Well, I'm of the opinion that everything on the internet can't be trusted, when there is no way of verifying truth or false. Gaming review sites have a financial interest in making good reviews, so I always take that into the equation, and probably have to either read between the lines, or discern what they are focusing on or more importantly, what they ain't. One can quickly, with a critical mind, sense if the writer is genuine or not, in how they are praising it or not, selection of words etc. This of course, can be skewed when it comes to user reviews, since not all are native english speakers (like me) and therefore the selection of words can be limited (I consider myself fairly versed in the english language, and I draw the short straw fairly often, when I can't find the correct word I want to express)

Anyways, common people who writes reviews, often write them in a moment of various mental and emotional state of minds. So if the game is a disappointment in RPG avenues, and one loves RPG, that disappointment will shine through their review (e..g very low scores) while not giving the credit for the good sides of the game. It isn't all bad, because one can probably draw a red line through what the thing is, that most people are disappointed with. Sure, there will be cases, where people bash, just for the sake of it (just have a look on facebook or reddit if in doubt) but they are often easily singled out just by their wording alone.

As for certain people, speculating in, that the "old Fallout 1&2" are the ones doing the bashing, is hilarious, given the timeline. The people who loved 1&2 and hated the 3D versions (e.g. FO3 and NV) probably have more or less moved on now, or they are in the absolute minority (I could be wrong ofc, just stating my view) and I doubt their "hatred" for the 3D versions of Fallout run that deep (Fallout 1 came out almost 20 years ago, lol) Most of the old crowd from 1&2, are either still playing, or left the building. I'm from 1972, and have played all the Fallout games btw. I don't hate FO4, I just think there is plenty of room for improvement in certain areas, and I hope they will.

Edit: typo

mid to upper 80's isn't a low score. and it may not be a flaw in your logic, you could just be disingenuous with the data. your obviously trying to paint a picture that the critics and reviewers are trashing the game. and that simply isn't the case. just because it's not scoring as high as 3 doesn't mean it isn't scoring well. which is exactly what your trying to insinuate. your either by oversight or intention leaving that out. along with the fact most reviewers have it listed as one of the two best games this year. if not for all the witcher 3 love, FO4 would be running away with the GOTY awards. I think the most telling part is most of the critics here drone on about how they should have made it like NV, or let obsidian make it, or what a superior game that was. yet they both received the same (good) score. or will you now take the argument that new Vegas was a bad, flawed game that got low scores because it strayed too far from the core principals of FO3? cause if you want to start that argument, I'll pop some popcorn and wait for the fun to start.

Halflife scored a fair chunk higher than HL2. does that mean there were deeper issues with HL2 that the reviewers and critics were seeing along with the millions buying the game, or does is just simply mean the formula wasn't quite a new or ground breaking as the first was? does anything less equal bad game?

Why do people act like this is important or that Bethesda was being a mean, mean publisher? It was an incentive clause. If Obsidian created a game that met a certain review score, they would get a bonus. Bethesda didn't 'refuse' to do anything. Having not met the requirements for the bonus, Obsidian was not entitled to it and Bethesda couldn't give it to them if they wanted to, else all future incentives in all future contracts with all future partners would have been considered 'negotiable' and could ultimately result in their having to fight court battles with other companies trying to sue to get bonuses they didn't earn either.

The whole point of a contract is to remove the fuzzyness and blurring in favor of stark lines and exact expectations.

84 on PC, 87 on PS4, 88 on XOne... that's an 86 overall

I also disagree with your opinion on the Gamestar review

The person that tested the game made his point perfectly clear. He did mention the flaws on the game, but also stated that they don't have the weight to outvalue the positives, to drag the score further down.

They've posted the other opinions of some other people from their team, just to show some other opinions on the game.

Can you even imagine what a 74% would mean? Games like Far Cry, Call of Duty, Just Cause have a higher score and you can hardly compare them to the games Bethesda makes

jd10013,

Now you are impugning me with an attempt to deceive, when I have done nothing of the kind.

I have made it clear in multiple threads, including this one that I like Fallout 4. I have enjoyed all of the Fallout's. I in fact rank Fallout 4 as my personal second favorite, ranking slightly behind 1 and just ahead of 3. So I actually disagree with the professional reviewers myself. In fact while I really enjoyed Fallout NV, and would grab another one made by Obsidian, it is my least favorite.

Your belief that I have some nefarious desire to trash Fallout 4 is coming from your own imagination and nowhere else.

I just object to the mischaracterization of critics of Bethesda's design decisions as mere Trolls, or Fallout1/2 Fanbois.

Why do people care about number scores? The score does not tell you what is wrong with the game and what is good with it. People shouldn't attach number to opinions, and reviewers should never ever do it.

Just wanted to offer my 2 cents. I have not been this hooked on a single player game since i was a little boy . Been playing 20+ hours this weekend alone, lol

I don't think that they are mean but I do think that this points out the importance they put on reviews. Obviously, review scores are important to them or they wouldn't have made this part of their contract.

12 million shipped doesn't mean sold to the final buyers. Some of them are still sitting on the shelf at the retailers. Our store has had them on the shelf abundantly since november, they don't need to order a second stock yet.

hamder,

If I wasn't out of town on business for 3 weeks, away from my pc, I would be playing the heck out of it too.

In fact I think I'll start a new play through when I get back.

Malpraxis,

Interesting, where I am the stores sold out immediately and have had difficulty keeping up with demand.

Of course both these observations, yours and mine, are anecdotal in nature and should be viewed that way.

They are.

Not really because they want high scores for themselves though. It's mostly related to contracts and sales they have with distributors and the like. Past and present review scores on media like Metacritic influence the contract terms attainable with those parties. Like for example: how many copies distributors will order, at what margin, how many they will distribute to retailers, product placement with retailers, etc.

I disagree that distributors and the like should care, but that's the way it works. I've been on quite a few game forums where the studio at some time actually pleaded with fans to keep the negative reviews toned down because of this. Creative Assembly for example.

You're wrong about that.

Here's a http://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-reviews/R2TYJNWQP909WR/ref=cm_cr_pr_rvw_ttl?ie=UTF8&ASIN=B00X87BLK0 for a game that I've not even played, let alone purchased, that I just wrote on Amazon.com for the express purpose of testing your statement.

Try it for yourself.

Agreed. I also don't think people should care about what every critic or other person out there thinks about a game. The handful of movie critics I follow I follow because I like their style or because their opinions on movies lines up with my own fairly often. Since we seem to be of similar taste, they're good critics for me to gauge whether or not I'll enjoy a movie. Same with games.

I think that some of the deep system changes to a fallout type game are insufficient described so it misleads the ... erm ... gamergroup i think i fit into. I expect you to be german (or able to read it good), else you would not have comented that way. Andre Peschke showed up a lot of negative points about the game and in the final result they suddenly say that these points don′t outweight the positive and that gives a sour taste about the whole weightening system. Also the negative video in the tests shows up a lot of point that should weight in a game like this, in the final score all this is missing, only fun gets weightened and that′s it.

And most of the review sites did that the same way.

Most of the reviews look like a mixup from rushing through the game to get an article done in 12-24h after release (without testing long therm fun or deeper game mechanics) and on the other side the bend of a rating system where they on one hand say "oh well, this is bad, this is bad, that is bad, and this is missing, these changes are dumb but.... it′s fun, has blinking [censored] and 88% buy it kthxbye".

its one of if not the best selling game of the last year, just because "some games are sitting on your shelves" doesn't really mean anything, there's probably 100 stores within 10 miles of me i can buy it at, not to mention digital sales, i don't think there is any problem with the game moving as far as sales, its been a blockbuster actually.

that's just the initial shipment. More have been distributed I'm sure. Last time I was a the local game store (about a month before xmas) there were a grand total of 6 for all platforms left. Besides. I posted a thread a week or so ago with a link o a story about amazon saying FO4 was there best selling game of the year, despite being released in the middle of october. In fact, it was actually 2 of their 3 best selling games. The PS4 version was number 1, and the Xbox version was number three. But keep telling yourself it isn't selling well if that helps you any

There is good.

There is bad.

There is more good than bad, but the bad is QUITE bad.

My rating: 7.5/10.

no,bethesdas ownership of the franchise does have some people very fanatical and they continualy express their very anti bethesda/fallout views, it will never end, its a dynamic brought up partly just due the fact that BGS develops a game they didn't create intitially, its different than with ES, the hate isn't there with the ES, because bethesda created that franchise, but its much different for fallout because the franchise was well established and had a very devoted fanbase at the time of bethesda aquiring the rights and so when the game deviated from its more traditional rpg elements the people use to the old fallouts expressed their opinions quite vocally and now with release of a second fallout game [that is also not like a traditional rpg] its got the same group of people just as bent out of shape and almost worse actually, every fallout game bethesda makes will be meeted with a very vocal group that will express their disdain for the franchise with bethesda in the drivers seat and they will continue to make comments like "obsidian should make the next one" or "its not a real fallout game" or "its a good game just not a good fallout game" or " it doesn't have branching quests", all these types of comments are from a very specific group of people, its just a dynamic that exists due to the nature of bethesda aquiring the franchise and it not being their own original idea.

Well at least your review is accurate lol

Alizarin327,

I agree with you that there is a subset of critics, some of whom are quite vocal on these boards, who clearly pine for the days of Fallout 1/2 or who prefer Obsidian's work to Bethesda's.

However, saying "its not a real Fallout game" and criticizing the game because "it doesn't have branching quests" are two very different kinds of issues.

The second is a complaint about a design decision, and while I might not think it is important, it is a perfectly valid criticism if true.

I personally believe the Fallout 4 is a very good 'Fallout' game and is my second favorite of the franchise to date.

If one cares about user reviews and the numbers, I'd just go on Steam, where the only way you can review a game is to actually purchase it. No one gives any scores, its just recommend or don't recommend. Steam itself will then add them all up and it will equate to a percentage. For Fallout 4, its 80% positive reviews. Sounds far from a bad game, but compared to previous Bethesda games? Rather low (although Fallout 3 stands at 83%, take that however you will). Perhaps its questionable as to why Fallout 4, even Fallout 3, stand so low compared to every TES game and even New Vegas which all stand above 90%.

Regardless, Steam isn't the majority, and neither is Amazon. And personally, when it comes to reviews, the number is the last thing I ever care about. A lot of the time is doesn't even equate to the pros and cons named in the review. What I look for is what is being said in a constructive opinion, not that of an arbitrary number (although Steam ratings are gathered based on actual information of people who recommend it and don't recommend it, not some randy on the internet giving it a variety of different ratings from 10/10 or 1/10).

And even then, its my own opinion that matters most to me that is based on my experience and no one else's. If your sentiment is similar to mine, good for you. Glad we can all agree. If not, good for you, but I don't agree. And hopefully you won't get your panties in a bunch because of it.

I really think the fantasy genre is just much more popular than the post apoc genre. Which is why it will almost always score higher.

Oooooooo Ssssssnap!

The 1/10 reviews should be thoroughly ignored - some of the reviews for Fallout 4 were blatant troll posts. One post read along the lines of: "not call of duty, 1/10." I wish there was a way to vet the reviews but that's just not possible.

Anyways, I tend to pay more attention to the mixed reviews because they're more tempered.

Well he obviously wanted Call of Duty, but he bought the wrong game, hence the low low score. "Oh man it says Fallout on the cover"