About 2 1/2 hours in... I'll post some thoughts.

The game is vibrant in terms of a Bethesda game. If you like Bethesda games, there's a good chance you'll like Fallout 4's environmental work. I agree with others that the conversation "wheel" (It's actually 4 arrows, one in each direction) feels out of place and disjointed.

Skyrim with Guns? Hell no. While gun combat does feel more organic and closer to an fps, this is something fans of the franchise have asked for since Fallout 3. Bethesda's trying to give people what they were told people want in this regard. Melee is still Bethesda melee.

Base building is not basic. I just spent 20 minutes scrapping parts for materials to craft beds, and I haven't even started crafting defenses for my settlement yet, not to mention a water system or generator.

The only major glitch I've noticed is that sometimes subtitles for dialogue get stuck until the conversation is over - for example, you could be talking with someone, and the second dialogue branch they speak stays up in subtitles until your conversation is over. This only happened a couple of times, though.

Honestly I don't buy into hype for any game, I buy games I have a valid interest in, not games I'm told are good. I go in with appropriate expectations based on previous games of the developer and/or series, and in this case I am not disappointed so far. YMMV.

I watched read Steam reviews and then watched some letsplay for 3 hours and there are 2 things I absolutely hated.

1. Skills are gone. Skill system was the backbone of Fallout games and what I loved the most. Its not Fallout if there are no skill system. Its just a shooter with some low RPG elements.

2. Conversation sucks. I dont use the word "suck" often but this time I dont have many options. The guy tells you something and your options are...

* Yes
* No
* Sarcasm
* Good

What the hell? And there are ALWAYS 4 options. You cant ask any question you want. You are stuck with some stupid predetermined options which usually doesnt say what you think it says.

Its not a good idea to judge a game with only a few hours letsplay but for me Bioware and Bethesda are slowly killing the meaning of RPG. Less thinking, more fighting.

Thats exactly what I said it would be like ages before. Am not sure what people thought it would be like, I mean Beths aren't known for originality (do you start as a prisoner or is that only the ES series?). Will pick it up in a few years when the complete (yes, you have at least 2 years now where they milk it madly, dlc, patches, ultimate edition, gold edition, goty etc.), then they will move onto ES: reskin 2018 and you will be able to get the final version, plus most elements will have been modded into playability by then. And yet it seems people can't be parted with their cash fast enough, fascinating idiocy.

Skills are gone?

Played it for about 5 hours now so think it is long enough time to put down my thoughts. I am both happy and saddened by the way the game is made.

I love Fallout bought the original back when first released and followed it onwards ever since (even bought the game twice here 1 interplay and then when Bethesda sold it. 2nd time was a thanks for giving us the games back and letting other people enjoy it DRM free).

I do like the atmosphere, character creation is pretty good (spending 20 minutes creating my pc), gun play has improved and i like how vats works now.

The graphics in places are good and i like it is more interesting than the pretty barren landscapes of Fallout 3 and New Vegas. Texture quality is not brilliant but better than previous Fallout games.

Skill system gone i was not keen on this at all as it was one of the great things of deciding which skills get what but as the target audience seems to be getting more causal each game they probably find it just interferes with the gun play.
The perk system is a fair compromise though and once you get used to it it works ok.

The downsides are the usual bugs (alt-tab the game just crashed it until a patch arrived and so far no more crashes), Story well seems to be on par with Fallout 3 but until i finish the game i cant say for certain.

I dont like the new conversation system few choices and difficult at times to know what to choose. Think this is due to it now being fully voice acted need to save money somewhere by cutting down the lines spoken.

The worst thing is ui and controls. They are basically shove the console ui and change a couple of things. Key combinations are weird for instance previous games used V for VATs now it is Q. Mouse seems not as responsive especially using pipboy (might be just me) just wish they done a proper ui for pc owners cant be that hard or time consuming.

I do like to explore so i will be going through as many places as possible but am i the only one who thinks world map feels smaller that Fallout 3 when looking on pipboy?

Anyway thants my thought it is a good enough game but not what i was hoping for but that is not to say it isnt fun and think i will be spending a lot of time in Boston.

Yeah, there is no level of skill to progress the character (like Small Guns, Big Guns, Medecine etc.). Perks and skills are merged with S.P.E.C.I.A.L. and you no longer need to have a perk like Intense Training to level up S.P.E.C.I.A.L. stats. Level + skill requirements for perks is gone and now only has S.P.E.C.I.A.L. stat requirements (i.e. Strength 1 required, Charisma 2 required).

That just alone should just justify Bethesda geting booed.... Oh well, I guess it's time I finally get to try Wasteland 2, it has been waiting for so long in my library.... Gonna make me an all-female amazon squad ^o^

I did that in one of my runs. The ass-kicking was delicious!

Back 4 hours later........ Well, I uninstalled the game, didn't like it, wasn't quite as I expected :sadpandaface :(

They have earned a lot of enemies in gaming community (bad pricing decisions in certain regions, bad game design decisions, etc).
The result is in the game's reviews from customers.
I personally do not have even slightest wish to defend Bethesda.

Was watching Mack play the game and he noticed something I bet most players miss.

You get to use VATS during the vault escape before you get your Pip-boy. How is that possible? I thought about it for a second, then realized that the answer is probably more scary than the question.

To quote President John Henry Eden: "The answer is really quite simple. Incompetence! Incompetence at the highest echelons of power! We put our trust, our faith...in halfwits! Our intrepid developers had everything they wanted. Power, wealth, prestige. And it made them lazy, America, oh yes. And laziness breeds stupidity."

No, John. You are the Pip-boys.

* popcorn time again *

https://steamcommunity.com/app/377160/discussions/0/496881136900685483

This is one thing i only saw mentioned once in reviews --- probably cause most of them played their review copies on xbone or ps4 but still - is it true the keys are not remappable?.