FA+
Shop
Fallout 4 Impressions
10 years ago
I’ve had a good bit of time to play Fallout 4, snatching a few hours of time at night before bed to explore and level up. I haven’t played through the main story completely, yet. I tend to do a lot of wandering. I thought I would catalog my impressions.
First, the good:
1.) It’s a Bethesda open world, so exploration actually pays off. It’s full of interesting locations and amusing things to uncover about the world you’re in. This is kind of a given. It’s like giving Bioware credit for having interesting characters. It’s kind of their specialty, so it bears mentioning every time. I’ve always said with Fallout and Elder Scrolls, the real character in the game is the world.
2.) The vault suit is actually a pretty valuable piece of clothing, now, instead of something you discard as soon as you find a better armored outfit. Right out of the gate, it has some degree of radiation and damage resistance built in, and these traits can be upgraded at an armor station. My character is at level 41 and still wearing it underneath combat armor.
3.) Vodka and Whisky are now the correct color.
4.) The radiation system is much better. It makes radiation more of a concern, but not crushingly so. Coupled with specific outfits that provide incredible protection against radiation, it gives a more ominous but not impenetrable sense to highly radiated places. You just have to prepare.
5.) Shooting is better. I haven’t done a lot of melee combat, but the shooting mechanics are a little more robust. The VATS system is more of a compliment and feels less like a cheat, now, and full on FPS combat feels pretty fun. I remember being on the fence about the inclusion of “ironsight mode” in Fallout NV, but with it’s adoption here, I think it’s here to stay. And I’m strangely okay with it. I tend to do a lot of groundwork before I engage an area full of enemies. I lay mines, I anticipate reactions, I take as many scoped shots as possible before the wetwork begins, and it feels good when a plan comes together. It’s also thrilling when it doesn’t.
6.) Sprinting means you can dash away if you’re in over your head. Most enemies won’t follow you too far from their patrol point, so this makes actually escaping very feasible. In prior games without sprinting, if you bit off more than you could chew, it would usually mean reloading an old save point. This works well with their encounter leveling system, where it’s possible to stumble into areas with enemies that are much more powerful than your level.
7.) Crafting is neat, and it’s even more neat that they’ve made it entirely optional… in most cases. There are a few quests that kind of make you build things, almost as a tutorial, but overall, maintaining settlements is very optional. It may not *feel* optional, the way the Minutemen just keep pushing you to build turrets and dig wells for every helpless bum in the Commonwealth. But the ability to customize your own little dwelling area is nice. So far the random raider/mutant attack hasn’t really been a headache. I’m not sure if they’ll become more difficult, later. Armor modding is nice, but armor doesn’t change its appearance as much as I wish it did when modified. Weapons crafting is a mixed bag. The options are great, but the effects are often unrealistic.
8.) Power armor is what it should be. It’s not just a piece of clothing with higher armor stats. It feels and acts like you’re inside a tank with legs, with levels of protection that are now more in line with its appearance. I suppose my only complaint with this is just how common power armor is, scattered all over the map. It makes it feel a little less special than I think it should.
9.) Mod support. Mhmm. I can’t wait for all the survivalist options.
10.) Battle AI - as a sneak, I noticed that the enemy doesn’t have to spot you to begin shooting in your general direction. This is a nice touch. When your sneak monitor is on [CAUTION] they’ll still just fire missiles randomly in your direction, which can add an element of terror to your situation.
The “eh”:
1.) Companions - I hate traveling with companions, but if you want to level up their affinity, do their personal quests, and/or romance them, you have to drag them around and put up with their bullshit. Companions may be great for “run in and shoot” kinds of gameplay, but any other style of combat will have you telling them to sit and wait while you move ahead and disarm every trap and kill every enemy, then come back and get them. You also lose your Lone Wanderer perks if you are traveling with them just to acquire their personal quests. While I like being a Lone Wanderer, I feel like I’m missing huge pieces of the game because of it. I’d much prefer a Bioware style system where characters had a way of spawning quests that let you get to know them, without having to level their affinity by dragging them everywhere.
2.) Radiant quests. I’m almost afraid to complete a mission for Preston Garvey because I know he’s going to instantly give me another one in a place I’ve already been.
3.) Tiny unrealisms - It’s clear that the people at Bethesda who make these games have very little real world experience with manly items. I complained about Vodka and Whisky being the wrong color in the prior Fallout games, and how unrealistic gun behavior was, and now we have cigars with the bands on the wrong end, which can be unraveled to make “cloth”. I’d imagine during their trip around Boston taking photographs, someone might have bought a cigar just to examine where bands go and the fact that cigars are made of leaves, not fabric.
4.) Gun unrealism. I really liked how Fallout NV tried to supply a variety of weapons, the kinds of things you’d actually encounter in the United States after an apocalypse. They realized the gun’s DPS was as important as it’s per-shot stat, and they realized guns firing the same ammo would do the same single-shot damage. But with Fallout 4, we’re back to cartoon guns as envisioned by metrosexuals who’ve not burned a single calorie in their life learning how they work and what kinds of ammo they fire. A “battle rifle” shouldn’t be default chambered in .45. The assault rifle now looks nothing like a real assault rifle at all. It looks more like a World War 1 era machinegun, with a cumbersome water-cooled sleeve over the barrel. The damage of the 5.56 round it fires doesn’t at all reflect being a hypersonic rifle caliber. It’s all a mess. My favorite pistol is the Deliverer, which looks like a suppressed Walther PP that (somehow) fires 10mm rounds. This kind of gun unrealism makes me wonder if Obsidian will make another Fallout with this engine, and if they’ll try to maintain a better reflection of gun realism like they did in NV.
5.) Mod unrealism. I know this is for gameplay, but converting your weapon from a semi-automatic to an automatic shouldn’t reduce the damage it inflicts per shot. Its’ still the same round being propelled through the same barrel. Sound suppressors and muzzle brakes shouldn’t affect the damage or range of the round (modern suppressors don’t use wipes which play hell with accuracy, and integral suppressors that siphon gas from the barrel aren’t in Fallout 4).
6.) Gamebryo’s notorious little quirks still rear their head from time to time in Bethesda’s creation engine. Haunted crates that spin forever, strange physics that propel bodies unrealistically, my character’s boots sometimes sinking into concrete surfaces, the occasional hovering item - Bethesda still hasn’t quite worked through the impression that your character is “floating” through the universe, like a cartoon character animated over a painted background. Maybe it’s the price paid for the kind of worlds they build? I don’t know. I just know I put up with it, because everyone else’s open worlds are boring to me.
7.) The game wasn’t optimized for performance when it was released. This is why there are significant frame drops in areas crowded with objects, like downtown Boston. There are actually mods that address these concerns. From my understanding, the game is rendering details for objects at a set distance, regardless of whether or not they’re realistically visible. The mods available take into account the population of the objects around you and has the engine drop out rendering shadows for distant objects accordingly. Makes a difference. I’ve got a pretty hot machine, and without removing any limits in the game, my framerates are always between 60-72, except in some areas of downtown, where a sudden turn can see fps dip well into the low 20s for brief moments.
8.) Conversation options now feel incredibly more limited. I miss having a list of responses. I miss having unique responses that only became available if you had a certain perk or a high statistic, like Intelligence or Perception. These are completely gone, now, replaced with only four options to reflect the four buttons on a console controller. I try not to get angry over everything becoming retarded due to consoles, but this is pushing me to that. I wish games weren’t made with a “console first” mindset.
I'm not one of those people who thinks that a proper RPG has to have a lot of "book keeping" in it, which is one of the things people point to when they say Bethesda's moving away from the RPG genre. To me, it's just about playing a role, no matter how the game lets you customize that role. I'm not sure how I feel about the removal of skill points and folding everything over into a perk system, but it's pretty seamless and hasn't really obstructed my ability to enjoy the game.
First, the good:
1.) It’s a Bethesda open world, so exploration actually pays off. It’s full of interesting locations and amusing things to uncover about the world you’re in. This is kind of a given. It’s like giving Bioware credit for having interesting characters. It’s kind of their specialty, so it bears mentioning every time. I’ve always said with Fallout and Elder Scrolls, the real character in the game is the world.
2.) The vault suit is actually a pretty valuable piece of clothing, now, instead of something you discard as soon as you find a better armored outfit. Right out of the gate, it has some degree of radiation and damage resistance built in, and these traits can be upgraded at an armor station. My character is at level 41 and still wearing it underneath combat armor.
3.) Vodka and Whisky are now the correct color.
4.) The radiation system is much better. It makes radiation more of a concern, but not crushingly so. Coupled with specific outfits that provide incredible protection against radiation, it gives a more ominous but not impenetrable sense to highly radiated places. You just have to prepare.
5.) Shooting is better. I haven’t done a lot of melee combat, but the shooting mechanics are a little more robust. The VATS system is more of a compliment and feels less like a cheat, now, and full on FPS combat feels pretty fun. I remember being on the fence about the inclusion of “ironsight mode” in Fallout NV, but with it’s adoption here, I think it’s here to stay. And I’m strangely okay with it. I tend to do a lot of groundwork before I engage an area full of enemies. I lay mines, I anticipate reactions, I take as many scoped shots as possible before the wetwork begins, and it feels good when a plan comes together. It’s also thrilling when it doesn’t.
6.) Sprinting means you can dash away if you’re in over your head. Most enemies won’t follow you too far from their patrol point, so this makes actually escaping very feasible. In prior games without sprinting, if you bit off more than you could chew, it would usually mean reloading an old save point. This works well with their encounter leveling system, where it’s possible to stumble into areas with enemies that are much more powerful than your level.
7.) Crafting is neat, and it’s even more neat that they’ve made it entirely optional… in most cases. There are a few quests that kind of make you build things, almost as a tutorial, but overall, maintaining settlements is very optional. It may not *feel* optional, the way the Minutemen just keep pushing you to build turrets and dig wells for every helpless bum in the Commonwealth. But the ability to customize your own little dwelling area is nice. So far the random raider/mutant attack hasn’t really been a headache. I’m not sure if they’ll become more difficult, later. Armor modding is nice, but armor doesn’t change its appearance as much as I wish it did when modified. Weapons crafting is a mixed bag. The options are great, but the effects are often unrealistic.
8.) Power armor is what it should be. It’s not just a piece of clothing with higher armor stats. It feels and acts like you’re inside a tank with legs, with levels of protection that are now more in line with its appearance. I suppose my only complaint with this is just how common power armor is, scattered all over the map. It makes it feel a little less special than I think it should.
9.) Mod support. Mhmm. I can’t wait for all the survivalist options.
10.) Battle AI - as a sneak, I noticed that the enemy doesn’t have to spot you to begin shooting in your general direction. This is a nice touch. When your sneak monitor is on [CAUTION] they’ll still just fire missiles randomly in your direction, which can add an element of terror to your situation.
The “eh”:
1.) Companions - I hate traveling with companions, but if you want to level up their affinity, do their personal quests, and/or romance them, you have to drag them around and put up with their bullshit. Companions may be great for “run in and shoot” kinds of gameplay, but any other style of combat will have you telling them to sit and wait while you move ahead and disarm every trap and kill every enemy, then come back and get them. You also lose your Lone Wanderer perks if you are traveling with them just to acquire their personal quests. While I like being a Lone Wanderer, I feel like I’m missing huge pieces of the game because of it. I’d much prefer a Bioware style system where characters had a way of spawning quests that let you get to know them, without having to level their affinity by dragging them everywhere.
2.) Radiant quests. I’m almost afraid to complete a mission for Preston Garvey because I know he’s going to instantly give me another one in a place I’ve already been.
3.) Tiny unrealisms - It’s clear that the people at Bethesda who make these games have very little real world experience with manly items. I complained about Vodka and Whisky being the wrong color in the prior Fallout games, and how unrealistic gun behavior was, and now we have cigars with the bands on the wrong end, which can be unraveled to make “cloth”. I’d imagine during their trip around Boston taking photographs, someone might have bought a cigar just to examine where bands go and the fact that cigars are made of leaves, not fabric.
4.) Gun unrealism. I really liked how Fallout NV tried to supply a variety of weapons, the kinds of things you’d actually encounter in the United States after an apocalypse. They realized the gun’s DPS was as important as it’s per-shot stat, and they realized guns firing the same ammo would do the same single-shot damage. But with Fallout 4, we’re back to cartoon guns as envisioned by metrosexuals who’ve not burned a single calorie in their life learning how they work and what kinds of ammo they fire. A “battle rifle” shouldn’t be default chambered in .45. The assault rifle now looks nothing like a real assault rifle at all. It looks more like a World War 1 era machinegun, with a cumbersome water-cooled sleeve over the barrel. The damage of the 5.56 round it fires doesn’t at all reflect being a hypersonic rifle caliber. It’s all a mess. My favorite pistol is the Deliverer, which looks like a suppressed Walther PP that (somehow) fires 10mm rounds. This kind of gun unrealism makes me wonder if Obsidian will make another Fallout with this engine, and if they’ll try to maintain a better reflection of gun realism like they did in NV.
5.) Mod unrealism. I know this is for gameplay, but converting your weapon from a semi-automatic to an automatic shouldn’t reduce the damage it inflicts per shot. Its’ still the same round being propelled through the same barrel. Sound suppressors and muzzle brakes shouldn’t affect the damage or range of the round (modern suppressors don’t use wipes which play hell with accuracy, and integral suppressors that siphon gas from the barrel aren’t in Fallout 4).
6.) Gamebryo’s notorious little quirks still rear their head from time to time in Bethesda’s creation engine. Haunted crates that spin forever, strange physics that propel bodies unrealistically, my character’s boots sometimes sinking into concrete surfaces, the occasional hovering item - Bethesda still hasn’t quite worked through the impression that your character is “floating” through the universe, like a cartoon character animated over a painted background. Maybe it’s the price paid for the kind of worlds they build? I don’t know. I just know I put up with it, because everyone else’s open worlds are boring to me.
7.) The game wasn’t optimized for performance when it was released. This is why there are significant frame drops in areas crowded with objects, like downtown Boston. There are actually mods that address these concerns. From my understanding, the game is rendering details for objects at a set distance, regardless of whether or not they’re realistically visible. The mods available take into account the population of the objects around you and has the engine drop out rendering shadows for distant objects accordingly. Makes a difference. I’ve got a pretty hot machine, and without removing any limits in the game, my framerates are always between 60-72, except in some areas of downtown, where a sudden turn can see fps dip well into the low 20s for brief moments.
8.) Conversation options now feel incredibly more limited. I miss having a list of responses. I miss having unique responses that only became available if you had a certain perk or a high statistic, like Intelligence or Perception. These are completely gone, now, replaced with only four options to reflect the four buttons on a console controller. I try not to get angry over everything becoming retarded due to consoles, but this is pushing me to that. I wish games weren’t made with a “console first” mindset.
I'm not one of those people who thinks that a proper RPG has to have a lot of "book keeping" in it, which is one of the things people point to when they say Bethesda's moving away from the RPG genre. To me, it's just about playing a role, no matter how the game lets you customize that role. I'm not sure how I feel about the removal of skill points and folding everything over into a perk system, but it's pretty seamless and hasn't really obstructed my ability to enjoy the game.
xD
Terror is a good word
Gotta get them Caps somehow!
Also one other thing they did bad is putting all the holo taps and notes under 'Misc' rather then 'Data'
Although I am one of those who likes having companions because I pick up ALL the shit I find since I build a lot. It's nice to have an extra 250-300 carry weight with you when you get overencumbered so you can stay out longer without having to go put shit away.
I also kinda wish there were more crafting options, like you can make a tub and a toilet, but not a sink? Or those string lights you see around cities, why can't you make those? I've run into a few problems with walls and floors fitting right sometimes. But apparently, Bethesda is listening to their customers, and all the DLC that will be released for the game will be things WE want to see different. I think that is amazing that they actually care that much to add in things we wish were there,
Lots of people think it would be cool to go back to the capital wasteland for the DLC from fallout 3 and see how it's grown and changed.
As for weapons and armor, I LOVE the legendary aspect they added in this one. I am trying to collect all legendary items, and there are SO many I don't think I ever will!
I get what you are saying about power armor not being as special as you thought. For me since I'm over level 50, it only feels special if I find a full set randomly, or a set of X-01 (based off of enclave from fallout 3)
All in all though, this game is now my favorite fallout game, just due to how involved it is.
NUKA COLA FOR LIFE! <3
Basically, the legendary stuff is random traits on random items, which makes it really hard to say there's an actual "end" to them.
It is enjoyable as a game in my opinion, but it isn't exactly the Fallout game I would have wanted. I guess my biggest gripe with the game is the dialogue system as it is so severely limited.
Major Ward
As for wipe-type suppressors, with the game set in a '50's-'60's area, that is a bit more beliveable. Still I'd assume they would have come up with a more modern equivalent when they were working on atomic cars.
Now with our character having a voice and limited dialogue options i want to see someone take on that and not be slightly pissed about it :/
Honestly, it's the first thing im going to try when i get it.
Did they really do something that stupid to the dialog system so it would fit with a controller better? It is entirely possible to make a better system that allows for more than four options that works well with a controller. At some points in DragonAge: Inquisition I have had 6-8 options available to choose from.
As for the inaccuracies with the cigars I think it is (somewhat) reasonable that post-apocalyptic cigars be made with cloth as leaves would be too scarce. Still no justification for the band being on the wrong end.
Call of Duty's design team talks to firearm manufacturers and gets realistic looking weapons. Why couldn't Bethesda go get an expert (or at least someone who knows more than "it throws led") to help them.
Had to defend both Sunshine Tidings (West) and Castle (East), I figured I placed enough defenses (200+ rating) there but not as ST AND that I'd have enough time to cover both... welp, nope. Had to spend time in replanting ever-single-crop and repair every single defense in Castle. UGHH.
However, I don't like how you say it's because it was catered for console users because the console versions of Fallout 3 and New Vegas also had all the various dialogue options based on your perks and skills.
I'm inclined to just a few of the Companions as I honestly never liked traveling alone (Because I need a pack mule for my extra junk) but Danse and Preston are interesting characters as is Valentine. But Piper really caught my fancy, I quite liked romancing her :)
But i feel ya on the Minutemen missions. Its like every2 I complete he's got 3 more lined up for me and I'm at a point where I'm trying to avoid him now XD
I'm also slightly mixed on the speech system. Mainly as the brief texts don't always have what I wanna say ready. Like I can say something sarcastic but then it comes off as rude which wasn't what I wanted. But I'm expecting some things to be patched soon.
This is a game made for us Fallout fans, not shooter fans or RPG fans but Fallout fans. That much is clear.
I put a request on their forums for a 'Good boy Dogmeat' mod, so you can praise him when he's done something good. Search for that as the title if you want to add on.
Dogmeat can carry an asston of stuff.. I tossed him a minigun and a full suit of power armor.... not bad for someone two feet tall with no pockets. And he looks so adorable in his welding goggles and the skull bandana still soaked in the blood and brains of the guy who 'donated' it to him...
Can't wait till the equivalent of Skyrim's SkyUI comes out and turns it into a computer game.
I mean I can get the need for some tutorial but its all like
"you have to help these guys"
"you have to aquire the power armor and minigun and you have to carry out the trailer scene"
"you have to be the leader of the minutemen and you have to provide a base for them"
I mean, as soon as I got the armor and minigun I just fucked off in another direction, forget them, forget my stupid son, hes probably been eaten by an alpha deathclaw or else hes one of the 200 or so raiders I killed on the way to diamond city
Enemy vs Enemy still happens, like Raiders vs Ghouls or Raiders vs Super Mutants.
In one situation I roused some Ghouls in a certain part of town that was also a Raider nest. Turns out a pair of Raiders armed with a Fat Man were parked up on a makeshift bridge between two buildings. Both Raiders turned hostile when my attempts at Sniping the Ghouls aggroed every Ghoul in the buildings closest to them. Moreover, I failed to realize that the Raiders were hiding above me and to the left. Ghouls come running across the clearing, the Raiders aggro on the Ghouls, I scramble backwards to bottleneck the Ghouls and the Raiders use their Fat Man on the Ghoul cluster that was right in front of me, catching me in the blast radius. Boom, I'm dead by Mini Nuke. XD In this case it wasn't random, it was failing to look up for potential threats when I'm used to them being right in front of me in small clusters in that part of town. And its possible my scrambling to bottleneck them may have also made me detectable to the Raiders, but I can't be certain. What I learned from this is that "Raiders are sneaky bastards" and that I really need a silenced sniper rifle in the future.
As for the unrealism of the various weapons, I have yet to play the game, but please remember that it is a game. Weapons need to have more variation than they do in reality, and be massively less lethal. Even a .22 is a very lethal weapon, despite our military once utilizing them as a "non-lethal" measure agaisnt civilians. Even a 9mm pistol can be lethal at 400 yards. In reality, different weapon types exist because of handling and accuracy. Pistols are easy to wield, but hard to be accurate at range. Rifles are unwieldy, but shooting at range is genuinely easy when used properly (an untrained child can hit targets lying prone). In a game, you can't replicate the difficulting of holding a weapon in your hands, the feeling of the kick, the skill of steadying your aim, etc.. They have to artificially make weapons feel different in other ways, because a computerized character will always be perfect, and they can't make your character be not perfect, because if your character randomly fires to the wrong spot no one is going to be satisfied knowing no matter how much they try they can not make their character shoot where they aim. Recoil may affect rapid firing, but there's nothing realistic you can do to make a video game character not be able to kill a person with one pistol shot at 400 yards.
In short: guns in video games have to be unrealistic, otherwise every weapon would be entirely too lethal, or accuracy would feel entirely too up-to-chance.
An integral (non removable) suppressor built into the entire gun system may siphon gasses away from the actual rifled barrel prior to the bullet exiting, but these are not in Fallout 4.
I don't know why I would think such a thing, but I was thinking you were swapping barrels on guns. Stupid, I know. >.>
"Because a silencer traps gasses for a moment while the bullet passes through, velocity can increase by up to about 1%; an insignificant amount. All this means is that it does not reduce velocity or power of the bullet. Some barrels are ported to allow gases to bleed off into the back part of the silencer, this slows down the bullet and reduces power, but is more a function of the barrel than the silencer."
https://answers.yahoo.com/question/.....3115103AAcVxBr
1. Companions do not appear on your map, so if one goes running off to fight some enemy you wanted to leave alone, you have to find them by the sounds of violence. This often gets me killed.
2. Settlers have infinite ammo. Companions do as well but only for their default weapon.
3. You cannot upgrade a Companion's default weapon.
4. You can equip Companions with Armor and Melee Weapons. Settlers as well.
5. Codsworth can wear a hat. Dogmeat can wear collars, scarves, goggles, and "Dog Armor".
6. Settlers and Companions will never run the charge of a Fusion Cell down to zero, so extra power armor can be safely assigned to them.
7. I can put the sweet little old lady you meet early on in Power Armor.
8. I can give the sweet little old lady the Minigun and she'll never run out of ammo.
9. I just watched the sweet little old lady turn a group of Raiders into salsa with the minigun.
10. Mama Murphy is an unstoppable force of destruction with the voice of a New Jersey grandmother. I have won the game.
And holy crap. :D I got three suits of power armor, and a spare minigun... Mama, could you come here for a moment?
I feel like the only person on the planet who enjoyed the gun play in NV.
Conversations are super meh and limited, just like you said. There is no "evil" options and, since the choices tend to be 1-2 words max long, you can end up picking a dialogue choice that ends up completely different than you thought it would be which only further ruin the RPG experience.
The UI, which is not optimized for PC at all, is just clunky and sometimes frustrating to navigate.
one section that voice acting made so much better, the silver shroud quests, i couldnt stop laughing the entire time XD
I am glad Bethesda's decision wasn't completely wasted since it worked for you.
id cleared the majority of the map and hit lvl 50 before heading into the city, was going by past games and figured id clear the side missions as much as possible before playing the main story, otherwise id never bother clearing half of them later.
the voice acting is kinda meh for most of the main story aside from when you get to menace kellogg (that was spot on, honestly id react the same if someone stole my kid, thered be hell to pay) but it has some good points at other times, silver shroud and companion interactions for instance.
avoiding spoilers as much as possible, the captain of that ship embedded atop a building is hilarious, the sort of more slapstick side missions are where ive appreciated the voice acting the most, just wouldnt be the same with a silent protagonist as much as that would improve some main story quests.
it feels a bit less special seeing as they give you a full set half an hour after leaving the vault, but since that suit is rather terrible anyway, its when you stop relying on scrap gear and raider rubbish, and start upping armorer to get insane def that it feels overpowered and more like a walking tank.
fully upgraded x-01 is brokenly good though, even on hard mode i survived for a good minute of constant fire after a vertibird decided me being afk was a fair fight.
In this game, not so much. No training required. I mean, the main character was a soldier before the start of the game so he might have gotten training in its use, but that accounts for him and really very few others in the game. As fun as it is to put a follower in a suit and give them a minigun, it's a bit lore breaking considering how it was handled previously. Suddenly every one is trained in its use?
I agree that it being just about everywhere is bothersome. I don't mind that you can buy platforms from merchants but so far I've come across 8 rigs in areas they really shouldn't be. Some I can understand; this one was salvagrd by a raider, this one was locked in a military armory, these belong to the Brotherhood of Steel. Others had me shaking my head, like the suit I just found on a hill. Yeah, it was part of a military detachment, I get it. Why was it left untouched for so long though? Same with the suit on the roof of the Freedom Museum. It was there from before the war? And that 250 year old minigun still works? And no one bothered to scavenge either in the entire time before? Bethesda went power armor mad I think.
But, that's understandable. Despite the changes made to other outfits and most armor now being modular and mix and match, power armor got the biggest overhual of all. As you said, it's a walking tank. And it feels like it now, especially once you get the Pain Train perk.
I can't wait to see the armor mods for it. Most notably the Warhammer 40k ones that I just KNOW are already in the works.
Mods will most likely fix all these issues, and I want to see how they're going to deal with console mods.
Yeah, I'm the guy who doesn't buy a Bethesda game until it's been out a year.
I've got mixed feelings on the companions. They're so much better written now that it's kind of frustrating, since I want to see every companion's interactions with everything. To top it off, the companions are less effective than they were for me in FO3 and NV. In those games, I played a stealth sniper, and companions were an amazing boost, as enemies would spot them but not me, so I could get sneak attack crits against guys who were standing right in front of me. Here, they seem a lot more timid, even though I can give them specific orders... supposedly. "Attack that raider boss with the power armor and missiles, before I get out from cover!" *Strong stands there slackjawed*
One thing I am glad to see: no more reason to complain about Fallout not being as wacky as it was in the early days. Once I found out one of the romanceable companions was a Ms Handy, I couldn't stop laughing, and it turns out that's nowhere near the craziest thing in the game.
but yeah, all valid criticisms. i loathe the voiced sole survivor, it's the thing that irritates me the most.
I got a mini-nuke right in the face.
i feel ya man
My only real complaint about the game is the console controls. I don't mind the voicing so much. Bethesda's thing is story, and there's only so much story you can tell when half the people in a conversation only ever say "..."
My wife says I am too paranoid as I play. I think paranoia is what keeps you alive in some of the more immersive areas.
In Fallout3/NV I felt like an uber boss (and would leave town with nothing on)
In Fallout 4 I get nervous in new areas, especially when not in power armor....and I like it!
This desire for seeing the game come to a close, is not one I share in Fallout 4. It just feels rushed, like Bethesda had all these plans for it that could've turned out great, but their need for money outshone their need for quality, and thus we have a half-assed game, yet again, just like Skyrim, which will require the free, fan-based services of the modding community to make the game seem even slightly completed.
I like Bethesda, don't get me wrong, I adore their games, but give a child a lollipop every single day, and very quickly, they'll come to 'EXPECT' that lollipop every single day. Bethesda is much the same with the modding community. Bethesda used to make fantastic, complete, immersive games(Morrowing, Fallout 3 etc.) which were much more stand-alone, and was clearly worked very hard on by very skilled people(I said hard on :3 )
But after seeing so many of their games getting modified so heavily that not only can one make their character nude, have bigger tits, heck, even have a penis, female or not, but can also COMPLETELY revamp the game's storyline. For example, in Skyrim, one can entirely remove the starting scenario of almost having your head chopped off, to being in a cell, inexplicably, and choose whether you want to be all kinds of cool things, I.E start out as a vampire? Or experienced war veteran? Or notorious necromancer, dedicated mage? The modding community is SO VAST, and SO ALL ENCOMPASSING, that I think it has made Bethesda downright lazy. "Why make a full, complete game, if we can half-ass it, and utilize the free services of our games' fan based modding community, and STILL sell the game at full price?"
Bethesda got it made. They need to do less work, for the same amount of money as everyone else, and after seeing the state in which Skyrim AND FO4 were in upon release, I can definitely say that it has made them fatter and lazier in terms of game development effort.
I can't say Fallout 3 was a better game.
If all they wanted was money for less work, it wouldn't have taken them four years to come out with it.
I expected more, whether you agree or not is irrelevant. I had fun with it, sure; I had fun with it in the same way one has fun with a rock if one can't have video game. I made due with what I had, that's honestly the best I could do.
I still got a good 50 hours of gameplay out of it, and nowhere near the end(Or so I am told), so I honestly can't condemn it in its entirety. Still, that doesn't change the fact that I, too, disagree with you entirely. Subjective opinion has us at odds in this, so lets agree to disagree.
But we're talking about a game where they decided not to include 9mm fucking ammunition.