Oldirtybearon

@jakob187 said:

OP is unfamiliar with Cyberpunk as a brand, which is fine, since it's an old PnP RPG heavily influenced by Neuromancer (but then again, what Cyberpunk isn't?). Most people nowadays who play games, or play RPGs, have no history with PnP games. That's just the way the genre has evolved. Tabletop RPGs are making a comeback thanks to sites like Roll20 and applications like Skype, but it's still a long way off from the prominent position PnP RPGs had in the 70s and 80s.

Also Pondsmith being involved with 2077 is probably the major reason I'm hyped for this game. I'm not even the biggest Cyberpunk fan (the game, not the genre), but I'm intrigued to see what he brings to a video game based on Cyberpunk.

Undertale is a fantasy, and as such it abides by fantasy rules. Such as the fantasy that there's always a better solution than violence. Pacifism is great, dodge these vicious killers and then incapacitate them with love!

If you can get past the hamfisted morality it's a decent game. I don't even mind the pacifism approach because it can lead to some pretty funny flavour text. The real issue is how the creator quietly judges you for not abiding by his super skewed outlook. It's like a Roberta Williams puzzle, only with a bunch more condescending author inserts.

@believer258 said:

I guess the point OP is trying to make is that more games get made in the vein of Tomb Raider as opposed to Witcher, which is true. If every open world game that came along was like Wild Hunt in terms of depth and scale, I don't think anyone would complain.

But they're not like Wild Hunt, so a lot of open world games kinda suck in comparison.

Still having a ball with Fallout 4, but goddamn do I wish Bethesda could let Fallout be its own thing away from the design sensibilities of Skyrim. Not even Elder Scrolls, just Skyrim specifically. Not a fan of the perk tree. Not a fan of stripping out Skills. Not a fan of the voiced protagonist despite the fact that his voice work is really good. I love the way Bethesda builds game spaces, and I love the way that they approach exploration, but the landmark to quest ratio in this game is pitiful. Replacing good, honest content with radiant quests is just bad. Not good at all.

Think of it; there's no real equivalent to Big Trouble in Big Town, or THOSE! or The Superhuman Gambit. Quests that you stumble across and lead you on an odyssey, doing weird shit for weirder people. A lot of quests boil down to go there, shoot that thing, come back. That's all fine as the occasional palate cleanser, but the majority of Fallout 4 seems to be made up of radiant quests, and that bugs me.

@onekillwonder_ said:

Strong respects strength, and is actively trying to learn compassion and empathy. In short, defend the helpless (accept Minutemen quests in his presence), and be generous (say hypothetically someone asks you for clean, pure water, because they're dying of dehydration). Anything that takes cunning or guile (so lockpicking, hacking, et cetera) is going to rub him the wrong way. Also, avoid getting into power armour or Vertibirds. He really doesn't like that.

I'm not sure, but I think he's also the only companion that doesn't mind you eating people. I don't know if it raises his affinity, but I do know that it doesn't diminish when feasting in front of him.

Basically, Strong gels really well with heavy bruiser types, who don't rely on subtlety or stealth. Also, successful speech checks bug him, too, as Strong believes that compromise is for the weak.

@ragingflower said:

They're not burying New Vegas, it's on the West Coast. Bethesda wants to make Fallout games on the East Coast. I think it was either Sawyer or Avellone who said something to the effect of there being a gentlemen's agreement that the two devs would essentially stay out of each other's sandbox.

A case for Bloody Mess:

I was fighting a nest of Deathclaws in a very spoilery location, and I was almost dead. I proc'd Nerd Rage and managed to VATS head shot a Deathclaw to death. He insta-gibbed. He also insta-gibbed right next to the Alpha Deathclaw that was giving me such a hard time, and guess what?

He too gibbed. At near full health.

If this sounds like it'd be useful, grab all four levels of Bloody Mess. If not, go about your business. To me, Bloody Mess is kind of a tradition at this point, so I'd grab it even if it sucked.

The biggest hurdle to playing Fallout and Fallout 2 for the first time is the wonky quest tracking. If you easily forget things do notexpect what passed for a journal in those games to remember them for you. You've got an objective in your Pip-Boy, but quite often nothing that will point you in any direction. I recommend writing things down if you're forgetful. Seriously. It'll save you a ton of problems if you put the game down for a few days and pick it back up again.

Aside from that, they're both still really good RPGs. Crap UI aside, make sure you read the manual, because there are no tutorials.

Oh, and make sure you take Bloody Mess. Never, ever forget to take Bloody Mess.

Why do people do this to themselves? Does nobody pull aside a senior executive and say 'so that release date we wanted? Fallout's the same day'? Doesn't anybody explain why Tomb Raider is going to get hip checked over the boards because of Fallout?

I don't think there are a lot of franchises or developers that you need to move aside for, I can count maybe five or six, but when you happen to be releasing day and date with one of them, you either move or get run over by a Mack truck.

I have no idea if Star Wars is still a cash cow in the video game space, but Fallout kicked Call of Duty's ass in sales this time out, so I have to wonder just what the hell Squeenix was thinking.

118 hours and I had one crash.

I've had bugs, sure, like Dogmeat deciding that he can fly, or frame dips here and there. The only real noticeable frame dip was during a spoilerific thing but there was a ton of stuff on screen. Explosions, flying corpses, limbs, exploded bodies, all sorts of gunk. Plus it was raining. Some interiors can cause the frame rate to drop from 30 to 24, but it really doesn't bother me like it would in a game that requires precise input. It's weird, because I know the frame rate isn't stable, but it doesn't feel off. Like aiming down sights or pulling up the pip boy, or sprinting or whatever.

Aside from that, it's been stable. I've never gotten stuck or had a quest screw up on me. Pretty amazing, all things considered.