Saturday!
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nj21jG31HqI&w=420&h=315]
Oh my gosh oh my gosh oh my gosh Fallout 4
Bethesda made the announcement themselves:
Oct 23rd – the bombs have fallen. Fallout 4 is complete. All 27 versions. pic.twitter.com/AwkWOoTEgt
— BethesdaGameStudios (@BethesdaStudios) October 23, 2015
I have been waiting for this game since the 4th time I beat New Vegas. I’ve avoided pretty much all spoilers, all previews, and all everythings since the original teaser where it was revealed, sigh, that the main protagonist is using a voice actor rather than allowing the player to fill in the blanks. I’ve reconciled myself to that, though.
The main thing that I am wondering is if the plan is to follow in the footsteps of Fallout 3 and have something approaching a 4-Color approach to morality (Megaton vs. Tenpenny Tower, for example) or a somewhat more conflicted attitude toward competing prior assumptions with regards to morality (Mr. House vs. the NCR vs. Yes Man/Protagonist vs. Caesar had some seriously different priors going on… and there was a serious argument to be made for any and all of those four endings (depending on your priors, of course[/efn_note].
I suppose that the main thing that I am hoping is that, once again, I get around 80+ hours of gameplay out of something that I eventually discover is only the tutorial for the real game that Obsidian will be putting out using the same engine.
But at that point I’m looking forward to the sequel to a game I haven’t even played yet and that’s no way to live.
So… what are you playing?
(Picture is “Untitled” by our very own Will Truman. Used with permission.)
I suppose it says something about me, about my “priors,” that I found the Caesar storyline repellent and the Mr. House storyline uninteresting. I actually enjoyed the NCR storyline more than making myself the king of New Vegas.
Is that just my affinity for the bear flag, even if the bear n it has two heads?Report
I originally thought I liked where they were going with the ‘factions’ approach, but it mostly didn’t work, at least not if they were trying to get away from ‘good v. evil’ alignment.
There were jerkass small factions (the drug dealers, the escaped prisoners) and the jerkass big faction of Caesar, and there were the good guys, and it was pretty easy to figure out who was who. (Seriously, the first time we run into Caesar’s group they have *killed a town*.)
About the only ‘iffy’ group was that little group I’ve forgotten the name of that had aligned themselves with Caesar despite not being that bad, and you could convince them otherwise by pointing out how Caesar treated women. Well, and I guess the Brotherhood was a bit iffy, but they’re *always* a bit iffy.(1)
I would have liked to see some likable people who had *real* problems with the NCR. I mean, the NCR is, in fact, stretched too thin, and they are a bit corrupt, but we never ran into anyone sympathetic who presented a credible ‘We want to be free of the NCR because X’ argument. Even House, who really *should* have had such an argument, but instead, he just basically wanted to control Vegas forever.
I mean, it’s still better than good v. evil, but, seriously, how about having a community that had, I don’t know, been scavenging from a mining operation when the NCR came in and took it over and kicked them out? Likewise, how about something that was *better* now that Caesar was here?
1) And, seriously, are we actually going to address LGBT stuff in this universe, or not? You can’t really bring in Veronica and then just handwave that. Did the BoS have a problem with her being gay, or are the BoS too dumb to realize she can have kids and be with a woman at the same time, or was the problem that she didn’t want any kids at all, or what, exactly? I know racial civil rights just sorta…happened in this universe, despite it not having any sort of unrest in the sixties. Did women’s rights happen the same way? What about LGBT rights?Report
Well, it’s like with the Walking Dead. If I ask myself “what would I be like after the Walking Dead?”, my answer is inevitably something like “Zombie #48,829,733”.
When I start playing “well, what if *THIS* happened? what if *THAT* happened?” games to get me to “okay, you’re not a zombie”, I find it hard to stop right around “the most like me to still survive” because with just a few more tweaks after that, I can become the crossbow guy.
So with the Fallout Universe, instead of saying “what are *MY* priors?” (and ending up being “contents of dustbin #48,829,733”), once I start tweaking “well, what is my protagonist like”, I find it hard to avoid the possibility that a non-zero number of them would see that Caesar had a point.
I was raised in a vault, for goodness’ sake!Report
So with the Fallout Universe, instead of saying “what are *MY* priors?” (and ending up being “contents of dustbin #48,829,733”), once I start tweaking “well, what is my protagonist like”, I find it hard to avoid the possibility that a non-zero number of them would see that Caesar had a point.
Well, yeah, that’s why it’s called a roleplaying game. 😉
But they still made Caesar a bit too evil. For example, in the Fallout universe with its handwaved gender equality, it was a bit jarring to see blatant official institutional misogyny, and made it somewhat implausible to join Caesar if you were playing as a woman.(1)
And, like I said above, the first time you run across Caesar’s legion, they’ve killed an entire town. Just a bit over the top, and no actual reason to join them. If you thought the NCR were the good guys, you’d help them. If you thought a strong Vegas was important, you’d help Mr. House. If you wanted power, you’d seize it yourself, which was the real problem.
What calculation, exactly, would make someone go with Caesar? The independent path gave you *more* power and didn’t risk Caesar deciding to kill you randomly. There should have been *something* you could only get going with him.
1) OTOH, a hilarious number of Fallout 3 players, who had decided to play the Evil Stupid alignment, went ahead and poisoned the purifier, and then got completely baffled as to why water hurt them in Broken Steel. (Seriously, it was all over the forums.) So apparently RPG players will, in fact, shoot themselves in the foot if they’re ‘evil’ and they’re told shooting people in the foot is evil.Report
What calculation, exactly, would make someone go with Caesar?
His speech was interesting. I do tend to agree that the first impression with them was horrible and think that there must have been a better way to introduce the culture. (For example, if your introduction to Caesar was seeing… Vexillarius? (Vulpes!) give a tour to a local tribe of a city that had been destroyed at some point in the past and seeing the tribe say “we would prefer to sign up to being treated like you treated these guys”, the whole “total war prevented deaths” speech would have made for a far more interesting counterpoint to the NCR and Mr. House).Report
(And, yes. The gender thing was downright game-breakingly stupid. They might have had a gender-specific sub-mission for changing Caesar’s mind on the whole gender thing… which would have changed the entire morality game right there… but they didn’t.)Report
His speech was interesting. I do tend to agree that the first impression with them was horrible and think that there must have been a better way to introduce the culture.
I think the real problem with Caesar was not just Caesar, it was is that the ‘issue’ with the NCR, as presented, is that they were overextended and a little corrupt. But there’s no possible *conceivable* way that the Legion was better. No one is going to choose ‘violent brutish thugs in charge’ over ‘poorly run government in charge’.
I mean, present the NCR as unable to stop raiders, and the Legionas able. Or the NCR unable to stop the drug trade, and Legion as doing that. Something. *Anything*.
I dunno, maybe the intent was to make Caesar be completely the bad guy entirely.Report
Violent brutish thugs in charge vs poorly run government in charge – ISIS vs the 2014 government of Iraq.Report
I mean, that’s what @davidtc is saying – ISIS vs 2014 Iraq gov’t is violent thugs vs not run government, not poorly run.
Difference here is you made the government side worse, rather than the thug side better.Report
No, um, politics?Report
Apologies.Report
@burt-likko
I was more of a MR House guy myself, though I did the 3 non-Caesar playthroughs.
I loved Caesar’s Legion as a setting element, but I can’t imagine myself actually taking their side.Report
what’s up with the ’27 versions’? I’m guessing there’s 9 for each platform (i.e. PS/XBOX/PC), but what the variation in the 9? It’s too early for ‘game of the year’ releases. (and I’m sure they have DLC queued up, but will sit on it a bit)Report
9 regions x 3 platforms.Report
There are 9 regional standards for video games? Jeez, DVDs only have 2, and that’s one too many. Where’s Herbert Hoover when you need him?Report
You can tell which ones are coded for Canada, they are labeled Fallaoot.Report
DVDs make up for it in region codes… There was actually a question about them on the most recent “Only Connect” – a picture clue giving maps with countries highlighted, and you had to figure out that “share a DVD region code” was the reason to emphasize those particular countries in each picture.Report
DVDs have six regions. The current generation of consoles (other than Nintendo) is region-free, and of course PCs always have been; what I actually meant is nine languages. I said “regions” because that was the word used in the source I found.Report
Ah, that clears up a lot of my confusions and mistunderstandings. You’re a good pal.Report
I said “regions” because that was the word used in the source I found.
That sounds regionable.Report
I can’t region with you – we just don’t speak the same language.Report