View Topic

No, I am not dead yet. But close. Lots of work lately.

Tomorrow, this thread will be used by myself to review Fallout 4. It will be a long review, and a vulgar review. I know you guys love it when I review open world games so I'm gonna give you a spoiler of what's to come.

Fallout 4 is not a good game, but neither is it a bad one. Somehow this makes it even worse.

It's bland. It's sanitized. It's safe for everyone to play. It's blatantly made to appeal to the most people possible, but not in a good way. Some niche games will attempt entry into mainstream success without selling their souls (entirely). Look at Paradox, for instance. Before CK2, their games were solely for losers like me.

Fallout 4 is a mainstream game aiming for even larger mainstream success. In so doing, not only does it sell out the franchise's proud history, but it also sells its own soul : it's Fallout 3, but even more neutered and I did not think that was even possible to accomplish. This game is so boring that I can't even bring myself to hate it.

More tomorrow, dear readers.

I don't know anything about Fallout 4, but I can't say I'm surprised reading your OP. They didn't develop Fallout, they had nothing to do with making it a great franchise...they just bought it off Interplay when it went backrupt, took it over, and made it into an apocalyptic TES game. I have nothing against TES, but Fallout was something totally different...different genre, different sort of charm, different way of combining grit and grime with humour. I tried Fallout 3 and it was just disappointing...compared to the first two games it felt...sanitized and generic. What made it special was no longer there, so I'm not surprised that the trend has continued.

Honestly, I like it and don't like it at the same time.

Pros:
-I do love the upgraded visuals, at least environmental wise.
-I love that scavenging serves a purpose now, rather than just picking up junk.  But now you can actually upgrade your weapons/armor/power armor and build stuff from the junk you get.
-The building feature is a plus as well, and I approve of it.  I also like that practically everything in an environment (minus a few items and bushes, and provided you're in an area with a workshop) can be salvaged for building materials.
-I actually quite like the perk system, to be honest.
-I also like that the story starts you in the time that it does.  Gave a really good feel for a sort of utopia that becomes a nuclear wasteland.
-I do love the character builder, quite possibly my favorite I've ever dabbled in.
-I love that your characters finally talk, AND that certain names you put for your character are recognized and replied to in voice.  I also love the choice wheel, as it very much reminded me of Dragon Age (specifically Inquisition, which it mimics perfectly).

Cons:
-I felt like the whole thing with the dog was built up so much around the trailers, only to feel like such a letdown in the actual game.  This goes for the companion system in general.
-While I love the upgraded environmentals, the character graphics obviously still leave a lot to be desired.
-The story just feels a bit..."meh."  I mean, I loved the beginning quite a lot as far as prologues go, but so far I've been less than impressed with the actual story.
-So far, I've been enjoying the building aspect more than playing the actual game.  Enough said.
-While I love the perk system, I also hate it.  It's far too easy for someone to play the game right to when that system becomes available, sees what perks they can get at what S.P.E.C.I.A.L rank, and go from there.  In other words, I could spend my attribute points willy nilly, see what perks are the best to go for at the beginning, and go from there.  Let's see...I could build my character to regenerate from radiation rather than get hurt by it if I hit Endurance level 9?  Well let me just restart the game and make it so I start off with 9 levels of endurance taken care of so I can get it early.  I can completely withstand radiation while swimming and breathe underwater if I'm at that level?  Well let me just tweak my attributes at the beginning so I can get that one right away.

Essentially, it feels like it cheapens the level experience a bit when you KNOW all of the perks you can get based on your level/rank in a certain area.  It'd be nicer if everything a rank higher than your current in those specific areas were kept a secret.

-I kind of wish there were more vendors around.  I don't know about anyone else here, but I didn't see any in the first area, in the area where you meet the dog, or in the first city.  And by that time, your inventory is already half full...and you'll most likely be overfull by the time you finish the area in the first city (if you pick everything up from people you kill, like I do), so you'll have to resort to dropping things (I never liked "trading" with people since I actually wanted to make money for the items I gave away), and I don't recall seeing one vendor until after, up in the Bluffs.

-Good lord this game keeps too many save files if you don't turn off all of the different autosave types.  Most PS4 games resort to just one save, even cloud saves stick to normally just one.  This one still feels that age old need to give you a different save file for almost every new area you jump to.

I can probably think of more, but I'll stop there.

I do enjoy this game, amusingly a little more than 3 (and I've yet to play NV), but that doesn't mean it doesn't have its share of flaws.

Essentially, I'd describe Fallout 4 as: Fallout meets Dark Cloud meets Dragon Age meets Skyrim.

There's probably another game in that list, I just can't remember what game it'd be.

Darn, I know I said I'd write it tomorrow 8 days ago, but on that day I smoked some dank for the first time in a year and I was way too blitzed to write anything that would make sense, and afterwards I fell asleep like a sack of rocks.

After that, well...I simply forgot.

I'll do it tomorrow. For real. Expect an epic review dwarfing my two very epic reviews.

But then I got high, but then I got high, but then I got high...

"I coulda cheated and I coulda passed but I got high"

Certainly seems appropriate under the circumstances.

Oh Seroim, you make it far too easy sometimes. 

He probably smoked some more, since it's tomorrow and one minute away from being the next day (at least here). 

No, I have not smoked again, but thank you for believing in my self-control.

I'm actually still writing this shit in a Word file, incorporating screenshots and the like. Of course, I'm not going at it day and night, but the vitriol flows out of my fingers like the nightly emissions out of the cock of a man who has not jerked off for 20 years (or the sex stuff out of Wintermoot's fingers, that's about equivalent). I have a lot to say about this game, little of it positive (but there is a bit, after all, it's quite hard to get everything wrong, a perfect 0%).

If there's a post length limit on this forum, I might blow it a few times over. When it's ready, I'll make a new topic.

@Seroim, I really hope this is still a thing.

In lesser hands, a review like this is little more than a rant, but you turn it into an art form.