Duck and Cover

no way is the writing going to be good

loads of real life people who I don't think I've ever talked about games with are talking about FO4 in glowing terms and it does make me feel slightly sad since the originals meant so much to me when I was like 12-13, but it isn't in me to be that guy who starts going on and on about how it's not a real RPG or whatever

dunno why you guys are considering spending time on this kind of mediocrity, life's too short to play any game that isn't at least a 9/10

It's more of Fallout 3. Liberty Prime shows up again and the Brotherhood wants you to lead them in a fight against the commonwealth. There's only two endings, and the ending cinematic is the same regardless of which ending you choose. Also Ron Perlman doesn't narrate it.

Also there's no ammunition types and the crafting system is bunk. Perks only modify stats by percents and don't actually affect gameplay beyond that since skills were merged with them. Reputation system isn't there, and I've heard Karma isn't either.

It's like Bethesda just ignored New Vegas ever happened, swept all the gameplay it added under the rug, and proceeded from Fallout 3 and somehow made everything worse.

SenisterDenister wrote: Also there's no ammunition types and the crafting system is bunk. Perks only modify stats by percents and don't actually affect gameplay beyond that since skills were merged with them. Reputation system isn't there, and I've heard Karma isn't either.

I had no idea that they removed skills, that's kind of funny actually. aren't they risking alienating people who came to the series with FO3?

they simplified it even more than I thought they would dare, got to admire their nerve, cot damn

SenisterDenister wrote:It's more of Fallout 3. Liberty Prime shows up again and the Brotherhood wants you to lead them in a fight against the commonwealth. There's only two endings, and the ending cinematic is the same regardless of which ending you choose. Also Ron Perlman doesn't narrate it.

Also there's no ammunition types and the crafting system is bunk. Perks only modify stats by percents and don't actually affect gameplay beyond that since skills were merged with them. Reputation system isn't there, and I've heard Karma isn't either.

It's like Bethesda just ignored New Vegas ever happened, swept all the gameplay it added under the rug, and proceeded from Fallout 3 and somehow made everything worse.

please tell me you're shitting me

It's just dumbed down from being dumbed down, that's how bad it has become... Sure, It's a fun game to pass the time with but eventually the world will start to feel bland, boring and lifeless...

CONS
- The character dialogue is atrocious, I find myself clicking on answers just to realize that's nothing what I had in mind of saying...
- They force the story into you by driving this cut and paste Hollywood drama situation where you have to find your missing son (fucking original idea there guys!).
- Most quests deal with go to a place of raiders and kill them all.
- There's a faint sense of having dialogue options really have any meaning in the game (basically there is no way in winning the entire game without killing a motherfucker.).
- The graphic's are not really that huge of an improvement, the engine is outdated. The facial animations although improved as well are cringe worthy.
- The game give you everything by the very start! A power armor, faction leader status, energy weapons, a dog. It just feels like nothing is rewarding.
- Why are there deathclaws here? Why are the mutants here? Nothing seems to be explained. (although I have not yet gone through the game even 50%, I really doubt this will be explained... Knowing Bethesda)

It's really just a Skyrim with guns but dumber and more without meaning to any actions.

PROS
- The power armor is more of a vehicle now and not a piece of clothing, It feels right for it. It can be stored in your inventory as pieces or can be left at a power armor station where you can modify and repair it.
- Armor is now put into pieces, as in braces and chest pieces and can be added onto your existing clothing.
- The settlement system is a fun way to occupy your time but really could have just been left with the modders, this probably just took out more quest design off the core game.
- Feral Ghouls, you can shoot their limbs off and they will keep coming at you.
- Guns feel more powerful.

Again, I'm not even 50% into the game but it all seems too familiar to Fallout 3, it seems they chose to go with nothing, zero, zip, zilch, nada with what New Vegas had to offer...


They worked on this for seven years? My fuckin ass they did.

EDIT: http://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/fallout-4 The user reviews are showing the game in a negative light.

Shit sux. Here's hoping Obsidian gets another whack at a spinoff.

Frankly I was all in on them making it a fps/action game rather than those pathetic excuses for RPGs they've been pumping out because it meant they'd have less to fuck up but when combat is this bad, there's really no point.

As it stands, it looks exactly like what they've been making since Oblivion; an open world that exciting and novel for a period of time inversely proportional to how many bethesda games you've suffered through -any more than 4 should make this one's shelf life about 2 or 3 hours- after which point you'll realize you're, again, a glorified garbage collector and hopefully never touch it in your life. Unless you've never actually played a bethesda game before. In that case, lucky you, you're exactly who they're aiming for. Enjoy and brace for continuous disappointment.

I doubt I'll ever play this, like Fallout 3. I'll pretend it never happened.

On a more positive note, having finished it once (which doesn't mean much, the game is proper short for an RPG), AoD is pretty fucking good.

It's as if someone shoehorned a wrpg into something like Way of the Samurai and then blew the paths to the end(s??) ocean-wide. Except you're not put there to solve every problem for every NPC, just to scrape by with what your stats/character archetype allow(s), ie- very little. Which sounds meh but works wonders as far as replayability is concerned.

The writing is certainly debatable, but I enjoyed most of it. It's very down to earth and direct (thus refreshing if you're particularly bothered with rpg writers trying to go ye olde-style and cringing it all to fuck) but it tends to make for some anemic characters here and there. Interaction with some of these is all too reduced for you to get a sense of their personality at best; at worst your chosen archetype places these characters completely beyond your reach- can't expect a pleb to walk into the palace for a chat with the ruler.

Combat is either a nightmare or enjoyable depending whether your character is a fighter or not (and if he is, how good he is at it; you will at some point run into some enemy that will have you pulling your hair out trying to beat it). Having not done a non-fighter run I can't really speak to how well or how easy it is to avoid but it *is* something you will be doing with different degrees of success based on your skills/stats. If you do fight, expect Dead State, except better. Different weapons are suited for different tactics and 2 different defensive strategies add to the mix. Again, can't pass much of a judgement but I can see how 2 different characters with different weapon specializations will play very differently, even if the number of weapons and the absence of magic might make it seem as though the playing field is limited.

Skills and stats bear some thought. Most of the stuff you can do is tied to the former, whereas some is tied to the latter. The problem here is stats don't ever increase (with a couple of exceptions that to my knowledge don't influence stat-checks) so it's annoying to be halfway into your game and be deemed unfit to clear a barrier your character should be able to clear, only because the game thinks fighters should have 7 constitution or loremasters 10 intelligence or something. Fortunately most of these checks fall into skills which you definitely can alter and to it's point, character growth is intuitive enough, so long as you get it (and you're warned about it) into your skull that "multi-classing" does not work. Play a thief, choose thiefy skills. That simple.

Mechanically it's... eh. It's low budget, put it like that. Music/sound is functional at best. Combat tune gets grating after a short while but it's a minor complaint.

5 or 6 crashes in 5 or 6 hours, made all the less aggravating by the game's insistence in autosaving at every fight/every loaded map.

Pretty premature wall o'text to write but I do like what I've seen. So long as you're willing to accept it for what it is, a RPG with a difficulty/accessibility paradigm straight out of a rogue-like, you're gonna enjoy it. And even if you don't, it's unique in that it isn't Bioware or Black Isle or any of the usual suspects, it's got some cool ideas in it and the setting (romans/egyptians with some hi-tech thrown into the mix) is original enough that it should warrant playing.

As a side-note, the endings (at least the ones I've found) are shit as fuck. Fuckshittery of magnifinormous proportions. Why bother with all the choice, all the checks and whatnot to give us 2 shitty paragraphs? And not even a credit roll? Boo, I say.

Can't even tell the truth about his height.

You're telling us Bethesda's writing woes go as far as not being able to get a number right?

'ere all week.

SenisterDenister wrote:Shit sux. Here's hoping Obsidian gets another whack at a spinoff.

^^

I hate that I still have to explain why Fallout 3 was poor, at least in terms of its lineage, and occasionally that New Vegas was good. It's like an itch behind my eye, like the Ancient One larvae in my skull is, for the first time, in more pain than I am.

Amis, I appreciate that input. I'd really like to establish a thread where we outline everything we appreciate and everything we dislike. Make it fucking concrete and obvious so that anyone who comes to the site can't say it wasn't easy to find. Ultimately, a huge PRO/CON list with following paragraphs going into detail to explain what we're talking about. Make it blatant. Make it unified.

To double down, we might even suggest modders that corrected the biggest flaws or added the best boons to New Vegas-- relative to the complaints in Fallout 4-- so that the page can identify clear solutions to our grievances. That's simultaneously complaining and offering competent solutions. It'd silence all the critics who say our communities are just crotchety dicks who can't be satisfied.

I caved and played the other Shadowrun games. wall of text, let's go...

Hong Kong is in need of editing. it seems like they were so close to making a near-perfect game but they weren't willing to rigorously critique it, so things ended up a bit flabby-n-sick.

the main problem is that the dialogue is really inconsistent and there's too much of it. almost every vendor in the main hub has a personal story for you, many of which are tedious and tangential as shit. you're meant to be an outsider in a place that is very suspicious of people who are not its own, so it's hard to get past the ridiculousness of people dumping their life stories on you like it's nothing. there is still some great writing though, so my guess is that they kept Dragonfall's writing staff but also made a bunch of new, not-so-good additions. it's a shame that they were afraid of telling stories more subtly in this one, since the NPCs who don't hit you over the head with text stand out as much more interesting (eg. there's a cheerful drone salesman addicted to personality altering-chips, and if you're observant when talking to him you gradually get a picture of how shitty and depressing his life is, despite his attempts to cover it up—nice and simple characterization there, no bullshit elaborate backstory needed).

there are some nice touches to remind you that you're in Hong Kong (feng shui, xenophobia, floating marketplaces/squatter collectives) but overall the city feels a bit generic compared to Berlin in Dragonfall, where anarchism and strong German political views were in your face always. also, it's supposed to be a corporate police state, and your character is supposed to be a wanted terrorist or some shit, but once the intro's over you don't have a single run-in the law. the result is that the main plot (which is pretty good, I prefer it over Dragonfall's, at least tonally—it's fucking weird and feels very personal) ends up bookending the game, but during the middle 80% it just lingers in the background, doing nothing. again, this compares unfavourably with Dragonfall, which constantly reminded you that you were being hunted by unsavoury types—they ambushed you on the subway, eventually found and wrecked your kiez, etc.

the removal of very hard difficulty (why???) is another strike against it. in both games I intentionally played a negotiator-type who would be pretty useless in combat in the hopes of making things more interesting. Dragonfall Direktor's Kutte had a bunch of fights that were pretty rough and a few brutal ones; Hong Kong, barely any challenge. the revamped matrix is really vexing too. strong concept (evading watcher programs as they attempt to trace you feels very Shadowrun matrix-y) but they fucked it up with the fiddly real-time execution.

despite all this, the runs unrelated to the main plot are all great (still the best part of the game, as with Dragonfall). each is interesting and unique, with choice and consequence, lots of different moving parts, etc., so the game is worth playing off the strength of those. NPC companions are all great too, and arguably a step up.

while it has problems, most of them seem easily addressed (rewrite or cut the dialogue where it gets shit; put a couple runs related to the main plot in the middle where you have to deal with police or something; make everything more challenging) so hopefully a Director's Cut will fix most of this fuckery and it will feel like Dragonfall 2.



Returns is forgettable. first third is OK as an ultralinear noirish detective game, but then it swiftly degenerates (Bloodlines-style) into hack-n-slash and nonsense writing. there's only two optional runs and both are nothing-ass linear dungeons with... more mandatory combat. the most positive thing I can say about it is that the vibe at the Universal Brotherhood reminded me a bit of the Cathedral in Fallout 1.

New Vegas next, got a lot of catching up to do.

You should go through Danny's New Vegas mod list for stuff, it's got some good ones in there.

I just went through the one ending for it - there's actually a point where the main quest branches off and you get about 6 hours of quests exclusive to that path. This branching works like most of the game - it works, but is handled gracelessly.

Skills are no longer a thing and are wrapped up into perks. This is a mixed back. It's a good improvement for things like lockpicking and science, which only were useful at 25 point intervals and thus make for good perks. This translates poorly for things like weapons, where taking certain perks that apply to certain weapons give you a huge jump in damage.

Settlement building is fun. So is weapon and armor modding. The armor, however, is a shit show. There are few full-body sets of armor that don't allow you to wear the new modular armor pieces over them. Modular armor plus an upgrade vault suit are by far the strongest non-power armor combination, and the system is awkward because there's a ton of things like suits and dresses that should be thin enough to slap armor over, but it won't let you.

This was the first time in any Fallout game I genuinely felt like I was wearing power armor. Stomping out into a hail of gun fire, blasting back until nothing moved, then dragging my blasted suit back home for repairs was the best combat experience I've had in any game in awhile.

The graphics are actually pleasantly surprising, the new lighting engine is impressive, and the character actually look like people now.

The dialog that is present is actually pretty entertaining and well written, which shocked me. They make up for this by giving so little of it, it doesn't fucking matter. You can't talk to anyone but companions outside of quest-related dialog, and each set of dialog is sarcastic response that means yes, yes, no and a question that will either bring you back to the dialog wheel or count as yes. Persuasion attempts are a percent chance based on charisma and are a joke. Because there are so few dialog options, you're really playing the character Bethesda envisioned for you - if you wanted to make up your background or how your character is reacting to turns of events, forget it. Looking back at the E3 videos, it's clear they went out of their way to pull the wool over our eyes about how the dialog was going to be in practice.

Bethesda has gone out of their way to obliterate some of the more lore-unfriendly stuff in Fallout 3 - the Brotherhood's new outlook on things is refreshing - but added in more lore unfriendly stuff. It's never explained why super mutants are in the Commonwealth, or where their mutant dogs come from. Raiders are again just generic raiders. I found two towns that weren't my own settlements in the game. Everything else is trying to kill you.

Overall, it's fun, but it shouldn't have had a 4 slapped after it because it's not a Fallout RPG. If you take it as an action-adventure spinoff set in the Fallout universe, it's a lot easier to swallow.

I'm just hoping they give Obsidian another crack at this and don't force them to use a voiced main character. I'm going to hang it up for now and go back to New Vegas and use that T-60 armor mod that came out. Final verdict is it's better than Fallout 3, but that fruit is so low hanging I don't know what an accomplishment that is.

A friend of mine told me it was the best Bioware game Bethesda ever made and if you approach it like one would approach something like Mass Effect 2 it becomes a lot better.

SenisterDenister wrote: if you approach it like one would approach something like Mass Effect 2 it becomes a lot better.

From afar and with a pointy stick?

Pretty much. I have no intention of ever playing it.