Fallout 4: delusion or great game?

[Rethrain]

Fallout 4 is what you make it. Or at least that's what I would like to say. Sometimes I feel I'm lowering the bar a lot, at others I feel I'm very jaded. It's hard to keep a middle ground with Beth games. To be absolutely honest...Fallout 4 is...just a game for me to play with mods I'm not a big fan of the script and writing and really everything else. Though there is a lot of eye candy, the game feels....generic (Stagnating maybe?). The biggest selling point to me are the mods.

 

It's funny, but I actually find it tiring the whole clash of ideologies. I'm all for being in a tight spot and making tough decisions (Witcher series <3 and any of their kind especially when it feels bad at the end, lol). But this route they are taking...eeehhhh.

[PoliteRaider]

 

Did they do as well as they could writing for it? Not really. But I hope to see this kind of dialogue wheel in all future games.

 

Yeah, I've got nothing against dialogue wheels themselves. This one was just badly implemented. If this had been done as well as the dialogue wheels in Mass Effect I wouldn't have any objections.

[TeamBacon]

 

I like the new dialogue wheel much better than Fallout 3 or New Vegas. The older system felt very clunky, the new system feels more smoothly integrated into the flow of the game.

 

Did they do as well as they could writing for it? Not really. But I hope to see this kind of dialogue wheel in all future games.

 

Has it's disadvantages though. Less dialogue options with voiced and wheel. Have you actually tried all the different options in the wheel to get the appropriate replies? Guess not. Even if you outright insult the one you're talking to, they say something like anyway and continue the one and only option they have available. You should try it - all the options. They always come back with the same reply.

 

I'm not a big enough enemy of voiced characters to say it's garbage, but it's obvious that it offers less in terms of diversity.

 

There are of course a few exemptions in scripted events. The ones where you get the yellow, orange or red. But usually the system falls flat compared to previous titles. As had to be expected, since voice acting doesn't come cheap.

 

 

You are talking about a totally different subject now. If you are going to talk about a totally different subject, please don't quote me.

 

I am a big supporter of having less dialogue options so that each and every dialogue option can be made unique. Quality over quantity is key. A lot of the time in my writing I only use 2 or 3 of the options, because less is more.

 

I agree with you that having all the options go to the same thing is bad, but that is in no way the fault of the interface, it is the fault of the guys writing it.

 

 

 

I really, really like having the short answers as opposed to having to read out the whole thing. A also really like that they got rid of the clunky scrolling through dialogue options.

[PoliteRaider]

I think the problem isn't so much in the voiced dialogue or the dialogue wheel, so much as Bethesda wasn't experienced with writing for it. Then again they couldn't use it exactly like Bioware, because their games have a very different play-style.

 

Sometimes the spoken result wasn't what you expected from the short description, sometimes it was unclear whether you were agreeing to a mission or not and finally you could keep bringing up objections, questions or problems with a quest except the 'approve' option would be something like a very cheerfully voiced "Oh yes, I'd love to help you."

 

I felt like they've already started to improve on this though even from Automatron and Far Harbour. The dialogue had a lot less WTF moments for me on the DLC as compared to the original game. I'd be fine with them continuing this style of dialogue in future games, I just hope that they've learned a bit about writing for it from this one.

[cossayos]

 

 

I agree with you that having all the options go to the same thing is bad, but that is in no way the fault of the interface, it is the fault of the guys writing it.

 

 

 

No, it's the fault of the ones handing out the budgets. As I said, once fully voiced, options go down. Inevitably, since voice acting doesn't come cheap. The wheel is but a symptome of that.

 

I fully expected that to happen, and so I'm not the least bit surprised in a negative way. I just tried out all the options at certain times to see if I was wrong. Well, I wasn't, and that's what I wanted to say.

Edited July 9, 2016 by cossayos

[Shaundi7]

When the game was released, I played for 14 hours straight. I loved the game and I still do. I was surprised how good the shooting feels and how the game was fun, even for the vanilla version. Sure, here and there were things mod corrected now, but overall, it was great. And now, with the CK, I'll love it to death.

 

I started with the Bethesda titles at the time Oblivion was released and I never was disappointed.

[cossayos]

When the game was released, I played for 14 hours straight. I loved the game and I still do. I was surprised how good the shooting feels and how the game was fun, even for the vanilla version.

 

That may be a pointer why you loved the game right from the get go. For me a less important aspect, and accordingly I had a hard time being drawn in at the start. Not in the same way as with FNV.

 

I also played it for many hours, but the vanilla game didn't offer as much in terms of my interests. In fact, as I said before, I had the feeling of still playing Morrowind. Shinier and voiced, for sure, but nothing much changed storywise or in terms of choices and consequences.

[TeamBacon]

 

That may be a pointer why you loved the game right from the get go. For me a less important aspect, and accordingly I had a hard time being drawn in at the start. Not in the same way as with FNV.

 

I also played it for many hours, but the vanilla game didn't offer as much in terms of my interests. In fact, as I said before, I had the feeling of still playing Morrowind. Shinier and voiced, for sure, but nothing much changed storywise or in terms of choices and consequences.

 

 

I'm pretty sure that every game that had even minimal expectations of 'choices and consequences' has been strongly criticized by at least a fraction of the fan base for not being good enough in that department.

 

I would think this is because any game that does offer choice is really just offering you a facade of consequences because from a production aspect it would be impossible to ever make all your choices actually matter.

 

So I agree with you on Fallout 4 being that way, but I would also carry that over to Fallout New Vegas, Skyrim, Mass Effect, and the long list of other games I have played and enjoyed that had choices.

 

 

 

I really enjoyed Fallout 4, vanilla, and played it every chance I got for the first 80 hours of the game. I personally only play games for story anymore and haven't played any shooters since Mass Effect. I mostly just play indie titles and such, looking for creative new ways to tell a story.

 

The only other shooter I enjoy would be Mass Effect, for the same reason I like Fallout 4. I feel engaged in the story.

[cossayos]

 

 

So I agree with you on Fallout 4 being that way, but I would also carry that over to Fallout New Vegas, Skyrim, Mass Effect, and the long list of other games I have played and enjoyed that had choices.

 

 

There aren't many open world games to compare this against. My main gripe with Bethesda is, they haven't really moved forward in terms of immersion for 14 years. I mean, I'm not asking much. Your very own settlers or underlings not calling you synth or robber would go a long way. Or like not reacting as if they saw you the first time, even if you happened to save their butts just the other day. Everyone's suffering from dementia in all Beth games.

 

That it is possible, is prove by a mod I got installed, which takes care of these stupid lines and replaces them with some actually making sense under the current circumstances. Why Beth couldn't rise up to at least that level in more than a decade is beyond me.

[zanity]

Against what the Fallout IP offers for game devs, and the time period from the last Fallout game from Beth (FO3), and the power of the platforms FO4 ended up releasing on, the game was a PUTRID FAILURE- cheap, nasty, cynical, and half-baked.

 

But here's the thing- as Rimmer says in Red Dwarf when begging to 'borrow' the 'body' of Lister, "two weeks in Skegness is better than nothing".

 

We people who love true open-world games have around ZERO choice each year. So few such games appear, if we reject them, we have literally NOTHING. So like fans of TV SF in the UK, whatever gets released in this genre, no matter how poor, has to be savoured as far as possible.

 

Now some fans are so dim, they think using the ONLY things available is the same as agreeing those things are well designed/written. The well known psychology of " *I* am playing it so clearly it is great because *I* am great so if I use a thing, than by definition, it must be great". It is scary how many people have this psychology.

 

Meanwhile, those of us that can think clearly know that while making the best of out 'two weeks in Skegness', we could be enjoying a 'holiday' so very much better.

 

I have enjoyed Fallout 4 to the best of my ability, knowing the next such open-world title may be a long way away. I've used mods, and will install yet more. I've messed with settlement building and hope to see that impoved (the AI I mean). Yet I can state definitively, having built a dedicated tank war 'console' as a birthday gift for someone so many years ago, and started computer gaming years before that, that Fallout 4 is an absolute disgrace given the dev time, budget (the game SHOULD have had), and the groundwork FO3 laid down. I know where we started, with a few vector lines on a dedicated display in a lab, and I know where we are going (and it ain't VR), and at this time in the history of Computer Games, there can be no excuse for the state of Fallout 4.