Fallout 4 - Codex Review

[Van-d-all]

It's probably the most spot-on review of the game I ever read. IMHO The main problem of this game is not whether it's a proper cRPG (despite being advertised as such…) or just an explorative FPS (like Far Cry). It's the sad fact, that despite being a super high budget AAA production made by an experienced studio it still couldn't avoid pretty basic gamedev pitfalls like design dissonances, poor writing and lack of actual gameplay testing for newly introduced ideas, which turned out to be quite annoying (eg. dialogs, skill system).

 

[CelticFrost]

vs.

Both burgers look good just that some prefer a Teriyaki burger and others prefer a southwestern burger.

Not sure how you can compare any of those burgers, depending what mood you are in they all could be the right burger for that mood.

As for the game it just isn't for me, I am never in the mood for microwaved frozen mac and cheese.

 

[borovnica]

I agree with the article, I just couldn't stomach to play game anymore.
After 35ish hours I stopped playing the game, it became rather tedious, story was bland I had no motivation to continue pursuing main storyline, character development is so poorly done, dialog system is terrible. It's simply a bad game and I'm sorry I spent my money on it.

Edit: I will admit I had fun for first 15 hours, but next 20 hours I played was because I was thinking it's going to become fun again, finish the game and mostly justify the money I spent on the game. 60 fucking euros.

 

[wolfgrimdark]

Not sure how you can compare any of those burgers, depending what mood you are in they all could be the right burger for that mood.

As for the game it just isn't for me, I am never in the mood for microwaved frozen mac and cheese.

Exactly. People have different tastes and moods. As to what it tastes like - that is highly subjective and you might taste it one way and someone else might taste it another.

I have seen some games around here that people clearly consider gourmet cooking that I consider bland and tasteless and vice-versa.

 

[ChaosTheory]

After stepping back several months from my 200-hour playthough (vast majority was spent on settlement-building), I have to say that I don't miss the game at all-- especially knowing what I know now. Had I known settlements wouldn't have any effect whatsoever, my playthrough would have barely scratched 20 hours.

The whole game was kind of a waste of time really, especially compared to New Vegas. Boston was just as boring as I thought it would be when rumors first suggested it as the setting, the game engine was old/clunky, and the fact that I was forced to kill everyone I ever met at the end was just… silly.

I upped for the 'season pass' but really have no intention of going back.

 

[Drithius]

and the fact that I was forced to kill everyone I ever met at the end was just… silly.

More than anything else, that's what really soured my experience most as well. I just became fully discouraged with the design of the game at that point and rushed through to the end as quickly as I could.

 

[rjshae]

That is one of the main reasons why I stopped reading game reviews and try to stay away from forums. I don't want that someone stopped me from playing the game.

For me that's just a reason to wait until the price drops significantly before I play it. It can wait. I know my tastes in games can vary significant from, say, the typical cRPG naysayers of doom here or on the Codex, so I may well end up enjoying it.

 

[Melvil]

This game won my "Waste of Money of the Year" award for sure. It just died on my HD after about 24 hours of not saving my child.

 

[Thrasher]

Well I enjoyed it for the exploration. Love that stuff.

But now I am ready to visit the institute and have just sat there for about a month.

 

[Dez]

Don't know if this review was ever posted here. (You can make it a news post if you like).

It basicly gives you a bit similar kind of verdict as this well writen codex review. Few highlights:

Fallout 4 Review
january 19, 2016, Adam "NovaWar" Morehouse

War. War never changes, and Fallout 4 desperately wants you to know that. You would hope that given the number of times you hear the signature line at the most cliché of times that they’d do a pretty good job of walking you through why that’s a line worth repeating. Fallout 4 chooses instead to awkwardly, drunkenly stumble back and forth across the line of comedic and serious narrative much the way they drunkenly stumble across the gameplay finish line. Thankfully the core gameplay is still strong enough to keep most people happy, but Fallout 4 left me feeling like Bethesda doesn’t really know which direction they want to go in with their franchise, or that they even care.

I don’t know, they just made so many strange and honestly ridiculous design choices that baffle me. I remember streaming my first or second session and I was in a situation in which Dogmeat literally disappeared after having been swallowed up by the pavement, or running off somewhere for no reason (I’ve experienced both). I was over encumbered and hoped to give him some of the junk, but I couldn’t find him. I wondered out loud why there isn’t a dog whistle, or the ability to whistle for your dog in the game. I mean they have marketed the game so heavily around Dogmeat being your companion and you can’t whistle for him. As it turns out, not two weeks later it was revealed that Bethesda had a whistle in the game and then deactivated it in the code. What?! Thankfully, as usual, a modder found this and solved the problem.

I think that despite the many oddities of gameplay and design choices I still would have enjoyed Fallout 4 more if there were more intriguing characters. After the 80+ hours I spent in the game I came across maybe two or three characters that were remotely interesting or made me feel invested. Of that small group only one was a main character and the others barely had any dialogue. It wasn’t that many characters were completely awful, it was more that they simply didn’t stand out or worse yet just didn’t have much to say. It definitely felt that Bethesda attempted to simply hit a lot of the usual character archetypes and left it there. That by itself is pretty damaging to my experience with the game given the rest of the offering was also thin.

I feel as though my view of how Fallout 4 pushes itself along is perhaps too deeply rooted in my want for a far more serious tone, but between the gameplay and the characters you’ll meet along the way I couldn’t take any of the major plot points seriously – they were too encompassed by light-hearted faux 50’s comedic relief and often weak delivery. It’s difficult to tell you exactly what I mean without spoiling, though people who watched my live streams of my play through will know, and those who have already played the game will likely understand. All I can say is that when Bethesda wanted me to take something seriously, I was hard pressed to given everything else, gameplay and story both.

I’ve said a lot of negative things to this point and I wish I could say it was my usual cynicism and I imagine many people will disregard much of what I’ve said in this review as such, but I think I put enough time in to the game to say it’s more than that. In most cases if you played Fallout 3 and enjoyed it then you’re likely to enjoy Fallout 4 as well, though your mileage will vary. Even as broken as it is the game is at its core still solid enough to get the job done but that’s about it. Nothing is likely to surprise you, not the gameplay and especially not the story. It is what I can only describe as the most “whelming” game I’ve played in a long time.

Buried under miles of nonsense and unimaginable mediocrity still lies a franchise that should be great. As with Skyrim, and Fallout 3 before it, modders will take an extraordinarily average game and make it truly worth playing. As it stands, Fallout 4 is a game that will mostly be enjoyed by fans, and tolerated by the rest. I wouldn’t recommend paying full price for it unless you are incredibly interested as there are far better games available today. It hurts me to say that about a Bethesda game as I’ve put thousands of hours in to their franchises but it’s the truth. I wanted so badly to love Bethesda games again but unfortunately Fallout 4 is the first true example that, “Bethesda. Bethesda never changes.”

 

[Drithius]

Ah, but Bethesda does indeed change. With each of their Elder Scrolls and Elder Scrolls with Guns titles, they get progressively more generic and uninspired in their game design.

The studio lauds their ability to churn out content based on the fact that the same people have worked there for so long and can consistently do their assigned roles. But here's a newsflash: you get the same people, at the same job, doing the same damn thing for 15 years and degenerative quality of work is a certainty. This is evident not only in the stagnant game engine but also the content itself, where everything is simply a copy pasted soup of mediocrity.

 

[Dez]

Well I really enjoyed Morrowind & Skyrim and I still keep both games on my HD. Oblivion wasn't that great though, but with mods it turned allright.

Fallout 3 was dissapointing. I had some fun with it, but I've no desire to go back. Which is why I'm not in a hurry to play fallout 4. Better to wait a year or two and play it with best mods. Or not buy it at all.

I think they are capable of learning from their mistakes, but I wonder whether they care at this point. Since everything they make sells millions anyway.

 

[TheMadGamer]

I've played all the main story line TES games and Redguard. I like them all. Skyrim is probably my favorite. Though it hasn't aged well, Arena still holds a nice spot in my memories - had a blast with that one back in the 90s on my 486DX2/50.

 

[wolfgrimdark]

I also really enjoyed Morrowind and Skyrim (as well as Daggerfall) but never finished Oblivion - maybe some day now that I do modding (I never modded until a year into Skyrim when I discovered it).

Also found FO3 very disappointing and only made it about 30 hours in or so and then it sat on my HD. Honestly I expected to feel the same way about FO4 and thought it might distract me for a few hours as a break from Skyrim. Yet now its one of my top games and found it much improved over FO3. The only thing I really dislike about it (and I dislike it a lot) is the forced narrative of being married with a kid. But have found creative ways to work around it so mostly ignore it. Hopefully a mod will come out at some point with an alternative start and changes to all the related dialogue. The down side to having a voiced protagonist of course is that it makes it harder to edit that stuff.