• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

LTTP: Fallout 4 (and Fallout franchise in general)

Cyberpunkd

Member
So I got interested to jump back into Fallout after the TV show. I am one of the OGs, played the Interplay / BI games and consider them to be the best. Played and finished both Fallout 3 and New Vegas.

70 hours later I gave up on Fallout 4.

Overall I would have to say it's an 8/10 game and probably a 3/10 Fallout game.

The good:

1. World building - world realized is really great. Luminescent Sea and Far Harbor are S-Tier locations

2. Settlement building - the core concept is great

3; Companions - many and varied

The bad:

1. RPG + Dialog - Going to steal from TintoConCasera TintoConCasera :

Shit tier RPG mechanics. They dumbed it down even to levels below Skyrim.

Shit tier dialog for a Fallout game. And even for most RPGs.

I would even go further and say Fallout 4 is not an RPG game, it's an adventure game with RPG mechanics (kinda like Horizon: ZD). The difference is incredibly visible coming from New Vegas, which was much better written game with way more emphasis put on RP ; Witcher 3 who came about the same time ; Cyberpunk 2077, who followed few years later and where conversation interactions are definitely my favorites.

The main plot is shit. I have a few kids and I see no connection whatsoever to the Sole Survivor. He is a schmuck that ran to the Vault and got frozen 5 minutes later. In New Vegas we had a really strong value proposition - you get shot in the head, you survive, you are angry, let's get the MFers.

With all the building and crafting and liberating settlements I am shocked they didn't go for Andromeda's plot:
Thousands of years in the future, the Systems Commonwealth is a constitutional monarchy spanning the Milky Way, Triangulum, and Andromeda galaxies, with the capital of Tarn-Vedra near its core. The Commonwealth is at war with the Magog, a parasitic humanoid species spreading across the galaxies. Peace talks led the Commonwealth to cede a key world to the Magog, that of the Nietzscheans; in response, the Nietzscheans secretly attempted to usurp control of the Commonwealth.

Dylan Hunt is the captain of the Commonwealth starship Andromeda Ascendant. Its computer is a powerful artificial intelligence which Dylan has nicknamed "Andromeda" or "Rommie". Caught in a surprise attack in the first engagement of the Nietzschean uprising, the Andromeda is crippled, prompting Dylan to order the crew to evacuate. During the attack, Dylan's Nietzschean first officer, Gaheris Rhade, betrays Dylan and attempts to kill him. Dylan kills Gaheris as Andromeda is caught at the edge of the event horizon of a black hole, freezing both in time.

303 years later, in CY 10087 (approx 5167 AD), the Andromeda is pulled from the event horizon by the crew of the salvage ship Eureka Maru, captained by con-artist and expert pilot Beka Valentine, super-genius engineer Seamus Zelazny Harper, doctor and alien of unknown origin Trance Gemini, and pacifist Magog Rev Bem (the salvage crew's beneficiary also secretly brings Nietzschean mercenary Tyr Anasazi). The Systems Commonwealth has fallen, and the era known as The Long Night has begun. Hunt recruits the crew to join him in restoring the Systems Commonwealth and to "rekindle the light of civilization".
They could have made the Sole Survivor as a community leader or w/e, desperate to rebuild civilization in the Wasteland, protect the weak, bla bla.

2. Factions - they are boring. The main faction and their enemies are tied to the main plot. The Minutemen are pathetic. BoS is the only faction worthy of interest. Even then everything is rather shallow.

3. Busywork - Settlements and Crafting. If you played you know. Constant attacks on the settlements get old very quickly. Same with settlers asking you to clean the same ghoul factory for the 5th time. Crafting would have been way better if you could terraform and remove everything you wanted. Also - need 6 Charisma and Community Leader perk to build shops and make supply lanes, none of which is explained in the game. Also - do you know you can make your own ammo? Good luck figuring this shit out.
 

Laptop1991

Member
I have to use mods to replay Fallout 4, which i'm doing right now, i cannot play vanilla again, it wasn't a great RPG and i'm not into the settlement building and i mod the attacks out, because that stuff gets annoying in the end, like the Vampire and Dragon attacks in Skyrim, where you lose all your shopkeepers lol,, but the world is fun to explore and the fights are enjoyable, but there has been really good mods made that make 4 a much better game and experience, Sim Settlements 2, America Rising and even the game improving mods like the unofficial patch and dialogue options etc make a difference, i can't play without them, i just tried and had to add mods!.

As for the Fallout franchise in general, all i hear Todd Howard mention is Fallout 76, the online cash cow, not the SP games, they don't want to make them or they would and the time between titles is ridiculous, the much smaller Fallout London made a bigger game in 4 years for free, Bethesda has no excuse apart from they don't care to making SP games now and they haven't for a long time, Microsoft should make other studios make them.
 
Last edited:

Paasei

Member
I mean, the main storylines of all the modern Fallout games are nothing to write home about. It’s the choices, different outcomes and all the distractions (side quests, dialogues and lore) that make the games so good. Everything that (can) happen along the way is so much more interesting, fun and memorable.

Fallout 4 is indeed a very dumbed down version of the previous 2 games
I would also like to note that its gunplay is surprisingly good. Just to end with one of its strong suits.

But yeah, New Vegas will always remain my favourite.
 
Definitely agree with the shitty main plot…but to be honest almost every Fallout game has a shitty main plot, 1 and 2 included. New Vegas being a bit of an exception, but even that is basically 3 hours rushing it without shortcuts.
 
Last edited:
Top Bottom