How Does Fallout 4 Compare to Previous Fallouts? [Huge Spoilers]
Video Statistics and Information
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Channel: Noah Caldwell-Gervais
Views: 333,072
Rating: undefined out of 5
Keywords: Fallout 4, Fallout (Video Game Series), Action Role-playing Game (Video Game Genre), Video Game (Industry), Fallout 3, Fallout: New Vegas (Video Game), Fallout, Fallout 2, Critique, Analysis, Review
Id: OnmKlmW7vqY
Channel Id: undefined
Length: 41min 46sec (2506 seconds)
Published: Sat Dec 05 2015
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It's improved greatly as a shooter. The mechanics are better, and there's lots of customization.
It's come up short as an RPG as ALL your conversations have only 4 bland response options. All of them end up leading you in the same direction, for the most part... There's not much role playing. Also, I'm sure that I've not played 100% of the side quests and such, but they seem to be seriously lacking. Aside from repeatable quests to go clear out building X (which you have already cleared 6 times) there's not a lot to do on the side. Quest hubs seem to be pretty rare too.
Despite being pretty simplified, I actually enjoyed the simplified leveling / perk system. I've no complaints here, and I always looked forward to gaining levels.
All in all it's a 7-8 / 10 for me. I had fun playing it.. i had a blast up to a certain point, and my enjoyment started kind of tapering off.. I'm at a point where I'm not 100% certain I'll actually complete the primary story arc. At the same time, I'm approaching 150 hours played, so I still got a fair bit of enjoyment out of it.
Extremely minor quibble, but Vault 13's water chip was a genuine accident, in-story, and not a Vault Experiment. This kinda threw me off but the rest of the video is ok.
A splendid review and analysis of the game by Noah though that's hardly surprising.
I don't agree with everything he said especially concerning the main plot which I think is pretty piss poor and the presentation of the narrative which is still pretty damn clunky but I think he really nails the idea that Bethesda has no interest in Fallout beyond the most surface use of the franchises symbols. They love the Brotherhood and Muties and Nuka Cola but don't really have any interest in the series from a thematic perspective.
I especially agree that 4's nostalgia of pre-war America is very much at odds with what the previous games have shown. Pre-war USA was in many ways as hellish as post-war USA, a dictatorial state of collapsing economic and social order, violent suppression and hopelessness hidden under a sickly charade of optimism and consumerism.
As Noah said the winds are changing and Bethesda has direction for the series that is their own. I can't say I'm happy with that but it is what it is. Here's hoping Obsidian have another go at it.
This guy is one of the best writers for video game reviews out there, imo. His videos always contain clear but colorful language.
I'm glad he brought up the lack of slides because that's also what pretty much sealed my final opinion that the game was good but not GOTY material. I was so disappointed when there was no epilogue to tell me the consequences of my decisions.
It's been said before, but Bethesda's not interested in continuing the Fallout franchise (in the spirit of the original games), what they're doing is building their own brand and niche. They're creating these wide open sandboxes where you can hop in, do anything you want, and go through these 'cinematic' and 'epic' action set-pieces. The stories are bad, the gameworlds shallow, and the consequences and role playing opportunities increasingly nonexistent, but the games are fun when you're playing them. It's bite-sized entertainment, like eating a candy bar.
This doesn't have to be a bad thing - I for one loved the hell out of F4 and had a blast just wandering around, but for the people who were expecting New Vegas 2, the people that love Morrowind the most, the people whose first Fallout game wasn't 3, it's going to be a massive nonstop disappointment moving forwards. I was disappointed by Oblivion, F3, and Skyrim, even though they were all fun games I spent hundreds of hours in. The key is to change your expectations. I was expecting F4 to be Fallout 3.5, and that's basically what we got, so for the first time a Bethesda game actually exceeded expectations.
For the people who want more like New Vegas, all we can do is wait to see what comes next, whether from Obsidian or elsewhere. It might seem unfair, but Bethesda has stumbled onto a winning formula here and have no reason to change. If you're miffed by F4, imagine what the next TES game is going to be like: voiced character with predefined history, no numeric skills or racial powers, dialogue is probably gonna be Dragon Age 2 style with only one option that moves conversation forward and the rest are just questions.
It falls into a lot of the problems that came with fallout 3 and adds some new ones.
The pros?
Better guns
More interesting enviroment
Better voice acting
Better crafting+weapon mods
Interesting new layered armor (shame layers only work on a fraction of the clothes you find though)
Much better characterization and companions
The bad?
The dialogue and perk system got fucked compared to previous RPGS. Its obviously designed to copy the lame dialogue wheel Bioware started and be easier to work with consoles. Which I feel like im being punished for no reason on. Why do I need to suffer clunky menus (skyrim) or shitty dialogue options (Fo4) because other people want to use clunky controllers?
Dialogue options feel like they have no impact, quests feel like the don't branch as much, my perks and character build as no impact on how quests are completed. For instance, if you put all your points into intelligence and take all the scientific perks like nuclear physicist and you join the institute, a community of super scientists who are trying to build a nuclear reactor, you get no special dialogue or options. You are treated as some thug with a gun they can send to get things done. You can't use your high medicine skills to save your son, you can't use your robotic expert perk to effect any synth in dialogue. The replay value gets tanked in that regard. I love replaying RPGs and seeing all the nuanced changes like that. This is the main issue I have with it that genuinely feels like a step back from Fo3 and FoNV.
Story wise bethesda keeps making the same dam mistake with the writing. Stop making an open world RPG where the character has a clear history and driven motives. The courier was a fantastic character because he was an enigma, a blank slate you could place whatever personality you want on them. He got shot in the head, but survived. Does he want revenge? Does he just want to wander around the wastes? Is he a good person? a Bad one?
And stop with the FAMILY MEMBER IS MISSING GO SAVE THEM! Story its comptly jarring when you want to explore and do side quests or really anything besides the main story. Its not a good fit for this type of game nor is it an interesting story anyway. It just limits my character's motives and breaks immersion.
As far as the modern fallouts go, I would say New Vegas is the best one out there.
Was super excited, I remember being enthralled and playing New Vegas twice. Fallout 4 started with a great beginning, until I realized that the map was just that small. The quests became meaningless once everything was 'go here and kill everything'. My skills didn't mean anything more than just 'gates' to obstacles or passive multipliers. I think I distinctly remember looking at a mod for the dialogue that put the choices into proper perspective - and I hard stopped playing/giving a shit about the game. Didn't even bother finishing the story. I think for me, this is where Bethesda and I permanently part ways.
I just finished the main quest (or at least one faction's) last night, and it was quite underwhelming. I loved the game for about 30 hours because the gameplay was so improved, but the longer I played the more I noticed the shortcomings of the dialogue system, changes to speech checks, the side quest system, etc. A lot of the game felt like half thought out filler. The settlement building was interesting but lacking a lot of management features or importance. I also got pretty tired of the never-ending Minutemen quests where you help out settlers somewhere, it reminded me way too much of those quests in Skyrim where you just cleared out dungeon after dungeon of draugr or bandits.
I'm sure I'll enjoy it more with subsequent playthroughs with mods, different playstyles, and factions, but right now it's pretty average.
Fallout 4, for me, was a big disappointment as a Bethesda game. It is the first game Bethesda released where I've only put about 10 hours into it and quit because I was overwhelmingly bored. I hope that the mod scene will fix some of that but to be honest, I don't see myself going back to it anytime soon. I might pick it up after I've completed some other games on my list such as Pillars of Eternity, Divinity Original Sin, Witcher 3, Wasteland 2 and a couple others.
I am mostly just disappointed by Bethesda at this point.