Are open world games a bit boring now?

[Zetetic]

Bethesda has remained the developer of note for open world gaming

This might be true, but please don't say it as it's far too depressing.

Even though they fucked up the morality options of Fallout 4,

Is there any part of the main story that isn't unutterable bilge in the context of the rest of it?

[Zetetic]

each location you visit will have some integral part to play at least at one point in the game rather than being filled with npcs who have lost a tome in a dungeon that you can retrieve for cash

There are choices in between those, I think, which allow for role-playing games - where you have distinct stories, but stories that are clearly grounded in the same world and, possibly, touch on some of the same things that the 'main' story seems to be concerned with.

(The challenge for the last of these is that the main story has to be about something in the first place.)

[Mister Six]

Is there any part of the main story that isn't unutterable bilge in the context of the rest of it?

Is there any part of F4 other than the world map, graphics and basic gameplay that isn't mediocre at best? I can't remember any notable stories, characters or scripted moments. Maybe Swan, I guess, but that's thin gruel.

[Zetetic]

USS Constitution, perhaps. (Fuck me, on reflection this is also possibly the most interesting bit in the whole game about sentience and the right to self-determination...)

I generally find it hard to say: there are a few ideas that I find compelling but the execution is generally poor. Nick, and his 'personal quest', falls into that.

[Mister Six]

USS Constitution, perhaps. (Fuck me, on reflection this is also possibly the most interesting bit in the whole game about sentience and the right to self-determination...)

I generally find it hard to say: there are a few ideas that I find compelling but the execution is generally poor. Nick, and his 'personal quest', falls into that.

Bollocks, I never went to the USS Constitution, which is daft since it looked really interesting in screenshots. I always just somehow veered around the location.

I'd completely forgotten about Nick, which says something doesn't it? Possibly about me more than him, admittedly. What was his personal quest? He's a copy of a police officer who was killed by a long-dead (or ghoulified?) gangster? Something like that?

Not a patch on Boone's backstory, and the chilling fate of his wife, in NV, that's for sure.

[Zetetic]

That's the most accurate summary of Nick's personal quest possible- being any more precise certainly wouldn't add it!

Nick's voice acting and look does a lot of work compared to his actual writing.

I don't want to mislead you about the USS Constitution - it's brief, a bit fun, and I found it enjoyably silly (rather than outright stupid). It has some characters with a motivation that's not miserable or incoherent. For those reasons it stayed with me. And you get a hat.

[Mister Six]

I'll probably give it a whirl. I still haven't tried the Nuka-Cola DLC and I have a streak of masochistic pig-headedness (and cheapness) that will bring me back to F4 for that reason eventually.

Christ, can you imagine something made in this engine with the writing and RPG mechanics of an Obsidian game? It's a fucking tragedy that we'll never get to see something like that.

[Zetetic]

Who knows - Bethesda is a funny organisation, it seems.

(I've still got F:NV DLC to play...)

[Mister Six]

Who knows - Bethesda is a funny organisation, it seems.

(I've still got F:NV DLC to play...)

Which ones? They're all great except Honest Hearts, which is just a bit bland, so get that one out of the way first.

(Also invest in light step and a melee or unarmed skill before starting Dead Money.)

[Zetetic]

Everything except Honest Hearts (which I liked) in fact.

(I can see why HH might be bland, particularly compared to what I know of the settings of the others. I think I went for that one first, years ago, because both Joshua and other forms of civilisation appealed more than anything about the old world.)

[Mister Six]

I think it suffered a bit in my estimation by coming out after Dead Money, which has a far more elaborate, evocative and unusual setting, and mixed up the gameplay a bit by being more of a survival Horror experience. To go from that to another big desert and an extension of the tribal/Legion plotlines from the main game felt a bit underwhelming. Perhaps my opinion would change upon replaying it, and would have been different if I'd tackled HH first.

I'd suggest doing the remaining DLC in the order of Dead Money, Old World Blues and then Lonesome Road. Up to you, though. Do let me know what you think - I'm intrigued to find out.

[Lemming]

As long as we're onto New Vegas, Dead Money was far and away the best of the DLC for me. I didn't like Old World Blues at all, weirdly, since it seems to be widely viewed as being superb.

Lonesome Road should definitely be played as late in the game as possible, right before the Battle of Hoover Dam.