CT Phipps
Carbon Dated and Proud
Unlike a lot of people here, I don't hate every single thing about Fallout 4 and I got my money's worth, IMHO. The problem with the game for me is that throughout playing it, I felt like the game was incredibly rote and paint-by-the-numbers.
Repeatedly, I felt the game had a lot of places where they could have gone in an interesting direction but instead chose not to. I've made a mention of the game as "warmed over Fallout " as my primary descriptor and I think that's a pretty good description as they tried to copy elements from New Vegas and add them to Fallout 3 but managed to fail at being both.
For me, the chief problem with Fallout 4 boils down to the fact not only is the game not ambitious but it's very clearly a game which is made of cut corners. Aside from Telltale games, I have yet to see a game which has as many repeated dialogues and choices which don't actually make any real difference whatever.
My first noticing of this happened early in the game when I reloaded and tried out the various responses to the "I hate newspapers" line. ALL OF THEM ARE THE SAME. You get no different reaction whatsoever. It was a moment of crystal dawning horror that my decisions or dialogue didn't matter.
Even superficially.
It climaxes with the fact there's only two endings to the game. Pro-Institute and Against-Institute. The Brotherhood of Steel, Minutemen, and Railroad endings are identical in their companion dialogue and endings. That's a failure on a BARE MINIMUM level. At the very least have different reactions for your companions on these very different factions.
It also shows up in the world-design as there's about eleven settlements which can be claimed by the Minutemen and the majority are pretty much identical. There's a farmhouse and space for the farms. The few which stand out like Spectacle Island and the Drive-Through are notable for said fact. Still, there's a massive portion of the gameworld which is empty because it assumes the player will fill it in for the developers.
As much as people hate on the game, I actually think it had a lot of real potential. The idea of someone from the Pre-War World entering the Post-War World and having a massive case of culture-shock is a very intriguing idea and could have lead to a lot of fun dialogue moments. However, there's very few of these in the game ("Look, dumbass. This is baseball" and "My favorite stadium being a shantytown") are ironically two of the only lines which show the SS as a character--and weirdly both are about baseball.
If they were going to do a dialogue wheel, they should have divided it at least with something like this:
1. Aggressive
2. Diplomatic
3. Humorous
4. Pre-War Shellshock
I loved a lot of the side-quests too with the Silver Shroud, U.S.S Constitution, and yes even Cabot House. However, it felt like there were far less sidequests this time around per square inch of map than there were before. I honestly think this game needed 3-4 times as many individual side-quests. But that also relates to the half-assedry because it seems like it was expected you'd fill up your time with radiant quests.
NO ONE likes radiant quests.
There's a lack of lore, in-game justifications, and the terminals rarely talk about things relating to the existing factions.
I LIKED Fallout 4 but I could have loved it.
:sigh:
Repeatedly, I felt the game had a lot of places where they could have gone in an interesting direction but instead chose not to. I've made a mention of the game as "warmed over Fallout " as my primary descriptor and I think that's a pretty good description as they tried to copy elements from New Vegas and add them to Fallout 3 but managed to fail at being both.
For me, the chief problem with Fallout 4 boils down to the fact not only is the game not ambitious but it's very clearly a game which is made of cut corners. Aside from Telltale games, I have yet to see a game which has as many repeated dialogues and choices which don't actually make any real difference whatever.
My first noticing of this happened early in the game when I reloaded and tried out the various responses to the "I hate newspapers" line. ALL OF THEM ARE THE SAME. You get no different reaction whatsoever. It was a moment of crystal dawning horror that my decisions or dialogue didn't matter.
Even superficially.
It climaxes with the fact there's only two endings to the game. Pro-Institute and Against-Institute. The Brotherhood of Steel, Minutemen, and Railroad endings are identical in their companion dialogue and endings. That's a failure on a BARE MINIMUM level. At the very least have different reactions for your companions on these very different factions.
It also shows up in the world-design as there's about eleven settlements which can be claimed by the Minutemen and the majority are pretty much identical. There's a farmhouse and space for the farms. The few which stand out like Spectacle Island and the Drive-Through are notable for said fact. Still, there's a massive portion of the gameworld which is empty because it assumes the player will fill it in for the developers.
As much as people hate on the game, I actually think it had a lot of real potential. The idea of someone from the Pre-War World entering the Post-War World and having a massive case of culture-shock is a very intriguing idea and could have lead to a lot of fun dialogue moments. However, there's very few of these in the game ("Look, dumbass. This is baseball" and "My favorite stadium being a shantytown") are ironically two of the only lines which show the SS as a character--and weirdly both are about baseball.
If they were going to do a dialogue wheel, they should have divided it at least with something like this:
1. Aggressive
2. Diplomatic
3. Humorous
4. Pre-War Shellshock
I loved a lot of the side-quests too with the Silver Shroud, U.S.S Constitution, and yes even Cabot House. However, it felt like there were far less sidequests this time around per square inch of map than there were before. I honestly think this game needed 3-4 times as many individual side-quests. But that also relates to the half-assedry because it seems like it was expected you'd fill up your time with radiant quests.
NO ONE likes radiant quests.
There's a lack of lore, in-game justifications, and the terminals rarely talk about things relating to the existing factions.
I LIKED Fallout 4 but I could have loved it.
:sigh:
