y
First of before I go into my scathing criticism I'd like to say that I love almost everything about this game. The environment is one of the best ever in an open world game. Some areas are incredibly atmospheric. The Glowing Sea reminds me of STALKER in some ways. The city of Boston is vast and filled with content. The vertibird flight and settlements are an astonishing technical acheivement. The story and concepts behind the Institute and Brotherhood of Steel are phenomenal. The motivations behind those factions are complex, morally grey, believable, and logical (mostly). The combat is far better than Fallout 3 and is highly challenging on even lower difficulties.
Ok here is the problem...a really really big problem that Bethesda should have NEVER overlooked for even a second. It is so big that it greatly diminishes most of the good things in this game....
I can't make the character that I want!!!!
Nevermind that our entire backstory was already chosen for us and consistes of ONE OPTION! It gets worse than that. What is the point of a lush and active open world if I'm forced to be a good natured, emotionally sensitive parent from beginning to end?! At no point in the entire game as far as I can recall was I ever allowed to be a complete jerk in any conversation. Every single dialogue choice consists of:
1. polite and sweet
2. polite and indirect
3. polite but impatient
4. coyish and adorable
I don't have any problem with the character having voice acting because it is very easy to modify the file and change the tone/pitch of the voice file. My problem is how meaningless most conversation choices are and how brief and devoid of content my character's sentences are. You really cannot piss off any character in the major quest lines even if you really want to. Angering and destroying your relations with any faction is ultimtely accidental and may or may not have been something that your character really wanted. If you try to become a complete monster and massacre entire towns and cities, the game basically breaks. The characters will not even remember that you did that. Fallout 3 wasn't much better in this regard but at least there was the Megaton incident. I can't be a bad guy in conversation and If I try to be a bad guy via deeds, the game punishes me for going outside the narrowly defined preset character personality and BREAKS ITSELF. How could the wasteland not notice that the guy/gal from Vault 111 singlehandedly massacred the population of the great green jewel?! Why couldn't Bethesda just write a few lines of dialogue here and there to remind me that the wasteland hates and/or fears me? Clearly I am the most famous person in the wasteland. Why not have raider groups suddenly appear and try to sweet talk me into joining them?
Why does the most lethal and brutal fighter in the commonwealth sound like he/she is about to cry in nearly every encounter with an NPC?!
I'm leaving out the problems with the main quest just to avoid spoilers but I'm sure we can all think of a few wasted opportunities when it came to our relations with the main characters.
My proposed solution is that Bethesda should from now on completely SCRAP the intro scene backstory. They should do something similar to what New Vegas did. You wake up in a situation that could happen to anyone tough enough to survive it, not just good natured soccor moms who never really wanted to hurt anyone. Give us a choice in who our character is. I love the morally grey story that you guys wrote for the factions but please allow us to do the same with our character!
Until then, I can't call this game an open world sandbox. It doesn't know what it is....yet
Here is an example of what I would have liked to see:
"You bastards took my family and my life away from me. Now I'm going to F you up! Give me what I want or I'll turn this town into rubble!"
No more super sensitive soccor mom crap....