I kinda want to check out The Witcher beforehand.
The Witcher is superb, was a clusterfuck on launch.
I don't mind people who are actually playing it critiquing it (without spoilers), or people commenting generally when it's just pre-launch stuff but when it's out to buy/play the discussion should be more about the actual gameplay.
DS/Phonics/Shindig have done nothing but post repeatedly about how they don't like the series. Ok, fine, but you don't need to endlessly bang on about it. I think PES is a load or arsewank but I don't post in there every day mocking their shit translations and assbackwards approach to licensing.
Actually I've read a post I missed and get what you mean, my bad.
EDIT: @Yev.
Nobody is posting every day, it started yesterday and you've had a few negative posts (primarily about Bethesda from me) amongst those having a great old time with it. I'll have it tomorrow and if I fall in love with it, I'll be delighted. You can have contrasting points pre/post release, and among the many many tales of wonder this game is bringing, there's quite a lot about game breaking bugs, glitches, missions not completing and all sorts of wonkiness.
As there was about The Witcher and seemingly every game on release this gen.
Back to the game, I've done the first couple of missions now on Survival mode and it's going just fine - that difficulty feels easier (so far) than New Vegas on hardcore mode, or Skyrim on Legendary, albeit VATS is pretty nerfed compared to how effective it was on FNV, let alone Fallout 3.
That intro is a thing of serious beauty and sets the ton perfectly.
I'm 5 hours in and just got back to my settlement for the first time, it's brilliant so far![]()
It was simple up until I came up against those ghouls. I hate shit that lurches at you in gamesI'm definitely going to shit my pants while exploring some underground cave thing.
Feral ghouls launching themselves at you then killing them with VATS as they lie on the floor is great though. I'm in agreement about the shitting yourself in a cave down the line though, bit like the screaming zombies in Half Life 2![]()
I haven't arrived there yet, but this is good news. I faffed about with my character for ages before I left the vault but now I'm thinking that I'm looking a bit too boyish for the apocalypse.
I need some more intimidating clothes as well. I've still got my jumpsuit on, which makes me look like a janitor. I need to get a bit of a gunslinger look at the go, like Preston Garvey.
Stuff I like, though. The general loot lust that seems to be going on. More variety in guns and such. And shooting free range is a bit more viable although I still look at it and think VATS is the way to go. Sounds like there's no major benefit to the base building so I can happily skip that or let places go to ruin.
Why does Power Armour have health and degrade, yet no other armour or weapons do?
Am I missing something?
Preston Garvey is a complete dick. Anything I say or do that Jesus would frown upon, Preston disliked that. So I punched him in the face and he went back to Sanctuary.
Lone Ranger now.
I also can't leave my jumpsuit, but that's because I'm finding NPC's come out with some good lines when I'm wearing it and I've got a few side quests as a result of wearing it around town.
Well I've spent about 45 minutes just slowly searching through the first village you come to. I've done nothing and I bloody love it.
The very beginning of Fallout games are always so weirdly entertaining. Literally everything - toasters, footballs, a crappy suit - is exciting to me. Sooner or later the novelty will wear off, but I'm enjoying the shit out of this while it lasts.
Reminds me of how I spent about an hour and a half in the first mini-hub of Human Revolution snooping about people's flats and checking there was nothing I'd missed in some random alley.
I've just spent about an hour removing everything I can from Sanctuary and them I'm going to build a fucking barrier wall around the whole place.
Mental.
Get most of your building and cleaning over and done with whilst you're there.
Later on you just don't have the inventory space for all the toasters and wonderglue that you need to build defense turrets.
I've got a box full of junk at my house in Sanctuary, waiting to be turned into water pumps.
That's enough for today, 18 hours in, one main storyline mission completed (I think that was actually the opening mission getting out the vault). The second halfway through.
I genuinely would say this is the most immersive world Bethesda have ever built, I've never taken things quite this slowly.
I'm also close to having a sexual relationship with a French robot..
I've died three times, shit myself in Concord and can't figure out how to do a damn thing.
I. Fucking. Love. It.
Test.
Wait, you can build up a place? How do I do this?
Test.
Go to Sanctuary and start scrapping stuff (ruined buildings, tires, trees) and build.
I've built a fuck off fence around all of Sanctuary for my first settlement, up to level 6 (4 perk points still to play with) and now I'm off to Diamond City in the hope of selling some shit and finding some proper ordinance.
Okay, Giantbomb are giving PC and console versions of this separate reviews. 4/5 PC. 3/5 console.
I think I'll end up just reading about it and watching videos rather than taking the plunge, I can't really give timesink games like this the attention they require nowadays.
How do you build a contained room for a shitter in your house?
You have to build a toilet in your house?
What is this, The Sims?
You don't have to, but you can.
Sorted now anyhow.
I thought I'd pretty much ignore the settlement building, but it's actually quite a good little diversion. I think I'm going to spend some time tarting up Sanctuary, and most importantly, finding something cool to wear before doing the missions.
Just had my first nuclear storm too, which was a nice touch.
I think I might clean up Sanctuary first before exploring further than Concord, assuming I've got a nice 'base' to travel back to would be great. As a total novice at this, can one create vaults and such? I've generally just been going into every house and place I could find picking up junk.
Must say aside that the game looks fucking stunning as well.
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Test.
Regarding that encounter.
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Here's Eurogamer's guide to settlement building which is quite handy if anyone's struggling.
Fiarplay, that little FMV sequence at the beginning might be the best thing Bethesda have ever written. The rest of the intro, less so.
Yep - That and the first hour's play sets the scene so well.
Agreed, the first hour sucked me right in, before I knew it I'd put sunk 4 hours into the game and it was 2am.
Much appreciated for the building guide as well.
Assuming this game is one that isn't linear, appears to quite a few side quests I've gathered so far, albeit the one at the flooded quarry showed my tiredness. Managed to think that jumping into water with power armour on wouldn't lead to me sinking to the bottom and certain death.
Test.
All the jazz before you get out into the wasteland is horrible. Enjoying scavenging everything currently, it all feels a bit clunky but I can get around that.
Are you playing windowed mode?
http://www.postcount.net/forum/showt...minal-Bug-FOV)
Fixes for the fps drops that made it clunky there.
Test.
I'm on PS4. I meant clunky as in using the pip boy, and that whole building a base thing which having spent five minutes with I won't be bothering with again.
Downtown Boston.
On the downside, some of the criticisms about fps issues (or Slowdown as I like to call it) are starting to rear their head and they're not great - certainly worse than anything in F3, FNV or Skyrim.
General verdict chaps? Do I pick it up on payday or wait for the inevitable patches and updates?
I've only put in 20 hours and have still barely scratched the surface, so it's too early to judge fully, but from what I've experienced so far, it's very very good.
Engine is awful, animation/lip-syncing and all that is laughable, but in general its fun if dated. VATs is still rewarding and looting as ever is addictive.
I caught a glimpse of their ghoul models yesterday. Its like sentient rice pudding. Thinking about giving the PC version a shot at some point.
The art direction (if that's the right term) makes the most of what are probably modest (but not that bad) graphics and as a result it's stunning to look at a times and feels really immersive.
Yeah there are moments where it looks stunning, and then moments where its a bit nah pal, thanks for the effort.
So are Bethesda not taking advantage of the new gen consoles (they still seem new to me despite having been around a while) or are the consoles themselves just not that much of a leap forward?
They're a hell of a leap forward (see Bloodborne, Witcher 3 and others), its just a generation of games half borked on release.