My first impressions: personally, I'm disappointed that they decided to remove the whole food/drink thing...dammit, I liked that part of New Vegas, where you had to scavenge food and water in order to survive! Then you had to worry about if what you eat was radioactive, but you had no choice because there was nothing else, so maybe you can take some Radaway, but then you had to worry about becoming addicted to chems... that made it more interesting!
But I'm not surprised that they took all of that out. I had a feeling that they would, because every Bethesda game has gone the same way...start off with an awesome concept, then improve the graphics while dumbing the game down. Oh well...at least it doesn't have instantly regenerating health, so top marks for that. Although they do have the OP dog companion who can't die...what is it with modern game developers and not wanting to challenge us beyond "point, click, repeat until message comes up saying 'you have won' "? They could at least have a built-in "hardcore" mode that those of us who want to can play on.
Another thing I don't like: I played for about 2-3 hours last night and I'm already level 4. I mean, come on!! Levels need to be earned, not handed to you!
I'll stick with it because I bought it (and at full price at that), but right now, I think Fallout: New Vegas was a better game...or at least more to my taste. If New Vegas was like Oblivion, Fallout 4 is Skyrim.
@Squire to be fair, I think I'd have around that level in New Vegas before leaving the first area if I do the things in it. leveling just becomes slower as you level, like most games. that said, you can definitely become overpowered in 4 quickly if you are optimal and focus your perks on gaining power instead of some of the fun little things. i personally spent some of my SPECIAL wrong and spent a good amount of points on increasing charisma and intelligence while wishing I had less luck.
and yeah, would love the return of hardcore mode. i continue to be saddened by it's absense, with the only time I don't miss it being when multiple in game days pass as I mess with a settlement. oh well... it's not like food and water would have been hard to come by, and it's already something most of us use commonly. just cook all of your food and you have some great healing items, usually with a buff, with the only real downside being taking more weight than stimpacks. they do, however, have no animation to use.
honestly, I am still enjoying the game right now, and Skyrim definitely lost my interest long before this point. However, like any Bethesda game, I just think about how much better it will be with mods. Somebody needs to make another wasteland edition so I can make resources more scarce, because right now I have more ammo than I could ever need. I would also actually like fusion cores removed from the random loot table. You find them too often in batches of 4 so now I have about 40 of them last I checked. With that many I never feel excited when I find a generator to remove a core from, because the ammo box in the next room could give me 4. I like the idea of the power armor being powerful but limited, but it really doesn't feel limited. Also makes me regret maxing the fusion core time perk before I started using it. The only real downside to power armor is that it is the one thing that can break, although funnily enough that can also be used to your advantage when looting power armor pieces.
all that said about power armor though, I skydived off of a skyscraper using it. i absolutely love it, just wish I had more reason to leave my little truck stop base without it
New Vegas wasn't made by Bethesda anyway, only published by them, so it's not quite on target to think of any of it's accomplishments or flaws as theirs. NV was an Obsidian product.
I wish any developer of future RPGs (and Bethesda themselves in terms of a future TES game) could listen to these words:
"The restrictions of the new dialogue wheel and the addition of a voiced protagonist have stripped away any chance to give your character a distinct personality. They’re either a good guy, or a sarcastic good guy. The single voice on offer is so obviously tailored to fit a generic-looking white guy—like the one they used in the E3 demo—that it sounds weird coming out of anyone else. These limitations feel out of place in a game that offers so much freedom elsewhere. "
FinneousPJ it's not bad either, I hate a lot of things about it, but I already clocked more then 50 hours
restarted only once, after hitting lvl 25 and I stopped using power armor. And I sell 99% of all Drugs and Food stuff. Some balancing and a better economical system would have been awesome. But most want to play a faster paced game, like it is in the current state, and dont want to be bothered with micro managing things.
Bethesda could have easily went in that direction, but the number in sales would have dropped immensly. They're not interested in making an hardcore RPG for that sole reason.
@bengoshi Bethesda isn't going to listen. You can communicate to them only via number of sales, and unfortunately Fallout 4 sold good enough. Meaning next Bethesda game is going to be sorry excuse of an rpg as well. Even is some people find sandboxes entertaining.
@Yamcha It's a solid 6/10, so no, not bad either. I just can't forgive how pretty much all the systems are from Fallout 3 and have not been improved upon at all.
@FinneousPJ Yeah, the big F4 features are Settlements, Power Armor, Crafting, lots of locations to explore. Nothing that adds to the roleplaying aspect (maybe if you're playing some kind of big wasteland contractor, tycoon, mogul character)
But building a few towns while searching for your lost son, yep - makes a looooot of sense. Dialoges with no real choice. Snarky or Nice, result will be the same
@FinneousPJ Yeah, the big F4 features are Settlements, Power Armor, Crafting, lots of locations to explore. Nothing that adds to the roleplaying aspect (maybe if you're playing some kind of big wasteland contractor, tycoon, mogul character)
But building a few towns while searching for your lost son, yep - makes a looooot of sense. Dialoges with no real choice. Snarky or Nice, result will be the same
But its still a 8/10 for me
I think that finding your son(who then turns out to be the big bad if you are playing against the institute) should have had a time limit like the water chip in the first fallout.
@shapirokeatsdarkmage not sure if scriver was upset or sarcastic about that, but if so a way to communicate what the spoiler is about would be to only have the bit in the parentheses be spoiler tagged.
edit: looks like you just didn't originally have a spoiler tag at all. advice still stands to avoid spoilers while giving out the subject of the spoilers.
And yeah... I do feel pretty locked into a specific character which is kind of sad. Of course, my guy is a generic good white guy, so I never feel like I can't say what I want to, but I can see I am pretty much forced into that path and that is wrong. Undertale recently taught me an important lesson: if you never have the option to be bad, you can't feel like you are actually good. having the over-the-top genocide run makes being a pacifist in that game really hit you. in Fallout, it kind of feels like I go with the flow. the most RP I get is my own head dialogue, the direction I go, the faction I choose, and the ways I customize. While I've noticed all of this I still don't think it is a bad game. I share more of the 8/10 @yamcha has going, except I've played much longer I don't regret any of that time either, and I am still going strong. I will probably even pass my total Skyrim time (189 hours) in a single playthrough! (currently 149 hours). I think that people who can get over it being less of an RPG can still have a great time. They are there... but a lot more light than usual and you can't even be bad unless you just go around murdering and stealing on your own. It is more of just an open world adventure in the Fallout universe that improves on all of the gameplay systems, but left behind many of the RPG ones.
One good thing i can say about FO4 other than the soundtrack is that the Brotherhood of Steel is more morally ambiguos compared to FO3. But thats about it.
I've spent about 4 hours in the game thus far. If I had to put a rating on the game at this stage, I'd give it a 7.5/10 give or take, but also acknowledge that I am no where near far enough for that review to be comprehensive.
Here are a couple of stumbling blocks that I've encountered thus far (personal and subjective view).
For the fact that it is "4" and took years to develop, it feels much more like a continuation of "3" than an actual next generation of the game. I admit that this was one of the chief complaints that I read online and so was maybe front loaded with that feeling, however that is honestly how I felt as I played along. The combat wasn't that different and they don't even (seemingly) feel the need to give you a tutorial that speaks to VATS. You have to find out yourself. In other words, unless you go playing around, or have played "3" before, you won't know it exists.
The graphics aren't significantly different/improved despite the next gen console and the intervening updates in technology. This isn't helped by the washed out and duller color scheme of the world as a whole, but that might actually have been a limiting factor that meant that they weren't going to spend that much effort there anyhow?
I'm a bit disappointed that the 'Armor' and wearable equipment mechanics aren't better fleshed out. Considering games like Dark Souls and even Baldur's gate where they use a paper doll screen which allows you to focus on a single slot, I find it strange (and more than a bit disappointing) that Fallout has not adopted to that. As a result it is often difficult to figure out what the 'Best' selection is for any given armor slot or indeed what slots are available. The day-glow screen which simply highlights the 'effected' areas of the body as you cycle through them is just not very intuitive. Add in the sheer number of choices in customization and I bet this becomes a major issue later on.
Speaking of crafting, I do like (conceptually) what I have seen of the system, but felt that (at least initially) there were far more choices than I had a handle on. This lead me to feeling initially overwhelmed to such a degree that I just walked away from it. I like customization in a system and think that ultimately it will be good. But it is far too much, too quickly when you first start off. I felt that they might have been better served if you couldn't see the vast number of choices until they got unlocked. On the flip side, at least now I have some idea of what stuff to start looking for. So maybe this is a trade off?
I do like that quite a lot of the 'junk' that you find actually can be translated into something useful (building materials). Although this really leaves me wanting to pick up EVERY SINGLE piece of tin and plastic that I find. While I suppose I actually did that in "3", and now at least I have a reason to do it, it just feels off and a bit weird. I imagine that this feeling will go away quite quickly, but it just was off-putting initially.
The inclusion of power armor almost from the very beginning was another 'Iffy' strategy in my book. As a result of it's early inclusion, it felt like they had to significantly reduce it in power and amo availability so as to not make it totally dominate the game. While they seem to have balanced things out to such a degree that it didn't make 'That much' difference (I've only played about 4 hours), it just seemed like they rushed into it and just felt off "to me".
I was not a big fan of the 'Sim City' mini-game aspects of setting up your base. After spending more than an hour merely clearing out the first settlement, I then was faced with where to place resources (or even find them in some circumstances). This mechanic felt a bit tacked on and somewhat unnecessary. While it might cater to some players, I do hope that it doesn't become an ongoing increasing maintenance requirement of the game.
To be perfectly clear, I would still rate the game 7.5/10 and an absolute must for fans of the series. I just felt that (initially) these are areas that do beg for comment.
Speaking of crafting, I do like (conceptually) what I have seen of the system, but felt that (at least initially) there were far more choices than I had a handle on. This lead me to feeling initially overwhelmed to such a degree that I just walked away from it. I like customization in a system and think that ultimately it will be good. But it is far too much, too quickly when you first start off. I felt that they might have been better served if you couldn't see the vast number of choices until they got unlocked. On the flip side, at least now I have some idea of what stuff to start looking for. So maybe this is a trade off?
Maybe its just me but I find crafting to come across as too complicated (certainly initially) to be common with a lot of games. I recall feeling the same for Divinity Original Sins. So maybe its just kind of a challenge for games in general.
Speaking of crafting, I do like (conceptually) what I have seen of the system, but felt that (at least initially) there were far more choices than I had a handle on. This lead me to feeling initially overwhelmed to such a degree that I just walked away from it. I like customization in a system and think that ultimately it will be good. But it is far too much, too quickly when you first start off. I felt that they might have been better served if you couldn't see the vast number of choices until they got unlocked. On the flip side, at least now I have some idea of what stuff to start looking for. So maybe this is a trade off?
Maybe its just me but I find crafting to come across as too complicated (certainly initially) to be common with a lot of games. I recall feeling the same for Divinity Original Sins. So maybe its just kind of a challenge for games in general.
I agree that crafting is a hard nut to crack. Either it is overly complex and extensive as in Fallout 4, or it is overly simple as in Diablo 3. Very few games get it right. In most instances, I see it as a niche component and I almost never spend a lot of time in them. Maybe someday they will get it right?
The inclusion of power armor almost from the very beginning was another 'Iffy' strategy in my book. As a result of it's early inclusion, it felt like they had to significantly reduce it in power and amo availability so as to not make it totally dominate the game. While they seem to have balanced things out to such a degree that it didn't make 'That much' difference (I've only played about 4 hours), it just seemed like they rushed into it and just felt off "to me".
I think you'll change your mind on this topic in particular later. I have over 70 fusion cores, and power armor is quite a lot better than normal armor other than the fact that it needs maintenance. I sometimes force myself to go out without my suit, although I always feel like I have significantly lower survivability than just taking my power armor that will likely never run out of cores. I will definitely be sure to adjust fusion core spawns when the GECK comes out. I kind of like the idea they had of power armor being a sort of power up when you need it, but they made cores too common to feel like it is actually limited.
I also have a feeling like you might change your mind on the crafting. When it comes down to it, you mostly just look at the things with the highest perk requirement you have available, which limits the list a lot more. I think this is more so like me when I had to consider upgrading now or waiting on the next perk rank where I could get better things. Now that I am maxxed on all crafting perks, I just choose whatever is best based on fire mode I am making.
Rest I still mostly share the same views after all this time. World graphics haven't jumped, but at least the characters aren't ugly anymore. They aren't top of the line, but F3 and NV were way below standards and they really needed to upgrade from that! I used to always just put on a helmet, but now I actually often take off my helmet before talking. The building really needs to be more user friendly, but if you push through it you could make some cool stuff. I rebuilt The Castle's walls and made it my new home now, and that was fun It was limited by Bethesda though... glad we could mod out the object limit because I needed to go over. And I also find myself missing the old armors a bit. It just felt like everything fit together much better then. Also, I didn't even realize sturdy wasn't just an adjective for a crafting mod for a long time! They should just rename them heavy, medium, and light to make that simpler.
@ChildofBhaal599 - thanks for the feedback. I rather suspected that my initial reactions were quite premature as I only have 4+ hours in the game itself.
As far as it goes, at my very early stage of the game the power armor just seems 'Weird'. I can see them attempting to scale it for early combat so as to not be overpowered. I expect it will scale as I go along. I'm not overly worried.
The crafting? I acknowledge that my reaction may also be premature. I just remember walking up to the work bench for the first time, seeing that there were dozens of permutations for a single barrel for a pistol, seeing that you could modify a bunch of aspects for weapon and in a bunch of different ways and just went "That's a LOT of modification." I am sure I will get back to it and enjoy.
@the_spyder You're finding the t-45 to be underpowered? Maybe I noticed the difference in protection better by playing on very hard, but even that is a lot better than the normal armors imo. Just by wearing power armor you even avoid the deathclaw instant kills. It fails to rip off your head if it grabs you Even if you do find that underpowered, there are still the t-51, t-60, and x-01 suits that are all better, and you can upgrade them all even further. When it comes to the fusion cores, though, it comes down to the fact that it is also used for the gatling laser. I think they really should've used seperate ammo. Getting 4 cores at once in some ammo boxes is too much for someone who doesn't use the gatling laser. They would just feel a lot more special to only have the preset cores, which are certainly rare enough to make you consider using them or not. Also probably remove them from sentry bots, or at least make it one instead of two.
@ChildofBhaal599 - so to be clear, I did the combat one combat with the Deathclaw after getting the armor and realize that I would NOT have survived without the power armor. I also blew thru about 75% of the ammo for the chain gun and lost 4 pieces of the armor. So that is why I said "Scaled for lower levels".
As far as anything beyond that, I'm sure that I will find things as you describe.
@the_spyder The biggest downside is definitely the durability. That said, better power armor has better durability alongside the defenses. Also, you can use any gun you want in power armor, so it was just them not giving you much there for that mini gun. On very hard I actually used all of it's ammo, but I killed it in a single laser musket head shot after I think I only lost 1 part, and had about 2 badly damaged on my own run when it came to durability. Even as parts break you still get some benefits though, such as increased strength and no falling damage, instead allowing for falling attacks! It also helps that I have modded my armor and have the pain train perk, allowing for some dangerous charging attacks followed by powerful close range weapons to the head. Oh, and don't bother with that int 9 perk like I did, because when you have as many cores as me you don't care so much that they last twice as long I got it when I was like you and not finding a bunch of cores yet... it quickly got followed by me hitting something like 40 in a short time and kept going up. I suppose it is nice for making it easier to rationalize sprinting, consider AP usage speeds up power loss.
And people wonder why RPG fans worship Chris Avellone like Jesus. Though i give Beth some credit for making the factions and some of the companions interesting, still nowhere near as good as New Vegas characters.
Though i give Beth some credit for making the factions ... interesting.
THEY ARE NOT INTERESTING. THE FACTIONS ARE DUMB AND UNBELIEVABLE
They had to place radioactive waste barrels every few meters to remind you that there was a nuclear war. Someone should lock up the design team and make them watch the Mad Max movies till they get the end-time scenario
Comments
But I'm not surprised that they took all of that out. I had a feeling that they would, because every Bethesda game has gone the same way...start off with an awesome concept, then improve the graphics while dumbing the game down. Oh well...at least it doesn't have instantly regenerating health, so top marks for that. Although they do have the OP dog companion who can't die...what is it with modern game developers and not wanting to challenge us beyond "point, click, repeat until message comes up saying 'you have won' "? They could at least have a built-in "hardcore" mode that those of us who want to can play on.
Another thing I don't like: I played for about 2-3 hours last night and I'm already level 4. I mean, come on!! Levels need to be earned, not handed to you!
I'll stick with it because I bought it (and at full price at that), but right now, I think Fallout: New Vegas was a better game...or at least more to my taste. If New Vegas was like Oblivion, Fallout 4 is Skyrim.
and yeah, would love the return of hardcore mode. i continue to be saddened by it's absense, with the only time I don't miss it being when multiple in game days pass as I mess with a settlement. oh well... it's not like food and water would have been hard to come by, and it's already something most of us use commonly. just cook all of your food and you have some great healing items, usually with a buff, with the only real downside being taking more weight than stimpacks. they do, however, have no animation to use.
honestly, I am still enjoying the game right now, and Skyrim definitely lost my interest long before this point. However, like any Bethesda game, I just think about how much better it will be with mods. Somebody needs to make another wasteland edition so I can make resources more scarce, because right now I have more ammo than I could ever need. I would also actually like fusion cores removed from the random loot table. You find them too often in batches of 4 so now I have about 40 of them last I checked. With that many I never feel excited when I find a generator to remove a core from, because the ammo box in the next room could give me 4. I like the idea of the power armor being powerful but limited, but it really doesn't feel limited. Also makes me regret maxing the fusion core time perk before I started using it. The only real downside to power armor is that it is the one thing that can break, although funnily enough that can also be used to your advantage when looting power armor pieces.
all that said about power armor though, I skydived off of a skyscraper using it. i absolutely love it, just wish I had more reason to leave my little truck stop base without it
"The restrictions of the new dialogue wheel and the addition of a voiced protagonist have stripped away any chance to give your character a distinct personality. They’re either a good guy, or a sarcastic good guy. The single voice on offer is so obviously tailored to fit a generic-looking white guy—like the one they used in the E3 demo—that it sounds weird coming out of anyone else. These limitations feel out of place in a game that offers so much freedom elsewhere. "
http://www.pcgamer.com/fallout-4-good-game-bad-rpg/
restarted only once, after hitting lvl 25 and I stopped using power armor. And I sell 99% of all Drugs and Food stuff.
Some balancing and a better economical system would have been awesome. But most want to play a faster paced game, like it is in the current state, and dont want to be bothered with micro managing things.
Bethesda could have easily went in that direction, but the number in sales would have dropped immensly.
They're not interested in making an hardcore RPG for that sole reason.
Yeah, the big F4 features are Settlements, Power Armor, Crafting, lots of locations to explore.
Nothing that adds to the roleplaying aspect (maybe if you're playing some kind of big wasteland contractor, tycoon, mogul character)
But building a few towns while searching for your lost son, yep - makes a looooot of sense.
Dialoges with no real choice. Snarky or Nice, result will be the same
But its still a 8/10 for me
edit: looks like you just didn't originally have a spoiler tag at all. advice still stands to avoid spoilers while giving out the subject of the spoilers.
And yeah... I do feel pretty locked into a specific character which is kind of sad. Of course, my guy is a generic good white guy, so I never feel like I can't say what I want to, but I can see I am pretty much forced into that path and that is wrong. Undertale recently taught me an important lesson: if you never have the option to be bad, you can't feel like you are actually good. having the over-the-top genocide run makes being a pacifist in that game really hit you. in Fallout, it kind of feels like I go with the flow. the most RP I get is my own head dialogue, the direction I go, the faction I choose, and the ways I customize. While I've noticed all of this I still don't think it is a bad game. I share more of the 8/10 @yamcha has going, except I've played much longer
Here are a couple of stumbling blocks that I've encountered thus far (personal and subjective view).
For the fact that it is "4" and took years to develop, it feels much more like a continuation of "3" than an actual next generation of the game. I admit that this was one of the chief complaints that I read online and so was maybe front loaded with that feeling, however that is honestly how I felt as I played along. The combat wasn't that different and they don't even (seemingly) feel the need to give you a tutorial that speaks to VATS. You have to find out yourself. In other words, unless you go playing around, or have played "3" before, you won't know it exists.
The graphics aren't significantly different/improved despite the next gen console and the intervening updates in technology. This isn't helped by the washed out and duller color scheme of the world as a whole, but that might actually have been a limiting factor that meant that they weren't going to spend that much effort there anyhow?
I'm a bit disappointed that the 'Armor' and wearable equipment mechanics aren't better fleshed out. Considering games like Dark Souls and even Baldur's gate where they use a paper doll screen which allows you to focus on a single slot, I find it strange (and more than a bit disappointing) that Fallout has not adopted to that. As a result it is often difficult to figure out what the 'Best' selection is for any given armor slot or indeed what slots are available. The day-glow screen which simply highlights the 'effected' areas of the body as you cycle through them is just not very intuitive. Add in the sheer number of choices in customization and I bet this becomes a major issue later on.
Speaking of crafting, I do like (conceptually) what I have seen of the system, but felt that (at least initially) there were far more choices than I had a handle on. This lead me to feeling initially overwhelmed to such a degree that I just walked away from it. I like customization in a system and think that ultimately it will be good. But it is far too much, too quickly when you first start off. I felt that they might have been better served if you couldn't see the vast number of choices until they got unlocked. On the flip side, at least now I have some idea of what stuff to start looking for. So maybe this is a trade off?
I do like that quite a lot of the 'junk' that you find actually can be translated into something useful (building materials). Although this really leaves me wanting to pick up EVERY SINGLE piece of tin and plastic that I find. While I suppose I actually did that in "3", and now at least I have a reason to do it, it just feels off and a bit weird. I imagine that this feeling will go away quite quickly, but it just was off-putting initially.
The inclusion of power armor almost from the very beginning was another 'Iffy' strategy in my book. As a result of it's early inclusion, it felt like they had to significantly reduce it in power and amo availability so as to not make it totally dominate the game. While they seem to have balanced things out to such a degree that it didn't make 'That much' difference (I've only played about 4 hours), it just seemed like they rushed into it and just felt off "to me".
I was not a big fan of the 'Sim City' mini-game aspects of setting up your base. After spending more than an hour merely clearing out the first settlement, I then was faced with where to place resources (or even find them in some circumstances). This mechanic felt a bit tacked on and somewhat unnecessary. While it might cater to some players, I do hope that it doesn't become an ongoing increasing maintenance requirement of the game.
To be perfectly clear, I would still rate the game 7.5/10 and an absolute must for fans of the series. I just felt that (initially) these are areas that do beg for comment.
I also have a feeling like you might change your mind on the crafting. When it comes down to it, you mostly just look at the things with the highest perk requirement you have available, which limits the list a lot more. I think this is more so like me when I had to consider upgrading now or waiting on the next perk rank where I could get better things. Now that I am maxxed on all crafting perks, I just choose whatever is best based on fire mode I am making.
Rest I still mostly share the same views after all this time. World graphics haven't jumped, but at least the characters aren't ugly anymore. They aren't top of the line, but F3 and NV were way below standards and they really needed to upgrade from that! I used to always just put on a helmet, but now I actually often take off my helmet before talking. The building really needs to be more user friendly, but if you push through it you could make some cool stuff. I rebuilt The Castle's walls and made it my new home now, and that was fun
As far as it goes, at my very early stage of the game the power armor just seems 'Weird'. I can see them attempting to scale it for early combat so as to not be overpowered. I expect it will scale as I go along. I'm not overly worried.
The crafting? I acknowledge that my reaction may also be premature. I just remember walking up to the work bench for the first time, seeing that there were dozens of permutations for a single barrel for a pistol, seeing that you could modify a bunch of aspects for weapon and in a bunch of different ways and just went "That's a LOT of modification." I am sure I will get back to it and enjoy.
As far as anything beyond that, I'm sure that I will find things as you describe.
And people wonder why RPG fans worship Chris Avellone like Jesus. Though i give Beth some credit for making the factions and some of the companions interesting, still nowhere near as good as New Vegas characters.
They had to place radioactive waste barrels every few meters to remind you that there was a nuclear war.
Someone should lock up the design team and make them watch the Mad Max movies till they get the end-time scenario
Screens of nostalgia:
http://imgur.com/a/ODV3U