First round of Fallout 4 Reviews

Bubba Zanetti said:
I'll never forget the shit I had to go thru in Fallout 1 and New Vegas just to become a member of the Brotherhood of Steel, nevermind the leader of a freakin' chapter.

That and I loved how the different factions of New Vegas offered me actual incentives and reasons for joining them.

NCR and House of course threw money at me, as well as idealistic jingoism and a grand plan for the future, respectively.

Caesar used an interesting mix of historical knowledge, philosophy, and downright intimidation in an attempt to win me over.

Depending on your character, you could respond appropriately. Some of my more venal characters go with House and/or NCR. My more idealistic ones often go the Yes Man route, and my Legion gal was completely agog by Caesar's philosophical musings.

What motivation do the Minutemen offer the player character for joining them?

:shrug:
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A cool laser musket and a funky tri-corner hat you can use to decorate one of your settlement shacks. What more could you possibly want anyway?
 
I'm not sure if all of the reviews qualify as reviews, they're rather marketing stunts. Now I write barley here, but I start to fear to become the troll of "he always talks about the influence of marketing" but I have to do it again. I work in an industry that went through, in the mid 70s early 80s, what the gaming (at least PC gaming, console gaming earlier) industry is going through for the past 12 to 15 years to a point of a complete redefinition of what "best practices" in gaming are to a point where the consumer and the public in general will accept it as best practices while the actuality of it is, to say it straightforward; Absolute garbage from a professional standpoint. There is absolutely no way to beat around the bushes here.

What happens with Fallout is what I call the "FIFA syndrome". In Europe, the FIFA games by EA have been getting good ratings ever since they make them, no matter how bad they were and are. Since the face of journalistic integrity has to be kept on a superficial level, the critique usually deals with generalities that are important, but not vital to the game such as:

- a few bugs here and there
- mediocre voice acting
- unavailable digital diamond gold kryptonite trophy's forged in fire's of Mount Doom in Mordor by no other than Chris Pratt who is on promo tour of being the new face of the Call of Duty franchise.
- graphics that are not 2015 but from 2014 OMG how terrible (When I heard people complained about the F4 graphics I knew instantly it will be a feast for the crows for a lot of news and reviewing websites because this way they can make dumb people look even dumber without dealing with the questions raising concerns about actual gameplay.. you know when you move the mouse and press keys etc. pp.)

It is pleasant criticism for the Company that invested millions in marketing and making the game because it doesn't really go in-depth, and at the same time the bigger-sized magazines and sites won't cut their ties with them, still get exclusive information and material and attract a large amount of people by covering these titles the way they do. Unfortunately journalism in gaming never had the chance to be different when it pertains to the big magazines , this branch of journalism has been held hostage since day one; to agree to not be all too harsh with the big dogs in the industry if you want to keep your benefits.

It has been well established and known for more than a decade and how else could it be? A relatively young industry with its first wave of journalists and reporters- unleashed into the wild full of undiscovered land no serious journalist cared about to explore or saw the chance to make a living from writing about gaming 30+ years ago because there was none! The symbiosis between gaming industry and a lot of reviewers exist since day and what we see at the moment, to finally come back to F4 and co., are the heydays of this.

Some of the reviews posted here, some on Youtube with 30+k views, some I've read myself have "PR-Text" written all over them. I know it! I saw my own former company I worked for doing it, I'm familiar with the wording, the choices of what to cover and what not. It's all over the place and so obvious.

For that reason: Some of the reviews posted really are flat out marketing stunts with worse content than a vacuum cleaner salesman brochure.

The real reviews come from the NMA users here, even if they sometimes consist of a 5 word sentence; they express more what hell is wrong with this game than anything else I've read so far.

To come to an end:

I once saw an interview with Terry Gilliam how he described he was in a screening of "Batman Returns" and after the film a kid next to him said "I didn't enjoy it as much as the first one. Maybe I didn't understand it" and Terry Gilliam responded by saying "No it was the movie. It just wasn't good". So is Fallout 4: it is simply a piece of hack fraud scrap metal

period
 


IGN's new Fallout podcast "IGN Vault" discussed the review and why they gave it a 9.5.

Not very far into it yet but the reviewer says it's the best story *BETHESDA* has ever done. He admits to not playing every Bethesda game so it's possible he's not including Morrowind in that categorization. If he is, then he's dumb. :P

He also clarifies he's not including New Vegas because Obsidian did that one and not Bethesda and he likes New Vegas' story more.
 
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So if your story is a plate of shit instead of a plate of diarrhea then that excuses it being a plate of shit?
Oh and when compare to a plate of, I dunno, meatballs and potatoes, it's unfair because it is from a different cook and the two plates of shit should only be compared to one another and not a proper fish?

[edit]

A bit late but uh, I meant "proper dish". >_>
 
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Haha yeah. Not that hard to do a "best story ever" if so far all your stories have been bad to mediocre. I mean I loved Morrowind but not because of the story that's for sure. Still how anyone could think this generic "search mah babay"-drivel is great writing is beyond me.
 
Bubba Zanetti said:
Hassknecht said:
It still feels odd. I mean, they actually know that the guy or gal just woke up and knows absolutely nothing about the world. If they can just tell him or her to go out and slaughter a ton of people, who says that others can't persuade him or her just as easily to betray the Minutemen? The Survivor doesn't know who's good and who's bad in that world.
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Out of curiosity, do the Minutemen offer any practical incentive for joining them? Money? Weapons? Resources?
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Eh, not really. They just kinda force themselves on you. I mean, Sanctuary is basically your starting town, but after saving them in Concord they move to Sanctuary and take up your space.
 
Crni Vuk said:
It's just me, but I have yet to find a game where [weapon degradation] is actually a good feature. [...] the way how it's done most of the time in games (Stalker, Fallout 3, New Vegas) it's usually unrealistic.
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Maybe this is because IRL weapons are made of things like metal and wood. Whereas in game universes they are made of cardboard and tissue paper, apparently.

I once read an article where they tested a Sig pistol (228 or 229?) by firing 1000 rounds through it without cleaning it any more than absolutely required to prevent it from jamming. Afterwards, they cleaned and test fired it, and the accuracy had improved slightly. The conclusion? After 1000 rounds a SIG is now broken in. :)

Yes, you do a LOT of shooting if you go for a combat focused character in some of these games, but guns don't spontaneously disintegrate when you fire them. They are made to be fired, after all.

If they put realistic weapon degradation into games, and you had a combat focused character, you'd have to clean your weapon a few times through the course of the game, or it might jam. Of course if you have Wal Mart ammo and a crappy gun it'll start jamming almost immediately, also based on real life experience. So... er... you could make a decent gameplay mechanic out of that actually, if you cared to, now that I think about it. Especially in the context of a game that, er, thinks junk collecting and "crafting" is a core gameplay mechanic. Why not have a "scrubbing the inside of your gun with a toothbrush" minigame? It'd fit right in with the rest of the experience. *sigh*

.... And another thing! (sigh)

Clearly, some people really like the game. And that doesn't mean they're total idiots. It doesn't mean the game is good either. Maybe it's fun to play for a certain type of person... but what does it take? Not being very invested in the experience perhaps? Having low expectations? There's no question that the NMA crowd (I guess I count myself in that group) want to see a lot of depth in a Fallout game, but clearly at this point none of us could be accused of having high expectations from a Bethesda product. Perhaps a willingness to "get what you get and don't throw a fit?"

You can never go home again. Now I know what people mean when they say that.
 
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RangerBoo said:
It is FUCKING amazing that hardly any mainstream "critic" or "professional" gaming site are talking about the low Metacritic score as well as the game breaking bugs. I can understand them not taking Metacritic seriously but when ALL 3(!) platforms have a low user score with everyone flooding Beths and Steams forums about the tech issues then you know something is up. I have a feeling that this may be bigger then the Arkham Knight and AC: Unity fiasco.
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There was a PC Gamer article today called What the critics, players, and my dad think about Fallout 4, yet there wasn't a single mentioning of the 4.7 Metacritic score. The writer did mention the Steam ratings, but only so far as to relate the number of positive reviews. The fact that the game has 2 700 negative reviews, which makes 22 % of the total, was obviously not worth mentioning. 22 % might not seem high at a first glance, but compared to FNV, The Witcher 3, or even FO3, which have negative scores of 6 %, 6 % and 16/17 % respectively, it actually is, and specially so when one considers Steam's binary rating system. The Metacritic score could be dismissed, even if unfairly so, by the fact that anyone can post a review on their site, regardless if they own the game or not. The low Steam score, however, must be taken at face value. So the article might as well have been called What the people who are payed to like the game and what players who like the game, think of Fallout 4 -- they like the game, by the way, and really tells us all we need to know about the integrity of today's game 'journalism'.
 
I wonder why they did not released day one patch for most common bugs at least, they knowed about them long before the game release (press reviews, leaks etc.), all that hype for nextgen Fallout game and ''new'' engine with x64bit support was for nothing. I still remember what Todd was saying (back in June I guess) that this time their game will be more polished, yeah right, even (especially?!) console versions have framerate drops problems and more bugs than Skyrim lol.
P.S. Battlecross, I don't know why are you ''torturing'' yourself that much, there are many other forums that love F4 and Bethesda, so you would be loved there and could share your opinion with others who has a similar one.. :shock:
P.S.2. Walpknut, why are you even playing this shit?! I would not even if somebody would paid me to do so (still have so much other games to play like DLC for The Witcher 3 and new mod for FNV).
 
randy Mc rupp said:
Haha yeah. Not that hard to do a "best story ever" if so far all your stories have been bad to mediocre. I mean I loved Morrowind but not because of the story that's for sure. Still how anyone could think this generic "search mah babay"-drivel is great writing is beyond me.
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I'm not sure what is worse, the fact that the guy has not played the only good Bethesda TES game in years, or that he thinks this story is better than ANY other story they've written.

Skyrim's incredibly short main quest line at least makes some sense and is thematically consistent, even though it is shallow as a kiddie pool. It beats the pants off of Fallout 3.

This garbage barely stacks up against Fallout 3's story, and considering that it is derived from it, even if they were dead on equal, I would give the Fallout 3 story the win since at least it was stupid but original, while Fallout 4 is stupid and derivative.
 
AnchorsAweigh said:
RangerBoo said:
It is FUCKING amazing that hardly any mainstream "critic" or "professional" gaming site are talking about the low Metacritic score as well as the game breaking bugs. I can understand them not taking Metacritic seriously but when ALL 3(!) platforms have a low user score with everyone flooding Beths and Steams forums about the tech issues then you know something is up. I have a feeling that this may be bigger then the Arkham Knight and AC: Unity fiasco.
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There was a PC Gamer article today called What the critics, players, and my dad think about Fallout 4, yet there wasn't a single mentioning of the 4.7 Metacritic score. The writer did mention the Steam ratings, but only so far as to relate the number of positive reviews. The fact that the game has 2 700 negative reviews, which makes 22 % of the total, was obviously not worth mentioning. 22 % might not seem high at a first glance, but compared to FNV, The Witcher 3, or even FO3, which have negative scores of 6 %, 6 % and 16/17 % respectively, it actually is, and specially so when one considers Steam's binary rating system. The Metacritic score could be dismissed, even if unfairly so, by the fact that anyone can post a review on their site, regardless if they own the game or not. The low Steam score, however, must be taken at face value. So the article might as well have been called What the people who are payed to like the game and what players who like the game, think of Fallout 4 -- they like the game, by the way, and really tells us all we need to know about the integrity of today's game 'journalism'.
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They do the same ESPN does for around 10 years. "Kobe Bryant passes Michael Jordan in all-time scoring list" while leaving out another record he broke the same year: most missed shots in history. It's simply fabrication by leaving out the important part of putting things in perspective. I saw this before on this grand scale as a die hard Star Wars fan with the prequels, later with Fallout under Bethesda and then what happened with the Diablo series after Blizzard North closed its doors and the piece of garbage called Diablo 3 came out... and I'm just realizing my fav. 3 franchises got equally f*cked haha.
 
So uh, Steam's user reviews? Yeah it went from Very Positive to Mostly Positive with 10,368 being positive and 2,868 being negative.
 
Here's my review of Fallout 4
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I kid but seriously it seems they put more time into the character creator then everything else.
 

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Is it just me or is the gunplay in this game way more difficult than the previous game in the series. In the #3 game as long as you were aiming fairly squarly on the enemy they would be hit. In this game I'm running around wasting ammo as I try in vain to hit the enemy the same way I do when I tried CSGO/Halo. For people who primarily play rpgs/MOBAs/strategy games like I do, the reliance upon player skill being able to hit a rapidly moving target over your character's skill determining the accuracy makes the game a lot more difficult to enjoy. It's not like VATS is an option either. When you use it you access to 2-3 shots which may not even kill a single enemy and then it takes 5-10 seconds to recharge during which time you are getting shot/tackled/hit by something which you can't even focus on. I always used to use VATS to deal with Cazadors in New Vegas since I could never hit them - almost every single enemy in this game are like the cazadors now.
 
Need some more examples before I call in the pitchforks, but that ain't good.\

FearMonkey said:
That seems illegal or something.

Certainly scummy at least.
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Illegal? No. Scummy, very much. Often developers get called on this too, outside of Arkham though I can't think of any big AAA game that this has happened to. What is weirdest is that it's not like the game is tanking on Steam. It's still mostly positive, 78% is good. They'd need to delete like hundreds of reviews to get it back into the 80s and that would certainly get some bad PR while at the moment the game is doing decently well in that front beyond being metabombed.
 
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