» Sat Dec 05, 2015 3:27 am This game is like cocaine. You get a high off of it, you feel on top of the world with all the explosions and guns and cool [censored], but at some point the you crash off the high, get depressed, and see how shallow the entire experience was. Then you go back to doing it because it feels so good, but there is no emotional pay off.
The emotional pay off being meaningful, morally-gray dialogue choices with real conseequences in the Fallout world. It's that something that keeps you thinking about the story days after it's done.
This game can be divided into 4 things:
The combat thing
The building thing
The dialogue/story thing
The exploration thing
The combat thing: Great. The best it has ever been in any Fallout game. It gives the most freedom and the most reward of any Bethesda game thus far. Though I miss having my guns jam, and wish the way you interact with weapons was more immersive,as in Metro Last light.
The building game: Great, but it is it's own separate thing. Nobody buys a Fallout game for the crafting aspects. Not saying crafting doesn't belong, but it doesn't make up for the lack of role-play freedom.
The exploration thing: Cool. Doesn't really have that "first fallout" feel for me anymore because I already know the scenario, already know what super mutants and ghouls are, already know about robots, etc. Not much new is introduced on this game. Just more of the same lore. But the exploration and hidden stories are still good. No major complaints here.
The dialogue thing: Terrible. Multiple choices usually lead to the same outcome. No diplomacy. You can't unite factions or negotiate with your enemies. Quests usually narrow down to going somewhere and killing 200 people, no matter how pacific and diplomatic you tried to be. I'm not even bothered by the voiced protagonist, just by the fact that the dialogue is so unrewarding, and skill checks are gone except for the charisma skill. Branching quests only happen in small scale, like sidequests. I don't even have to describe what a good Fallout story and dialogue should be. It has already been done. It's called Fallout: New Vegas. And let me just add that I don't think F:NV is a perfect game at all, and I'm not an Obsidian really devoted fan. But I think NV did story was what an RPG story should be: Full of choices, cool characters, and style. Not a few chocies that funnel down to basically the same thing, like in F4.
Bethesda has no eye for subtlety, their writing is terrible. Kellogs backstory for example, is riddled with cliches and ends with a "I may have done bad things, but I'm still human."
Just let that line sink in for a moment. The reason why you have a story AT ALL, is to SHOW you that although his run-of-the-mill story is full of violence, he still somewhat had a heart. You get that? SHOW. By TELLING the audience that freaking line at the end you just destroyed any subtlety and basically called your audience idiots. Anybody who has had even a high-school level of creative writing knows this. How can we still get this crap? And this is after people have been complaining about their writing for years and years. They still dont get it. Another example is how Todd Howard said the ending of Fallout 3 was inspired by Red Dead Redemption on an interview. Except that they missed the point, they missed WHY that ending was impactful and settled for the protagonist dying in the end thinking THAT ought to do it, THAT ought to re-create the feeling people had at the end of RDR.
If baffles me how a company of their level can't hire a descent writer for their games. It's inconceivable at this point. Unacceptable. This is not just another rant by a random opinionated anon on the internet, people have been complaining about the same thing for the past 10 years. It has been a consensus, both from professional critics and their players alike that their writing is mediocre at best. And yet, they STILL haven't fixed it.
It hurts because the premise is good. A misterious institute that snaches people in the night and substitutes them with robots. The brotherhood of steel who is still doing their thing, you know how they are. A group of settlers uniting under the minuteman to survive the harsh wasteland. The railroad, a group of synths who achieved human level of consciousness and fight to free all the other synths from the institute while being conflicted about what makes a synth worth saving and what doesn't. But it all comes crashing down when you realize no matter what choices you make, the wasteland is still more less the same. And no matter how many times you play, you always play as more less the same character.
Their fanbase has been saying all I've said for the past 10 years. Why can't they just listen? They have the money and resources to deliver the "dream game," the one that you can have cool explosions, huge world, voiced characters, AND a world that changes depending on how you play. They can totally, 100% do it. Why do they insist on writing [censored] dialogue and limiting the players freedom in regards to role-play? Just think about this, they can hire WHOEVER THEY WANT in the entire world. Thats how big this company has grown. And still, we get writing that looks amateurish. Their story lack choices. The game is kinda [censored]-up in all kinds of little ways, like characters running into walls, the weird way characters move their heads when they talk to you, graphical inconsistencies, etc. I wish they'd just sit down one day and say "We are going to get everything our fans love about our games and deliver a masterpiece." Which basically means, "Lets do exactly what we have been doing, but this time lets take roleplaying seriously."
And please, don't list all the "choices" we have. Todd is always talks how the only thing that matter in games is how it makes you FEEL like. Even if we talk about the particulars, what systems were removed or added, what choices we have, etc; I still don't FEEL like I have the freedom to be whoever I want to be. And I know I'm not alone in this.
By the way, this rant comes from a place of love. I write all this because I love their games. But they always leave so much to be desired. C'mon bethesda, just let me roleplay. Please.
