

So, based on that experience, and my experiernce with all previous Bethesda games, er, why am I even here reading about this? The last of my youthful optimism was sucked from me around the release of New Vegas anyway.

I see the Battletech kickstarter was successful...why didn't somebody tell me about *that*?

 

[Mr Fish]

Game Informer: 9/10

Paraphrase: "I was never forced to read anything. I like that"

I fucking called it!

Game Informer is probably the worst publication out there. They're fucking owned by Gamestop.

Still called it.

I'm looking forward to actually reading actual end user reviews. The critic reviews are as usual useless and the metacritic composite score doesn't tell you anything. I mean, to me Skyrim is one huge yawning festival, but it still has a 95 or something on metacritic.

Yeah, that's how I feel too. And I'm especially interested in the negative reviews that are critical and not just shitposting. Negative reviews are usually more passionate in explaining the flaws of a game whereas positive ones usually gloss over them and mixed ones usually try to be too neutral and tame. So negative user reviews is what I look forward to the most.

 

[PossibleCabbage]

The takeaway I've gotten from all the reviews I've read is pretty much "if you liked Skyrim, you'll like this too" and while there's nothing wrong with enjoying Skyrim, I do sort of wonder when the gaming audience is going to tire of these sorts of things. I mean, "Open world with a huge checklist of things to do and lots of combat" is more or less the flavor of the moment in games, and everything else that's been the flavor of the moment in the past (mascot platformers, 2D fighters, first person shooters, etc.) has eventually fallen off the mountain. I mean, at a younger age I would have likely enjoyed the heck out of Fallout 4, but in recent years I've become more aware of how much the Bethesda formula is just shameless pandering to the player (telling him and her how special they are and letting them do whatever they want). People only really tend to enjoy pandering insofar as they don't notice it (this is why "pandering to a group that doesn't include you" is always going to annoy people.)

So eventually are people going to realize that "a power fantasy about depleting loot caves" is honestly not that interesting?

 

[Geopbyte]

I liked the classic fallouts. I liked these new Fallouts too. They're both good in their own ways, though I can understand not liking one or the other. FPS's are getting more and more popular these days anyways, from what I've seen. In all honesty I think Bethesda is perfectly capable of making a good storyline, ( I hear the earlier elder scrolls were pretty good) though I doubt most of the fanbase cares about story and aren't so critical of it, providing they actually pay attention ('cause the people who bother to look in reviews and such are probably in the minority of the total gaming population). Shooting stuff with light RPG elements, as well as open-world exploration is fine with a lot of people anyways. For a Company, sales are what matters most, and if bullets and explosions sell, the stories are probably gonna take a backseat. I'll still enjoy Fallout 4 for what it is, I'm finding it fun and exciting to play.

As for bugs, that's a whole other matter.

 

[Earth]

Remember when the story in Fallout New Vegas could be analysed as an actual story? You know, how it's essentially a parody of modern events in the Middle East? Interesting characters and great dialogue "Thumbs down you son of a bitch". Themes? Those were cool. For me, New Vegas was always about "letting go" (Elijah wanting to begin the world anew, Ulysses struggling to accept the loss of the Divide society, the NCR trying to rebuild the old flawed civilisation and Caesar trying to bring about a Hegelian synthesis to create a new and better (in his opinion) world. But there were other themes. War, love, LGBT relationships, forgiveness, the power of the individual, corruption, redemption and ultimately, a positive message for humanity at the end, that while war never changes, people do. And all of this, all of it, encapsulated in a neat video game about a post-apocalyptic society rebuilding itself in the ruins of Las Vegas, controlled by a computer and run by robots with police faces on them.

Yeah...that was neat.

 

[Butcher]

It's hella cheesy and shallow, but I'm genuinely having fun. In a blow things up, dick around, and explore way. Kinda had the same experience with Skyrim.

 

[Aniki]

It's hella cheesy and shallow, but I'm genuinely having fun. In a blow things up, dick around, and explore way. Kinda had the same experience with Skyrim.

Exactly what Bethesda wanted aimed for, but failed (or didn't bother) to make it anything other than that.

 

[LuckyOasis]

Remember when the story in Fallout New Vegas could be analysed as an actual story? You know, how it's essentially a parody of modern events in the Middle East? Interesting characters and great dialogue "Thumbs down you son of a bitch". Themes? Those were cool. For me, New Vegas was always about "letting go" (Elijah wanting to begin the world anew, Ulysses struggling to accept the loss of the Divide society, the NCR trying to rebuild the old flawed civilisation and Caesar trying to bring about a Hegelian synthesis to create a new and better (in his opinion) world. But there were other themes. War, love, LGBT relationships, forgiveness, the power of the individual, corruption, redemption and ultimately, a positive message for humanity at the end, that while war never changes, people do. And all of this, all of it, encapsulated in a neat video game about a post-apocalyptic society rebuilding itself in the ruins of Las Vegas, controlled by a computer and run by robots with police faces on them.

Yeah...that was neat.

That's giving that mess of a story in NV way too much credit. The story and the writing were the worst parts about New Vegas. The different factions were very appreciated, but the execution left a lot to be desired.

The only Fallout with a truly interesting main story was the original Fallout, in my opinion.

In Fallout, I originally wanted to help my Vault, but then felt more attached to everyone outside my Vault. By comparison, NV was a jumbled mess that left me not caring what happened to anyone in its world.

 

[Taskeen]

It's hella cheesy and shallow, but I'm genuinely having fun. In a blow things up, dick around, and explore way. Kinda had the same experience with Skyrim.

Exactly what I would have expected out of a Bethesda walking simulator. Sounds like a worthy contender for 5 of my dollars in 2 years to have some laughs at the hammy story and just shoot at shit, because that's all that matters in it.

With CD Projekt capable of making a go at open world games, their first time and totally nailing it - they'll only get better.

In Bethesda's games, its gone down hill since after Morrowind, but people love the ever-loving shit out of 'not really an RPG' simulators.

 

[Earth]

That's my two cents. It's what I took from it. I disagree that the storytelling in New Vegas was the worst part (for me that would be Bethesda's crummy gameplay) but hey, whatever floats your boat.

Too many of the characters, for me, were too damn likeable for me to not care about the world.

 

[Taskeen]

thought I'd share some good times from the rpgcodex:

 

[Hardboiled Android]

Here's a question for y'all: as a Fallout game, is this better or worse than 3?

 

[GlowHound]

It might actually be worse.

 

[Dr Fallout]

It might actually be worse.

Agreed. There's that possibility this will be worse then Fallout 3.