Review 13 Shocking Facts about Fallout 4 That Will Forever Change the Way You Think about RPGs

[Rahdulan]

Borderlands is awful, it's the complete opposite of fun. It's like if you took fun, chained it up in a dungeon, forced it to read Lyric Suite's posts then unleashed it unto the world. It's Diablo with guns, minus the setting, mood and everything that made Diablo remotely interesting. It's essentially a video game gone full retard.

Borderlands just makes me wish Hellgate London didn't turn out the way it did.

 

[MurkyShadow]

It's better than Wasteland 2.

Man, don't write something like this. I'm still trying to convince me to play Wasteland 2.
Ah, well, I might just admit that ship now long since sailed.

 

[Ausdoerrt]

It's better than Wasteland 2.

Man, don't write something like this. I'm still trying to convince me to play Wasteland 2.
Ah, well, I might just admit that ship now long since sailed.

It's turn-based and not made by Bethesda. What more reasons do you need?..

 

[Darkfie1d]

Tags: Bethesda Softworks; Fallout 4

It's the Year of Bethesda here at the RPG Codex, and we continue our coverage of the most successful RPG developer of all time with an exclusive look at their latest game, Fallout 4. It's written by one of my favourite front page writers, and he has a lot of insightful things to say about the game:

...it's perfectly logical that a decent, functional dialogue system would allow for a variable number of possible dialogue choices. That's how most RPGs have implemented their dialogues, and that's a perfectly sensible way to do it. Unfortunately, Bethesda chose a different path in Fallout 4 – here, you are always presented with exactly four dialogue options, no matter what situation you are in. This kind of strict formal requirement straightjackets the entire dialogue system; every single conversation node has been twisted into a neat “pick one out of four” pattern. Like so many things about Fallout 4, it's completely unclear to me why the designers have made this choice; maybe it's because controllers have four primary action buttons. Whatever the reasoning, the end result is a broken and unnatural dialogue system that is bloated with pointless choices.

...As it is, I got the feeling that Bethesda were more concerned with making the game look fun and visceral and exciting and “Whoa!” instead of actually doing the hard work of making it play that way.

...Intelligence gives 3% bonus experience per level and reduces the number of possible solutions shown in the hacking minigame. And that's it. That's what being intelligent means in the sequel to Fallout 1 and 2. Why couldn't they just remove the damn stat altogether? To be perfectly fair, Intelligence is also used for the three only (!) proper stat checks that I found in the entire game world, but that's not exactly a reason to rejoice and praise the Incline.

...It's no hyperbole to say that the writers at Bethesda are some of the worst storytellers in the AAA gaming segment. They are fatally attached to the idea of making a cartoon world full of cartoon characters living through Very Serious Stories. Unfortunately, this combination of narrative elements clashes rather badly, and results in a bunch of utterly idiotic stories that positively dare the player to find any sort of intelligent design behind them.

...And here's my analysis: Jesus Christ, are you fucking kidding me?​

Yes, but did he like the game?! Follow this MUST CLICK link to find out: 13 Shocking Facts about Fallout 4 That Will Forever Change the Way You Think about RPGs

That was the most brutally honest article I ever read about Fallout 4. Hats off.

 

[Excidium II]

It's better than Wasteland 2.

Man, don't write something like this. I'm still trying to convince me to play Wasteland 2.
Ah, well, I might just admit that ship now long since sailed.

It's turn-based and not made by Bethesda. What more reasons do you need?..

That might be enough motivation to play yeah. But some hours in, you will start to need more.

 

[Apexeon]

Fallout 4 is a serious game full of caricatures; it's a comedy game without any funny parts; it's a 100+ hour single player shooter; it's a treadmill of linear fetch and kill quests coupled with atrocious writing. It's a shallow and simplistic game that struggles to create an illusion of depth and variety. It is a lazy, nonsensical, and fundamentally dumb piece of design that offers nothing of interest to the discerning cRPG player. I regret every minute I wasted playing this game. There is nothing more to say.

Thank you for taking one for the team. Fallout 4 a regretful waste of time.


Too bad the great unwashed bought this slop on mass.
****** human race.

 

[vonAchdorf]

Good review, Bubbles. Very informative, if a bit tiring to read, and too long.

Besides the individual qualities of the review, I wonder if we could restrict the paragraph width on Codex articles somehow. At 1080p it's about 45 words per line.

You know that windows don't have to be fullscreen?

 

[Ausdoerrt]

That might be enough motivation to play yeah. But some hours in, you will start to need more.

Eh, it doesn't really drag on too much. I finished it (director's cut) off pretty much "in a single breath" within a week or two. Didn't feel like it was a masterpiece or anything, but had enough fun with it to justify the time spent.

 

[ToddHowardsSpiritAnimal]

This review lays out in laborious detail what I think to be a pretty fascinating idiosyncrasy just underneath the surface at Bethesda: there is a massive talent gap.

Their artists, level designers, map designers, landscapers et al make some of the most engaging and tasteful stuff I've ever seen. The sheer depth and breadth of their vision is Lourve-worthy (and I say this completely deadpan). Standing in direct opposition to them, their dialog/plot/quest writers and mechanic designers make some of the least bold, least interesting stuff I've ever experienced. Surely a lot of those jobs overlap at such a small company, but internally there simply must be some cognizance of this.

I realize these are real people we're talking about and this is their livelihoods, so I don't mean this to be wholesale character assassination, but I really can't think of another example of such disparate levels of talent in different areas manifesting so clearly in an end product. If I were the CEO at Bethesda Game Studios I'd fire half the team. But that's here nor there. This particular combination of employees have been together long enough that they have that 'we're a tight-knit little family' feeling. So to our horror, they are probably inseparable for the foreseeable future. At the end of the day, it's crying shame that such amazing artistry in the visual/layout category can be so terribly muddled and undermined by the underlying game mechanics and writing (and general game-making philosophy).

I almost feel embarrassed for them.

To which Bethesda would respond, naturally: https://media.riffsy.com/images/0c123db63e36c7a275df31013780e1b0/raw

 

[ArchAngel]

I doubt they are such a small team. They are probably separated into departments.

 

[Roguey]

I doubt they are such a small team. They are probably separated into departments.

Both Skyrim and Fallout 4 were made by a team of roughly 100 people, which is pretty small by AAA standards (Witcher 3 was made by 240).

 

[One-and-a-half-Ivan]

I doubt they are such a small team. They are probably separated into departments.

Both Skyrim and Fallout 4 were made by a team of roughly 100 people, which is pretty small by AAA standards (Witcher 3 was made by 240).

That's because Todd needs fewer people to be able to carry his vision™ to the players.

 

[ArchAngel]

I doubt they are such a small team. They are probably separated into departments.

Both Skyrim and Fallout 4 were made by a team of roughly 100 people, which is pretty small by AAA standards (Witcher 3 was made by 240).

But still not small enough for them to be like family

 

[Paul_cz]

This review lays out in laborious detail what I think to be a pretty fascinating idiosyncrasy just underneath the surface at Bethesda: there is a massive talent gap.

Their artists, level designers, map designers, landscapers et al make some of the most engaging and tasteful stuff I've ever seen. The sheer depth and breadth of their vision is Lourve-worthy (and I say this completely deadpan). Standing in direct opposition to them, their dialog/plot/quest writers and mechanic designers make some of the least bold, least interesting stuff I've ever experienced. Surely a lot of those jobs overlap at such a small company, but internally there simply must be some cognizance of this.

I realize these are real people we're talking about and this is their livelihoods, so I don't mean this to be wholesale character assassination, but I really can't think of another example of such disparate levels of talent in different areas manifesting so clearly in an end product. If I were the CEO at Bethesda Game Studios I'd fire half the team. But that's here nor there. This particular combination of employees have been together long enough that they have that 'we're a tight-knit little family' feeling. So to our horror, they are probably inseparable for the foreseeable future. At the end of the day, it's crying shame that such amazing artistry in the visual/layout category can be so terribly muddled and undermined by the underlying game mechanics and writing (and general game-making philosophy).

I almost feel embarrassed for them.

To which Bethesda would respond, naturally: https://media.riffsy.com/images/0c123db63e36c7a275df31013780e1b0/raw

This is a great post, Todd Howard's Spirit Animal.

 

[Cadmus]

This is not a review, it's a single sided bash. It's only ur opinion, why do you play games you don't like? I also don't go to CD Projekt forums to tell them they made they game wrong b/c I don't like it. At least FALLOUT 4 is FUN!

 

[Gord]

This review lays out in laborious detail what I think to be a pretty fascinating idiosyncrasy just underneath the surface at Bethesda: there is a massive talent gap.

Their artists, level designers, map designers, landscapers et al make some of the most engaging and tasteful stuff I've ever seen. The sheer depth and breadth of their vision is Lourve-worthy (and I say this completely deadpan). Standing in direct opposition to them, their dialog/plot/quest writers and mechanic designers make some of the least bold, least interesting stuff I've ever experienced. Surely a lot of those jobs overlap at such a small company, but internally there simply must be some cognizance of this.

I agree with that to some extend (sans the hyperbole), but even in terms of level/map/art design, Bethesda can be very inconsistent. E.g. Morrowind was good, Skyrim has many good aspects as well (although dungeons are simplistic for the most part, but you can't have modern audiences get lost, I guess), but much of Oblivion was pretty bland (it could produce some nice nature scenes, though) and they dropped the ball in regards to the worldmap in particular.

Anyway, after Morrowind I always had a feeling that the guys that are responsible for the maps are somehow trying to create a different game than the writers and quest designers.

 

[commie]

Saw someone mentioning AoD and Underrail in one of the linked threads. I think this is the perfect opportunity to advertise those games in the hope that we can turn bethards and other savages out there into civilized, educated people.

Spread the word, fellow codexers. It's time to change the world.

But if that's the case why mention a CYOA and a sewer simulator?

Better to go with something good like: The Witcher 3.

 

[Doctor Sbaitso]

Holy fucking shit, how can you muster will to write such a massive chunk of prose for a shit game Bubbles ?

 

[Hoaxmetal]

Holy fucking shit, how can you muster will to write such a massive chunk of prose for a shit game Bubbles ?

Kool Kodex Kommissions = big bucks

 

[Kev Inkline]

Holy fucking shit, how can you muster will to write such a massive chunk of prose for a shit game Bubbles ?

His act of writing is similar to that of a medieval flagellant mortifying the flesh.

Some theologians explain that the redemptive value of pain makes pain lovable in its effects, even though by itself it is not. Pain is temporal and limited, thus to undergo it is worthwhile to gain the real benefits. For those with this viewpoint, pain is seen as a means to an end.

Can't say what the end could be in this case though, more pain perhaps?

 

[Jrpgfan]

Saw someone mentioning AoD and Underrail in one of the linked threads. I think this is the perfect opportunity to advertise those games in the hope that we can turn bethards and other savages out there into civilized, educated people.

Spread the word, fellow codexers. It's time to change the world.

But if that's the case why mention a CYOA and a sewer simulator?

Better to go with something good like: The Witcher 3.

I see no point in using a popamole game review to advertise another popamole game(in this case). Not that TW3 needs it anyway.

 

[Fairfax]

I doubt they are such a small team. They are probably separated into departments.

Both Skyrim and Fallout 4 were made by a team of roughly 100 people, which is pretty small by AAA standards (Witcher 3 was made by 240).

That's because Todd needs fewer people to be able to carry his vision™ to the players.

And he's absolutely right. You don't need a massive team to keep pushing the same massively successful turd over and over again. Ubisoft would be a much more profitable company if they realized that.

 

[Bubbles]

Holy fucking shit, how can you muster will to write such a massive chunk of prose for a shit game Bubbles ?

Kool Kodex Kommissions = big bucks

It's part of a five-year plan to regain my brofist privileges.

 

[Curious_Tongue]

I sunk 234 hours into Fallout 4.

I never finished it.

I regret very little.

 

[NotAGolfer]

Yeah, that's the problem with analytical and therefore negative reviews to Bethesda games (Bethesda just can't into putting the pieces together, their games always are a mess), no matter how condemning they are you still won't know if the game will entertain you after reading them.

Fallout 4 solely relies on its FPS gameplay and that is simply miles above anything they did before.
It's a pretty good open world shooter with a gimmicky world and mostly stupid stories in it, and with the kind of crappy randomly generated quests you'd expect from an Ubisoft open world shooter.
At least it doesn't have the tiresome climb the signal towers mechanic of those games. The settlement building mechanics are more or less pointless, sure, but then again there are complete character builds that only work because of them (cha) so this isn't really true. It's more that they are pointless for the narrative, which is shit anyway so who gives a shit.
And Bethesda seems to be very aware of what it is that this game gets right, hence the survival mode upgrade.

There, a short paragraph, no need for dissecting it on ... wait a minute, let me count - holy shit when will this word diarrhoea finally end? make it stahp! - pages.


Couldn't imagine putting 234 hours in it though, enemy variety isn't good enough and there are not nearly enough incentives to keep playing for that long, at least not for me. Scavenging around ignoring the story gets stale after about 40-50 hours, even if you are as easily amused as me.