arxon: From what I have seen so far Fallout 4 is dumbed down F3, with even worse dialogues. Given that Fallout 3 was bland and tasteless rubbish for me, I think I'll pass.
Gersen: I think the best description for Fallout 4 is one I read in some review : "
It's a much better FPS that Fallout 3"
If you want a competent action/adventure FPS with some slight RPG elements, and sandboxy thingy, set in the Fallout universe then Fallout 4 is for you and is actually quite good at that.
But if you expect a genuine sequel of F1 or F2 or even New Vegas.... then run away!
(This was originally a direct reply to you, but then it kinda evolved into a general rant, so... yeah)
Here's what I don't get... it's not like Fallout 3 actually DID anything with the RPG mechanics that Fallout 4 simplifies. Sure, you had to specialize in certain skills... except no, you actually didn't, because eventually you could be proficient in all of them without that much effort. And even if you somehow managed to avoid becoming a super jack of all trades, it wasn't like in the originals where your skills determined how you solved problems. In Fallout 3, character building just meant "what abilities and tools do I want to arbitrarily keep myself from being able to use?" So thank goodness it was so poorly balanced that you didn't end up being limited to pistols for 200 hours of gameplay.
This is the issue I've always had with that type of character building--it's basically just forcing you to miss out on content and abilities--and the original Fallout games only get away with it because they are built so heavily around limiting your character and forcing you to think within the box of your abilities. I've never understood how forcing the player to use only a fraction of the tools available to them is somehow "smarter" than giving them the freedom to use whatever tools they want. Apparently the gaming world is so backwards that giving you a few tools is "smart," but giving you all the tools? That shit is for casuals. Real gamers like being shut inside a box, damn it!
In Fallout 4, if you pick up a missle launcher and you find yourself in a situation where you want to use a missle launcher, you can use the freaking missle launcher. If you're ambushed by raiders out in the wasteland, you can use a pistol to defend yourself rather than having to accept the ambush as an RNG death sentence. If you decide 20 hours in that melee combat actually isn't that much fun and you'd rather be shooting gouls in the face, you can simply switch out your equipment instead of having to start a completely new game. You're given more freedom, plain and simple. How is that a bad thing?
Frankly, the character building from FO1/FO2 was ill-suited for the sort of game Fallout 3 was. And yes, Fallout 3 was a mockery of the originals, and in many ways a butchering of their vision. But in a sense, maybe it's better that the series made such a huge change. Maybe it's good that there's such a clear distinction between the original two games and the Bethesda games, in the same way that there's such a clear line between pre-RE4 Resident Evil and post-RE4 Resident Evil. Isn't it better for it to go in a completely different direction with a completely new set of strengths and weaknesses than to be a pathetic rehash living in the shadow of the originals? Or, put another way... do you really want Bethesda to pretend to be Black Isle? By focusing on the story and story-focused role playing? DO YOU REALLY WANT THAT??? No, none of use want that, because Bethesda is terrible at both those things. You know what Bethesda's great at? Making huge sandbox worlds and giving the player freedom to explore and interact with them however they wish.
And we could rage about Bethesda taking over a series known for exactly the opposite of what they are known for, and bemoan that Fallout 3 and Fallout 4 are really terrible Fallout games... but Fallout 3 came out 7 years ago. That horse is beaten, dead, and rotting in the ground. Its children are grown up. The practical thing to do is to accept its loss and move on. Not dig it up, sew some new skin onto it, and start beating it again.
(This seems like a rabbit trail, but it will make sense in a bit)
Fallout 3 still tried to be like the originals in some ways, and those were the worst parts of the game. Yeah, everyone's complaining about the simplified dialogue system in Fallout 4 (which I don't think is REALLY that simplified, if you look at the dialogue choices you had back in Fallout 3 and how many of them were glorified "advance dialogue" buttons to begin with). But look at it this way... you don't have to wander through as much of Bethesda trying and failing to be Black Isle! I don't know about everyone else, but I try to find the most direct path through Fallout 3's dialogue trees that I can. The less time spent reading dry exposition is more time spent exploring, and that's what Bethesda games are all about. Or, reconsider the aforementioned character building. Fallout 3's character building tried to be just like the originals, but it just served to highlight how poorly it failed at capturing their spirit, and also served as a gameplay irritation to boot.
The point of all these confused ramblings is this: there are different kinds of RPGs. Fallout 1 and Fallout 2 were RPGs in a "how does your character behave in this story?" sort of way. Fallout 3 and Fallout 4 (as well as the rest of Bethesda's library) are RPGs in the "what do you want to do in this world?" sort of way. When I play Fallout 1 or Fallout 2, I'm thinking about how my character would behave in a given situation, with their strictly limited set of skills. When I play Fallout 4, I'm enjoying the blank canvas that allows me to do whatever I want, whenever I want, and roleplay as whoever I want.
So yes, Fallout 4 is a "better FPS" than Fallout 3. Fallout 4 is overall a much better game than Fallout 3. Because it has more of its own identity. It doubles down on the things that worked about Fallout 3, and eliminates or streamlines the things that didn't. Some people are mistaking that for "dumbing down," but I would argue that it isn't. It's just the game realizing that it excells at "what do you want to do," not "what kind of character are you." It's the series detaching itself more from the original games. Which I would argue is actually far better than pretending to be them. And if you look at the changes, a lot of them serve to make exploring, experimenting, and yes even role playing (in the Bethesda sense) that much more enjoyable and open-ended.
