First round of Fallout 4 Reviews

[AgentBJ09]

Yeah I can't find it hard if it's not, I did play it on survival without that mod untilI realized even a simple mole rat took 10 or more hits to kill with a shotgun point blank range with upgrades. I must be of the belief it's hard if it takes forever to kill an enemy. No it means it's BORING like the kind of boring that makes me want to exit the game to play a good game, a better game without taking 40 bullets to kill a damn rat for example. Why are you so insistent on defending this crap? It's called an artificial difficulty and a bad one at that.

The question is not why I'm defending it, but why are you are you so insistent on hating the mode? With every post you always make up some bullshit reason to justify your hate. First it's the instakills, then the there are no other criticals, not to mention your claim that you need to use drugs in every battle, now a simple mole rat needs ten shots to be killed from a fully upgraded shotgun in point blank? Really, what's next? You need 2 mini nukes to kill a bloatfly?
The mode is nothing what you try to make it be. It just made enemies buffier requiring you to invest more in your damage perks and keep your gear always upgraded whenever you get the chance. And there's nothing too special what few chems wouldn't help dealing with. If you don't like it because the fights are more longer and become boring to you, then please, switch the difficulty and enjoy your game rather than making it sound like survival is some sort of boogeyman mode.

Quick and simple: Artificial difficulty, done through health and damage buffs to enemies while decreasing your damage, is a long lambasted cheap way of upping the difficulty in game design.

In Warriors Orochi 3, a hack and slash ARPG, when playing on Chaos, enemies have more health and damage but will also gang up on you and attack faster, officers will air juggle you into foot soldiers versus use Musou as a stop action tactic, and numerous other things that make Chaos a challenge. Survival on Fallout 4 does none of those things outside of 'increase enemy damage/health, and take your damage down.' Hence, artificial difficulty.

 

[Corvega]

Yeah I can't find it hard if it's not, I did play it on survival without that mod untilI realized even a simple mole rat took 10 or more hits to kill with a shotgun point blank range with upgrades. I must be of the belief it's hard if it takes forever to kill an enemy. No it means it's BORING like the kind of boring that makes me want to exit the game to play a good game, a better game without taking 40 bullets to kill a damn rat for example. Why are you so insistent on defending this crap? It's called an artificial difficulty and a bad one at that.

The question is not why I'm defending it, but why are you are you so insistent on hating the mode? With every post you always make up some bullshit reason to justify your hate. First it's the instakills, then the there are no other criticals, not to mention your claim that you need to use drugs in every battle, now a simple mole rat needs ten shots to be killed from a fully upgraded shotgun in point blank? Really, what's next? You need 2 mini nukes to kill a bloatfly?
The mode is nothing what you try to make it be. It just made enemies buffier requiring you to invest more in your damage perks and keep your gear always upgraded whenever you get the chance. And there's nothing too special what few chems wouldn't help dealing with. If you don't like it because the fights are more longer and become boring to you, then please, switch the difficulty and enjoy your game rather than making it sound like survival is some sort of boogeyman mode.

Quick and simple: Artificial difficulty, done through health and damage buffs to enemies while decreasing your damage, is a long lambasted cheap way of upping the difficulty in game design.

In Warriors Orochi 3, a hack and slash ARPG, when playing on Chaos, enemies have more health and damage but will also gang up on you and attack faster, officers will air juggle you into foot soldiers versus use Musou as a stop action tactic, and numerous other things that make Chaos a challenge. Survival on Fallout 4 does none of those things outside of 'increase enemy damage/health, and take your damage down.' Hence, artificial difficulty.

I thought it's realistic shooting 400 bullets in an unarmored raider before he drops dead.

 

[Lexx]

I am happy we are still at "first round" of Fallout 4 reviews. By this time after the release of Fallout 3 we already had round 50 or something.

 

[MercenarySnake]

Yeah I can't find it hard if it's not, I did play it on survival without that mod untilI realized even a simple mole rat took 10 or more hits to kill with a shotgun point blank range with upgrades. I must be of the belief it's hard if it takes forever to kill an enemy. No it means it's BORING like the kind of boring that makes me want to exit the game to play a good game, a better game without taking 40 bullets to kill a damn rat for example. Why are you so insistent on defending this crap? It's called an artificial difficulty and a bad one at that.

The question is not why I'm defending it, but why are you are you so insistent on hating the mode? With every post you always make up some bullshit reason to justify your hate. First it's the instakills, then the there are no other criticals, not to mention your claim that you need to use drugs in every battle, now a simple mole rat needs ten shots to be killed from a fully upgraded shotgun in point blank? Really, what's next? You need 2 mini nukes to kill a bloatfly?
The mode is nothing what you try to make it be. It just made enemies buffier requiring you to invest more in your damage perks and keep your gear always upgraded whenever you get the chance. And there's nothing too special what few chems wouldn't help dealing with. If you don't like it because the fights are more longer and become boring to you, then please, switch the difficulty and enjoy your game rather than making it sound like survival is some sort of boogeyman mode.

Quick and simple: Artificial difficulty, done through health and damage buffs to enemies while decreasing your damage, is a long lambasted cheap way of upping the difficulty in game design.

In Warriors Orochi 3, a hack and slash ARPG, when playing on Chaos, enemies have more health and damage but will also gang up on you and attack faster, officers will air juggle you into foot soldiers versus use Musou as a stop action tactic, and numerous other things that make Chaos a challenge. Survival on Fallout 4 does none of those things outside of 'increase enemy damage/health, and take your damage down.' Hence, artificial difficulty.

I thought it's realistic shooting 400 bullets in an unarmored raider before he drops dead.

No it must be what I try to make it out to be, I must be imagining that enemies have more heath or that my damage output was gimped. Sorry for wasting everyones time.

 

[Aniki]

Quick and simple: Artificial difficulty, done through health and damage buffs to enemies while decreasing your damage, is a long lambasted cheap way of upping the difficulty in game design.

In Warriors Orochi 3, a hack and slash ARPG, when playing on Chaos, enemies have more health and damage but will also gang up on you and attack faster, officers will air juggle you into foot soldiers versus use Musou as a stop action tactic, and numerous other things that make Chaos a challenge. Survival on Fallout 4 does none of those things outside of 'increase enemy damage/health, and take your damage down.' Hence, artificial difficulty.

Artificial difficulty such as in Fallout 4 exists pretty much in every game out there (with variations of course). Every FPS game out there, then your Mass Effects, Dragon Ages, even Fallout 2, Fallout: Tactics and so much more had those. DOOM 3's nightmare mode had your health decrease to 25 on top of monsters doing more damage, while some games even failed to do the 'increase enemy damage and health' and still ended up easy. If people gonna throw rocks at Fallout 4 for for it's survival, then they better do that as well to those games as well, otherwise they come out as nothing but hypocrites.

I thought it's realistic shooting 400 bullets in an unarmored raider before he drops dead.

First it's was 6 mines and 40 combat rifle shots to kill a raider, then 10 shots to kill a mole rat with a shotgun from point blank, now it's 400 bullets to kill an unarmored raider. And the numbers keep getting higher and higher with every post.

 

[Zerginfestor]

Artificial difficulty such as in Fallout 4 exists pretty much in every game out there (with variations of course). Every FPS game out there, then your Mass Effects, Dragon Ages, even Fallout 2, Fallout: Tactics and so much more had those. DOOM 3's nightmare mode had your health decrease to 25 on top of monsters doing more damage, while some games even failed to do the 'increase enemy damage and health' and still ended up easy. If people gonna throw rocks at Fallout 4 for for it's survival, then they better do that as well to those games as well, otherwise they come out as nothing but hypocrites.
.

Except some popular games, such as Fallout's 'cousin', Metro 2033 and Metro: Last Light use the exact opposite of what you stated, and made the game have the most challenging and exciting combat scenarios, and people praised it, with good reason, since it actually enforced this sense of realism that "yes, most things in the world can't really handle a shot or two from a .44 magnum....but uh, that includes you, bub". From what I notice, I don't think people have an issue with throwing rocks at those games too, if you haven't fucking noticed, maybe you should learn to read the forums instead of just derping onto one topic. However, this discussion is on Fallout 4, and seeing Fallout 4, 7 years in the fucking making, come out like shit, and even have laughable difficulty setting makes it hard to even try to ignore it.

 

[Aniki]

Except some popular games, such as Fallout's 'cousin', Metro 2033 and Metro: Last Light use the exact opposite of what you stated, and made the game have the most challenging and exciting combat scenarios, and people praised it, with good reason, since it actually enforced this sense of realism that "yes, most things in the world can't really handle a shot or two from a .44 magnum....but uh, that includes you, bub". From what I notice, I don't think people have an issue with throwing rocks at those games too, if you haven't fucking noticed, maybe you should learn to read the forums instead of just derping onto one topic. However, this discussion is on Fallout 4, and seeing Fallout 4, 7 years in the fucking making, come out like shit, and even have laughable difficulty setting makes it hard to even try to ignore it.

Metro did nothing expect increase damage enemies do a.k.a artificial difficulty. So ammo is scarce, but you do more damage to compensate that. Big whoop. Other than that it didn't do anything else. But if that's enough to bring a 'sense of realism' in game where enemies can't see even when you're in front of them just because a light on your watch tells you so, then good for you. Just don't forget to stick that Metro CD out of your ass when you'll be playing it so the blood would start rushing to your brain again.

 

[Romanophile]

My friend just killed a raider, but she was standing in one position like she was alive.

GOTY 10/10

 

[Walpknut]

"My idea is to explore more of the world and more of the ethics of a post-nuclear world, not to make a better plasma gun. " - Tim Cain.


Fallout 4:

 

[Mr Fish]

Is there are a weapon called "Better Plasma Gun"?

 

[Dr Fallout]

Is there are a weapon called "Better Plasma Gun"?

Need that to happen.

 

[Kilus]

I am happy we are still at "first round" of Fallout 4 reviews. By this time after the release of Fallout 3 we already had round 50 or something.

I kinda got distracted and bored by Fallout news. And people were already posting and talking about reviews here.

 

[zegh8578]

Speaking of weapons, anyone else notice the "plasmacaster"? If that is not a direct nut-kick, then I dunno what is.

1. There was the original plasma-rifle
2. Beth turned it into their own kind of nonsense
3. New Vegas brought it back, but with a changed name - plasma caster.
4. Beth went "oh no you don't ;D" and changed THAT one too, right back into their own kind of nonsense, although they wrote it as a single word, this can't be coincidence.

There's this air of deliberately pointing out that the old lore doesn't count, with the retconning we're otherwise used to. It seems so petty and personal... and without going too deep into "fanboyism", it seems as if Beth wants to "share" this attitude with them, that the old games are lame and stupid, despite giving rise to the new games. All the old lore should not only be forgotten, but spat upon

 

[Szilard]

My one-word summary: Unpleasant.


Visually - everything either looks like crap or the inside of a horrible airport hotel (ie, The Institute). FO3 at least had some style (the art deco/Metropolis-ish stuff etc etc).

Exploring & quests - apart from looking like crap, most of the interiors are uninteresting shooter levels & the quests are almost all: go to crappy uninteresting place/kill stuff/loot/return. It's just tedious and rather unpleasant.

The overall story is just horrible. Generally you are forced to betray and kill more-or-less innocent people if you want to progress. I don't see a way of playing through the game without either feeling lousy in the end or else feeling like you've been pushed along a railroad by an inept storyteller who thinks this kind of thing is "edgy" or whatever.

A massive, inexplicable production fail, IMO.

The other game I've played recently is Dragon Age: Inquisition. The two are kind of comparable, I think. Both are overstuffed (crafting+RPG+action+whatever, too much filler content); both are massively flawed in many ways; both seem to get a similar reaction (eg their Metacrtic scores). But I ended up liking DAI a whole lot, despite everything. It looked good, locations were varied and often interesting, the writing was less crap-television-standard, and some of the character writing was actually quite excellent; it had charm. On the other hand, FO4 for me is just ... unpleasant.

 

[Crni Vuk]

Quick and simple: Artificial difficulty, done through health and damage buffs to enemies while decreasing your damage, is a long lambasted cheap way of upping the difficulty in game design.

In Warriors Orochi 3, a hack and slash ARPG, when playing on Chaos, enemies have more health and damage but will also gang up on you and attack faster, officers will air juggle you into foot soldiers versus use Musou as a stop action tactic, and numerous other things that make Chaos a challenge. Survival on Fallout 4 does none of those things outside of 'increase enemy damage/health, and take your damage down.' Hence, artificial difficulty.

Artificial difficulty such as in Fallout 4 exists pretty much in every game out there (with variations of course). Every FPS game out there, then your Mass Effects, Dragon Ages, even Fallout 2, Fallout: Tactics and so much more had those. DOOM 3's nightmare mode had your health decrease to 25 on top of monsters doing more damage, while some games even failed to do the 'increase enemy damage and health' and still ended up easy. If people gonna throw rocks at Fallout 4 for for it's survival, then they better do that as well to those games as well, otherwise they come out as nothing but hypocrites.

I thought it's realistic shooting 400 bullets in an unarmored raider before he drops dead.

First it's was 6 mines and 40 combat rifle shots to kill a raider, then 10 shots to kill a mole rat with a shotgun from point blank, now it's 400 bullets to kill an unarmored raider. And the numbers keep getting higher and higher with every post.

And other games do get critized here as well. Including Dragon Age and ALL the other ones you mentioned.

However, that doesn't mean you can't enjoy them. Hell, you probably can even enjoy Fallout 4, for what it is. But since this is for the most part a Fallout community, what you see very often, is well, criticism about Fallout. You had people criticising Fallout 2 and yes, even Fallout 1 here, long before Bethesda even decided to have anything to do with Fallout. There are enough people here - me included - that feel the combat of Fallout 1 and 2 could be improved. Particularly as far as the tactical choices go, and I find it sad that Wasteland 2 has not really improved on that part. Doesn't mean that it is a bad game though. But it is a bit pale in comparision with games like Jagged Alliance 2 or Silent Storm, and the choices you have there in combat.

So I don't see why, just because almost every FPS is doing it, it would make us hypocrites, if people criticise Fallout 4 for delivering mostly bullet sponges. Not to mention when you also have examples where some games offer you more than just that. I am not sure if comparing Fallout 4 to the likes of Doom and other shooters actually speaks for the game ...

Let us be honest. I think the issue isn't even the fact that you have your occasional bullet sponges, the bigger problem is that Fallout 4 as game is so heavily focused on combat that almost everything you do outside of combat is almost meaningless. Most of us could probably ignore this easier if the game offered you something more than just CoD in the wasteland with Vault Dveller Shepard throwing meaningless lines around. But the RPG parts of the game seem to be so bland and uninspired ... that well ... what else do you have left? The combat mechanics. And naturally it will see a lot of players talking about it.

And it is funny how well fitting Walpknuts image is with Tim Cains quote showing the extreme difference between the First Fallout game and what Behtesda is aiming for. Enchanted weapons and armors are now the appeal of the game. Not exploring the narrative, dialog and setting of the game.

All those stuff in the game is really nothing more than a shiny object infront of a cat as distraction. But there is no depth, no substance to that kind of gameplay that is not much better than what you get in Diablo playing dress up doll with your character.

 

[stlkr]

meanwhile... http://www.cracked.com/blog/5-dark-lessons-fallout-4-taught-me/

 

[TorontoReign]

I just want to add that Tactics is definitely semi canon guys according to info I have found.

 

[tekhedd]

That immersive facial animation mod looks like something from Garry's Mod. Oh TorontRayne if you play on survival difficulty then download the mod on the Fallout 4 Nexus that gives you the same damage multiplier as enemies, or else you'll fight bullet sponges like mole rats taking 10+ hits to kill.

Yeah I hate bullet sponges on both sides. That's why I want a shooter where one shot can kill you and if it doesn't it severely weakens you as you suffer from blood loss and pain.

I like the way Metro 2033 did the "enemy can kill you as fast as you can kill them" but I'm sure there are better ways to do it. Like your way too.

Metro can be very frustrating because, well, stealth frequently fails and you're frequently shooting, so you die frequently, even if you're good at it. So I end up constantly reloading, like in games where you play a thief and have to reload every time you fail.

But in an RPG, realistic bullets could be very interesting, and make finding alternate solutions to some situations very desirable and/or rewarding. So, er, not relevant to Fallout 4, then, but it's still interesting. (Missed opportunity here = could be explored in some RPG?)

Re: Realism. Obviously people don't want realism. Realsim = "you're dead". The Metro games made that painfully obvious. What people want is plausibility. It doesn't have to be real, but it needs to feel real. And most of the discussions that's what people are really talking about, and confusing "realism = feels real" with "realism = actually realistic" tends to result in disagreement where the two diverge. But don't be distracted by that. What's important is that when you lose plausibility, you lose suspension of disbelief, you lose the fabled "immersion", and simply stated it's less fun.

Any time you're in a game and you say to yourself, "that's just stupid," they blew it. NPCs that can't die, weapons that are silly but not funny. It's one thing to have a joke weapon where you go "haha that's ridiculous" but there has to be a context in which it exists, a set-up for the joke. You can't just have a joke weapon exist without context, because that's just stupid. In general, Bethesda can't tell a joke, and never could.

I completed some quest in Skyrim where at the end it was darkly humorous, and I remember laughing for the first time in about 10 hours of play and thinking "hey these guys have a sense of humor after all!" And then realizing it was unintentional. So sad.

Er, so yeah.

Anyway the point was that if you increase difficulty just by making the player more dead, you can do it in a way that is less realistic (bullet sponge), or a way that is more realistic (insta kill), but in either case you probably aren't making the game more interesting or fun.

This overanalysis is brought to you by OCD.

 

[Askorti]

Yahtzee has finally gotten around to review Fallout 4. And he doesn't disappoint.
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/zero-punctuation/116433-Fallout-4-Review

 

[Crni Vuk]

I think Metro and the combat was well done, as long as it comes to humans. Fighting the monsters was ... often boring compared to that. And this goes for both metro games. But what Metro really has, is atmosphere. What it does, it does well. It's a very linear game, but that doesn't hurt the experience. The sections with the spiders where you have to use your lamp to hurt them in Metro 2? Awesome. And this is what gives the game such great quality. And of course, the gas mask. The mod, the ambience, it's simply a decently crafted shooter. I can't say that I am overly thrilled to hear that the next game might be more open-world. Not everyhting has to go down that route.