{"id":35051,"date":"2016-10-21T09:45:40","date_gmt":"2016-10-21T13:45:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/?p=35051"},"modified":"2016-10-21T09:47:03","modified_gmt":"2016-10-21T13:47:03","slug":"fallout-4-ep51-fog-of-war-never-changes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/?p=35051","title":{"rendered":"Fallout 4 EP51: Fog of War Never Changes"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><table class='nomargin' cellspacing='0' width='100%' cellpadding='0' align='center' border='0'><tr><td><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"1024\" height=\"576\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/bxua4PljT9U\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen class=\"embed\"><\/iframe><br\/><small><a href='http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=bxua4PljT9U'>Link (YouTube)<\/a><\/small><\/td><\/tr><\/table><\/p>\n<p>Confession time: when I originally played this game, the final cutscene worked a little differently. (Or maybe it bugged out?) I stood by Shaun&#8217;s bedside, watched him die, and dinged a level right there without it cutting away for the final cutscene. It was a hilariously dissonant moment. I was hoping that would happen here. Actually, I was secretly hoping that that would happen, <strong>and<\/strong> Idiot Savant<span class='snote' title='1'>Dur-huh ha HA!<\/span> would proc, which seemed to be a fitting way to say goodbye to this questline. <\/p>\n<p>But it worked more or less as intended, so that didn&#8217;t happen. This is far better than the way I experienced the ending, and if Bethesda fixed it then I&#8217;m grateful, even if it meant I had one less thing to laugh at. It all balanced out anyway, since we got the fog that obscured the big set-piece explosion at the end.  <\/p>\n<p>Mumbles said at the end that she wanted to play Fallout 4. I felt the same way. In fact, last night I re-installed my favorite Fallout 4 mods and started a new playthrough. I really did have fun with this game. It has some wonderful environments, the base-building is great, the combat is fun in certain situations, and I loved modding weapons. The companions range from forgettable to excellent, and there are a couple of quests that really work. But the main story is such a disaster that its failings infect the rest of the experience. <\/p>\n<p>Earlier in the week Josh pointed me to this:<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><br \/>\n<div class='imagefull'><img src='https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/images\/fallout4_mixed.jpg' width=100% alt='OVERWHELMINGLY mixed.' title='OVERWHELMINGLY mixed.'\/><\/div><div class='mouseover-alt'>OVERWHELMINGLY mixed.<\/div><\/p>\n<p>Public opinion has turned on this game. There was a surge of enthusiasm at launch, but then that nagging feeling of discontent set in as the various stories and systems in the game came up short. I wouldn&#8217;t call it a <em>backlash<\/em> or anything, but it is a negative response. You can compare this to <a href=\"http:\/\/store.steampowered.com\/app\/72850\/\">Skyrim<\/a>, which started out <em>Very Positive<\/em> but is now <em>Overwhelmingly Positive<\/em>. <\/p>\n<p>Reading the negative Steam reviews on Fallout 4 can actually be kind of gratifying for us RPG nerds. I don&#8217;t expect the average player to gripe about the lack of coherent themes, faction motivation, and plot cohesion. But I&#8217;m betting they did notice the side-effect of these shortcomings, which is that nothing connected emotionally. Even if you didn&#8217;t notice that The Institute didn&#8217;t have any motivations for their villainy, you probably did notice it all felt kind of empty and forgettable. Even if you didn&#8217;t notice the fundamental problems with player agency and character building, you might have noticed that you rarely got to make any satisfying decisions.<\/p>\n<p>I don&#8217;t think Bethesda is going to transform into CD Projekt RED or anything, but if they could at least claw their way back to Skyrim levels of &#8220;shallow but basically serviceable&#8221; it would be an enormous help. The first step is admitting you have a problem, and maybe this tepid response will be a wake-up call for them. <\/p>\n<p>Thanks for watching.<\/p>\n<p>Also, since you all guessed anyway&#8230;<\/p>\n<p><div class='imagefull'><img src='https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/images\/splash_sw_until_dawn.jpg' width=100% alt='Do WHAT until dawn? Party? Yeah. They probably mean party.' title='Do WHAT until dawn? Party? Yeah. They probably mean party.'\/><\/div><div class='mouseover-alt'>Do WHAT until dawn? Party? Yeah. They probably mean party.<\/div><\/p>\n<p>This will be one of the rare seasons where I go in cold and react to the game as it unfolds. So that should be interesting.<\/p>\n<p>One final reminder is that later today <a href=\"?p=34954\">we&#8217;ll be streaming Civilization VI<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Link (YouTube) Confession time: when I originally played this game, the final cutscene worked a little differently. (Or maybe it bugged out?) I stood by Shaun&#8217;s bedside, watched him die, and dinged a level right there without it cutting away for the final cutscene. It was a hilariously dissonant moment. I was hoping that would [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[188],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-35051","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-spoilerwarning"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35051","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=35051"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35051\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=35051"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=35051"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=35051"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}