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Fallout 4 - A Nuclear Disappointment

lionpants

Member
After completing The Witcher 3, Fallout 4 feels like it came from a B-Grade developer. Remember the days when Bethesda was top-tier in RPG games? My time with Morrowind was fantastic.

The problem with their latest games is that they seem to have not evolved in any way since then. I'd say Fallout 4 has even taken steps backwards.

I've just completed the game and I am astonished at how lazy the ending was. Sorry if this seems like a bit of a rant, but I need to vent.

Here's what I found during my play through. MOST OF THIS IS INDEED; OPINION.

  • Most character models/animations are simply embarrassing in 2015/16.
  • What a steaming pile of shit the settlement system is. How about explain how some of it works via in-game tutorials Bethesda? Why do I have to google half of the functionality to use it properly? Why do I need a fucking perk to distribute my resources across settlements? Why do I need to wait for a settler to randomly come back to my settlement to cancel a trade route? The answer: the settlement system is a half-baked tacked-on turd to try and sell more copies of the game. I honestly said fuck it after battling with the system and having my crops glitch out for the 5th time and not be able to loot them. I'd rather go play Viva Pinata if I wanted to grow a settlement.
  • Why are there no percentages in the tooltips in most of the perks? "Has a good chance to occur!" is not a very fucking useful perk description Bethesda! People shouldn't have to conduct experiments on Reddit to figure this shit out!
  • The companions are just a nuisance and get in your way constantly, which is sad because I love dogs.
  • Half the time I didn't know what my dialog choice wheel will actually say, so I stuck with the safe default answer.
  • Dialog options are: be a dick, be a sarcastic prick, be a decent person. And half the time they don't change the outcome of the conversation at all.
  • Characters are forgettable, except
    Valentin, Piper and Dogmeat
    .
  • Random chance on conversation options is just fucking annoying.
  • Most of the perks are simply damage increases or a random chance to do something. Also, my thought when unlocking a perk, should not be: "Oh thank god, that was such a tedious part of the game!". I'm looking at you Local Leader Perk. There are others too.
  • Combat is not very enjoyable, I went with a melee build with some shooting mixed in. Using V.A.T.S with the Blitz perk caused all sorts of weird shit to happen, including clipping through walls or simply failing to attack properly. Same old press attack many times to win by shooting or beating a health bar to 0.
  • Crafting system causes you to horde everything you find. Which may not sound like a bad thing, but when paired with a terrible sorting UI and 500 different items that contain various different materials. Good luck finding a material that breaks down into the raw material you need. If I subtracted the amount of time I spent picking shit up, I'd honestly have about 5 hours less play time.
  • Armour is limited and very boring looking.
  • Gun modifications are decent, but really just limited the variety of overall weapons.
  • Definitely not the glitchiest Bethesda game I've played. I had 1 crash and my fair share of falling through the map or quests failing to progress properly requiring a reload though.
  • Power armour; meh - annoying to babysit.

The most disappointing part (spoiler time)...

I actually had a hard time choosing which faction to go with, mostly because you have to pick from factions that are pretty much all dicks. So, I went with my good old Father's - um, I mean son (I see what you did there Bethesda writer, very clever! *rollseyes*) - faction. I was going to go with the Brotherhood until Danse was a Synth and they wanted to kill him. SO I went ahead and murdered Maxwell (he was a royal dick anyway) and all of his crew in the airport and on the ship. I went back to Danse in his hide out expecting him to say something cool about my murdering spree. He says nothing. Literally nothing.

Then, Father wants me to kill the Railroad. Sure I'll do that, they were pretty annoying anyway - except PAM, I left her alive. Then he wants me to blow up the Brotherhood's ship... umm, I just murdered them all, but sure. So I continue to murder more people while I destroy 3 generators (lol) and the ship crashes. It looked pretty cool, but is that really it, no one is going to comment on what I did? I went back to Danse thinking he HAS to comment on the ship being destroyed, right? WRONG - he says nothing again.

Fine - I think - I'll go back to Father and see what happens next. Father is lying in his bed and he dies. The Fucking End. Oh, by the way, WAR NEVER ENDS - did you know that? Plot twist! What a joke!

I honestly didn't even want to cleanup the side quests and just turned the game off, put it back in its box and back on the shelf.

Maybe I'm just spoiled by The Witcher 3's awesome writing, quest design, story telling and ending, but Fallout 4 was easily the most disappointing game of 2015 for me.

Please Bethesda, please scrap your out-dated, patched together with super-glue game engine, hire a new writer and start fresh for your next game. If you don't, devs like CD Projekt Red and Larian are going to leave you in the dust.

Again, sorry for the rant, but I needed to vent and hopefully we can get some discussion out of the points I made. Am I totally wrong?

Now on to Xenoblade X, high hopes based on what I've been reading!

EDIT:

Some people mentioned that there's no way that I didn't like a single thing about the game. I actually did like some things about the game. For example...

  • First time the radioactive storm started was pretty awesome, sounded amazing with surround sound and a woofer!
  • I liked
    working with Valentine/Piper to find Kellog then killing him (probably where the story peaked for me)
    .
  • The Glowing Sea was cool.
  • The Deathclaws looked badass despite combat with them being: shoot, shoot, shoot, melee, get roared at in your face, repeat.
  • Dogmeat
  • Random interjections from companions in some quest dialog was unexpected, and Piper saying sorry to Dogmeat when you swap her in.
  • I was actually interested in the story when I entered you know where, but then nothing was explained.
  • The Powerfist

Oh, and I didn't make the moneyhatter comment, not sure where some of you got that from. :S
 

diamount

Banned
I enjoyed the game...

Excellent feedback. Anyway OP, it is good for Bethesda to be shown up how to do an open-world RPG properly, without sacrificing on content. It's ridiculous to think they had similar development times, yet they keep making the same old mistakes while slightly improving others. As stated in the previous thread, they NEED to take the criticism to heart for their next game when a lot of outlets crowned it as their GOTY.

I mean, they love touting that shit on the box.
 

lionpants

Member
As stated in the previous thread, they NEED to take the criticism to heart for their next game when a lot of outlets crowned it as their GOTY.
Fallout 4 was crowned or The Witcher 3? I simply can't understand how Fallout 4 would win any GOTY awards. It saddens me really, when there were many more deserving games this year.
 
I'm in a weird place where I completely agree with all the major complaints about the game, and pretty much everything you've listed OP, but at the same time I can't stop coming back to the game.
 

Kade

Member
Definitely the most disappointing 2015 release for me, even with my already low expectations coming off of Skyrim. I found more enjoyment when I started playing it more like an open world sandbox shooter like Crysis or Far Cry but the mechanics and interactions obviously weren't as solid as those games. It was more enjoyable than trying to play it as an RPG thanks to the heavily butchered RPG systems. I eventually got sick of it and wrote it off as "not for me" then went back to playing The Witcher 3. I'll probably give it another chance when I have nothing better to play because I didn't completely hate it.
 
It took a lot of steps forward compared to Fallout 3. The combat has improved massively. I also like the perk system a lot. You really have a lot of different builds and you need to do several characters to try them all.
In Fallout 3 however (after the DLC) you could basically max out your character and he was ace in almost everything.
Almost every place has a nice tiny story for itself. I really loved that. And there are so many places on the map
I actually like the graphics. I know it might not be top notch for a 2015 game but for a bethesda game it looks really good. Very often I was mighty impressed. And for a Bethesda game it actually has very little bugs. I had more problems with F3, NV and Skyrim even after they were fully patched.
Also you don't have to repair weapons and there is no level cap !!!
Just those two things make it imo better than Fallout 3 (and also New Vegas)

However it also took some steps back. The dialogue system is not good.
There are only a few very good side quests. There were so many good and interesting quests in F3 and NV. Also a lot of the strange black humor is unfortunately missing.
And yes, the endings were all shit.
But the end of Fallout 3 was also complete shit. Bethesda just can't do good main quests.

After all I had 125hrs of amazing fun. It is an amazing game and I think I even like it more then Fallout 3 and New Vegas.
 

ezekial45

Banned
While I really enjoyed the game, even putting in over 100 hours of playtime, I am surprised at how quickly the game seemed to have dropped off of people's radars. For me, I stopped playing it weeks ago. I felt like I exhausted the game's content, and I still haven't even finished the main story yet. It's a weird feeling, where you get the impression that you're finished with the game before it's actually even done.

I'm just waiting for the mod support to drop. I have no doubt that'll get me back in it.
 

diamount

Banned
Fallout 4 was crowned or The Witcher 3? I simply can't understand how Fallout 4 would win any GOTY awards. It saddens me really, when there were many more deserving games this year.

Well, of course Fallout 4 was crowned. But Witcher 3 took the majority.
 
I think the problem is that you're measuring it by RPG elements and comparing it to a good RPG in the Witcher 3.

What Bethesda's games do well (big open worlds, atmosphere, freedom) are not what good RPGs do well (combat, writing, character customization, mechanical depth). They've been drifting away from being RPGs more and more for years, to the point that comparing them to games like the Witcher, Dragon Age, etc is getting increasingly useless.
 

LowSignal

Member
I enjoyed the game, for an open world with so many enemies, items and locations compared to other games I can forgive a lot of the negatives. It's not a perfect game but its not a bad game.
 
Yeah, I had all those problems.

For me, the quests were the biggest, worst thing about the game. For a title so centered around that, they blew it. Hard. Like rarely did any quest let you solve a conflict with just words or hacking. It was all guns o' blazin' in another factory, another Vault, or another cave. Your actions rarely gave variation to the quests, too, so being a dick would just get you a comment or two and it's back to the task at hand.

After 40 hours, I couldn't convince myself that I was having fun anymore. I took the L and uninstalled it, and I don't regret doing so.
 

Elixist

Member
i really like the combat, which means ill play an hour or two here and there, unlike witcher. Beth gameplay loop needs a big change up for their next game it is getting tired.
 

Malygos

Member
Personally I find modern Bethesda games to feel like really huge but hallow games, and Fo4 was no exception. I much prefer Rockstars take on modern open world games. Especially Red dead redemption which was one of my favourite games of all time.
 
Excellent feedback. Anyway OP, it is good for Bethesda to be shown up how to do an open-world RPG properly, without sacrificing on content. It's ridiculous to think they had similar development times, yet they keep making the same old mistakes while slightly improving others. As stated in the previous thread, they NEED to take the criticism to heart for their next game when a lot of outlets crowned it as their GOTY.

I mean, they love touting that shit on the box.

I'm sorry, I didnt know a rant required feedback.

Also, you are welcome....
 

hydruxo

Member
I can't disagree with some of your complaints, but I enjoyed Witcher 3 and Fallout 4 each for different reasons. FO4 in many ways was just an enhanced version of FO3, and I was okay with that. The gunplay felt much better outside of VATS. Plus I've always felt like Bethesda pieces together worlds to explore in better than anybody else and that's what has always drawn me into their RPGs. Boston was alot of fun to wander around in. The story was what really let me down though by the time it ended. It was interesting up until you start getting deep into faction stuff and then it just goes downhill in terms of writing quality. Silver Shroud quest was still probably one of my all-time favorite quests though.

Overall, I enjoyed it alot. Put 100+ hours into it and I'm looking forward to the DLC, but Witcher 3 is still the better game.
 

Inuhanyou

Believes Dragon Quest is a franchise managed by Sony
Its a modern day Bethesda game. They don't really qualify as RPG's anymore, but you either take it or leave it.

They aren't really a big studio to begin with, just over 100 people(and they have apparently only hired literally 12 people since Fallout 3 launched according to Pete Hines) so i kinda give them a pass on certain aspects, just cause they are nowhere near as big as many other open world development houses trying to make these sorts of games.

But i do agree that this kind of thing definitely does not hold up to other open world games in the modern industry.
 

Chris_C

Member
I just got it during the Steam sale. I've played about 3 hours so far. My thoughts:

- It looks much nicer than people said
- It seems to be more fun than people said
- It's very much the same game as Fallout 3, and Bethesda need to radically overhaul their engine, animation systems and modeling,not just give it a bit of spit and polish like they did with Skyrim.
- So far I'm having fun, but I can already sense that if I have to keep worrying about settlements and scraps, I'm going to hit a brick wall and put the game down. I've stopped playing every Bethesda game since Oblivion simply because my character gets encumbered and I can't be bothered to sort through items.
- When I played The Witcher 3, I kept thinking Bethesda really needed to up their game to match this level of quality. They didn't.
 

water_wendi

Water is not wet!
i didnt even bother with the game once i found out that talking/bartering/science-ing your way through the game was not possible.
 

BrikHog

Neo Member
i really like the combat, which means ill play an hour or two here and there, unlike witcher. Beth gameplay loop needs a big change up for their next game it is getting tired.

The combat is fantastic, the best Bethesda has ever done really. too bad everything else about Fallout 4 suffered.

Such a disappointment coming from New Vegas, and even Fallout 3 by some measures.
 

Astral

Member
I'm pretty sure we already had this thread but yeah I agree. Once I beat the main story I had no desire to do anything else. I'm probably gonna trade it in honestly.
 

antitrop

Member
The only way I possibly could have been disappointed in it was if the gunplay was somehow worse than Fallout 3. I wasn't expecting Bethesda to magically make a game that was faithful to the originals, I mean, I did play Fallout 3.

If they're gonna make it an FPS, they might as well make it a competent one.
 
the dialogue and story are just way to hollow and binary. it's absolutely ridiculous for a game being worked on for that long to have that problem.
 

Nameless

Member
The dialogue system, fully VA main character, and the limited amount of side quests & overall lack of legs this had for me compared to most Bethesda games stand out as my biggest disappointments. It's still 6th on my GOTY list, though, which is a bit low given just how hyped I was for it, but still a game I enjoyed quite a bit.
 
Your not totally wrong, but I would't say your right either.

Most of your points seem very nitpicky, athough I agree with most of them.

I thought the combat was excellent, it truly was one of the highlights for me.

Now about the story (story spoilers):
I chose the Institute ending, and I 100% agree, it was trash. I was also considering the Railroad, but they just seemed so boring. The Brotherhood was too serious, and the Minutemen was just a radiant ai quest grindfest.

Killing the Railroad was incredibly random and dumb. They are 10 people in the basement of a church, and someone how they are Father's number one target. Then blowing up the Brotherhood ship was pretty cool, but it didn't seem finale worthy. I thought I was going to blow something up for the quest Nuclear Family (cause the other factions get to I think) but it was literally a 2 minute conversation with Father before he dies.

The Institute story was incredibly awful. When I found out about them, I was super interested and had so many questions. But all they say is they need nuclear power from the surface to make more synths to save humanity. Nothing is explained at all. How synths will save humanity, don't ask me, cause I have no clue and neither do the writers of Fallout 4.

I think the story problems are due to the fact that this is a "make your own character/adventure" game. They have to cater the story to a wide audience, and by not having a set character (think Geralt from Witcher 3), they have to keep it vague to match all playstyles. Ultimately this causes the story to suffer, and I think more rpg's should have set protagonists.
 
I liked it,not as much as Witcher 3 though.I have to agree with you on settlements though,abit of a mess.Did I enjoy it more than the other Fallouts...no its my least favourite, yet I still enjoyed/enjoy it.
I'd like more side quests to,maybe some DLC can make up for that
 

Griss

Member
A massively disappointing game.

I expected a huge step forward from Fallout 3 and New Vegas and got a huge step back instead. Terrible story, awful dialogue system, uninspired setting, small map, poor visuals... the list goes on and on. It had it's high moments (the Salem Witch museum was awesome) but they were truly few and far between.

The worst Bethesda game I've ever played.
 

Sou Da

Member
i didnt even bother with the game once i found out that talking/bartering/science-ing your way through the game was not possible.

There's one quest in which you use a science/repair skill. It felt really out of place among the "KILL EVERYONE" quests.
 

nubbe

Member
Fallout 4 was enjoyable, but it feels less developed in every area and thus trashy compared to Witcher 3
 
Still not sure if I should get it. I enjoy those kinds of games but all the negative opinions hold me back.

Would it be a good idea to wait for the DLCs?
 

NIN90

Member
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I don't think I'll ever complete TW3. Tried to get back into it today, spent about 2 hours and it felt like such a task to play. Fallout is just much better IMO.
 
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