Fallout 4 - Good Game, bad RPG @ PC Gamer

HiddenX

HiddenX

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Andy Kelly (PC Gamer) says: Fallout 4 is a good game, but a bad role playing game:
Fallout 4: good game, bad RPG

I’m loving Fallout 4. Wandering the wasteland, poking around in abandoned buildings, listening to chirpy ‘50s pop, fighting mutants. It’s a great game to lose yourself in on a cold winter’s evening. But as a role-playing experience I’m finding it disappointingly weak—to the point where I wouldn’t even call it an RPG. An open-world action game with role-playing elements would be a more accurate description.

The same could be applied to other Bethesda games, which are often described as being as broad as an ocean and as deep as a puddle. But Fallout 4 feels like their most restrictive game yet in terms of customisation, choice, and dialogue. The protagonist doesn’t feel like my character. The things I say don’t seem to matter. My high charisma is used to squeeze a few extra caps out of quest-givers and little else.

The term ‘RPG’ is pretty loose. We could argue for days about what is and what isn’t. But for me, an important part of any good RPG is being able to create and shape a character that’s unique to you. My Fallout 4 vault dweller, however, is vaguely the same as everyone else’s—he just wears a different hat. I mean, it’s a really nice hat. An ushanka I found in a bin. But it’s not enough. There’s no feeling of ownership.

The restrictions of the new dialogue wheel and the addition of a voiced protagonist have stripped away any chance to give your character a distinct personality. They’re either a good guy, or a sarcastic good guy. The single voice on offer is so obviously tailored to fit a generic-looking white guy—like the one they used in the E3 demo—that it sounds weird coming out of anyone else. These limitations feel out of place in a game that offers so much freedom elsewhere. I feel more attached to the rickety old shack I built in Sanctuary than the boring, unfunny dude I’m playing as. […]
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Journalist reports that apples are not oranges - discovers it's the most controversial thing he's said in his career!

Ah well, I commend his bravery. I was going to wait until everyone was a bit more burned out and less inclined to bother raging...
 
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Maybe a fair point, but a bit of a clickbait title. A game that is not really an RPG, but something different, is not a "bad rpg". I see no problem with an action game with rpg elements - if it's enjoyable, so be it.
 
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A discussion about what something is does not have to be a discussion about how good something is. Both apples and oranges are both tasty fruit, but apples are not sold as oranges and oranges are not sold as apples.
 
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Apples are not oranges, but there are still clickbait titles that promise a detailed "insight" into it so there.
 
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I agree on the character somewhat. They really made the character far to restrictive by being married with a child. The voice over (which I am lucky as I like the mans voice) and dialogue does add to the limits IMO. Just to be clear this is IMO. To me the marriage and child (which is the main quest-line) is very restrictive. I.M.O. I do my best to ignore "my son" and replace it with "my godson" :p

Otherwise really enjoying the game for what it is, versus bitching about what it isn't, and having a grand time playing.
 
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Ripper said:
Maybe a fair point, but a bit of a clickbait title. A game that is not really an RPG, but something different, is not a "bad rpg". I see no problem with an action game with rpg elements - if it's enjoyable, so be it.
Click to expand...

Well the problem is when that game is marketed as a RPG, and worse a Fallout RPG.
 
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So in his opinion the Witcher games are not RPG's either? I find a bit hard to believe. I do agree with done of what he woes bit yeah, clickbait it is.
 
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So in his opinion the Witcher games are not RPG's either? I find that a bit hard to believe. I do agree with some of what he writes bit yeah, clickbait it is.
 
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Why does he have to mention his thoughts about other games before his thoughts on Fallout 4 can be valid?
 
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Fallout 4 is a genre mix:
  • It is an adventure game with the focus on free exploring and world interaction
  • It is a crafting game (building towns and gear)
  • It is a sandbox game with generated quests and dungeon resetting
  • It is an RPG with lots of quests, a major story with choices and (some) consequences; NPCs, dialog options and character building
  • It is a shooter with lots of twitch action
 
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PC Gamer review-writing fellow said:
The single voice on offer is so obviously tailored to fit a generic-looking white guy
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There are of course two voices on offer, the second of which is not tailored to a generic-looking white guy.

I agree with his main point that the dialogue system is thin in FO4, especially when compared with F:NV.

But if you're looking for broader options for customizing your protagonist, it's odd to completely ignore the, uh, broad option that does exist.
 
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HiddenX said:
Fallout 4 is a genre mix:
  • It is an adventure game with the focus on free exploring and world interaction
  • It is a crafting game (building towns and gear)
  • It is a sandbox game with generated quests and dungeon resetting
  • It is an RPG with lots of quests, a major story with choices and (some) consequences; NPCs, dialog options and character building
  • It is a shooter with lots of twitch action
Click to expand...

So... one could argue F4 has a lot less RPG than one would expect an RPG to have if one was browsing games on the RPG metaphorical shelf? Or would you say the RPG parts are quantifiably dominant enough for other elements to be considered minor to the overarching RPGness?
 
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I would call it: Action open world sandbox RPG with crafting elements.
 
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Because the focus is more on solving quests than on shooting and the game features stats/skills.
 
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Interesting. I'm not an expert in Shooters at all, all I know of them is from watching other people play them, so I bow down to superior knowledge on the subject, but I could have sworn most Shooters are about people performing quests and occasionally increasing their stats in something or other. As I say, I'm no expert there.
 
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I'm not an expert as well but I thought shooters are about shooting things.
 
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