Fallout games (nuclear Skyrim type game)

[Ferris]

For no reason at all, I completely missed fallout 4 even though I'm an oblivion/skyrim super fan. Somebody recommended FO4 "it's quite good, lower your expectations and go for it!" so I bought a cheap copy for the PS4 and away I go.

Spoiler alert

Context: I played new Vegas and just couldn't get into it, the humour didn't land, I never fully understood the upgrading/crafting system, the pip boy felt shit to use, I never really knew where to go, plus I hate that fucking stupid percussive sound when you use the VATS targeting thing etc. As a result I was gonna give the FO4 a miss, but I thought - no! This is a cultural touchstone, I'm going to give it a fair crack of the whip!!

[close]

So far... I just hate it. I hate the graphics, the baddies are unlikeable, you die as easily and quickly as my herb garden, and combat seems an unhelpful and unintuitive mix of RPG and FPS that is not clicking for me at all. I don't really like the whole queasy, unwholesome radiation type setup to begin with. It never feels cozy, and I'm not enjoying my time playing it - I have a bit of a sensitivity around children (particularly infants) being upset so the intro chapter was not a fun time at all.

Am I mad? Yes, perhaps. Does it improve? I don't know, you tell me! Is FO4 good, and worth me playing? Have you ever played a fallout game and had a ruddy good time? Are there better ones out there? Do nuclear Armageddon games ever move past a grinding, repetitive scrape for survival? Have you ever been to Boston or Connecticut?

All this and more can be discussed here!!

[The Crumb]

I binned it off part way through. Maybe it radically improves towards the end, but I don't think you're missing much by giving up.

I feel like these Bethesda games rely on you feeling engaged with the world and setting and wanting to spend a load of time inhabiting and exploring it. If you're finding it offputting, there's not going to be much from the mechanics, narrative or characters to make up for it. Also for a game largely based on shooting things, the guns look and feel absolutely crap.

[Lemming]

Always hated Fallout 4 personally, the Fallout setting is unrecognisable and barely-there and the game itself never seems to tap into the same addictive loop that Skyrim does. Only ever did one full playthrough, given it a few more chances over the years and I never get more than two hours in before thinking "fuck it" and uninstalling.

As for the series as a whole, Fallout 1 is the best by far IMO, the only one where the setting feels fully realised and engaging. Writing-wise, all the other games are sort of following in its shadow, which is awkward because Fo1 is a complete story; none of the future games really have anything interesting to add to it and have to go off doing other stuff instead (parody in Fo2's case, big political shouting match in NV's).

If you're just looking for Oblivion or Skyrim with a different skin then Fo3 should be quite good, the world isn't quite as well-made as Skyrim's but it's got a far better go-to-dungeon/kill-shit/get-loot/leave-dungeon loop than Fo4 tends to have. In terms of writing it's a bit of a mixed bag, some awful stuff (including the entire main quest) but some interesting ideas in the sidequests.

As you mention, a big problem with the 3D ones is the FPS and RPG mix which doesn't work on any level and also horribly hampers quest design - Fo1/2 quests could be designed around combat not being a viable option for some builds, but in Fo3 and NV every player character can win every combat encounter with the right amount of backpedalling sideways up a mountain and shooting people below, so it's all trivialised. To be honest I don't think any of them are very good as games other than Fo1, you have to really be interested in the setting to connect with any of them beyond that, because Fo2 is terribly designed in some parts and 3/NV have some of the worst combat ever seen.

[letsgobrian]

I liked Fallout, Fallout 2 (with the fan patch to prevent it breaking awfully), New Vegas and 4. 3, I came to late, and it just frustrated me mechanically after New Vegas.

Ultimately I found 4's hobbled together camp building mini game more entertaining than the core story. The DLC, Far Harbor had a better constructed narrative in a smaller footprint.

But ultimately I think the joke has worn thin, and I've had my fill of the Fallout world now.

[Ferris]

Far Harbor had a better constructed narrative in a smaller footprint.

Assuming it's based on Bar Harbor, ME the fictional town has a direct sea link to my province which is quite exciting when you live in a bit of a backwater! I've done no research, please don't tell me if that's not the case.

But ultimately I think the joke has worn thin, and I've had my fill of the Fallout world now.

That's sort of where I've landed. I still don't know if it is a joke. Is it a piss take? A nihilistic laugh-em-up? Or a serious attempt to render what a post apocalyptic nuclear wasteland would look like? It ends up knackering whatever drama is in the games because I can't tell if it's being played for giggles or not.

I think I have reached the same conclusion though - I'm not really arsed about learning the lore of nuka cola or bottle caps or whatever the fuck. Thing is, people love these games so what am I missing?

I've added nothing there really have I? Go on then, why not post this reply anyway

[Ferris]

@The Crumb the guns feel absolutely dogshit to use. A 10mm pistol should feel properly substantive, but it's all just nebulous bollocksy nothingness.

@Lemming I'll investigate FO1 but frankly I'm making no promises.

For comparison's sake, I played through red dead redemption again for the first time in ages (I have save games on my PS3 from 11+ years ago). I finished it up last night and had an absolute blast for the whole 2-3 weeks worth of evenings it took - lots of heavy handed storytelling and one dimensional characters (the game is made by rockstar) but nothing outstays it's welcome, you get given a gameworld that feels worth exploring, and the sandbox element really works well.

That's a game I want to spend time with, and replaying it I got that hook pretty much right away even with the slightly shonky graphics and boring intro missions.

With FO4, I'm getting nothing. Shiny boiler-suited cunts making low grade quips while ungodly giant insectoids spit poison at me. Don't get radiation poisoning, here are some genuinely horrific visions of what that looks like! Look, blasted out middle class homes and not a single cunt alive!! Bad news, your guns are hopelessly ineffective!

It makes me want to log off and stop bothering.

[Oosp]

Fallout fans: I just saw a trailer today for a TV show of it, due on Amazon Prime in April 2024. Seemed redundant at first but actually looks decent.

I like FO3, NV and FO4 for different reasons and they drive me up the wall for different reasons. Haven't touched 76. Can't be fucked with main quests in Bethesda games. FO4 endgames really irritated me when I gave them a go cos of the interplay of various faction quests etc. And quest completion bugs are just too much to handle. Anyway, I'm not in it to win it. I want to dig in.

RDR2 is just so incredibly good that I don't see how another Fallout - which might as well be a series of westerns - could hope to compete. Starfield? No idea.

[Lemming]

Thing is, people love these games so what am I missing?

Best attempt at summarising the appeal:
Fallout 1 - it's a wonderful setting, grimy and unnerving, yet often hilarious and with a vein of hopefulness running through it. The game is a landmark for RPGs since it's arguably the first one where the focus was as much on interacting with characters and exploring the world as it was on fighting (to the point where you can complete the game without ever entering combat). It's basically trying to emulate the feeling of playing a tabletop RPG; it kind of manages it. The game is also very brief, about 6 - 8 hours long, so doesn't massively overstay its welcome unlike the others

Fallout 2 - same gameplay as Fallout 1 except everything is bigger and the tone is deliberately absurd and comical - the fourth wall gets broken constantly, there's a whole town based on Big Trouble in Little China, you can have sex a bunch of times. It's fun when you're about 17 years old, less so in retrospect. Really poor design in a few parts and combat encounters that push the limited mechanics far beyond their limits

Fallout 3 - lots of people's first introduction to the world, has a similar appeal to Morrowind/Oblivion/Skyrim in that you can walk around getting into fights and looking in dungeons. A lot of fans of Fo1/2 feel that the setting was badly mishandled by Bethesda here, which it was, but I think they came up with some things of value too, and the mishandling of the setting isn't really worse than in Fo2. It's worth checking out, especially if you just ignore the main quest for as long as you can

Fallout: New Vegas - people like the central ideological conflict at the heart of the story more than anything else, I think. If you manage to get invested in the setting then there's tons of interesting stuff to explore and people to talk to. Personally I find the game a little bit bland and sterile (much like Obsidian's other title The Outer Worlds) and the gameplay itself is still pretty dull, but the central ideas are great

Not a popular opinion from what I've seen, but to me Fallout is one of those things that just didn't ever need a sequel, and to which there's nothing meaningful anyone could add, hence the disparate and aimless feel of the sequels. Diminishing returns every time and by the time of Fo4 it's not even recognisable anymore. I think 2, 3 and NV are all worth playing to various degrees and I've spent hundreds of hours on them but I'd kind of be just as happy if they'd never existed. This is a weird way to try and sell someone on the series, I know.

[Mobius]

I've tried replaying fallout 4 but the shitty dialogue system, crap storyline, awful boring factions all make it suck. They do dumb stuff like give you power armour and fight a death claw like 3 minutes into the game

Exploring the world is quite fun, but that's about it.

[Mister Six]

Fallout 1 - I think Lemming's got it about right here; felt like a proper little world full of interesting characters and lore (although the first town you get to is really badly written; don't let it colour your opinion of the rest of the game), and gets the "play it your way" thing exactly right, by giving lots of solutions to the various problems so that any build can make it to the end one way or another. Sadly, the turn-based combat and shit ally AI (no, Ian, do not burst-fire that machine gun when I'm stood right in front of you) make it tough going nowadays.

Fallout 2 - Same again, but with QoL improvements (you can at least regulate the shit ally AI so that they favour weapons or combat styles that are unlikely to leave you riddled with bullet holes), about 50 times bigger and an absurd number of sidequests, secrets and alternative routes. Personally, I love it just for the mad sandboxiness of it - the "do what you want" thing dialled up to 11. Shag a stranger and get hitched in a shotgun wedding when their dad catches you in flagrante! Slip live grenades into the inventories of thieving little pickpockets! Level up your agility and stamina so you can become a porn star - then watch as most of your ally NPCs make their excuses and leave because they're embarrassed! Play with 1 intellect and be barely able to communicate with anyone, but somehow have a really intelligent conversation with a radscorpion!

I get why the wackiness puts off boring wankers serious players, but I loved it - a continual delight of "Can I do this...? My god, I can!" You can feel the joy and enthusiasm of the designers as they just throw idea after idea into this mad melting pot.

Downsides: the unpatched game is (as you'd expect) riddled with bugs, and the opening tutorial, which takes place in a temple full of traps, is painfully boring (although you can sweet-talk or knock out the guy who's making you take the test if your build is right). And it's still janky and turn-based. Still, I love it.

Fallout Tactics - Never played it. Seemed like the least fun part of Fallout (the combat) minus the most fun part (exploring the world and talking to people).

Fallout 3 - Bethesda does a Bethesda. Fun(ish) 3D world with some good setpieces here and there, but weirdly thin and underwhelming. The main story is a boring retread of 2 minus the grandeur, there aren't many side quests and everything looks like it's drenched in snot. The attempt to convert the first game's RPG system into an FPS environment doesn't really work, and is somehow both too simplistic and too fiddly. The characters are mostly boring, and the ending of the main story underwhelming.

Fallout: New Vegas - Some of the OG Fallout bods return and get it right. The systems are overhauled and the game design improved to make other playstyles more useful (although combat is inescapable). Sidequests have tons of paths and methods of completion, and the boring good/bad karma system that never did much in F3 is replaced with reputation levels for the (multiple) factions and settlements.

More than that, I think the worldbuilding is great, and wonderfully joined-up. You start out in a little town plagued by bandits. Why? They escaped the nearby prison. Why? The New California Rangers lost control of the area. Why? Their resources are stretched thin by Caesar's Legion. Why? Caesar wants to take control of the Hoover Dam. Why? It's the only major source of electricity, and it's currently being used to power the New Vegas Strip. Why? Because it's controlled by Mr House, and he's trying to keep autonomy for the Strip with an uneasy alliance with the NCR.

You can follow so many of these little threads, all connecting to this larger, pretty coherent world where actions over here will impact people over there - unlike Fallout 3, which felt like you were wandering around a bunch of unconnected dioramas.

And as with the first two games, the protagonist is a total cypher, so you can play him or her however you like.

Fallout 4 - Bethesda does a Bethesda even harder. The dialogue tree is stripped back to a boring Mass Effect-style limited selection of "Yes"/"Sarcastic yes"/"No (yes)". Quests are linear, and usually just involve killing baddies. Combat is simplified to a fault. Non-combat abilities are almost entirely useless outside of the Far Harbor DLC (and then they're mostly just a way to get a few extra XP). The characters and situations are all boring rehashes of stuff we've seen before. There's a "protect the settlements" thing that just turns into a fucking chore. You can build settlements by scavenging parts and designs, but the system is restrictive and awkward, and it's a huge pain in the arse to make anything that doesn't look like dogshit.

The graphics are hugely improved, at least, and the environments are great. But it's mostly a really disappointing experience if you dug 1, 2 or NV. I still put a ton of hours into the game, but ran out of steam well before finishing it. I tried playing it again this year, but found the endless wandering and rifling through filing cabinets for mugs and discarded pencils that I could turn into turret guns at my settlement just kind of depressing, like what the fuck am I doing with my life?

That might just be me though.

[druss]

Minute to minute I found the gameplay in Fallout 4 to be the most fun and if that is not clicking for you then it's unlikely that you will suddenly begin to like it. The other games do pretty much everything else (other than graphics basically) better, but if the setting of 4 is completely unappealing then I'm not sure any of the other games will hook you in, even if the world building, characters and rpg elements are much better.

[Blue Jam]

Thought Fallout 4 looked right up my street. Hated it. Gave New Vegas a chance and didn't like that either.

Hope this helps.

[Ferris]

Thought Fallout 4 looked right up my street. Hated it. Gave New Vegas a chance and didn't like that either.

Hope this helps.

I'm in good company, at least.

[oggyraiding]

Hated Fallout 4. The base building/defence thing is bad, the fact you get power armour and down a deathclaw in the first half an hour was bad, the story in general was bad. I think the only thing it did well is making the power armour feel like power armour with its need for fusion cores to fuel it. New Vegas I liked a lot but it suffered from the limitations of the hardware at the time - the "bustling" New Vegas strip felt sparsely populated. FO3 was fine. FO2 I felt had a terrible start if you didn't spec into melee weapons. FO1 is the best in the series in terms of gameplay and story.

[druss]

Is Fallout 76 worth playing? I know that it had a dreadful launch but I keep seeing articles pop up saying that it's worth playing now. Not sure if I believe that.

[The Culture Bunker]

Never played 1 or 2 - picked up 3 on a whim and enjoyed it a lot, except the ending, though the DLC made that slightly less of an issue.

New Vegas ticked most boxes for me, and Boone remains a favourite character in all gaming for me.

4 I played through to the end and enjoyed some aspects, but greatly disliked the story (too predictable) and that Minutemen clown mithering every ten minutes or whatever. Nick Valentine was great, though.

I did try Wastelands 3, which I gather was something of a throwback to the style of the first two Fallout games, but got bored somewhere between 40-60% of the way through.

[Ignatius_S]

I liked Fallout, Fallout 2 (with the fan patch to prevent it breaking awfully), New Vegas and 4. 3, I came to late, and it just frustrated me mechanically after New Vegas.

Ultimately I found 4's hobbled together camp building mini game more entertaining than the core story. The DLC, Far Harbor had a better constructed narrative in a smaller footprint.

But ultimately I think the joke has worn thin, and I've had my fill of the Fallout world now.

Josh Sawyer said that the development of New Vegas was heavily influenced by the modding community for 3 and that really came across. With mods, the difference mechanically between 3 and NV wasn't that great but playing vanilla, NV was basically 3.5.

The faction system in NV had potential and wasn't a terrible first go, but it was very flawed.

[Ignatius_S]

Is Fallout 76 worth playing? I know that it had a dreadful launch but I keep seeing articles pop up saying that it's worth playing now. Not sure if I believe that.

Through a lot of updating and expansion packs, things are greatly improved but it's fairly marmite. If someone likes Fallout and multiplaying, it's worth trying.

[AliasTheCat]

I never had a PC, so I started with the third one after getting hooked on Oblivion and really enjoyed it at the time. I loved New Vegas even more probably and think it was an amazing achievement in the very limited time they had to make it, but the fourth one was a disappointment and I don't think I ever finished it- it just seemed lacking to me somehow and I didn't get the joy of exploration and immersion in the world with it I'd felt in the previous games.

[evilcommiedictator]

There's a full mod for New Vegas, New California, which is a prequel to New Vegas, which has rave reviews.
I love New Vegas after growing up with 1, 2 and Tactics (you like combat, well, here's COMBAT). Sure, people can do Int 2 (I can't speak English) playthroughs of 1 and 2, but I'm not that hardcore

There's a ton of isometric turn-based post-apocalyptic stuff out there, but you want FPS style?

[Rev+]

Hated Fallout 4. The base building/defence thing is bad, the fact you get power armour and down a deathclaw in the first half an hour was bad

A completely moronic 'waaay, check out the sort of thing you'll be able to do in about 20 hours' move that breaks the whole pace of the thing from the off.  It's mystifying why they felt the need to do it, as Fallout was a known quantity at that point, they didn't have to go all showbiz in the first hour.

New Vegas is the only good Bethesda one really - Fallout 3 is a solid game, and had a bit of novelty at the time but fuck me it's dreary, and NV completely outclassed it very quickly.  The well seems very dry at this point.  Nobody's particularly waiting for a Fallout 5 announcement, are they?

[Thursday]

Dunno, I'd like a fallout 5 if it wasn't anything to do with Bethesda. Need something built from the ground by a better studio. The more I think about Starfield, the more I'm angry about it, even though I quite liked the 28 hours I put into it.

[Ferris]

Dunno, I'd like a fallout 5 if it wasn't anything to do with Bethesda. Need something built from the ground by a better studio. The more I think about Starfield, the more I'm angry about it, even though I quite liked the 28 hours I put into it.

We're in the wrong thread for it really (?) but 28 hours is not that much for a sandbox type game, and something like skyrim has players clocking literally thousands of hours.

Why can the same studio (that has such limited streams of output) have such success with elder scrolls, mixed success with the fallout series, and basically failure with starfield even though they're all the same sort of game.

It's quite odd, I'm sure it isn't unique to Bethesda but they have so much money it's a bit odd.

[Thursday]

Yeah I know it's not a lot really, I got bored and stopped but consider that enough to have given it a fair shake.

I usually hate when "gamers" talk about "engines" because it's generally a far more complicated thing then we understand, and building a new "engine" for a Bethesda game like this would be a huge undertaking. But I think the games are showing their age to an absurd degree now, and need a complete refresh. I think a problem with Fallout 4 (and Starfield.) is despite some upgrades, you can almost see that ancient code plodding along. People accept these as compromises for what these games offer. But lots of other games have far surpassed it now.

Not to mention Fallout 4 (and Starfield) moved away from what people actually like best about 3/New Vegas/Elder Scrolls games by focusing more on action. And they aren't even good action games, it's just that the guns feel a lot better than they did in 3/New Vegas, but that's an extremely low bar to clear.

[Lemming]

With Starfield I wonder if (in addition to the obvious issue of having no consistent world to explore as in every previous game), it's motly a case of botching the setting. People are prepared to accept pretty awful gameplay mechanics as long as they get to walk around an interesting world, as has been the case since Morrowind with its terrible click-spam combat and nonexistent enemy/NPC AI.

I don't think the characters and setting of Starfield really interested anyone - the only character I can immediately even recall is Sarah. But slap a couple of aliens in, make it so that it's steampunk in space or some shit like that, put some amusingly over-the-top companions in (eg Astarion, who seems to have become the face of BG3 at this point) and they might have had another hit on their hands, even with the withered husk of the Gamebryo engine visibly starting to crumble away.

[Ferris]

I haven't played it but as far as I can tell, Starfield's biggest crimes are a) being mediocre, and b) diverting 10+ years away from a new Elder Scrolls game.

[Mister Six]

If you can get past the presentation, you might be interested in this breakdown of Starfield's flaws, many of which revolve around the engine just not being capable of rendering the experience that the devs want, especially when No Man's Sky is out there doing it already:

I felt similarly about The Outer Worlds. Part of the appeal of 3D RPG-inflected action games is exploring a big, joined-up world, seeing something on the horizon and making your way to it while finding all kinds of things along the way. You can't have that experience if, instead of one big world, you have seven or eight (or more) smaller maps joined by a menu screen - especially when those maps are different planets with their own societies and concerns.

TOW had plenty of other problems, of course...

[Thursday]

Yeah had that video in mind, pretty good analysis really.

[Thursday]

With Starfield I wonder if (in addition to the obvious issue of having no consistent world to explore as in every previous game), it's motly a case of botching the setting. People are prepared to accept pretty awful gameplay mechanics as long as they get to walk around an interesting world, as has been the case since Morrowind with its terrible click-spam combat and nonexistent enemy/NPC AI.

I don't think the characters and setting of Starfield really interested anyone - the only character I can immediately even recall is Sarah. But slap a couple of aliens in, make it so that it's steampunk in space or some shit like that, put some amusingly over-the-top companions in (eg Astarion, who seems to have become the face of BG3 at this point) and they might have had another hit on their hands, even with the withered husk of the Gamebryo engine visibly starting to crumble away.

It's an interesting point. In Elder Scrolls you have Khajit, Argonians, and Elves (And factions within the elves). Fallout has Ghouls, Mutants, comedy robots, and more sophisticated androids. Would have been interesting if Starfield went for a more fantastical kind of Sci Fi.

[Ferris]

@Mister Six I'll give that a watch, thanks!

I wonder what the internal feeling on Starfield was like pre-launch. They must have known it was a bit of a dog egg but hoped there was enough in there to convince players, especially when combined with a critical mass of paid-for rave reviews from games journalists who never give anything less than 8/10.

Maybe they thought it was genuinely good. Who knows.