I'm going to say it - not only is Fallout 4 a disappointment, it's a meh game. If it didn't have the Fallout name attached to it I think people might objectively describe it as "a kind of janky, less fun Fallout clone that lacks the spirit, fun and quirkiness of the franchise it's borrowing from."

They made some things different, but differences don't automatically equate to improvements. From a business standpoint I can't blame Bethesda for milking as much money as possible out of their embarrassingly decrepit game engine, but from a creative standpoint I have nothing but contempt. It really does seem like their official strategy is "let the customers fix this game, after we get paid."

Again, I get it - why should they do anything but the bare minimum if people are willing to happily pay for whatever they put out? If you can sell a million copies of a crap game with minimal effort, at what point are you incentivized to do more? Is it worth it to put forth genuine ingenuity in order to maybe sell a few thousand extra copies? I think not, and this glaring facet depresses me more than the mediocre game itself, honestly.

The gunplay is marginally improved (not by enough to justify the development time). The rest seems almost retrograde, IMO. So no, OP is not the only one to find this game a disappointment.

kalitx wrote:

@junkacc That chart was extremely unnecessary, no one prior to your comment was being an apologist. By posting stuff like that you diminish any chance of having a healthy conversation because it deters people with different opinions than OP.

No sir - by you posting that it's actually you who seem to be trying to deter people from freely expressing their opinions. Bad form, old spice, but I was heartened to see junkacc provide such a salient retort nonetheless...

you wouldnt be the first tbh, it didnt live up to expectations only took a load of mods from fallout nv and implimented them with a beautyful enb, im waiting for the modding community to play around with makeing fallout 4 quest mods
something to look forward to

It would take me forever to say what i wanted to say so i suggest that you just watch this.

junkacc wrote:

Someone made that chart when the game just came out and all the fanboys were out in full force, making honest discussion of the game impossible. After FO4 missed GOTY, the shilling and syncopathy has gone down quite abit but it never hurts to remind people of the craziness that is fanboyism.

Gameplay wise it's more of an FPS than an RPG, and a bad one at that compared to other recent offerings. But Bethesda games are never good on their own with the possible exception of MOrrowind -- it's the mods that make or break them. So what have Bethesda given us this time in terms of moddability. A game pretty empty in terms of storytelling but improved shooting mechanics. Almost an empty slate so modders can go wild on it, if only they can get around the voiced protagonist problem. On the bright side, at least there won't be much need for combat overhauls this time.

I understand where you're coming from, I find with most big titles there is either a circlejerk defending it blindly or trying to shoot it down unnecessarily. I definitely agree with the points you made, hopefully the GECK for FO4 is modder friendly and will allow people to really bring out the true potential in FO4.

toolio20 wrote:

No sir - by you posting that it's actually you who seem to be trying to deter people from freely expressing their opinions. Bad form, old spice, but I was heartened to see junkacc provide such a salient retort nonetheless...

Given your opinion, it's pretty obvious that you have a extreme bias against the game so I'm not going to bother defend my stance to you. In no way what I said would deter anyone, if you truly think so you're too easily riled up.

I'm not here to bash anyone or praise anyother I'm just gonna say this, I got 200 hours out of Fallout 4. I discovered every location, did all the faction and misc quests I could find . I know what you must be saying, "But its a bethesda game theres now way!" there is. The game is shallow. Other than story quests theres not much to do besides explore little ruins which is fun, but lets be real, it gets old. fast. I was so hyped for this game and absolutely wanted it to be my next 2000+ hour game (Skyrim) but it wasn't. Bethesda disappointed me. Thats all there is to say really. Just my thoughts, and farewell. Back to New Vegas it is.

junkacc wrote:

kalitx wrote:

@"junkacc" That chart was extremely unnecessary, no one prior to your comment was being an apologist. By posting stuff like that you diminish any chance of having a healthy conversation because it deters people with different opinions than OP.

Someone made that chart when the game just came out and all the fanboys were out in full force, making honest discussion of the game impossible. After FO4 missed GOTY, the shilling and syncopathy has gone down quite abit but it never hurts to remind people of the craziness that is fanboyism.

Gameplay wise it's more of an FPS than an RPG, and a bad one at that compared to other recent offerings. But Bethesda games are never good on their own with the possible exception of MOrrowind -- it's the mods that make or break them. So what have Bethesda given us this time in terms of moddability. A game pretty empty in terms of storytelling but improved shooting mechanics. Almost an empty slate so modders can go wild on it, if only they can get around the voiced protagonist problem. On the bright side, at least there won't be much need for combat overhauls this time.

Mrmattyplays "near perfect game"

For crying out loud man. Those fanboys are unbearable

Everything that is fallout is gone from the game. They removed the 10mm smg that was part of the fallout games before it was even a fallout game. The game doesnt even have ants and centaurs they are very few enemy types and weapons.

You comment on the graphics "WHO CARES ABOUT THE GRAPHICS" You comment on the main quest "ITS ABOUT OPEN WORLD" you comment on the dumbed down upgrade system "ITS NOT DUMBED DOWN" You comment on the lack of choices "YOU PLAYING IT WRONG" which usually comes from the people that think "new vegas sucked because it let you skip combat" is an actual argument and not an utterly stupid statement that misses the point of role playing.

So i am gonna go ahead and criticize the game and tell everyone why it is so disappointing.

The skill system is very similar to games like borderlands, far cry, dead island. You have a simplistic upgrade system that you put a point on a skill and thats that. Your artistes dont matter even if they did you could just upgrade them like you would on skills, which are now called perks because the skills are removed, also the traditional "perks" are gone just like traits.

Some of those "perks" have insanely dumbed down effects, like some on luck giving you free xp or enemies turning into bottlecaps when they die. Others are lazy like aiming at a enemy and pacifying them, others are hand holding like making sure you cant fail lockpicking or hacking. You cant play as a thief or a charismatic character it is a giant shooting gallery. Speaking of which you fight the same enemies with the same weapons over and over and over again and again, so you can have 100 hour content but if t is as good as your average mmo randomly generated sidequest there is no point.

In the old games you could ask for various information before doing a quest, you could avoid conflict you could get one faction to fight the other, you could extort the npcs for more money, you could ask for more information. Even party members could up for a assassination depending who gives you the quest.

Fallout 4 is pretty much

-Yes ill help
-sarcastic yes
-No (also yes)

It is so linear and scripted it feels like a repetitive shooter with bullet spongy enemies than a rpg.

Bethesda went towards the casual and lazy route, instead of looking at new vegas and improving they pretty much decided to dumb down the game more than fallout 3 and make it more casual....and lazy. I am convinced the only reason the town mechanic is there is so bethesda can get away with their laziness so you have to build the towns in the game and not them.

Every time someone is critical on a bethesda game people like mrmattyplays pop up saying "look at the sht people say about fallout and how stupid they are"

At some point we have to say that enough is enough or no actual constructive criticism will ever reach bethesda

I feel you, in my own words it was a step backward from NV which I actually prefer playing more then 4

It got very old very quickly. I made two playthroughs, in one of them I beat the main story line with the Minute Men, in the second with the brotherhood of steel. In the first I beat the main story and did all the quest I could find within 48 hours. The next playthrough, I did everything I did in the last one and a lot more, but I still did all of it within 48 hours. I have yet to play a third time, maybe when the DLC drops I'll pick it back up, but other than that I can only picture myself playing this game again if my load order is filled to the brim with mods...

Fallout 4 was an fun game (I liked it more than fallout 3) but a really bad RPG.
You played as a fixed character due to the voiced protagonist and crappy dialogue system. The main quest was short (and despite having four endings lacks re-playability due to them being very similar for each faction) and nearly all the side quests were dull MMORPG style grid quests. The actual gameplay was far too combat heavy meaning 99% of the time your only solution to a situation was shooting, rarely speech checks, no bartering/bribing and no other perks can be used in dialogue.
It was fun and the crafting/random unique weapons were good but I viewed it more like the Far Cry series, FPS with RPG elements than I viewed the previous fallout games.

Im disappointed with it too. They just bragged about how its an improvement over fallout 3 but they never said anything about FNV. Its definitely a step back from new vegas. only the combat is a bit improved in the new fallout, the trash hoarder simulator and the minecraft elements were added so they could show up something. All im saying is that fallout 4 had a lot of potential but bethesda only released a shooter after 5 years of work....

Well I guess everyone is posting some kind of something here.
So my two cents.  So I will break it up into a couple elements.

1. Story, while the story is interesting, you have a husband/ wife and a child... that alone gives the characters bonds, that are seemingly there just to break... your spouse killed your child stolen.  You find someone else to love in the wasteland and get a perk and your child.. yeah...

is...:

   With such an urgent quest as finding your child... can you really expect to all of a sudden go "hey let me make a farm and grow a potato/ Tatoe.....  I would be searching endlessly and telling everyone who was unable to or unwilling to get out of my way before I carve my way through them.  The Stories for fallout 3, well your looking for your parent and exploring as you go, as a youngster you will explore and get sidetracked, it happens as most teens are not super clingy to their parents at that point in their life.  In Fallout NV, its revenge, you were set up and shot in the head.. maybe you can find things that matter to you more and move on or just the bullet took with it the parts of your brain that made revenge more of a necessity, either way with those other two games I could justify going off of the main quest for a bit.
    Also, I play a combat Veteran of the Chinese Invasion of the US....why are my stats the same as a young teenager living a sheltered life in a vault the same as a Combat Vet out on the front line for years....I can say, my past 14 years in the Army (still in to this day) have changed me as compared to being the 16 to 19 year old I was..

2.  Ok, so gameplay... really enjoyable and it is about 60%FPS to 40% RPG for me, you get options and some quests are timed which allow/ cause failure.  The modding system for weapons and armor is great and I believe they took a note from the modding community when they made this.  Settlements is good, as I liked minecraft for what little I played of it and this was entertaining and added a different kind of challenge as all that scrap I never picked up in the other games now has a significant purpose.  But, what I want is the choice to play the bad guy via conversation options, mostly I am stuck being the good guy, being the sarcastic good guy or not doing anything.  I cant really just turn around and kill some people without the game as a whole becoming un-playable.
but I had the same thing in witcher 3 which I oddly enough liked less than Fallout 4...  The FPS play was good, you cant do any of this wall jump/ run crap (yet? mods?) but your not some cyborg super soldier who craps nano machines and ninja magic.  If Bethesda just didn't bother using resources on the fail MMO Elder Scrolls online which based off cost of upkeep, sales and subscriptions isn't doing as well as they hoped or projected and definitely isn't the "wow-killer" as so many people have claimed.  But, back to FO4, the game becomes drastically easier if you play it as the creeping stealthy sniper, the perks seem almost geared to stack for such a build, it would have been nice to see more love for autofire weapons as they truly fall by the way side.  If the bullet bypasses your skull and says hi to your brain, does it matter if it was fired from a semi or fully auto weapon?  These weapons turn you into pink mist and bone chips so quickly but with monster scaling and everything else, they just feel drastically under powered.

2.  Graphics/ Weapons... well I loved them, with mods they got better and ran even smoother... but why do I need the mods to help optimize the game.  Lighting and casting shadows was an improvement over Vanilla Fallout 3 and NV (no more world through a sick yellow green filter).  The weapon designs... were annoying to me to say the least, and just made it feel odd for someone who played fallout 1 and 2.... as they had the P90, MP5 and other advanced weapons though called something different.  There comes a point that they should not have gone for nostalgia, the WW1 Water cooled machine gun... that is now called the assault rifle...just why.  The Thompson is my SMG...ehh...the weapons introduced in 1,2, 3 and NV..specifically the SMG's were technically advancements over the Thompson... so at the start of the Great war, why were they using the Thompson at all.... again for the Nostalgia.  the Combat Rifle and the Shotgun.. ok so here I had a weapon I could go with, atleast it made more sense to me.  I could modify them, and their looks and they could feel feasible even with the excess nostalgia.... atleast they left the 10mm pistol alone.. BUT, they horribly regressed the Plasma weapons... but they have been doing those wrong for a long time... the Plasma weapons were suppose to look sharp and bladed, dark metal and green... like some kind of Warhammer 40k Necrons wet dream.  Instead of this I have bubbles of glass and then on top of that tubes and glass tubes full of glowing green plasma gases just waiting to spring a leak or get shot and end my characters journey as he/she melts in explosive plasma gas due to poor design....

   Graphics/ Armor... ok, this is cool.  I have armor and I can put on/ change/ upgrade the pieces I put on say my Vault suit and they do different things a lot of which is up to my choosing and the missions I am about to under take.  As opposed to letting Moira (fallout 3) upgrade my vault suit with a rubber band, a used condom and a pigeon... and it looks like some kinda smashed ass road warrior wanna be suit...as all she did was strap, tape and stable things to it.  The Fact I could wear basic clothes and wear armor over it is awesome, however in Vanilla FO4 it was limited, but mods fix that super easy so I wont even go there.  But modding armor parts and their looks and the number of them you could do is awesome and a definitive step in the right direction.  AND the Power armor.. now that is great, it changes the game largely.... you can accidentally kick over things like tombstones, steel sidewalk/ pedestrian guards, fall through pieces of wood in the Iron Works plant that aren't designed to hold your weight, crush sand bags and fallout from the sky on to a death claw and kill it... and did I mention the Jet Pack??  Really cool, the only thing is, the fusion cores... Power Armors are suppose to have a shielded reactor with thousands of years of life.. so here they are breaking their own lore again, just for the sake of in theory keep the player from using the power armor all the time... but having about 1/3 of the map covered in water kept me away from using it all the time, as YOU GUESSED it, you cant swim in a giant suit of Titanium, Steel and Lead.   Sink to the bottom like a rock and drown unless you have the perks... though if it filters radiation... couldn't they make an amphibious version that allows for insertion to something like a beach.... silently walk along the ocean floor at reasonable depths and then up on to the beach suddenly to take it from the enemy?

  Graphics/ The characters, the new way of making the characters face... good and bad, you can grab and change what you see, but its hard to see how much you can or what your doing exactly as some parts like Eye Lids are small.  So you cant see fully what your changing and to what extent, sliders or something on the side would have been great.  The Faces in the vanilla game do look better than previous games definitely.  The SUPER WIDE SHOULDER thing that was present in the other fallout games is gone.  No longer do you have the petite young female with shoulders a NFL super star would be proud to have.  The animations run smoother to me with what feels like more weight to them, im guessing the did more with motion capture and less with just basic animators for this?  Though I can understand as the game gives you so many customization options that to be able to do more with the faces, you cant get as detailed with a couple of them...

Soundtrack/ Music/ Sound Effects..  Not really so much here, the music works for me, the radio stations work and can easily be changed.  Who am I to judge how a make believe weapon sounds, there are thousands of ways a gun shot can sound different with millions of more reasons that originate from the available mods at the workbenches.

Overall, I love the game its fun and enjoyable, the stories for FO3 and NV made it more viable for me to leave the main story to do side quests than FO4.  With mods, the game will only get better, and this may invite some flame, but I still like it better than the Witcher 3.  Not being a fan boy here,I don't give a damn about game of the year, just means whichever company gets it gets to re-release the game with the DLC included for more money as another sales pitch.  So I wouldnt be surprised if Game of the Year events are bought and paid for by bidding companies.  But yeah, I just don't care for how they portrayed Geralt and how they made him seem like college humor batman.  Now the Engine for Witcher 3... I have not seen anything better for an action RPG, and I hope Bethesda takes note.

So, in closing... disappointed... eh not really, hopeful that there will be more, especially with mods and DLC.

I think it's a good game coming from Fallout 3, but from NV. Most of the features in Fallout 4 there's seems to be mods of in NV.
-Also there is very few ammo types (explostive/scattershot/buck/etc)
-The size of the map is relative to other ones, i felt they got lazy here. People can argue "Map of the size doesn't make the story better and such" but look at Witcher 3/GTAV/JustCause3 all those modern games w/ lots of content.
-It is crammed/not spaced out enough, going from goodsprings to Primm there was nothing but a highway w/ a few stuff to the side. Fallout 4 it feels like as soon as i leave the Vault, im in Sanctuary, soon as im outside santuary im in Red Rocket Station. This takes away the wasteland feel from me. The only place that feels Fallout worthy is the Glowing Sea, buildings a spread apart, and i feel all map markers in that area are spread out.
-No classic factions (except BoS) What i loved about NV is that it added factions from Fallout 1-2-tactics (Khans/GunRunners/Nightkin/NCR/etc.) Giving it feel like it was a sequel. Fallout 3 felt like a new Fallout 1 to me, like all the other factions except Enclave and BoS never even existed. At least in Fallout 4 they mention NCR though  


Anyway, thx for read

you all sound like trolls ive played Fallout 4 for 250 hours still havnt finished the game this is the best Fallout ive played and ive played all the fallouts lot of people complain cause its not a RPG big woop did use know Fallout 1, 2 and tactics was a turn base game not a first and 3rd person view game might as well call it Elder Scrolls with guns right??.

and then you got guys saying it soo buggy i havnt seen many bugs let alone game breaking but i know Obsidian New Vegas was broken from the start while the fanboys try to hide that past yeah the game had many choices and factions but 4 atleast has four factions fallout 3 you could only side up with the BOS so i see that as a step up from Bethesda games.

New Vegas i can remeber got a craped on when it first launched everyone saying Fallout 3 was the best except for Fallout Turn Base Vets and now everyone decides to change they mind on the last minute same thing Skyrim people hated that talked crap about it two years later ten thousand mods later everyone saying its the best Elder Scrolls to play.

the settlement builder is the one of the greatest features i ever used in a fallout game and its based off a mod that was in 3 and New Vegas you guys just need to give the game some time mods does wonders when the Creation Kit comes out also since when has Bethesda been good at telling stories huh.

@AussieShepherd117

Whoa calm down there, people are free to express there opinion respectfully.

Also its advertised as a Action RPG, a lot of people just want more RPG in it like choices...
and the engine is a modification of the Elder Scrolls engine... so it kind of is Elder Scrolls with guns...
though if I could Dual Wield Pistols that would be awesome.

Yup, I knew 1, 2 and Tactics were turnbased, bought them when they first came out in the 90's.

Fallout 4 is largely bug free, especially when compared to New Vegas. Since I bought the game on pre-order I have had less than 5 crashes.. and those happened only because of mods.

Now don't take offense to this, but is English your first language? Some of what you posted was a tad hard to read.

SgtSpectre wrote:

@AussieShepherd117

Whoa calm down there, people are free to express there opinion respectfully.

Also its advertised as a Action RPG, a lot of people just want more RPG in it like choices...
and the engine is a modification of the Elder Scrolls engine... so it kind of is Elder Scrolls with guns...
though if I could Dual Wield Pistols that would be awesome.

Yup, I knew 1, 2 and Tactics were turnbased, bought them when they first came out in the 90's.

Fallout 4 is largely bug free, especially when compared to New Vegas.  Since I bought the game on pre-order I have had less than 5 crashes.. and those happened only because of mods.

Now don't take offense to this, but is English your first language?   Some of what you posted was a tad hard to read.

yes English is my language since im aussie i write too fast so i tend to skip many words thinking i typed them well reason im angry cause this hate eveyone had i seen the same on New Vegas and Skyrim any money when a fallout comes out people will be saying fallout 4 is a really awesome game this is by the time when there be like 20,000 mods for fallout 4 or more

@AussieShepherd117
ahh gotcha, brain working faster than fingers.

I think the biggest hurdle for fallout 4 is largely living up to its own hype. Fallout has a huge following, and everyone wants something they believe integral to the game.

I wrote a word wall lengthy opinion/ review of the game. There were some things that I know they could have down better other things I feel kind of just right, but im basing it personal preferences, people are free to disagree.

I really wish Bethesda didn't waste resources on Elder Scrolls Online though...and instead poured more into fallout 4.

Looking at it from a Sales point of view.. I guess this.
Witcher 3 sold 6 million copies in 6 weeks.
Fallout 4 sold 12 million copies in 24 hours.

Realistically no game can live up to the hype and expectations that were placed upon fallout 4.

I honestly see them doing more like the did with Oblivion and making DLC more akin to the Shivering Isles, where there are huge parts to explore. Enclave on the Moon and Underwater City... since 1/3 of the map is water.

the anticipation for DLC is killing me.

SgtSpectre wrote:

@AussieShepherd117
ahh gotcha, brain working faster than fingers.

i know but the hype turned out good for me since im a huge fan of building bases in games which fallout 4 added but yeah they need to make bad ass DLCs like isles 3 and New Vegas were a bit small but good overall waiting for the creation kit is the one that is really bugging me when that releases will have a infinite amount of quests being made maybe a Bioshock under water city now imagine that!!!

@AussieShepherd117

Yup, would love more places to see, or get on board the Chinese sub and see what happened to China. Imagine if like in FO3, but you actually have a working Air Craft Carrier show up....or with the GECK can you imagine setting up a base with like 3 Prydwens?

Just the ability to see and do... means I will probably have to get a better gaming laptop if I want to do all the things im dreaming... hrm

SgtSpectre wrote:

@AussieShepherd117

Yup, would love more places to see, or get on board the Chinese sub and see what happened to China.  Imagine if like in FO3, but you actually have a working Air Craft Carrier show up....or with the GECK can you imagine setting up a base with like 3 Prydwens?

Just the ability to see and do... means I will probably have to get a better gaming laptop if I want to do all the things im dreaming... hrm

the flying aircraft carrier from avengers would be alright but i would prefer a oil rig base like the enclave one in fallout 2 with a elevator that goes down into the ocean with a massive military complex at your disposal with a sub port too and have area where you could build a generals quaters for your off duty needs you know.

what specs is your laptop might i ask

AussieShepherd117 wrote:

you all sound like trolls ive played Fallout 4 for 250 hours still havnt finished the game this is the best Fallout ive played and ive played all the fallouts lot of people complain cause its not a RPG big woop did use know Fallout 1, 2 and tactics was a turn base game not a first and 3rd person view game might as well call it Elder Scrolls with guns right??.

and then you got guys saying it soo buggy i havnt seen many bugs let alone game breaking but i know Obsidian New Vegas was broken from the start while the fanboys try to hide that past yeah the game had many choices and factions but 4 atleast has four factions fallout 3 you could only side up with the BOS so i see that as a step up from Bethesda games.

New Vegas i can remeber got a craped on when it first launched everyone saying Fallout 3 was the best except for Fallout Turn Base Vets and now everyone decides to change they mind on the last minute same thing Skyrim people hated that talked crap about it two years later ten thousand mods later everyone saying its the best Elder Scrolls to play.

the settlement builder is the one of the greatest features i ever used in a fallout game and its based off a mod that was in 3 and New Vegas you guys just need to give the game some time mods does wonders when the Creation Kit comes out also since when has Bethesda been good at telling stories huh.

Don't get me wrong, it's a great game. It's just i expected more, i remember playing Oblivion and loving it so much, so i played Fallout 3; and i saw how cool this game was but heard the prequels were old games so i was hesitant to play them. Then New Vegas came out and seeing it; i thought "ehhh, just looks like Fallout 3 expansion." But i played it and enjoyed every minute of it, so i even got went to go play the first fallout and i saw how close it was and that fallout 3 felt more like a spinoff imo. Every Elder Scrolls game was great to play, especially Skyrim; me thinks it is because Bethesda started the Elder Scrolls. As opposed to Fallout i feel they neglected Fallout 1,2 and Tactics as they didn't give much to come from them.