Just a daily reminder everyone

[Irwin John Finster]

yes, exactly. judging FO4 by it's own merit and not as an addition to the Fallout series, it's adequate, yet mediocre. i'd never felt so acutely bored playing an AAA game before as i did with FO4. sidequests felt like chores, the typical errand-boy schtick i've come to expect from Bethesda. "go here, fight X" becomes quite repetitive after a while.

my top issues with FO4 are that it's chock-full of contrived deus ex machina moments, missed opportunities, and that we are forced into playing as a character with a predefined personality. the interlocution with Kellogg is a perfect example of the predefined character: when you finally meet him, the guy is calm and reasoning with you, yet the only response options you get are stupidly ragey and aggressive. there's no option for diplomacy—your only choice is to kill him. and then the game has the gall to guilt trip you later on because of your 'rash actions'... oh fuck off, honestly. maybe if i weren't robbed of any role-playing options i would've spared him?

additionally, Kellogg's memories were possibly the only moments in the game where i'd felt immersed with the story, but what i don't understand is why they'd go through all that trouble fleshing out Kellogg's life when he's already dead and has no further relevance to the plot. it's also a great example of a deus ex machina moment, how Kellogg conveniently happened to be a cyborg and Nick conveniently happened to be able to read his brain matter.

then, they tease us with Kellogg talking through Nick, implying there will be unforeseen consequences to having hacked his brainy bits, but nothing ever comes of it. what a way to drop the ball. Kellogg could've made a much better gruff merc companion than Robert 'My Wife is Dead' MacCready, or Boone 2.0 as i prefer to call him.

Damn yeah, i like kellog a lot. Probably even more so than Boone. Hell if we skip the whole family affair and revenge plot, we could just be buddy. Albeit more like Hero and His lancer relationship

I'm inclined to agree with both of you. Kellogg was the one character in the game that made me start thinking Bethesda learned something from Obsidian, but unfortunately this hope was extinguished by the rest of the game. Super Bunnyhop actually pointed this out in his review as well.

The one thing going against Kellogg for me has to do with how his story is revealed. I know that Fallout is a universe with talking brain-bots and crazy things like the Master, but for some reason Bethesda's whole "take Kelloggs mutilated, long-dead brain and plug some electrodes into it and you can see his entire history" wreaked of the kind of lazy writing that brought us Kid in the Fridge and Ancient Aliens. For whatever reason, when Bethesda tries to do science fiction it comes out really lazy and awful and just makes me feel like the whole game is stupid, whereas Obsidian can make Old World Blues and I think it's AMAZING. Bethesda's writers just don't "get it." But that's just my opinion and isn't exactly relevant to the character himself.

Nick Valentine came close to having a fleshed out character, but like all other characters you can't really interact with him outside of "Yes No Maybe Sarcastic" and his dialogue doesn't come anywhere near someone like Veronica in New Vegas who shared so much wonderful information about the Brotherhood and gave us some wonderful foreshadowing of Elijah and things to come in Dead Money (which I recently replayed and is an AMAZING DLC that completely blows the entire Fallout 4 game out of the water).

If Bethesda wasn't so busy loving the smell of their own farts they might have made a DLC where you play as Kellogg that takes you through his life leading up to his work with the Institute. If they're going to force a pre-made character on us instead of the traditional Fallout non-voiced protagonist that we create ourselves, that would have been a good avenue (though they shouldn't be forcing pre-made voiced protagonists on us at all in a real Fallout RPG). Unfortunately, they wanted to do more paid mod Workshop DLC instead of actual expansions.

 

[CerberusGate]

all in all, i feel like Kellogg was such a wasted opportunity of a character. here we have this guy who has trekked across the United States from southern California all the way to New England, lived for over one hundred years, is a cyborg, has insider deets on the Institute, and what do we get? less than 3 minutes of dialogue and a pointless, anticlimactic fight. just imagine what an interesting companion he could've made. he's not even truly 'evil' per se, just a pawn to carry out the Institute's dirty work. your character isn't much better if they join up with the Institute. heck, you basically are a replacement Kellogg in the beginning—Father even says so outright.

The problem probably lies with Bethesda not being willing to try. Kellogg has a backstory tied to the West Coast regions and acts as a foil to the Sole Survivor (former family man, long-lived, ties to the Institute). It would have been more interesting to apply skill-checks to defeat him verbally (which would have been possible had Bethesda not scrapped the skill system and replaced it with the perk system) and convince him to surrender (or even side with you to atone for this latest crime) but Emil and the writers in charge probably did not want to create variety in their 'story'.

Nick Valentine came close to having a fleshed out character, but like all other characters you can't really interact with him outside of "Yes No Maybe Sarcastic" and his dialogue doesn't come anywhere near someone like Veronica in New Vegas who shared so much wonderful information about the Brotherhood and gave us some wonderful foreshadowing of Elijah and things to come in Dead Money

Nick was probably the only companion I was okay with (the other two I did not dislike like Curie and Piper got dull and did not do much) but that was balanced out by how insubstantial and inconsequential his story was in the end so he became forgettable as the rest. Interestingly, the two of them have ties to DLCs in their games (Nick had his 'brother' in Fart Harbor and Veronica had Elijah in Dead Money) though Veronica actually gets a benefit for handling Elijah in Dead Money (a unique perk).

 

[Chud]

Kellogg's much like a lot of other threads and streamlined quests found throughout Fallout 4; they were clearly meant to be longer and bigger, only to then get cut or shortened. The lack of anything coming from Kellogg lurking inside of Nick is baffling. I thought something big would come of it, some twist or surprise, perhaps a tough choice where I decide Nick's fate. Instead, it's a whole lot of nothing.

This goes for The Memory Den as well. That location at first seems like it'll be a hub for a lot of big and interesting quests, but not much happens with it. Sure The Railroad, MQ, and The Silver Shroud take place there, but that's not what I mean. I was hoping to dive into a person's memory to help get them out of a catatonic state, to see the world through the eyes of a ghoul, raider or even super mutant, to play an investigator that looks for clues in a criminal's mind. So much potential there, and yet very little comes of it.

 

[Crossfire]

Wait, so... was it Father who sent Kellogg to kidnap Shaun? But doesn't Father = Shaun? Is there some time travel subplot that I overlooked? Y'know, just to make this mess even more convoluted...

 

[cordelionreaver]

Wait, so... was it Father who sent Kellogg to kidnap Shaun? But doesn't Father = Shaun? Is there some time travel subplot that I overlooked? Y'know, just to make this mess even more convoluted...

That was a different Old Man. Kellogg just calls them the same name just to hide the plot twist. It makes no sense, but very little in this game does.

 

[Crossfire]

no. the person who ordered the kidnapping was the former Institute director, ambiguously referred to as the "Old Man" by Kellogg. nothing else is known about him. Father/Shaun was still an infant at that time.

60-something years later, Father, now director of the Institute, created a synth version of his younger self, the very first child synth. Kellogg, whom is now over 100 years old due to cybernetic enhancements, was compelled by Father to buy a house in Diamond City and play guardian to synth-child Shaun. it concluded when X6-88 gave Kellogg his new orders and teleported Synth!Shaun to the Institute, as indicated in Kellogg's memories; the house was subsequently abandoned, and Kellogg left for Fort Hagen. this all happens about 3 weeks before the Sole Survivor's release from the cryopod.

and to what ends? functioning as a breadcrumb trail for the Sole Survivor to follow—recently released from the Vault, they would predictably be searching for a balding, grumpy mercenary and a kidnapped child, setting them off on a wild goose chase that finally leads up to the Institute, right into Father's clutches. it also serves to acclimatize the idea of Shaun being older than initially expected... 'cause he's actually an old fart.

but why didn't Father just abduct the Sole Survivor from the get-go, one might ask?

gosh, it sounds even more ridiculous and convoluted when i try to put it into words. so, basically, FO4 is Father's big social experiment.

I know I've said this before, repeatedly, in other threads, but, I find it staggering... truly staggering that someone got paid to come up with THAT. It speaks volumes as to where Bethesda puts writing quality on their totem pole of development & design priorities.

What a fucking joke.

 

[Prone Squanderer]

I know I've said this before, repeatedly, in other threads, but, I find it staggering... truly staggering that someone got paid to come up with THAT. It speaks volumes as to where Bethesda puts writing quality on their totem pole of development & design priorities.

What a fucking joke.

That and the quest to track Kellogg down is just as contrived. Apparently Nick can whistle to a dog that's all the way across the wasteland (just one specific dog), said dog can track down Kellogg by sniffing cigars and bloody bandages that have been there for weeks. Is it possible for scents to last that long?

Another thing I don't get, why doesn't Kellogg just tell the SS who the Old Man actually is? I know it's because Bethesda want the big reveal when you finally get to the Institute, but it makes no sense story wise for Kellogg not to reveal this. He knows he's been played, why keep the secret?

As for the Gunners, had Boston been a restored city like I presumed when I first saw the Fallout 4 trailer, they could have easily been the city's security force, maybe make them more like the Regulators from the first game. Piper could be investigating them and getting into conflict with the Mayor, who's either with them or is intimidated by them.

 

[Earth]

Is there any actual point to Kellogg being from the west coast? Does it come into the story in any way?

Fun fact: J.H. Kellogg was a weirdo.

 

[Irwin John Finster]

no, it's merely a shout-out to the early Fallout games.

actually, now that i think about it, it's probably the only time Bethesda has ever recognized the existence of the west coast in their games, iirc.

weirdo is an understatement. he advocated genital mutilation, and his cornflakes were originally advertised to promote chastity. he was also against food seasonings, he believed they made ladies into wanton strumpets.

That's some high-level mansplaining about ladyparts right there.