It's been about a year now since our beloved Skyrim Blog started incorporating content from the Fallout franchise, and in that time there's been many discussions on what people like about Fallout. However I've yet to see any discussions about why some of us dislike it.
So tell us, what are your reasons for not liking Fallout?
Mine are as follows:
Setting
This is one of the biggest problems I have with Fallout. Everything's basically a radiation filled desert with the occasional ruined town, 1950's vending machine, or abandoned Vault. There's no real contrast in any of the locations.
I think the last time I played Fallout 3 was some time in late 2014, while I've only played about an hour of New Vegas about 3, maybe 4 years ago. The reason being, it did nothing to bring me back. Everything's just bland wastes and the people are all equally as bland.
Roleplay
For a Roleplaying game, it's incredibly hard to come up with a decent backstory when most is already written for you. The Elder Scrolls did this perfectly: You are a prisoner. It could've been a minor crime, a major crime, or it could've just been a mistake. However, in Fallout 3, you have to be 18 years old, in New Vegas I think you had to be a courier, and in Fallout 4 you have to have a wife and child. There's hardly any room for your own backstory, which is just frustrating.
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In the end, it passes the time, but it also feels like time wasted.
I don't really agree with the roleplay aspect, or at least not for that reason. You were effectively a blank slate in Fallout 3 and New Vegas - granted with a couple of aspects fixed, but you could ignore those.
That has changed markedly in Fallout 4, due to the voiced protagonist. The backstory is now set, and that definitely does affect role play.
I wouldn't be surprised if Elder Scrolls VI has a voiced protagonist, which will set the backstory much more than it was in Skyrim or Oblivion. Just saying...
And, whilst I do agree that the wastelands can be a bit depressing, I think they've done a much better job with Fallout 4 at creating variety than happened with either Fallout 3 or Fallout NV
New Vegas did have a lot more potential for backstory, as far as I can remember, but I think Fallout 3's was much more fixed. I mean, the first few minutes of gameplay is basically your backstory, leaving out only a few years in between that you can interpret for yourself.
Still, I found out that using cheats makes the game enjoyable. Oh, switching from my sniper to my shotgun when a deathclaw is meters away takes too much? Well, screw you Bethesda, I'm going to activate god mode! Oh, I don't get to have a decent supply of stimpacks and .308 caliber bullets? No problem, I'll just bring up the console and call the player.additem function.
The biggest problem is the world. 2 centuries ago the A bomb fell and radiation baked the world. Now we have mutants and ghouls without a explanation that make sense how they e(de)volved. Humans have tainted DNA and breed like rabits, especially raiders. Everybody use guns, even senile old bats and advanced weaponry like plasma and rifles, but there are no factories or gunsmiths to make weapons and bullets. I could go on, but ...
I personally hate the art style of this game. While Bethesda tried to make Skyrim look as realistic as possible, they went down the good-lookin'-but-still-definately-a-game route in Fallout 4. Because of this I never feel underthreat or that the world is dangerous, it looks to cartoony. I also loved the style of FO3 and FONV, its gritty and somewhat bland look fit into the world far more than FO4 does.
New Vegas's Courier was a blank slate. You have no idea what happened beyond "You were told to deliver this, and you got shot in the head by Benny."
Fallout 3, on the other hand, I could not enjoy nearly as much. Fallout 4 was fun for a little because "Shiny mechanics in a world that I enjoy!" and quickly overstayed its welcome.
That's fantasy worlds in a nutshell. Look at star wars! They use the same technology in the movies as in the old republic games. I can only presume that these civilizations reached the peak of technological development... yet they still use wires instead of wi-fi. Oh, right! And let's not forget the always used cliche in magical fantasy worlds: long lost ancient magic that is so much powerful than "modern days" magic. I can only presume that those civilizations de-evolved.
Honestly, there was the start and middle of Fallout 4...let me sum up what I enjoyed...Crafting and I suppose Power Armour, even the crafting wasn't as organic as Skyrim's, or hell Fallout NV (I can't justify my Law Degree, Mom from a very 50's feeling era knowing how to create a functioning Sniper Rifle from a pistol damn it)
Everything else in the game rubbed me the wrong way, from the smaller weapon pool (Or at least smaller feeling), complete lack of Roleplay, forced in Backstory, smaller armour pool, limited armour customization, kind of shoddy graphics (Honestly, compared to the Witcher, Dragon Age Inquisition, hell even Black Ops 3 it feels like a down-grade), less interesting characters (I haven't been able to enjoy the characters like I did Caesar for instance, or even Benny).
All in all it feels like a very stale game to me with little to nothing that will ever keep me interested.
I think the background storyline is dumb. I really don't like the 50's combined with nuclear holocaust theme. I guess I don't really care for science fiction video games like that. Gazing at my game library right now, I've got five games that are science fiction; Mass Effect 1-3, Halo 1 and 3. Mass Effect was bought as a bundle for $45, I enjoy RPGs, and I've heard good things about it. Overall a pretty good game. Halo is a relic from the past and I haven't played any of the games past Halo 3, except Halo Wars. I've read and own most of the books that have come out for the series. They get their own shelf on my book case in fact, I enjoy them so much.
But Fallout doesn't provide me my futuristic science fiction setting with aliens and spaceships. It's grungy, boring, and depressing. I don't find the storyline compelling either. I want to save humanity/the galaxy from destruction wrought by alien forces beyond our understanding, not travel irradiated grey wastelands shooting mutants and giant bugs over.... What's my motivation in Fallout again?
What I'm getting down to is Fallout has crappy and incredibly boring lore. TES, Halo, Star Wars, Dragon Age, (maybe Mass Effect) have interesting lore that I do care about.
Oh, oh, oh. There is one more thing that drives me bonkers: As a player I need a specific perk to lockpick doors and hack terminals. What. The. Fuck!?!? Oh right, and perking Advanced Hacking and so on doesn't make the process simpler. Damn it, there are times when I spend two to three minutes in front of a terminal to hack it. Would it not have been more logical to allow player to try and hack any kind of terminal and the perks would make the process easier? Like reduce the number of letters in a word?