I personally don't agree that Witcher 3 is 10 for 10.

I played through it one and a half times in about two weeks, got bored, put it aside, and haven't been back. Maybe 50 hours tops.

By contrast, I've played FO4 every day since release, and I already know I'll be getting another couple of hundred hours from it at least.

I like Angry Joe's reviews because they are pretty informal of cons and glitches. That's why he doesn't rush reviews for click bait like some of the more popular reviewers.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qmpui8B6428 and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KKd8ErfwRc8 have the best critical reviews of Fallout 4.

I don't care about the passion of the people who make entertainment or art.

I care about the passion it provokes in me.

You liked Witcher? Good for you.

Sorry stop using Witcher 3, it's soul-less and has people who keep banging into horses as they're too stupid to walk round obstacles.

You say that like Bethesda AI is any better.

Oh....that was actually disappointing to read coming from Todd.

You may not have been around, but there most certainly were layoffs and no bonus for the score that they got at metacritic on NV. They missed it by one point. Projects were cancelled and Obsidian was pulled from the franchise. That's why we have a Bethesda title instead. This might have been an Obsidian title if NV had pulled in a better rating.

I did see the number of player ratings. The new vegas ratings on steam is 33k. That's only a little more than FO4. It's certainly not a fraction. Perhaps you meant both Fallout titles are a fraction of the reviews Skyrim has? That would be more accurate.

I'll agree that metacritic user reviews aren't the greatest gauge, but again, no matter where you go, this title has gotten more negative reviews than any other in both their franchises. I like the game. It's a good game. It just can't be called an excellent game and that's been the sentiment among most folks. Worth playing through once and exploring, but definitely weak in some key areas (and incidentally in areas we've been criticizing since Oblivion). That's all I'm saying.

It's also one the shining and primary aspects that helped define the Fallout RPG games.

Now it's just a streamlined, generic dialogue wheel. No real consquence or varying and deep responses from the four opitions we get. They are just slightly different ways of saying the same point - An illusion of choice

I think companion AI is stupid in most game. Ellie in Last of Us is always doing something stupid and the same companions in DAI.

So it's like Skyrim?

You know I don't really like those angry reviewer stuff very much, but without watching the review I think 8/10 describes Fallout 4 pretty well.

Its not a perfect game, and it will contain quite a few elements that some people may not like. But everything is still a very high quality, and if you are able to look past some parts of it that may not be to your taste you will find a fantastic experience. Its still better than the vast majority of games out there, but its not everything for everyone like a game scoring 9 might be. Oh, and I think 10/10 is just a terrible score to give anything, since I cannot think of anything in this world that is pure perfection.

8/10 is a fair score for Fallout 4.

IMO, Bethesda always takes some steps forward in most cases and some steps back in others.

My only complaints are a lack of settlement building options, lack of good player homes and the dialogue system. The first two can be fixed with mods but not the third one.

I agree with his assessment, However i fear if Devs take this mentality (graphics) to heart, we may wind up further dialing back world interaction in favor of better looking outcomes. physics and functions use up processing power, whether GPU or CPU. and whether we like it or not, things need to work on the majority of devices so there is an allotted budget for performance and how much you can put in that takes away from it.

The dialogue system is puzzling.... we can loot containers that can contain up to hundreds of listed items on the fly without pausing action, but dialogue NEEDS to be limited to 4 options or less? why? just make it a list and have us look at the character and press action to select, if you look away you can still activate other stuff. We need to look at the speaker to bring up the 4 options anyway. this 4 direction thing may seem cleaner to some, but it shows limits to others. i mean, on companions, we need to press up once to bring up a second wheel of 4 options.

The review I do disagree with is with Witcher 3, as some people have stated. That game was also worth 8 out of 10, nowhere near perfect. Scaled items, awful PC controls svcking out the enjoyment. But let's not compare the incomparable. Could you grab or fling bout the gwent cards on the table of the empty house even though you play gwent? nope. could you sit down at the inn and stare out the window in contemplation at the falling rain and passers-by hiding under their hoods? nope. (you could jimmy the camera between Geralt and the corner then move toward the wall to look out the windows... but come on)

Edit: I am starting to see the limitations of scoring systems. By most standards, If I’d rate Witcher an 8 out of 10, I’d have to rate Skyrim about 25 out of 10. Lasting me 4 years and I’m still excited about getting back in when I think about it? I put in over 1600 hours of unforgettably good gameplay into it, how the heck do you rate that? I expect fallout to be a lesser iteration of that, but that’s due to personal preference to TES’ style and world.

This is patently false. At no time ever was Bethesda prepared to hand over the franchise to Obsidian. They were brought in for a spin off and nothing else. Never was anyone at Obsidian been employees of Bethesda, they were subcontractors and they lost a feduciary sum and possibly the chance at another spin-off(we don't know that for sure, was never made public) NOT the chance to make Fallout 4.

OT: I like AJ a lot and have for years. I DO NOT like the Witcher series and I am a pretty big fan boy of Bethesda but to all those moaning about AJ giving TW3 10/10 lets not forget he gave Skyrim 10/10 too.

Except that is debatable. Not everyone loved the Witcher(I, personally, find it's combat obtuse and just plain hate Geralt as a character that I'm forced to play.). I'd take FO4 over it any day.

Graphics are on the bottom of Fallout 4's priority list, in my opinion. They are fine.

Plenty of other flaws in FO 4 that Beth should be more concerned with

His review matches up with Metacritic.

Fallout4 is well under Witcher3's average, in any aggregate site...critic or user.

8/10 is great. Look I love FO4, but you guys have to stop being so aggressive and insulting anyone who says it isn't the best fallout, or even game this year.

8/10 seems a fair, perhaps even charitable, assesment to me, based on my own experience with the game. 70 hours and I find myself a little bored and already taking a break from it. 70 hours is a lot, no doubt, especially compared to most other games that come out, but the fact that I am not even that interested in doing another playthrough to do different things does raise a red flag for me when it comes to a Bethesda game. Morrowind, Oblivion, Fallout 3 and Skyrim have all had the "I'm gonna start over right away with a new character" thing for me. Fallout 4, sadly, did not.

Is there anything objective about this? Well, the game world felt a little small because of so few settlements that are not either building sites for you or Radiant Quest locations(Minutemen, anyone?). Diamond City had potential, but there seemed to be too few people bothering me with random information about the place or the land around. And I felt I had too few people to bother about the place they lived, the world around or the faction they belonged to. There are so many things I wanted to ask the various members of the Brotherhood of Steel, for instance, given which chapter of the BoS we actually meet. Visually the place often feels like a re-used Capital Wasteland, which takes away a lot of the exploration factor. The bloody Institute, and the Railroad! Those sounded so intriguing when you briefly encountered them in FO3, but now I am kinda bored with them already.

I'm not a huge fan of the levelling system. I'm not a purist who needs to have a bunch of numbers on screen, I even prefer Skyrim's system over Morrowind/Oblivion in a lot of cases, but I'm not that eager to see the FO4 system again(or that in any previous TES game, for that matter, though to a lesser extent). The skills being worked into the attributes and perks is fine by itself, I just didn't find it very engaging. Entirely subjective, as I haven't put much effort in assessing the actual depth of the system as of right now(nor am I likely to in the immediate future). Honestly, as of right now, I think FO3 is the only BGS game of recent years with a decent character system. But, as I hinted to in the beginning of this paragraph, this is not the big issue for me. What kills it for me is that I don't find enough of the Wasteland here to be bothered with random information about. There is not enough of it in the settlements, and not enough of it in the dungeons. Compared to Skyrim's OCD for filling almost every little landmark with some story and the TES classic behavior of NPCs of giving you random information about whatever they are affiliated with(faction, settlement, political view, race, blablabla.), and Morrowind's pouring much of the foundations of what would become the modern TES lore, I feel FO4 falls short.

I think this is a mistake on BGS' part, since, at least for me, the game mechanics were never the decider for the playability of their games, within reason of course. Morrowind is clunky as hell, but I still enjoy to leave for Vvardenfell once in a while to explore the island or do faction stuff, or just helping(or harming) random people I meet(as long as they don't ask me to escort them. Bloody hell, the pathfinding by NPCs was awful). Oblivion plays better, but lost a lot of the exploration factor, but the Guild stuff, DLC and Daedric Shrines are still a lot of fun. Skyrim does fairly good at giving an insight into Skyrim, excellent exploration(because of the previous OCD I mentioned) and good non-magic gameplay(magic kinda got shafted a bit in the game),

This is a real shame in my view, because I think a lot of the gameplay is at the peak of BGS' work as of now. The combat feels more balanced than ever, avoiding both the trapfalls of ludicrous tediousness without much challenge at high levels in Oblivion and the cheap nature of some of the DLC high-end enemies in Fallout 3. In FO4, high end enemies tend to have a lot of health, yes, but not absurd amounts and are made a challenge by having other things, like a really good weapon that makes the encounter more fast-paced and dynamic. VATS is fairly balanced, iMO, since it no longer stops time and requires a very high Perception to be very accurate. The addition of Legendary enemies that will mutate and drop an item that is given a special secondary attribute is great, IMO, because it makes killing them worthwhile because they can give you something you can't just make at an armor workbench. Same with unique items in general, having those secondary effects and still being modable.

Power Armor feels like, well, Power Armor. I have a slight issue with the Fushion Core mechanic, but that seems to not be much of a problem in the late-game(especially with the Nuclear Physicist perks). It adds a nice hobby, to find or make new parts or upgrade the model, finding the Hot Rodder magazines to get new paint jobs. The T60 armor is frikkin' badass.

I like how radiation is handled, making it a more direct threat to the character than it felt like in FO3. That it steadily chips off at my max health until I see a doctor or take RadAway made it very relevant, in that I actually had to consider it before every larger fight I got into.

Companions are generally good, with their own motivations and all of that. Not very deep, but enough to make them more than random weirdos that follow you around because reasons. Some even have quests associated with them. Yay.

Details like the BoS flying around in their vertibirds, engaging whatever hostile pieces of [censored] inhabit the Wasteland is a nice touch, giving a gameplay reflection to the activities of the BoS, so not everything has to be stated in a random dialogue wheel somewhere.

In short, I find that FO4 does a lot of things right(though if you think that Oblivion and Skyrim were pushy about the character doing the Main Questline, you're in for a treat), but the world does not engage me the same way previous BGS games have. Is any of this objective? No, this is all my subjective experience of the game based on my first playthrough. Maybe when I pick it up again, it will feel fresher.

Perhaps my comment phrasing was not as correct as it could have been. Obsidian had a financial crisis as a result of not meeting Bethesda's standards of a metacritic 85+. Projects were cancelled, and the studio very nearly closed. They will not be approached to make another Fallout title. They lost that opportunity and what might have been a very beneficial relationship.

The reason Bethesda did that to begin with was to focus on Elder Scrolls, and personally I think it was a good direction. That's what Bethesda does best and seems to love most: high fantasy RPGs. It shows in the level of quality\polish from Skyrim to the level of quality\polish in Fallout 4. Fallout 4 is a good game. Skyrim was a great one.

In the end, this is what we have. We have an 8/10 game which is pretty universally agreed across the major sites. If anything, I think that this reviewer is also a victim of nostalgia. We all love this developer so much that we're really willing to forgive a lot.

If this had been released by some indie studio, would the game still have gotten an 8/10?

I wonder....

Fair review to me which sometimes Joe dosent do, anyone saw his BS DA:I review and how he gave it GOTY?, nah that was tottally BS since that day i saw this guy was a sellout BUT sometimes like this one time (when he dosent get paid) he makes a fair review.

I agree with his review actually. Its pretty fair and 8/10 isn't bad at all. I especially agreed with him regarding companion AI, the part where codsworth went through a trap while joe was trying to disarm the trap made me laugh because situations like that happened to me a lot in this game.

I agree with a lot of what you said, everything in fact.

But, I think that we all tend to view Fo3/FNV/Skyrim, etc through a different lens because they all have a rich, saturated modding community and a complete DLC cycle. I don't think I could have played Skyrim beyond 100 hours, but mods and dlc stretched that to almost 900. I still have a hard time finishing an entire play through in Skyrim because of the itch to start a new character with a new mod overhaul.

Fallout 4 is still a great game despite the apparent flaws. I can guarantee that a lot of these flaws will be forgotten about once the DLC cycle is complete, and the Fo4 modding community reaches a mature level in, give or take, 1 or 2 years. I know that Skyrim got a lot of flak when it first came out.

This strikes me as potentially true, that BGS out more attention into their TES games than FO. Not necessarily true, but potentially true. They do seem to be better at High Fantasy than SciFi.

Speaking only for myself here, though I would be surprised if no one shared my views in this, I think that if the game was as-is, but outside of the Fallout universe(change some skins around on iconic things like the Super Mutants, Power Armor and the BoS) and not associated with BGS it would have been received by at least some(like me) much, much better than it is.

There is no doubt that part of what sold the game is BGS and Fallout having name recognition, but among a lot of people, those ties also come with a lot of expectations. Nostalgia can, clearly, be a force for overlooking flaws, but anyone who has been through any of the previous game launches(Skyrim for me) on this site will know immediately that nostalgia can lead to people looking infavorably on a game too. Sometimes to a surprising degree.

AngryJoe also gave MGSV a 9/10 didn't he? Bah, it's all subjective. I think if someone's a huge enough fan they won't care as much about graphics. For a reviewer they have to take that into account. Personally I don't care for scores when it comes to reviews because then people start comparing games. For me, Fallout 4 has easily been the most enjoyable game this year. So it wouldn't score lower then other GOTY contenders.