Yeah see, problem is you make it sound like you're stating facts the way you put it.

Might wanna be careful with your phrasing

I gave it an 8. Only Bethesda game that got higher than that from me is Oblivion which I give a 9. Yes, I said it, it get gets my highest rating.

I think FO4 is an outstanding game. Not good enough for a 10, mainly because keeping track of my settlers is a hassle, but I think it was worth every penny of my sixty smackers.

Cant see going higher than an 8, lots of weird little glitches, but at least the game doesn't freeze when you go into the water like Skyrim...

7. Too many issues (-2) and not enough freedom of character development (-1). Rest is awesome.

So far it's 7. It feels less interesting than Skyrim which would get a 9 and not as good as Fallout 3 which would get an 8. This might change as I unravel the quests and see if it has more depth than I currently feel it has (about two days in).

I'm new to Fallout, but a long time Elder Scrolls fan so I guess I might have different expectations than someone who's a fallout fan. When I first got Fallout 4 I was blown away and would have given it a 10 out of 10, however now that I'm 400 hours into it and level 80 of my 5th playthrough I feel like it depends too heavily on basebuilding and repeatable radiant quests for content. There's a dire shortage of story based side quests.

Yes, there is a decently sized world to explore, and I'm sure I could squeeze another 100 hours out of exploring every nook and cranny of the game world. However, I feel like once you've burned through all the main-story quests and side-story quests it feels like continuing to svck on a loli stick after the loli has been depleted. This was never a problem I had with Skyrim, or Oblivion, because although I managed to spend upwards of 1000 hours each exploring the worlds of oblivion and skyrim in exquisite detail, I never felt like I had exhausted all the story based quests in either of those games. I'm actually thinking about going back to play more Skyrim. Had I ran out of story related quests in Skyrim and ended up down to only bandit bounties then I very much doubt if I would have made it past 1000 hours. But. it was because there were still story based quests to do that kept those worlds interesting enough to play for all those hours. So as an elder scrolls fan I felt like the story based quest content in fallout 4 was lacking. So I have to ask myself, is this a problem with my own expectations? Should I just accept that Fallout games are intended to be short and sweet? But being able to spend 1000 hours just lost in a game world, was what made Bethesda games special.

These issues are compounded by the fact that each of the faction story lines were disappointingly short, padded with mainly repetable missions, and sometimes tangled up with the main quest in frustrating ways. I hated that they almost always presented no other option but to burn bridges with everyone in the end, except for one boring exception if going full on default option early and hard. While touted for its replayability, I disagree because replays aren't particularly interesting since each faction's endgame quests tend to mirror each other after a certain point. To be honest I I wish you had posted this in the spoiler thread so I could give examples. Don't get me wrong, I like having lots of repetable missions, but I don't want generic radiant missions in place of actual story based content.

A personal bug-bear of mine is also being the leader of a particular faction and yet having zero control over anything. I hate being the leader when it's just an arbitrary title with no meaningful side benefits. It feels patronizing. For example in oblivion if you became the Master of the Fighter's Guild then you get a monthly salary deposited in the Guildmaster's Chest and get to decide the overall strategy of the Fighters Guild so feels somewhat like a genuine role you were filling with its own duties. by comparison becoming the general of the minutemen just makes you Preston's lackey; doing his bidding while he farts around in Sanctuary living the good life. And don't get me started on how meaningless rising up the ranks of the other factions is. I hate having no leeway to steer even if my influence is only ever so slight. And apparently diplomacy is a thing fallout 4's writers have never heard of.

I also found that the dialog options were too limited, and while I agree with those who say that that 4 choices is enough during most of the games interactions, it was during key events in the story I found that the 4 options were extremely limiting and hardly ever covered what I wanted to say. I don't want to give examples for fear of spoilers. But lets just say that different characters can have different motivations, and it's hard to role-play when you're pigeonholed into 4 options, one of which is sarcastic, and one of which is a question, so assuming you're not playing a douchy character, then that leaves 2 choices to cover any and all role-playing possibilities. Not enough for significant conversations. And definitely not enough for the game's finale.

Did I get my money's worth? Yes. I don't deny that It still presents good value for money considering how much the game cost and how much mileage I've gotten out of it. But it's Bethesda, and they have not quite lived up to the 1000 hours I got out of vanilla Oblivion.

Fallout 4 has lots of solid points. I adored the main story and themes, although I disliked having any real influence within the factions. I'm a huge fan of the Sci-Fi writer Philip K. dike, and Fallout 4 explores similar themes to his work which is a huge plus and there were a lot of nuances that I noticed thanks to my interest in his stories. I felt like the retro-futuristic setting was utilized well with regards to the main story. I enjoyed the companions, which is new for me. I normally run solo in Bethesda games, and yet Fallout 4 had me bringing a companion with me everywhere. Having spent time with them all, they are all interesting in their own ways. Piper is definitely the most interesting by far. I liked the perks system. I was more than satisfied with the graphics. Loved the setting. Love the tiny details that you find, since every place tells its own story. I felt like it definitely used the environment to tell stories better than any other Bethesda game has done to date.

Utimately I give it 7/10 because while it's a good game, I don't think it lives up to Bethesda's heritage. I don't think that interesting stories being tangled up in the scenery is a replacement for story based quests. Nor are radiant quests and minecraft style base building. These things should be a supplement to story based quests. Especially as Todd Howard himself said base building was entirely optional. Yet the game depends heavily on settlements to pad out its content. Unfortunately, for me, the lack of story based side quests is a big let-down.

Ultimately, how much longevity it has is going to depend on the quality and quantity of the DLC.

I give it a 9. Though I initially gave it an 8, then immediately changed my vote... so, really an 8.5? Some good quality DLC, and a nice FWE/Project Nevada style overhaul mod to 'fix' some gameplay/combat issues, and some tweaks to the dialogue system (I like the voiced protag, I don't even mind the paraphrasing, I HATE that all additional dialogue relies on only charisma) and that score could easily be pushed up to a 10 - assuming we're not reserving a 10 score for a 'perfect' game (which doesn't really exist - I'm way too picky/critical for that ).

For frame of reference, in regards to other Bethesda games - Unmodded, I give FO3 an 8 (love it, but FO4 gets a higher score for better companions, more to explore, and more entertaining combat - even though FO3 had better PC dialogue options and more varied sidequests). I give FNV a 7 - though a lot was improved from F03 (like companions, for example) something about it left me cold and I found the map too restrictive. To be fair though, I never played the DLC which I hear were pretty excellent. Skyrim, unmodded, I give a 6, but with mods it gets a 9.5. I love Morrowind, but it's hard to rate, since mods are necessary to bring it up to date, and it's the first game I ever played so there's a lot of nostalgia. I hated Oblivion and never got past the first two hours.

Perfectly stated, and I agree with all of your points, specifically concerning the dialogue options. A big part of Fallout, for me, is reading all of my dialogue options and choosing the one that best fits my character style. There were very few times in FO4 where I felt I was able to 'play my part'.

But, again, I agree with you that the game was still very fun. It's just not re-playable for me.

6/10

- They improved on fps mechanics

- Improved on companions

- Weapon customization and armour customization

- A lot to explore

The bad

- Gutting the skill based and attribute based dialogue options

- The dialogue wheel

- Extremely repetitive side quests

- Linear story and quest design

I think that Fallout 4 has regressed on the things that matter to me the most in an rpg. The settlement building is a double edged for me. I liked it first and I still appreciate the initiative but they also incorporated it into the factions. You will have to involve yourself in the settlement building even if you don't want too. I can still enjoy Fallout as a game but not as a rpg. What drove me to buy this game is the fact that Bethesda makes immersive looking worlds who are begging to be explored.

It gets a 9 out of me. Yes the player dialogue is worse but thats the only mechanic that can objectively be called worse. To me every other aspect is either an improvement over the last games or at least on par quality wise.

10/10

Dialogue doesn't bother me.

Have not experienced any issues with supposed game stopping bugs

Have experienced pleasant visuals the entire time at 60FPS with additional visual modifications to boot, meaning I pushed mine much further and was happy...

Specails Matter

Got rid of that god aweful Skill system.

Took a stand and made their own game rather than be pulled into having to lick up to Fallout New Vegas aka Obsidian

Finally ditched most of that RPG-esq, now we just need to really push it the rest of the way with mods so the game can behave more as a shooter and less like a RPG Shooter that has very odd gimmicky weapon and armor tiers. Seriously getting tired of tiers in games.

Much improved platform stability for the purposes of modding the game, 64 bit application, 8 RAM, its honestly apparrant with my Computer that the game is quite good for modding purposes.

Great Dungeon Crawl experience out of the box.

Wonderful detailed world spaces, I can really see myself spending some time building my own creations in its spaces to tell my own stories when the Creation Kit tools are out.

See the thing is not everyone weighs a Bethsada game in the same main stream light as everyone else.

Cons

-Damage in general is a tad "carebear"

->This includes Radiation Damage

->This includes the damage the player can do to enemies

->Leads to guns feeling underwhelming

-Flame Based weapons

->I have to use a UGC to make these weapons do burning and cause the enemies to react properly to being cooked alive.

-Legendary Prefixes, weapons and enemies

->Wouldn't download those guns if they were available Modifications seriously this is a major step back for a very good game.

->Would re-tool the weapons perks and damage system so that "Much More" of the damage of all damage sources is more front loaded.

-Weapon and Armor Displays are not included with the base game

->I have to use a mod for this and since it was in the E3 video I was expecting to be able to prominently display my Gun porm on the armories of my settlements.

-Missing Vault posters, like the perk poster

>Yup was in the E3 video, would have thought I could make my garage look just like that with the base game.

Those issue will easily be resolved with mods and will help the game along to becoming a Master Piece.

__________________

I've played a ton of Bethsada Games and knew exactly what I was buying into.

Was not let down at any point in the game on things that others somehow and really it just feels contrived like they don't understand companies formula or something...

BSG

->Dungeon Crawler

->Modding Tools

->Large Modding Community

Uh so ya, its 10/10

Seriously I'm not even thinking about it like other people cause I don't see the point in that.

Those other games don't offer the tools I'm interested in and really those other games don't stand the test of time that Modifications do for this series.

Gave it a 9. My issues have nothing to do with bugs or anything that we can be relatively sure will (or can) be fixed through patching.


Would have been a 10 if they had implemented some of the goodness that New Vegas brought to the table, particularly weapon design (terrible visual and mechanical design currently; no lightweight effective assault rifle; left hand chambering, blah magical items in a ridiculous Legendary system--this isn't suppose to be ES), ammunition (noticeable loss of ammo types and reloading), explosives (non-craftable nuka nades, seriously?; and loss of many field expedients; and command detonated C4), crafting (ammo; recycling; deep food ingredient menu tied to Survival skill; ), loss of skills (really hard for me to intuitively tell if I'm actually investing into the right things to make desired skills better--really struggled with speech; perks tied solely to SPECIAL stats that seem to make little sense in some cases).

I love this game because it's FALLOUT, and really love the map and exploration, but I find myself having to overlook and outright ignore many things (especially every time I equip a weapon) I came to enjoy about this franchise from past games, that were just plain cut out...and now have to place a lot of hope in the mod community to deliver and fix.

But hey, a 9's a 9.

The problem is that the dialogue being so bad doesn't just mean that the dialogue system is bad. It permeates the entire thing. The lore isn't expanded as significantly as it should be due to lackluster dialogue options. Characterization suffers from only being given four options at a time, especially with the vague prompts. Quest design is streamlined and not as many options are opened because of it.

Even if I were to agree with the notion that the only mechanic that hasn't been improved on is the dialogue, that would be like saying "This is a perfectly healthy human except for the fact that all its blood has been replaced with battery acid." Even if that's the only thing that hasn't improved, it's going to have a detrimental effect on most everything else as a result.

And as my list earlier here showed, there are a lot of things that are more important to me than simple mechanics.

I didn't know I would hate FO 4(and I don't hate it, I'm disappointed, and find it better than 3). From the trailers and E3 presentation I had hopes, the cage fighting for example, wee, do I get to be a cage fighter? I hope so, wonder what else I can do. Nope. Nope. Only way to know how much of a garbage Fallout game it was is to play it and find out. Didn't know there would be crap continuation of lore or crap choices or that everything would be determined by Charisma, or that you couldn't play evil or join slavers. No way to know all that unless play.

And now, seeing how they went backwards from even FO 3, there is no way in hell I will buy FO 5 unless issues I personally have with FO 4 are addressed, which would mean waiting for reviews.(unless someone else makes a FO game)

Exactly. I don't have much issue with the mechanics, besides the lack of option in dialogue, and I don't really care as much about them as other things. What I care about is they took a wrecking ball to the rpg aspects of an rpg game and we are left with a kill, kill, kill action game, and that sure doesn't make it very Fallouty.

7.5


Pros.


Exploring Boston was, and is awesome

Weapon and armor customization

Combat is better in every way

Companions are much better



Cons


Gutted RPG elements

Little to no choice on how the story unfolds

Loss of choice, and consequences based on said choices

Radiant quests, radiant quests everywhere

Loss of unique dialogue choices based on skills or perks like Science, Lady Killer, Black Widow etc

Loss of minor factions

And finally( and entirely my opinion ), but the factions excluding the Brotherhood svcked

7,and i don't consider 7 a bad score at all.

It's a good game with good value for money but there is plenty of room for improvement,and some aspects do feel rushed/half finished,nor would i disregard the bugs just cause it's Beth/large game world.

(In saying that i don't think i've ever played a game where i thought it was perfect and couldn't think of ways it'd be better for me,even the mighty Morrowind which is my all time fav in the same sort of genre would get a 9)

A very generous 7.

Too many poorly implemented features, which should have been rounded out, and the same old bugs and issues, and slow and unresponsive post-release patching and support.

It's a new era in gaming, with great things happening...old ideas, old engines, and poor game support just can't compete.

Saying that though, I'll still be playing for months, and thoroughly enjoying it.

Solid 8 and neck & neck for GOM with Witcher 3. Great opinions on the pros and cons have been voiced already. My rating is simply a measurement of the enjoyment this game provides. +100 hours in and still find reasons to log in and play. Tough to find that much enjoyment for $60.

9/10 I have had more fun with this game then anything else in quite some time. I love the replay value (just started my third character with a completely different build than the last two) I have not even scratched the surface on epic settlement building. As a long time minecraft player I love that I can have a character build just for settlements. Love the game even over the glitches and bugs.

OK. I still give the game a 9 for my own tastes. Iexpected/wanted a Bethesda game and that's exactly what we were given.

7 here as well and for the same reasons, they've boiled the protagonist down to a white family man/woman and nothing will ever change that thanks to the voice acting, which they didnt have to do.

other than that, while they' ve moved even further away from a traditional rpg, the fun factor is undeniable but that voice is constantly reminding me of who I am and who I will never be

could have been an 8, maybe even 9

I'd probably give it either a 5/10 or a 6/10, but I went with a 6/10.

I felt this game was a step back from Skyrim and a massive step back from Fallout: New Vegas.

The voice acting, graphics, a few additional features and adding new factions were the only things I thought were actually an improvement in this game.

As an RPG the combat was a large step back considering that, regardless of build, it all plays the same. I also felt the dialogue system, voiced protagonist, awful writing and dialogue were a step back from previous titles.

Personally, this was my least favorite Bethesda game that I have played thus far and aside from Fallout: BoS this was also my least favorite Fallout game. Although I liked Fallout 3 better, this game was an improvement over it.

I have also noticed that within a month modders have been able to significantly improve graphics and landscape without any performance decreases which makes me feel like Bethesda was just lazy.

8

The backstory limits RP, and they should have just taken the whole dialogue system from mass effect rather than this abbreviated version. Otherwise 350 hours and 3 playthrough as it's still better than skyrim.

yeah i give a 8 bc the RPG cut and the dialogues that are for me the 2 missing points for a 10.

Exploration have been improve.

Environment feeling is amazing.(with weather and the whole Boston setting)

Leveling system improve

combat improve

Fix the skill system

New crafting system is better that the old one.

and Settlements are a plus.

But the lack of Dialogues and checks is the 2 point i think the game is missing for a 10.