There are threads about jank and for tips and stuff, but I guess there should be a thread to just talk about, like... the game?

I've put in almost eight hours so far and am having a lot of fun. I think the overall world looks really nice, and some of the lighting is fantastic, especially inside caverns and buildings or outside when it's all foggy.

The settlement customisation stuff has been a lot more fun than I expected it to be and has kinda been the highlight of the game for me so far. I look forward to seeing how deep that stuff can get (running power lines already seems like it could be complicated if you don't plan right) and how big the settlements can be

Also I was so eager to play that I kind of rushed through the character creation and COMPLETELY FORGOT about the whole recorded name thing, which is kind of a bummer. I don't know if I would have chosen one of them, but I would have liked to have seen what they recorded

Anyway, how is your fallout going?

Still in the early hours here, three hours or so (late hours in reality...). Liking what I've seen so far. It's similar but also quite different from its predecessors. I've put several hundreds of hours into New Vegas and Fallout 3, so it's strange to get used to something that feels the same but also isn't. Definitely gonna be rolling with Dogmeat for awhile though.

Are both the male and female protagonist voice actors good/bad, does one particularly stand out? It might be asking a bit much since the games literally just come out, but I'd rather not put 100 hours into a game and hate it whenever they talk y'know? Any help appreciated. Thnx Duders.

@phili151: I've been using the male character and his voice has been pretty good. The little of the female characters voice that I heard was also good, but I can't really speak on it that much.

Here's a playlist of Ink Spots songs to pass the time for those of us waiting until midnight EST for the release. They sang the songs featured in both the games and trailers for Fallout games.

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL210003EC63B09148

I thought it was kinda weird how my son is black when I play the default white character with the default white wife. Adopted I guess.

Fun so far, shooting definitely feels better, and it absolutely feels the least like a fallout out of all the fallouts I've played so far.

@amafi: yeah the shooting is WAY better imo. I used VATS almost exclusively in 3 and NV, but have barely used it so far in 4

Patiently waiting until midnight here. Even had a nap in preparation!

@tajasaurus The grenade launcher was about the only weapon I found really effective hip-firing, for likely obvious reasons.

I'm a little over an hour away. Very tired of the anxiety/jank threads, and just so looking forward to this!

@phili151: I chose to play as the wife, and her voice actress is pretty good too. She doesn't sound like Jack from Mass Effect, but at the same time, doesn't sound too generic. The performances in this game generally has been a step up from previous Bethesda games.

I enjoyed the 10 hours I've played of this game so far. It has grabbed me in a way that New Vegas didn't, mainly because it plays so much better. It also helps that it runs a lot better than previous Bethesda games; I have yet to encounter a bug or an annoying glitch.

Generally, I like the new additions and changes to the game, including having a voiced protagonist and the new dialogue system in spite of its shortcomings. I thought the character creation, despite having finicky controls, was the best I've seen in recent memory. The crafting systems in this game are surprisingly approachable considering how extensive they are. My initial impression of this game seems to hold true thus far: it is a competent Bethesda game.

Story speculations (spoilers for the first hour): Anyone thinks you'll meet your son and he'll be much older, or even dead?

HYPE

Grrr patching...

Having played about 6 hours my biggest take-away is that the crafting is a disappointment. While there certainly are a ton of variations the weapons are still very much set in stone as far as basic performance. Doesn't help that everyone and their mother early in the game is using the pipe gun, more or less forcing you into using it too. Also, is there any way of telling how much AP a weapon is gonna use other than just testing ? and is there any "glossary" for the different damage type icons ?

So, picked the game up @ midnight... It's now 1:13 am est. 23% loaded. WTF!!!

Supposed list of all names Codsworth can pronounce in game. Might have to make a Furiosa, and definitely a Fuckface.

http://hastebin.com/raw/gemajulugi

I don't have the money for Fallout 4 so instead I'm playing New Vegas which I got on a steam sale for $10 with all the dlc some time ago and never got around to playing.

I both hate and love the new crafting system. I think the amount of customization there is for any single 'base' weapon is quite impressive. However, it turns me into a kleptomaniac, picking up everything that isn't nailed down, and I find it annoying that the workshops do not share the same inventory (as non-realistic as that would be). All that means that every time I want to craft I have to warp back to Sanctuary, where all of my junk is stored.

I haven't played yet, but for those who may have some insight: what are some tips so far when it comes to someone wanting to play all melee and unarmed?

@top8gamer: You're in for a fantastic game! New Vegas is arguably better than 3. It's got some serious personality!

@militantfreudian: That's exactly what I expect will happen

I only played a couple of hours but I think I might get lost in fucking around with settlements. Also fuck power armor.

Extremely specific question: Can you build a settlement on top of a derelict highway bridge? I always liked that npc settlement that was like that in Fallout 3, thought it was very cool concept! :D

I decided to walk to Diamond City after a few of the basic quests and ran into an argument along the way.

Fun game so far, I liked spending 40 minutes building some characters.

Uh...... where is the cave under the gas station? I spent like 10 minutes trying to find it to no avail (sleep deprivation might be doing me in)

It's fun so far! The combat feels much more active, it's been running well on my PC, and the dog is my friend. Also I've already gotten my charisma up to max rank so I'm set for anything

I'm liking the actual game so far, but wow the frame rate on PS4 is really bad in combat. Was in the factory place to clear out raiders for one of the first quests and the game was running at like 20 FPS the entire time I was in there.

@iodine: It's in the direction of Concord. A bit down the hill. You can easily miss it though.

Been playing for about four hours. I fucking love every minute of it.

Played for a few hours but I'm done for the night. I'm enjoying it a lot so far, it even has a chance to overtake The Witcher 3 for GOTY for me.

On PC it seems to run..well about as well as everyone said. Like it looks good..ok..fine. Whatever, it looks about like FO3/NV after I modded them to look better? So that is more or less what I expected.

There are kinks and issues galore. People not moving exactly right, the camera in the wrong place when moving in workshop mod, a not very great tutorial about a number of things.

Example, playing with a controller..how do I wait? I'm sure it was among the half-dozen things I missed since the tutorial pop ups/hints are up in one corner..and I sorta ignore them since that is where a bunch of stuff I'm use to ignoring (crited this, injured that) usually goes. Took me ages to figure out how to get out of power armor and..

As for power armor hmm..In the QL they didn't wear it, I wonder why? Seems like we can repair everything except the torso with just steel, of which there is lots and lots. Forget the thing the torso needs to repair it but eh, why not just roll out in power armor all the time? I'm unsure.

Otherwise, the opening was effective, the sandbox is big and...its exactly what I wanted.

I just listed a whole bunch of issues cause, like they are the only things that stand out? This consumed a good few hours of my life tonight, and will consume 200 more by the time I last start the game up years from now. There is plenty to nit-pick, but this scratches my need for a big open world sandbox so well that like, I adore it.

I can say for certain now however that all the reviews I've seen and talk I've participated in is right. Jank is there, look past and enjoy or look elsewhere. Game is more of the same, adore that if your like me, pass it by if you didn't like what came before.

Its not GotY contender, I think the witcher 3 is an overall better game say? But man, this is a completely different type of rpg experience I haven't gotten in years. The witcher 3 drew me in because of its story and its world, this will draw me in because of the exploration and sandbox. Its..honestly hard to put into words why I feel they are so distinctly different (aside from the obvious). It just feels like a completely different genre almost to me.

I think FO4 does what its suppose to do, and does it exceptionally well. Not outstanding, cause jank, but I'm firmly enjoying my every minute with the game so far. Despite Dieing to that stupid death claw 3 times..then killing it..but realizing there were raiders left who killed me, then dieing another 5 times before... ...victory! So yah, the games got its issues..but man the high spots outshine them.

@bladededge: To wait you have to sit on any furniture and then hit T (?) again to wait. Took me 10 hours to figure this out. Oh and Survival is goddamn hard. Had to turn it down to Very Hard because I ran out of ammo.
By the way, I am pleasantly surprised at how well this game is running. Only bug I had so far was my hands/weapon glitching out but that was easily fixable by switching between 3rd and 1st person view. My PC is like the model of mininum requirements and the game runs at medium with ultra textures and every post-processing on at a very steady 60fps (auto-detected settings used). Only get drops in buildings.

Seems like a quality Fallout game, but jeez these framerate issues on Xbox One.

Why the hell is the base building so enjoyable? I went into this game planning on completely ignoring it, cause I didn't wanna spend time having to defend a base but I've spent about 4 of my first 10 hours building up Sanctuary Falls. Now I'm starting to get bummed cause nobody is attacking and I wanna see if I actually fortified my town well enough with these crappy junk fences.

Do you still level proficiency with different weapon types? Like small arms or something was basically regular rifles and pistols in Fallout 3.

Mostly liking it so far. I think the story isn't as good as New Vegas or even FO3 and the visuals are dated. There is a lot of jank. The shooting is better than it has ever been but not as good as Destiny or anything. The good just outweighs the bad. 9.5/10

I've played a little over twelve hours and I've only been doing the Minutemen questline and I only just realised that isn't the main questline

@bladededge: Power armour also needs fusion cores (battery basically) to work and I hate the UI changes that come with wearing it.

@militantfreudianYeah, I'm with you. He's definitely going to be older. Would be cool if he turns out to be the main bad guy or something.

I like most of the Bethesda games I've played but they get away with a level of jank that an indie dev team made up of five people would get crucified on Youtube for. There's likely something wrong at the engine level of their games that's causing the issues and they're not prioritizing getting those issues ironed out.

However, lets not pretend for an instant that Youtube isn't full of glitches and jank from The Witcher 3 and that it should be held as some paragon of excellent non-jank.

To be fair they have only had since 2008 to fix issues with their engine. They just need a little more time.

I've put in about 10 hours or so, mostly just running quests for the Minutemen. Settlements are a fantastic edition, and I'm in the process of adding a small market section to my burgeoning city. I'll echo what I heard Jeff say in the QL, the game definitely need to tutorialize these new mechanics better. I only learned a few hours ago that each settlement has its own resource inventory, until you start running supply chains.

Item sparsity is odd. On one hand, I'm almost always running out of ammo. But I'm positively swimming in medical supplies. I have around 70 stimpaks, it's incredible.

Technical issues are minor (on PC). I haven't had any game-destroying bugs yet. Mostly camera and dialogue related issues. It's a much better launch than I expected and far smoother than the previous iterations of Elder Scrolls and Fallout.

I can't comment on the story as I haven't gone through it yet, but having just arrived at Diamond City I'm intrigued.

Those are just some assorted thought bubbles about the game. I'm having a blast with it at the moment. I'm surprised at all the doom and gloom I've seen leveled at Fallout. It's nowhere near as awful or broken as people are decrying it to be.

Played about an hour on the PC this morning before work. Smooth as butter on the PC, my 2011 2500k is still holding strong.

I think I've gotten used to using the sliders in Skyrim - I found character creation much harder here. The command showracemenu doesn't work in Fallout 4, instead it's showlooksmenu.

Also, for fellow PC folk, that beloved Bethesda mouse acceleration is back. Here's the settings to get rid of it.

http://files.shanelenzen.com/fix-fallout-4.html

I'm playing on hard and have put roughly 15 hours into the game, and I have yet to encounter one legendary enemy. In the QL Jeff ran into two different legendary enemies within an hour, while playing on normal no less. Are they actually that rare or have I just been unlucky?

8 hours in. I really like the game. The loot and leveling up is so fun, gunplay is decent . The atmosphere and visual variety is really nice, the colors are really welcoming addition. The soundtrack is so much better than in F3, some really good ambient tracks, combat themes not so much. I do not mind loading screens as much as I thought. The settlement stuff , I don't know if I like it. It just does not fit in my mind when wandering wasteland , searching for gear and stuff and then returning to playing Sims-like game or such. While the visuals are not up to 2015 standarts, they are still nice. I mean the landscape/environment.

But then game goes in to cutscene mode. And boy oh boy. The character models look poor, the facial animation is non-existent , they look like action figures. I would be happy if the characters showed some emotion. And then the worst thing. The dialogue and overall writing. I know bethesda is not know for it and I was not expecting good stuff. Shit , Bethesda games writing never bothered me with F3, Oblivion, Skyrim back in the day. But now. Holy hell, it's just one note characters so far. Maybe it's the voice acting? And for all this negativity I blame Witcher 3, that game spoiled me with flawed characters, facial animation, great writing and just amazing character interactions/ drama.

Again Fallout 4 is a good game when you are in first person shooting raiders , searching for loot and just breathing the atmosphere , it just goes bad when cutscenes start shows characters. It breaks immersion.

Haven't played much, i just got out the vault(no spoiler there right?) game runs fine on the pc but man the textures look rough. I'm not sure if they are bugged and not loading correctly or there is really no difference between medium and ultra, but they don't even use 2gb of vram(i think the recommendation was at least 3 for ultra?). Otherwise the game seems fine so far, shooting definitely feels a lot better but i haven't gotten to vats yet. 3rd person still doesn't feel like an option, your character barely animates at all even when he/she is supposed to be reacting to something they just stand there lifeless. Basically the game feels like up-res'd fallout 3 with the same old animations. I do like the intro sequence with the family, i think it got me a lot more invested in the characters than the 3 did and it's also pretty cool the robot calls me by my name with a character tha resembles me vaguely.

I played a few hours on PC last night, took a while for the files to unpack so I played Rise of the Tomb Raider while that was going on, which is quite good by the way. I find it interesting how Fallout 4 kinda throws you through the quinnessential Fallout elements in the first hour. You get out of the vault, you find dogmeat, you use both ballistic and laser weapons, you lockpick or hack a door, you jump in some Power Armor and fight a Deathclaw with a minigun. It kinda feels like Bethesda wants to fast track you through the standard Fallout fantasy so that they can start throwing the new stuff at you.

I think the shooting feels great, better than I was imaging when it was described by reviewers. I mean it is no Destiny or Halo 5 but I feels solid. It probably helps that I'm running at a solid 60fps as well but it is much more enjoyable that any other combat system that Bethesda has put together. The crafting seems neat, it is kinda crazy that the Gas Station you find Dogmeat at basically has every crafting table right there before your giving much context on how to use them. It's kinda weird how most of my weapons and armor don't show up as craftable, I am assuming I need to invest some points into something to open those up maybe? I realized I need to be picking up all the Toy Cars I find because I can break them down for nails and weapons need nails.

The controls on PC are a bit weird because it definitely feels like it was built for controller first. The way that the dialog options are still arranged in a cross while using Keyboard / Mouse is a little weird. The settlement crafting requires you to use the arrow keys to cycle between items. I ended up playing mostly with a Gamepad but even that has it quirks. Most modern console ports will automatically switch between Keyboard/Mouse and Gamepad as you begin to use that input method but Fallout 4 is in Gamepad mode as long as the Controller is attached, it does switch as you add and remove the controller but it is a bit weird. At least the quicksave shortcut still works when using a Controller.

My copy was supposed to arrive today through USPS with Amazon Prime 2-day shipping. Never got delivered and I am unreasonably annoyed. Still, we saved $10 by ordering it physically through Amazon so I shouldn't be that salty about it........I guess.

PS4 version disc version, 2 hours in. No idea what it's like as I'm only at 47% installed.

Glorious!

Returned it and got a full refund. Talk about pushing it out early. Read Jeff's review...