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[Tyrus]

Agree with all of it.

Compared to New Vegas (which I don't think is the perfect RPG like so many Obsidian fans proclaim it to be), it can hardly be called a role-playing experience set in the Fallout universe. It's shooty shooty bang bang with lack of quality side quests, a shallow level of effort in what is present, massive illusion of choice in dialogue and terrible writing all-round.

The one thing I will say is the effort they put in with the companions was excellent.

I think the worst part of it is it has spawned a subset of Fallout fans who actually think less roleplaying is better and that the shooter aspect of Fallout 4 is what should be the standard going forward. Yeah, okay mate.

The thing is Bethesda actually did alright in Fallout 3. There's a few SPECIAL checks in that game, plenty of neutral and morally questionable ways to role-play with choices facilitated (like being a dick, or enslaving people for Paradise Falls and opening up a whole new questline), even if they were bit simpler in depth than New Vegas's factions and its character's motivations. But in F4, nowhere to be found.

 

[Keasar]

They really should try and get both set of fans. It's not impossible. It's not like having some of the ideas from New Vegas in this would have resulted in millions less sold copies.

"But that requires effort..."
-Bethesda

The sad thing is that, while Fallout 4 was a poor RPG game and a poor Fallout game, people have still bought it in the millions. Bethesda now knows that it doesn't really matter what the game contains, make it open world, populate it with shit to shoot/hack/arrow/fireball, talk about "freedom" and people will lap it up. Slap on a sticker of a recognizable brand and it will go even faster off the shelves.

It's just better at this point to admit defeat and go to CD Project Red, Obsidian and Harebrained (if they can make another awesome game like Shadowrun: Dragonfall/Hong Kong) and all the other developers who wanna make actual RPGs for RPG players. Bethesda has no talent left except to make great illusions of "roleplaying" for the masses.

The nuanced and complex ethical issues surrounding artificial life have been reduced to utterly simplistic faction philosophies that can be understood even by Xbox One owners

Owch~

 

[RoyaleDuke]

Bethesda pretty much effectively neutered Fallout and basically turned it into a boring shooter that has little to no elements of being a real RPG. They pretty much eliminated the idea of a role playing game by straightjacketing everything into four, simplistic, and usually pointless choices. The main story is terrible, just, beyond words really.

The fact that the main special stats barely do anything besides unlock perks and give you minor bonuses is a fucking crime. FO1, 2, and New Vegas pretty much nailed how the special system is supposed to work, how it ties into the game and game world, and how skills work. Almost none of this is present in FO4.

The only interesting character was basically a caricature of Deckard from Bladerunner, but hey I love cyberpunk and Nick was really well written and voiced. He's also ironically the only character that tries in several conversations that really has any kind of interesting things to say, be it on his own sense of confusion over what his purpose is or his sense of trying to

Spoiler

figure out how much of him is simply en echo of another man that once lived. If there is anything about him that really makes him more than a machine.

Honestly, the only good thing I can really say about FO4 is that aesthetically, it's fantastic and really nails the Fallout world in an east coast setting. It's great honestly, not as interesting as either FO1, 2, or New Vegas but it's clear that Bethesda put a lot of time into thinking about the environment. I mean the biggest thing for me is that towns and the city parts actually feel and look like cities you would think you would see in a setting like Fallout.

TBH, after Skyrim and FO4 I probably won't be interested in anymore BGS Elder Scrolls/Fallout games. They just feel like empty shells, purely built to waste time.

Overall, I kind of agree with some points in the Codex review but it's hard for me to want to read anything from them since well, they hate everything and are pretty much gigantic bigots and racists.

 

[Sotha_Sil]

I actually think the leveling system is salvageable. They could have done some great speech checks and quest branches (like you see in NV) based off the perks and SPECIAL stats available, they just didn't use any of it.

 

[Steve.1981]

Read about half that review before giving up. The smug, snarky tone was just too grating.

Being honest though, after finishing a play through of about 100 hours, I can see Fallout 4 does have problems. The fixed storyline just doesn't fit with the exploration based gameplay. It's one of the worst examples yet of an RPG where your character really shouldn't be ignoring the main quest to go off and mess around for hours on end. And the dialogue system is not good, to put it nicely.

 

[Nessus]

As someone who never got past the rats in the Vault entrance in Fallout 1 and never played Fallout 2, but put quite a bit of time and energy into both Fallout 3 and New Vegas I found Fallout 4 disappointing, almost entirely due to the limited dialogue options/lack of speech checks but also the awful endings.

That said I still put 79 hours into it. I enjoyed it, the core gameplay of exploration, scavenging, piecing together what happened from diary entries and environmental clues, and real time combat are all still extremely satisfying.

I just keep hoping they'll let Obsidian do a spinoff using the same engine.

For me that would be the ideal solution. Let Bethesda make the more streamlined entries that establish the brand, then let Obsidian make the more in-depth entries with a ready made engine/assets.

 

[Arulan]

It's just better at this point to admit defeat and go to CD Project Red, Obsidian and Harebrained (if they can make another awesome game like Shadowrun: Dragonfall/Hong Kong) and all the other developers who wanna make actual RPGs for RPG players. Bethesda has no talent left except to make great illusions of "roleplaying" for the masses.

There is certainly an enormous sense of relief knowing that the outcome of Bethesda's, and for that matter BioWare's RPGs no longer make up a significant portion of the releases in the genre. Since crowd-funding and the success of indie developers took off that's no longer the case, and the result has been some of the best RPGs in years. Last year we saw two RPGs, The Age of Decadence and Underrail from practically unknown developers, unless you go to RPG Codex, become two of the best RPGs that year.

Also, never forget Larian.

 

[Camp Freddie]

The review is pretty much spot on.

I like how they called them on their bullshit 'environmental storytelling'.
It's funny to see an amusingly posed teddy bear or skeleton.
It is not funny to see them in every fucking quest, regardless of the tone that the 'story' is attempting to convey.

Fallout 4 did nothing with the franchise. It's Fallout 3 with a shit crafting system and less of everything else.
Even the graphics are pretty poor, considering all the 'next gen' upgrades that other games are showing. It feels like I just got a new graphics card for Fallout 3 and can now turn up the settings from Medium to High.
Compared to the changes from Witcher 2-3 or Dragon Age 2-Inq., the changes here are barely noticable.

The worst part it that the huge sales figures mean that Fallout 5 will be more of the same.

 

[Fishook]

It was a poor RPG, and Fallout game IMO. It sums up modern mainstream games to a tea. Played it to completion and have no desire to touch again. I am not saying its a bad game persay but I have got bored of the stale generic play style, with endless crafting and loot drops. But that is what modern gamer's lap up. It has to have some sort of End Game/Sandbox to play for hours on end. There not bothered with stories and decent quests.

Stuff like Age of Decadence is too hardcore for my taste as you need a optimum bulid to progress throughout the game, Underail is in my backlog. RPG codex tend to be the more extreme RPG fans, where I prefer RPG's in between.

 

[Acerac]

And yet I still clocked somewhere around 90 hours of gameplay. Hm.

So respond to the criticisms! Tell us what you enjoyed, and why the author of the article was incorrect. People have put thousands of hours in to Bubsy 3D, that doesn't somehow make that game any more enjoyable.

 

[Sodding_Gamer]

Played Fallout 3 for 100 hours. Loved my time with it.

Played Fallout 4 for 15 hours and got bored. I have no intention of going back to it as it just didn't resonate with me. It also didn't help that I put 100 or so hours into the Witcher 3 before hand.

 

[Acosta]

It was a poor RPG, and Fallout game IMO. It sums up modern mainstream games to a tea. Played it to completion and have no desire to touch again. I am not saying its a bad game persay but I have got bored of the stale generic play style, with endless crafting and loot drops. But that is what modern gamer's lap up. It has to have some sort of End Game/Sandbox to play for hours on end. There not bothered with stories and decent quests.

Stuff like Age of Decadence is too hardcore for my taste as you need a optimum bulid to progress throughout the game, Underail is in my backlog. RPG codex tend to be the more extreme RPG fans, where I prefer RPG's in between.

You don't need an optimum build to advance in AoD, one of the strengths of the game is that you can be successful with a big variety of builds given that the game is designed to accomodate different playstyles.

Yes, you can make a bad build and be screwed, but failing is also a point of the game, the campaign is designed with no filler, it´s not that long and is highly replayable.

If you see it some day in a sale or something, try it for yourself. It´s much more accessible that what it seems.

 

[Keasar]

There is certainly an enormous sense of relief knowing that the outcome of Bethesda's, and for that matter BioWare's RPGs no longer make up a significant portion of the releases in the genre. Since crowd-funding and the success of indie developers took off that's no longer the case, and the result has been some of the best RPGs in years. Last year we saw two RPGs, The Age of Decadence and Underrail from practically unknown developers, unless you go to RPG Codex, become two of the best RPGs that year.

Also, never forget Larian.

Right, fuck, I did forget to mention Larian, hyped as shit for Divinity: Original Sin 2.

Anyway, yeah, both Bethesda and Bioware may have once been good at this whole RPG business but those are days long gone. Last good Bioware game for me was Mass Effect 2. For Bethesda is was Morrowind, while I have played a lot of Oblivion and Skyrim, its been more for the mods than the content Bethesda themselves have produced and that is what Bethesda games usually amounts up to nowadays, good ground for mods, just don't expect Bethesda themselves to put up any decent effort of making good content.

 

[Puppen]

Agree with all of it.

Compared to New Vegas (which I don't think is the perfect RPG like so many Obsidian fans proclaim it to be), it can hardly be called a role-playing experience set in the Fallout universe. It's shooty shooty bang bang with lack of quality side quests, a shallow level of effort in what is present, massive illusion of choice in dialogue and terrible writing all-round.

The one thing I will say is the effort they put in with the companions was excellent.

I think the worst part of it is it has spawned a subset of Fallout fans who actually think less roleplaying is better and that the shooter aspect of Fallout 4 is what should be the standard going forward. Yeah, okay mate.

The thing is Bethesda actually did alright in Fallout 3. There's a few SPECIAL checks in that game, plenty of neutral and morally questionable ways to role-play with choices facilitated (like being a dick, or enslaving people for Paradise Falls and opening up a whole new questline), even if they were bit simpler in depth than New Vegas's factions and its character's motivations. But in F4, nowhere to be found.

The defense force of F4 is a sad thing to behold. I've seen a lot of people here who think it's better than TW3 just because killing stuff in it is more fun, and that's apparently all games should aspire to be. Fun killing simulators. Thank god TW3 sold well and won lots of awards.

Right, fuck, I did forget to mention Larian, hyped as shit for Divinity: Original Sin 2.

Anyway, yeah, both Bethesda and Bioware may have once been good at this whole RPG business but those are days long gone. Last good Bioware game for me was Mass Effect 2. For Bethesda is was Morrowind, while I have played a lot of Oblivion and Skyrim, its been more for the mods than the content Bethesda themselves have produced and that is what Bethesda games usually amounts up to nowadays, good ground for mods, just don't expect Bethesda themselves to put up any decent effort of making good content.

I wasn't a huge fan of Inquisition but I think it's better than Fallout 4. The gameplay at least offers some level of variety and change as you deal with different enemies, the writing is better (F4 had a few nuggets like Valentine, but far fewer than DAI) almost across the board, the scenery looks fantastic, and there's some memorable moments. Both still feel like a repetitive MMO grind at heart, but still.

 

[BouncyFrag]

Once I reached the

Spoiler

Institute and found out that my son wasn't that red herring of a synth I had been tracking, but was actually the soon to die of being older than fuck Director, I felt like this:

.

p

 

[Arulan]

I think this is relevant.

 

[Drazgul]

Fallout 4 was rubbish and it makes me worried for TES VI. Spot-on review on all its points.

 

[TheSpoiler]

I could rant about how terrible F4 was for days, but I just wanna say that the quests, both main missions and side/world missions, were mostly garbage. They barely had variation in the way you could play them, and most of them devolved into trekking through a dungeon, oops, I mean Vault/school/house/whatever and solving the issue by killing everything.

Maybe three missions out of the dozens I played gave me an option to be bad person with an actual reward or notice from the game, and they still never reached the level of the previous titles.

 

[dity]

So respond to the criticisms! Tell us what you enjoyed, and why the author of the article was incorrect. People have put thousands of hours in to Bubsy 3D, that doesn't somehow make that game any more enjoyable.

Eh, that's not how I look at this situation.

To put why I enjoyed the game into as little words as possible, it'd be for the exact reasons other hate the game. I'm not big on super duper endless possibilities open world games because they're a little too open for me. I'm not a create-your-own-adventure roleplay person. I enjoyed the static story (until I got to the ending, yuck), I liked how there wasn't super complex dialogue options, I enjoyed building the settlements up, I enjoyed the "pick what's important" loot system and wasn't annoyed by the weight aspect because I wasn't compelled to pick up everything not bolted down.

 

[Novel Mike]

Fallout 4 is ultimately a complete success regardless of the overall quality of the game now. I was so hyped on the game last year leading up until its release and even after it came out I enjoyed it for the first 20 hours or so...

Then I really began to notice just how shallow it was, 'quests' revolving around going to random places to kill all the enemies or collect a specific item with no story involved what so ever, the dialog choices that never really amounted to anything, and the crafting system being surpisingly limited. I quickly fell out of love with the game and haven't picked it up since. It had a few notable questlines like the Silver Shroud questline but there were very very few of them.

I just hope Bethesda is listening, I do think they can craft a really great RPG but if they ignore what people have said about the game and just go by the sales then I'm really not looking forward to ESVI.

 

[PetriP-TNT]

The only interesting character was basically a caricature of Deckard from Bladerunner, but hey I love cyberpunk and Nick was really well written and voiced. He's also ironically the only character that tries in several conversations that really has any kind of interesting things to say, be it on his own sense of confusion over what his purpose is or his sense of trying to

Spoiler

figure out how much of him is simply en echo of another man that once lived. If there is anything about him that really makes him more than a machine.

This all unfolds in a long quest line in which you do absolutely fucking riveting things such as

- Collect 10 things from 10 similar locations spread across the world
- Go into a place and kill enemies until you find the enemy that you are supposed to kill in the first place. You then proceed to kill this enemy and go out of the building, where you will get a perk and a minute of dialog as a reward.

Sorry for spoilers everyone

 

[Octavianus]

Sounds about right. I usually agree with their reviews and this one is spot on.
I honestly didn't think Bethesda could make a game that's worse than Fallout 3 but they've done it anyway.

 

[disappeared]

It's amazing that in 2016 we're still debating Bethesda's writing prowess.

This is Bioware, post-2004, all over again.

 

[Fishook]

You don't need an optimum build to advance in AoD, one of the strengths of the game is that you can be successful with a big variety of builds given that the game is designed to accomodate different playstyles.

Yes, you can make a bad build and be screwed, but failing is also a point of the game, the campaign is designed with no filler, it´s not that long and is highly replayable.

If you see it some day in a sale or something, try it for yourself. It´s much more accessible that what it seems.

Tried the Demo several times, and I have a lot of respect for the developer, I just could not get into it, RPG's are my favorite genre but I do not have time to struggle with hard games these days that's why I have never bothered with the Soul's series.

 

[SomTervo]

Really on-point read.

I fully agree that the level design and environments are phenomenal; it's the gameplay depth which isn't there.

It's still deep, and it's still a good shooter, but there's next to no freedom in how to play. If you're not going a shoot-focused action build, you can suck a fat one.

 

[Stevey]

Spot on review

 

[SomTervo]

The defense force of F4 is a sad thing to behold. I've seen a lot of people here who think it's better than TW3 just because killing stuff in it is more fun,

Brings a tear to my eye

TW3 is such a masterpiece

 

[Durante]

It's interesting. I used to eat up all the Bethesda and Bioware RPGs at launch. But now, I still haven't played Dragon Age Inquisition and I still haven't played Fallout 4. And I don't know if I ever will.

It's not really even some kind of "sticking it to the man" thing, it's simply a genuine lack of interest. These days, if I want to play an action game with RPG elements I can play Dragon's Dogma or Dark Souls or one of its clones. And if I want a genuinely good party-based RPG I have more options than pretty much ever before. Why would I even consider these games if I still have e.g. the SR:HK and PoE expansions or the entirety of Underrail unplayed?
Hell, even if I want something with "AAA" production values, I still haven't finished TW3 and its expansions are apparently great.

There is certainly an enormous sense of relief knowing that the outcome of Bethesda's, and for that matter BioWare's RPGs no longer make up a significant portion of the releases in the genre.

That's a more succinct way to put it.

 

[pringles]

This all unfolds in a long quest line in which you do absolutely fucking riveting things such as

- Collect 10 things from 10 similar locations spread across the world
- Go into a place and kill enemies until you find the enemy that you are supposed to kill in the first place. You then proceed to kill this enemy and go out of the building, where you will get a perk and a minute of dialog as a reward.

Sorry for spoilers everyone

I also assume that to "unlock" that quest you need to bring him along ? I sent him to a settlement as soon as I got the option, the companion system is idiotic in a game like this. I have no interest in babysitting terrible A.I. characters that break my stealth, trigger traps and walk into my LOS.

I've enjoyed Fallout 4. I like the world, I've spent tons of time on the settlements, there's been some good quests... but I totally agree too many of the quests are completely filler garbage and that the dialogue system sucks.

 

[Orniletter]

I know this may sound hyperbolic but F4 may really be the worst AAA game I've played in the last 10 years.

I can enjoy games that others consider deeply flawed (I'm having a great time with RE 6 right now and that is almost exclusively on the back of it's great combat), but there was not a single shred of fun in my 15 hours with F4.

The review is pretty spot on. Combat and enemy Ai don't get enough hate, they are absolutely bottom of the barrel.

Edit: We really don't know how well Fallout 4 sold, Bethesda managed to convince stores, that they need 12 million of inventory, but Bethesda never gave sellthrough figures.
The game has been on sale quite a lot since and the reception was less than glowing.
I wouldn't be surprised if F4 wasn't that successful (measured by Bethesda's own very high standards).

 

[Mechanized]

I love Fallout 4! Can't get enough of it. And I actually agree with a lot of the criticism. I guess I really don't mind that it's just a goofy simplistic rpg with decent shooting. I mean it's a game about a nuclear apocalypse in a 50s-future aesthetic. That should be the tip-off. It could have a dour tone with grim dark writing and storytelling, but I'm happy with what it is. Just plain fun!

 

[croten]

I love Fallout 4! Can't get enough of it. And I actually agree with a lot of the criticism. I guess I really don't mind that it's just a goofy simplistic rpg with decent shooting. I mean it's a game about a nuclear apocalypse in a 50s-future aesthetic. That should be the tip-off. It could have a dour tone with grim dark writing and storytelling, but I'm happy with what it is. Just plain fun!

I don't think anyone is saying it needs to be grim dark or the like, just have some consistency or good writing. Fallout 1, 2 and New Vegas all managed to do this far better than Fallout 4 did.

 

[doofy102]

I never finished the game.

1. Got so tired of the same kinds of enemies showing up over and over again, especially in Boston, where every few metres there's a door to another Raider or Super-Mutant infested dungeon. Boston isn't well designed-in that regard, there needs to some emptier street spaces for the player to breathe. It was a relief when I decided to just give up on the dungeons and explore the streets.

2. I was bummed-out because the game was clearly lacking quests that had anything to do with character drama. I wanted to manipulates feuds in peaceful locations. I wanted weird ethical-decision moments. I was so disappointed when I reached the main city and found only one side quest featuring dynamic drama between NPC's. One of the "dramas" was purely fake, it turned out one of the teams of this drama was your new side-character and so you couldn't help her nemesis kill her. The rest of the people in the city just seemed to do nothing, or function as vendors and fetch-quest givers. I wanna get entangled in characters' lives. Even Fallout 3 was better at this. I feel that this is where the real fun of Fallout's "role-playing" lies, not in the stat systems, which is probably why I dislike these kinds of RPG reviews. I'd like a Fallout where the only stats/skills to level up are social ones, variants on Charisma/Intelligence/Intimidation/Attractiveness/Barter, and there's a load of non-hostile NPC's to plot with/against.

3. The combat has improved since 3 but somehow it's more annoying. Chalk this one up to "game feel" but enemies seemed to move too fast, melee weapons swung too slowly, etc. The combat sure didn't help me form an addiction to the game like Fallout 3's combat somehow did.

 

[AntiFacebook]

They also didn't like pillars of eternity and the witcher 3.

Just saying

 

[nynt9]

They also didn't like pillars of eternity and the witcher 3.

Just saying

They didn't "not like" Pillars. They had many criticisms, but also many positive things to say about it.

http://www.rpgcodex.net/content.php?id=9985

Even with its flaws, Pillars of Eternity is a remarkable game. It was made in a short time with limited resources, yet it is as big, sprawling, complex, and detailed as the games it references. The world is deep, fully-realised, and more believable than Forgotten Realms or most other swords-and-sorcery settings. The gameplay is rich and varied, with massive scope for experimentation and creativity, and if you crank it up to Path of the Damned, challenging enough to keep you on your toes for most of the ride. The writing is up to Obsidian's usually high standard. And there's a lot of it: masses of quests, monsters, maps, dialogues, items, abilities, and much more.

Baldur's Gate would likely have been forgotten had it not been for Baldur's Gate 2 and Planescape: Torment. If Obsidian can build on Pillars' success, improve on the areas that need improvement while maintaining its strengths, Path of the Damned can point the way to Path of the Incline. Pillars is a first, somewhat faltering step to reviving a near-stagnant genre. A few years ago, the very idea of a Baldur’s Gate 2-scope, top-down, isometric, party-based cRPG from a major studio seemed like a pipe dream. Whether this new flowering can survive between the siren song of a mass market and the grumbling of the grognards — let alone come close to making both groups happy — hangs on the followup. For some of us, Pillars delivered. Others are still waiting. The space it and the other big-ticket Kickstarters has helped clear benefits us all.

Same with TW3: http://www.rpgcodex.net/content.php?id=9961

Witcher 3 is a bit of a mixed bag. Weak in its gameplay yet surprisingly strong as a story and a game world, console-centric but intelligent, it is likely to be a very divisive game for many, on the Codex in particular, and yet, when the dust will settle, it is likely to end up as a game to ride to a rather high position in the local pantheon of story-heavy games. Not due to the heavy Polish infestation of our glorious forums, nor due to the incompetent storytelling attempts presented by the gaming industry, however, no – Witcher 3 stands strong on its own and has much to teach to others in terms of writing and world-building. It is a worthy entry in the lists of “diamonds in the rough” that our locals admire so much, and it is an excellent final chapter in Geralt’s adventures. There’s a lot that other teams could stand to learn from Witcher 3 – from avoiding to ever make the same control schemes again to making excellent stories and fantastic worlds. I hope CDPR will not forget their lessons in the future titles, a one-hit wonder would surely be a shame.

Let us not mischaracterize their opinions.

 

[Tyrus]

I love Fallout 4! Can't get enough of it. And I actually agree with a lot of the criticism. I guess I really don't mind that it's just a goofy simplistic rpg with decent shooting. I mean it's a game about a nuclear apocalypse in a 50s-future aesthetic. That should be the tip-off. It could have a dour tone with grim dark writing and storytelling, but I'm happy with what it is. Just plain fun!

The problem is it's not the Fallout the existing fans fell in love with. You know, the series with role-playing, choice, dialogue trees, multiple questlines, factions, karma and massive replayability beyond killing everything, scrounging or building pointless settlements with 90% generic NPCs.

Just because it's a nuclear apocalypse in a 1950s retro-future aesthetic doesn't mean it can't be serious or grim as well as fun and goofy, like it was in New Vegas, F1 and F2 and even F3.

I guess I was dumb in hoping F4 would incorporate all we loved about New Vegas, F3 and maybe a bit from the classics, as well as Bethesda's new gameplay mechanics and additions. But what I discovered was Bethesda is perfectly content with putting as little effort in providing roleplaying choices and quests like they used to because fans like you will lap up whatever they put out regardless.

That's not an insult to you by the way - I'm just sort of reflecting on the facts. Plenty of people are like you and just enjoyed the dumb fun shooty bang bang thing, retro-futuristic goofy aesthetic and theme Fallout 4 has gone for and now Bethesda knows they can just sell with the sort of effort they put here. This means going forward it's unlikely the series will appeal to those like me who prefer the roleplaying depth that was established before.

They don't have to design and write to the standard they established in Morrowind anymore.

I also see RPG Codex has noted the other problem Fallout 4 has - there's no more unique weapon variants anymore, instead recycled legendary weapons with the same base models and just different names. Terrible.

 

[Drazgul]

They also didn't like pillars of eternity and the witcher 3.

Just saying

Just saying like they're some kind of hive mind collective with uniform opinions. A lot of folks seemed to like the Witcher there.

 

[Basileus777]

really? How so?

The place is a gamergate cesspool. You don't even want to see some of the shit said in relation to the Dragonspear trans character.

 

[Keasar]

One final point on Charisma checks in dialogue: yes, they do exist. No, they do not matter. Here's the end of an important companion quest: you have to convince your friend Cait to use a potentially dangerous machine. The first picture shows the possible options for convincing her; every yellow option is a Charisma check that can be passed or failed. All three checks have the same difficulty and do the exact same thing; there's that bloat again. If you fail a check, you are returned to the node, and can try another option. And if you somehow manage to fail all three persuade options (which took me about 20 reloads), then the second picture happens:

That's right: if you fail all three Charisma checks, you get a normal dialogue option that auto-succeeds. The checks are pure illusion; you absolutely cannot fail to persuade Cait, no matter how bad your stats are. Truth is, the game was rigged from the start; and rigged games are no fun at all.

Oh, my, fucking, god. I knew the dialogue was absolute shit but this is beyond my human comprehension.

Regarding the companions and their vapid, stat based personalities and who respond to you grinding lockpicks or whatever:

There is a certain type of fan who will respond very positively to this kind of bland, manufactured ego stroking. If you see games purely as a means for escapism, if you enjoy hearing people tell you that you're brave and beautiful, that you command everybody's respect by sheer force of your personality, that you always make the exact right choices, and that you are the soul mate of at least four men, two women, and a medical bot, well, then you might not find fault with Fallout 4's companion system.

"Hello."

Spoiler

Still love you Jim but this was one of the few times I really, really disagreed with you.

 

[nynt9]

The place is a gamergate cesspool. You don't even want to see some of the shit said in relation to the Dragonspear trans character.

I've been distant from their community, but I read their articles from time to time. I can't see any negativity towards that issue in their official news/article content. The forums are obviously a different thing and I'm not gonna crawl through those, but does the official content of the site itself contain any such views? That would be a shame.

 

[Henrar]

The place is a gamergate cesspool. You don't even want to see some of the shit said in relation to the Dragonspear trans character.

That doesn't make thier opinion (or rather the author of this review) on F4 any less relevant. They nailed every single problem F4 has.

 

[Basileus777]

That doesn't make thier opinion (or rather the author of this review) on F4 any less relevant. They nailed every single problem F4 has.

I didn't make that claim, I answered someone's question.

 

[PetriP-TNT]

I also assume that to "unlock" that quest you need to bring him along ?

You need to have certain amount of Affinity with him, so yes. I think you can continuously just hack something if you don't want to drag him along.

 

[MightyHedgehog]

After FO3, there was no reason to expect FO4 to be anything but more of the same...and that's not a terrible thing if you still like what they've produced. Yeah, it's sad that FO2 has no real sequel, but I think inXile's further Wasteland installments and/or their take on Van Buren, will extend the bloodline, at least, spiritually.

I just keep hoping they'll let Obsidian do a spinoff using the same engine.

There's a far better chance that Wasteland 3 is going to be handled by Obsidian. To me, that's the best outcome if one wants more Obsidian-powered post-apocalyptic RPG design.

 

[Rushersauce]

Oh wow
Fallout 4 is shit? Color me surprised

 

[Taruranto]

not to stick up for fallout 4, but the codex actually dislikes everything

Hardly. It just has higher standards for, uh, RPG, which means Bethesda AAA turds are not going an automatic 9/10 because they have a popular name behind it.

The Codex definitely has its issues, but they do know their stuff regarding RPG and not falling for hype/marketing.

 

[SolidChamp]

I have a friend who thinks FO4 is one of the best games he's ever played. I wouldn't try to convince him otherwise, but he doesn't really have many reasons to explain his opinion, in-depth.

I suspect he'd have even less reasons if this review were brought up. He never even finished The Witcher 3!! It's interesting to see GAF reflect on FO4 now that the hype has died.

 

[Count of Monte Sawed-Off]

I have a friend who thinks FO4 is one of the best games he's ever played. I wouldn't try to convince him otherwise, but he doesn't really have many reasons to explain his opinion, in-depth.

I suspect he'd have even less reasons if this review were brought up. He never even finished The Witcher 3!! It's interesting to see GAF reflect on FO4 now that the hype has died.

It's some of the same people who were shitting on it since before it came out. The game has definite issues, but the hate it gets here has always been overblown.

 

[pantsmith]

The review brings up a great point: what was the reason for setting up the dramatic, time sensitive main storyline (Rescue baby Shaun!) if it ultimately is not written well or properly thought out or even leads to a satisfying ending.

The plot of Fallout 4 is terrible, and there is close to zero roleplaying value provided aside from "Which set of cartoon characters should blow up what might be the most important resource on the entire fucking planet"

It's some of the same people who were shitting on it since before it came out. The game has definite issues, but the hate it gets here has always been overblown.

As the review points out, its a 100 hour single player shooter with terrible roleplaying and a butchery of the series it occupies. It might as well not even be an RPG at this point.

The people hating on it cant help but see the squandered potential of a better written game.

 

[Gingerbread Fetus]

I still haven't finished Fallout 4, and I'm right on the cusp of finishing it too. I was holding off until I had more free time to finish the companions quests but after reading this and doing a little research I've decided I'm just going to finish the game and be done with it. (At the moment, I haven't reached max affinity with Curie, Strong, Codsworth, John, and Deacon.)

I actually thought that Nick's quest was handled well. And I feel like more could have been done with Curie's.

It was by Danse's quest that all wore off though.

On the other hand, there were a few moments in the game that I think were done pretty well. Particularly the quest-line about finding the man who took your child.

Spoiler

Specifically, when you visit the Memory Den to observe Kellog's life. There was something very science fiction about experiencing Kellog's life in bits while his voice actor narrated it. Still waiting to find out if that operation with Kellog did anything permanent. To Nick. Which I speculate will be in DLC if at all, because Bethesda.

It was unexpected and different from anything else in the game and I wish that there had been more quests that did things like this. There were even more moments like this in Fallout 3, Fallout NV had entire DLC that were like that.