From Steam:
Play Fallout 4 for FREE starting now through Sunday at 1PM Pacific Time. You can also pickup Fallout 4 at 67% off the regular price!*

I liked the beginning and exploration of Fallout 3, so I'm giving this a shot even though I feel quite skeptical about all the dumbed down stuff.

Awwww, man, I already played through this three times on consoles, and yet this is still stupidly tempting. Thanks for the heads-up.

@sparky_buzzsaw: One word, mods. ;)

Great! My current set up won't run the game and the new parts will be here next week at the earliest :|

@keirgo: Don't the consoles also have mods? O.o

I'm not really sure why you'd think it was dumbed down over Fallout 3. If anything, the reverse is true. Yeah, you can play it more like a shooter, but the combat is way, way, way better than it was in the previous 2 games where you just repeatedly pause and just click on whatever number's higher.

So, is this another one of those games that won't let you use your keyboard and mouse if you have a controller connected? Why do developers do this? Already a terrible first impression.

@rasdaan said:

They do, although it happened quite a while after the initial launch so it might not be common knowledge. Also the mod library on consoles won't be as extensive because it's all through bethesda.net. On PC you can get mods elsewhere too. This is especially true for the PS4 version where it seems like Sony added their own restrictions on top. At one point it didn't seem like the PS4 version was going to get them in any form so it's better than nothing.

It was probably a lot of work behind the scenes but I think it's paid off. The mod download numbers look pretty healthy and they've been able to use the system for the Skyrim rerelease and presumably whatever games they have going forward.

As for Fallout 4, I've already played it a ton. Over 400 hours at least. Despite its disappointing aspects it still ended up being my favourite game of 2016 because I played it pretty much non-stop for 6 months as they rolled out the DLC.

@rasdaan: oh yeah, haha I totally forgot. I've never paid much attention to bethesda's "official" mod platforms (bethesda.net, steam workshop), always preferred nexusmods.

Cool that every platform can now enjoy mods in some capacity.

I never understood the hate this game got. I really enjoyed my time with it.

@crazybagman: It mostly has to do with it being a great 2008 game released in 2015. Bethesda didn't seem to pay much attention to any other game that was released between the Fallouts, including the other Fallout game.

I hate every rigid conversation, every twenty-something word mischaracterizing my sixty-something wastelander, and every narrow and boney questline.

I will forever call it not just a bad Fallout game, but a bad game in general.

But I somehow spent sixty-three hours in it during my first attempt at a playthrough, and they felt like six.

Free Fallout 4 footnotes fortnight

I've considered playing Fallout 4 again, but I would only do it for the DLC. But I ain't spending the money for the DLC. I find myself more aligned with Jeff than I would like on the subject of Fallout 4.

@keirgo: I bought it about half a minute after I made that comment solely because of that. Hah!

Great game, especially with mods.

The big problem is what they did to the RPG mechanics. Specifically the perk chart. They pigeonholed themselves into having to have 7x10 different perks of varying levels. Every perk had to go specifically somewhere with respect to SPECIAL requirements. That really fucked up being able to do different builds. Combine that with all their new settlement and crafting stuff being perk-tied (and thus SPECIAL-tied) and you'll see that Sole Survivors have certain stats that are non-negotiable or you lock yourself out of vast swaths of game mechanics.

The change to critical functionality was also bad for VATS combat; they managed to make it MORE overpowered and completely predictable/reliable.

Since they removed skills completely, all skill checks had to become SPECIAL checks. Most just went away as a result, and they reintroduced randomness to speechcharisma checks for reasons currently unknown to science. They also decided to hide the actual success percentages behind a dumb R/Y/G font color indicator.

And that's all before you get into discussions about the voiced protagonist and the dialogue wheel.

All that said, I still spent nearly 100 hours with the game and had plenty of fun, but it is strictly a worse game that New Vegas or 3, mechanically.

Pro tip. Don't touch the main story past the Nick Valentine stuffs. I was having a grand ole time before I hit a particular main mission that sucked huge balls and made me hate the game.

I recently bought Fallout 4, haven't played it yet. I'm considering starting it in Survival mode, should I ?

This game deserves some hate. It's not as bad as some say of course (a lot of people go overboard with Bethesda) but I think mechanically it adds a few things but so frustratingly fumbles their execution (crafting and building seem cool for example but go nowhere) and has the least interesting world and quests of their last few games. Character development isn't as good or satisfying. Personally I also hate them leaning into a replicant storyline in a Fallout game. It's just too far.

As someone who lives around Boston I think they do a bad job with the setting too compared to Fallout 3 or New Vegas. I had issues with the setting on each of those games but overall they do nail aspects (Old Vegas casino feel, the desert, DC subways) where I feel this nails almost nothing except having a Fenway like city which is kind of cool.

I bought both fallout 3 and 4 because i love elder scrolls, and neither game did it for me. I think the wasteland is just a bland boring place despite a few cool ideas here and there.

Just bought it on GMG. I played it to bits on console (except for the Nuka World & the Vault DLC), and I've been thinking about it again recently so since I now have a good PC it made sense to pick it up.

I was kinda surprised that this 2 year old game has some graphics options that don't run well on my 1070. It also cold forced quit itself about an hour in and lost a bunch of progress on a Survival run. That hasn't left me feeling optimistic :(

same here, I'll probably get my new PC on Tuesday. I guess the summer sale is soonish though.

Shadow distance right? All the shadow stuff is cpu intense if i remember right, i think I spent more time trying to get stable fps then playing the game when i bought it. Used to be a mod that dynamically changed the shadow distance to maintain framerate.

Weirdly enough, Godrays on Ultra turned being outside into a slideshow, but High is perfect as far as I've seen. The game keeps crashing on me :(

Yeah godrays were another one, those didn't effect me much but i couldn't run it on ultra at the time (gtx 980, fx 8350 when i played it) but high was fine. Shadow distance was really the only thing that i couldn't even put to medium and get 60fps I haven't tried the game since i upgraded though(1080 i5 6600k)

Well I had the most fun in that mode. Every character build decision, what to carry/haul around, and travel plan mean a whole lot. Finding useful loot is way more satisfying too. Just remember you must sleep in a bed to save. Go for it if that all sounds good.

Aside from the lame main story line, I thought the moment to moment gameplay and the exploration were top notch in FO4. Just going off in any direction and dealing with whatever you find was maximally immersive. Go light on the mods too, they tend to bog down that ancient engine.

Tempted to get in on this at the discounted price but surely the GOTY edition can't be far off?

@pweidman: Sounds good. I think I will, I'd like a different experience than I had playing Skyrim. I dont want a repeat of that game but with guns.

Possible spin-off announced at E3?

Kind of clad that I did not sink money into this one. Free tryout really hammered home how the FO formula has really become stale and even worse after removal of the last RPG elements. The settlement building was neat concept but strangely pointless in grand scheme of things. Also it was kind of strange how things really did not want align neatly - so settlements ended with free floating wind turbines, paintings clipping walls and bushes and grass clipping through the walls.

Crap, I totally forgot about this. I was so unengaged by the opening that I stopped after 23 minutes. Now the license is expired. I think I'm just not gonna play any Bethesda games. I enjoyed my hundred hours in Skyrim, but it left a lot to be desired.