High Time Player general impressions WARNING SPOILERS

So I'm 16 days, 17 hours and 50 minutes into Fallout 4, 81st level. For those

curious as to how/why it was a perfect storm, unemployed but still with substantial

savings, single so no wife/girlfriend to nag at me about it. I was third in line

at my local gaming store the day it was released. I bought the game and the Xbone

as a package deal. (If any of my WOT buddies wonder where onedown disappeared to

now you know)

Gaming background: Played it all Fallout, Fallout 2, Fallout 3, New Vegas, Oblivion

and Skyrim, Not a Bethesda apologist. I fully believe those people could lock up

an abacus and that takes some real coding talent.

Personal Background: I'm an engineer and a programmer

Okay, enough about that. My experience/impressions. Warning SPOILERS definitely

follow.

My playthrough, solo, just me and the dog, normal difficulty, I sided with the

Railroad, the Prydwen is a pile of rusting girders and the Institute is a water

filled hole.

Overall I have been satisfied with the combat and exploration aspects of the game,

very few bugs encountered and I can count the lockups on one hand (yes I have had

several of these) but.... The game feels wooden and dry. My last foray into

fallout land was New Vegas, that game was an artistic masterpiece, the actual

artwork, the music and the characters themselves combined to raise the game to

greater than the sum of its parts. If New Vegas was a Monet Fo4 is a coloring book

for 5 year olds. The graphics are nice enough and the music doesn't get in the way

much but what really lets it down are the characters. The npcs are dry cardboard

cutouts. I read somewhere that like fifty kajillion lines of dialogue had been

recorded for the game. I haven't found them, the raiders all sprout the same dozen

odd threats and taunts and if I have to listen to the trader lady near the drive-in

talk about so and so rotting in hell one more time I'm going to be tempted to send

her along to keep him company.

In a published review I read how the reviewer was moved by the 'gut wrenching'

choice that to be made at the central plot point of Fo4. There are three factions,

only can live and none are true evil, at least not Enclave or Legion evil. I

wanted to laugh out loud. I too wanted to do the right thing but with the wooden

performances of the NPCs I had to struggle to care.

Now about power armor. It's everywhere. I haven't bought a single suit but I have

like 30 sets. I restore them and line the walls of my main residence at Red Rocket

station with them kind of like a modern Praetorian Guard. I have nearly twenty

suits waiting full restoration, so many that I'm having trouble parking them all.

And that raises a gripe point, two of those suits are listed as stolen. One I

jacked from a Minutemen traitor working for the gunners by shooting out his core

and

inserting my own after he bailed out. The other I got by shooting it's raider

driver before he got into it. Excuse me if I don't think armor taken from enemies

should be listed as 'stolen'. BTW, take the cores out of your armor when you get

out of it or someone might drive off with it.

Now about the settlement system and the Minutemen, they sort of go together and

both in a word SUCK! Where do I start, let's start with the Minutemen. Their

quests are endless. If you turn in one to good old Preston he'll give you another

or maybe two. If you try to be diligent you will never have time for anything

else. You literally have to avoid three things to have time for exploring or

other quests,

Never talk to Preston, never listen to Radio Freedom and never visit the Fort. One

time I got a mission to 'defend' the fort. I fast traveled in, killed the five

super mutants that were facing a wall of missile turrets then fast traveled out

before looting the bodies. I still ended up with like three settlement quests in

under a minute.

There are two kinds of settlement quests and I mentioned them both above. There

are the 'Main' quests, someones been kidnapped (and the kidnappers always come from

the same place for a given settlement), the settlement is being attacked by raiders

or super mutants (the massive bastions of missile laser and heavy machine-gun

turrets

I have erected are apparently powerless in this instance) or feral ghouls have

moved in half the map away and though two or three settlements closer to said

ghouls

are having no issue with them these people want them gone now. These quests are

timed, that means if you ignore them for too long you fail them. If this is

Bethesda's take on 'emergent' game play I'll tell you my take...FAIL

The other type of settlement quest goes in the miscellaneous quest category it is

the one I alluded to at the Fort. It simply says 'help defend xxxxxx'. The little

blurb pops up on the screen for maybe a second. If you miss it and fast travel

anywhere but the hapless settlement you fail it. That makes the settlement unhappy

and ends up with most of your stuff at that settlement broken. A case in point

Warwick Homestead, I get a lot of 'defends' here. I've got it down to a set of

concise steps when I get one. Step 1: Drop whatever I'm doing and fast travel

there, do not be in sneak mode, do not have a weapon ready. Step 2: Upon arrival

immediately pivot 90 degrees left and haul great gobs of *** as the devil's own

harmony section fires up with multiple swooshes, followed a second or so later by

multiple loud booms. Step 3: Turn around and survey where the attackers (general

super-mutants) were, there are no bodies just...gibbets and even these are

scattered

I generally have difficulty finding enough bits to loot everyone. The multiple

missile turrets that I have installed on both roof levels at this place have

shredded the attack in seconds. I've not fired a shot or even equipped a weapon

but if I don't show up the place gets trashed and I have to spend resources

repairing everything.

Unfortunately showing up does not guarantee your settlement still won't be trashed.

I look through my settlement list from time to time and I'll see things wrong.

Settlement X is showing no water or no defense and I know that's not right so I

mosey over for a looksee. Generally just activating build mode at the settlement

fixes things, the defenses are back and the water's fine but...on occasion the

numbers will suddenly all go south, corn rows, water pumps and turrets all fail

before my eyes. I'll stand there for a minute or two hoping the stuff will fix

itself (I have had crops repair themselves) then say a few choice words and start

fixing things. One time I repaired a laser turret only to have it fail again

before I turned away and had to fix it again....FAIL

Now about happiness. Happy settlers are productive settlers so I try to keep them

happy. I finally got around to fully electrifying Sanctuary Hills. I spent an

hour or so stringing wire and installing conduits then went inside and installed

lights and ceiling fans as well as the occasional TV. This was my oldest

setllement and it had been hovering at 9 people and about 80% happiness for the

bulk of the game. I was rather proud of myself and moseyed off to do other things

while waiting for the sure to come uptick at Sanctuary. The numbers didn't go up!

They tanked! The place now struggles to break the 60% happiness and I'm having

much more wonky data from the place. I've read that it might be linked to the TVs.

So something that was supposed to make people happy makes them unhappy...wtg

Bethesda.

Now let's talk about Howitzers. I've read other people think they're useless. In

my experience they are worse than useless they are a menace. I'd installed the big

guns at about half of my settlements before actually using one in anger. It was an

attack on the fort. I fast travel in to find a nice tight batch of super-mutants

and

puppies standing around a few hundred meters from the sallyport. I grin, equip a

smoke grenade and let fly. All is good....Nooooo all is not good before the tubes

can clear their throat the muties have broken out of their huddle and are swarming

up the ramparts, worse, my idiot settlers do not remain in their defenses but swarm

out to meet them where they immediately start taking damage from their own

artillery. Since I'm the one who called in said artillery that apparently counts

as an attack because when the green dufusses are dead they all turn on me!

While I'm rambling I have one more gripe. I understand that this is a post

apocalyptic game, things got blown to crap yada yada yada but do you think perhaps

I could actually find a broom that works. It should be possible to actually clean

up the places we choose to live. And while you at it give me the option to scrap

that half blown down piece of *** manor house so I can build something people

might actually want to live in. I find it ironic that I can build a much more

attractive abode in blocky, simplistic Minecraft that I can in Fo4.

Rant Off...

:)

 

New Skyrim Info from QuakeCon

GI's Reiner is getting about an hour with the game. He'll have more tomorrow.

Here is some prelininary stuff. I'll post the full Impression article when it becomes available.

Warning: Minor Spoilers

Link

Also, BTW less than 100 days to go!

 

Media Player Error Code(s) 0xc1010102 (0x80072ee2)

I am also having this problem. My general impression of Media Player for Xbox One is that it is very buggy.

 

It took you over 400 hours to decide you were unhappy? lol

To be honest, I love the game, but I think I would start to hate it at 400 hours. I'm at about 80 hours now and I MIGHT be able to do another 30 or so.

You are obviously super-unhappy with the game, why keep trudging along in it? That just seems odd to me.

Beth has never been known for dynamic followers. They can create an incredibly immersive, interactive world but they JUST CAN'T GET DOWN BASIC CONVERSATION OR FLUID HUMAN INTERACTION. But, they are improving. Skyrim characters were just flat out unacceptable.
My Skyrim follower, husband AND house carl had the same voice actor and said all the same rotated lines, which was ridiculous.

For an immersive world, bethesda is the best. For character development and believable conversation, Bioware is in a whole different league.

Fallout 4 isn't a perfect game, but neither was Fallout 3 or NV. I was aggravated at a long list of stuff in both games, but to me the overall games were great.

Some people say that when a game is great, don't fix what isn't broken. But did any of us want another Fallout 3 or NV with minimal changes? I know that for myself...someone who needs continual interesting cerebral input, I would have been bored 20 hours
in and ready to call it a day.

So I appreciate the changes. If you don't like building settlements, you can COMPLETELY ignore this aspect of the game entirely. If I'm not happy with the factions, how about skipping the main story-line? The companions bug me...okay, so travel with Dogmeat.
And if he bothers you too, travel alone.

Yes, a broom would be good...but what I was thinking is that it would be nice if you could return to a settlement to find that a few of your new settlers have spruced the place up a bit. I was hoping that would happen. Or that they would start rebuilding
some of the demolished houses. I know it's asking too much.

I agree about the radiant Minutemen quests....oh, how I hate those. I really hate them. I hate any radiant quest. Beth loves throwing those into the games they create. HATE!

Fallout 4 isn't perfect, but I'm still enjoying it a lot. Fallout 3 was a new, fresh idea and the world was a lot more stressful because we didn't know what to expect in the giant, threatening wasteland. Now we know. Now we wander around and have an idea
what we are going to find...a rad scorpion, a raider, an occasional deathclaw. There is only a drop of new here and there. Beth was teetering between not fixing what isn't broken, and giving us a fresh experience. It's the same spot most developers of
successful games find themselves in. Whatever way they lean, a huge percentage of fans are going to be disappointed.

Do I feel the same excitement and stress I did while playing Fallout 3? Not really. Nothing Beth does can recapture that. There were moments I'll remember from F4...like wandering around with Dogmeat in the swirling yellow-green clouds near the glowing
sea. That was new and I liked it.

 

I'm not so much unhappy as disappointed. I waited so long for this game I guess I just wanted....more. I wanted perfection and what I got was less. I know Bethesda, I expected bugs but I really expected an experience that would make the bugs worth it.
What I got was...less. Where are the weapon's display racks, the shelves that my little robots won't fall off of. C'mon Beth impress me.

 

"I wanted perfection."

Well there is your problem right there. lol

If perfection is your standard, you will be unhappy with everything in gaming and in life.

You sound like a whiner.

 

You know what they say about opinions and ***. Everyone has one, and some people are the latter.