He is not wrong.


Fall Out 4 was boring as hell.   It was also buggy and I started losing saves and I gave up after the 2nd time it happened.

Next gen platforms being held back to early 2000's level graphics to boot?

Yeah they suck.



It isnt an RPG but one of the best games I have played in the past 10 years was Uncharted 4.    A game so good that I didnt skip the story even though I could if I wanted to.

And skipping the story is something I am guilty as hell with in so many games.   I HATED FarCry 3 for their shit story that you were forced to sit through because there was no way to skip it.   And to add insult to injury they would throw quick time button mashing into the middle of it forcing you to actually watch it to complete a segment.    You couldnt just get to a boring ass 5 minute story segment and while it was playing leave the room to go do something or change to the cable box to watch something.   Nope, do that and you might fail that one 5 second segment where you needed to press "y".   And the perfect sprinkles on top of all that was the pissant author of that shit show got upset that people didnt like his stinking nugget of shit story.




The tards in the gaming industry are becoming complacent as hell.

In fairness, UC4 or any other linear type of game is going to be both easier to have a tight story and easier to avoid bugs than a big, meandering open world RPG that can have almost infinite permutations of play.

That said, it clearly can be done, and the only proof of that you need to look at is the Witcher 3.  Story and graphics were top-notch, and it was *relatively* bug free (compared to a Bethesda game, anyway).

Bethesda clearly needs to take it up several notches in a few areas for their next game.  We'll see if that happens.

Witcher 3 ranks high up there as well.


Uncharted gets so much praise from me because it isnt just another stupid GearsOfWar/COD/ModernWarfare cash grab.

COD/MW has all kinds of stupid elements to the story because it is like they made a list of things to include.   Go down the list of check boxes for your crashing aircraft that you have to jump from in an attempt to copy a scene from an action movie.

If you have played one you have played them all.


Uncharted 4 had some of those elements but when they put them in the game it just worked.   It simply worked.   And if you died you didnt have a tedious grind to get back to the same spot.

And the parts of the game where NaughtyDog gave us an updated version of Crash Bandicoot running from the giant boulder?    Fucking brilliant.

They put real dedication into that game.


I had zero interest in Mass Effect, lost interest in FallOut.   Pretty much been losing faith in gaming for a long time.

The bottom line is there's still a whole lot of people that enjoy the Elder Scrolls/Fallout Bethesda games regardless of their flaws.  I know people that purchased Skyrim at full price 3 or 4 times for the various PC and console releases.  Fallout 4 sales were huuuge.  Bethesda doesn't have any reason to change their formula until they experience major losses in sales.  

I like them for what they are.  Big open world games to explore and build a character.

I lost dogmeat in a survival game. told the bastard to sit, and he poofed while I raided a camp
saved before I went to retrieve him. no console commands. even buying the junkyard dog, which gave the option of where to send dogmeat, did not make him reappear.
and settlement bugs
Shame Bethesda

I don't disagree at all.  I bought Skyrim ay release and then again when the GOTY version came out.  It's the game I have more hours in than any other, ever.

That said, in a post-witcher 3 world I'm not sure they will get as much of a pass as they used to.  It used to be seen as a given that an   open world RPG would be kinda shallow and full of bugs - or at least, Bethesda always used to get a pass for that.  But CDPR proved that you could have a massive open world game that still had a great story and didn't have to be riddled with game-breaking bugs at launch.

Skyrim got a pass, but when FO4 released there were a lot of people talking about how archaic a lot of things were.  If the next game they make doesn't do some things better I think the complaints will be pretty loud.

I'll still preorder the next Elder Scrolls game though.

Bethesdas bacon is saved cause they went to consoles.

I think Skyrim and Fallout fill a certain genre that the Witcher 3 really doesn't belong in.  They are different types of RPG's.  The WItcher 3 is story driven and Skyrim is more of a sandbox.  

TW3 is my #1 game of all time but I also appreciate the more sandbox-oriented nature of Elder Scroll games.

TES Oblivion - Fantastic game for the time, one that I enjoyed for several hundred hours

FO3 - Also a great game for the time

FO:NV - Was and still is the best installment of the FO series to date. Obsidian showed Bethesda how a FO game (or any RPG) should be made, and set the standard for any further FO games

TES Skyrim - Great game with some minor flaws, which was made absolutely amazing with mods.  By far my most invested RPG of all time.

FO4 - Bethesda took every thing they learned from the previous FO and TES games and flushed it down the toilet, completely throwing away every element that makes a RPG memorable.  Effectively ruining what could have been one of the best RPGs of all time.  The modding community is the only thing that made this game even remotely enjoyable IMHO.

I doubt that Bethesda will ever release another FO game worth buying, and we can only hope they don't destroy the TES series in the same fashion.  Not that it matters right now anyway considering that it will probably be 2022 or later before they grace us with the next installment.  Cause, you know... They have so much more important shit to work on

I think Howard said don't expect another installment until the next gen of consoles is released.

Yea, but I don’t see why that would even matter to him since Bethesda games consistently use last gen textures and meshes anyway...

They gotta stay ahead of yesterday's curve.

I think my main complaint with the newer Bethesda games like FO4 is the nerfing of story depth in favor of narrative.

The video touches on it, with how the dialog options are super limited now and there are zero skill check options. Plus there is nothing quite like the old Fallout choices, stuff like "rescue baby / leave baby be / eat baby". FO4 the options would be "complete quest goody-two-shoes / complete quest neutral / complete quest smarmy"

One of my favorite play-throughs in FO:NV was as a evil psychopath siding with Caesar's legion, literally shooting and pillaging my way through the entire game without any mercy.  FO4 completely stripped you of that freedom.  Now you can either play as a over emotional good guy, regular good guy, or a sarcastic good guy...  Nerf is a nice way of putting it.

I am thinking of installing tales of two wastelands again, once the new version is released.

I just need to find high def addons to spice up the graphics.

#1 gripe about FO4: raiders spawning inside settlements. I build all these walls, set up choke points, then fucking raiders spawn inside the walls at the back of the place.
#2 complaint:  The general (me) is an errand boy

Morrowind was my favorite TES game, skyrim a close second, my only real complaint is that nothing you do really matters in the game, you do all this great stuff but no one cares

He makes a lot of good points in the video.

While I enjoyed FO4 overall I think they could have changed quite a few things to make it better:
-Getting good loot didn't feel like an accomplishment. In previous games it felt good to get a really good piece of gear after going through a secret base or fighting a hard boss. Getting that set of T51b out of the base in FO3 was fun, or the artic version in Operation Anchorage, etc. In FO4 it was completely random and a super good piece could drop off a legendary radroach. Just...WTF?
-Story was lacking and real choices were non existent. The end states were pretty much all the same. Where were all the choices to be bad? Where was the dark humor? Where was the morally ambiguous stuff? Where was the option to nuke a town of people as soon as you get out of the vault for your own personal gain?
-The engine is really lacking. Their continued use of the same engine is limiting their ability to create a game world big enough for ES and FO to stay competitive in the market. No matter how good your PC is the city portions of FO4 don't run well.
-The repeat settlement radiant quests were so bad they became meme material. Preston Garvey, go fight for those settlements yourself.
etc.

I hated that more than anything. I'm the fucking general, I should be the one telling other people to go to that shit for more. Then if you don't go defend the stupid settlement, it gets wiped out, no matter how good of defenses you set up.

I see what they were going for.  In a game like Skyrim or Fallout, eventually as you get to the endgame you are going to start burning through the questlines until there isn't much left to do except wander aimlessly.  Skyrim attempted to fix that by having radiant fetchquests that basically could be done over and over infinitely.  Unfortunately they were shallow, bullshit quests, like going and finding this book or that book.  I think FO4 attempted to add some extra depth by giving you missions you were, in theory at least, supposed to be more invested in the mission since you helped set up the settlements in the first place and stuff.  Unfortunately it just turned into more annoying busywork.  I'm not sure if there is really a solution to the endgame content problem in a sandbox RPG like that.

Just end the game. Once you've played the game for hundreds of hours and completed every actual quest, it's time to stop or make a new character and play the game over in a different way.

I think that is part and parcel of the current rot in modern game planning.

With the whole "games are a service" angle they are chasing, nothing can "end"... they must establish a circular path of gameplay that can in theory trap the player in a never ending "experience", which allows them to push additional DLC purchases and the new sucker mcguffins "loot crates". All that is contrary to traditional storytelling means and methods, which means the player will never get closure... it will just be a continual slog through eventually repetitious gameplay with no real reward for their efforts other than the opportunity to continue playing.

For as far as games have advanced technically in the past two decades, they've degenerated from an actual gameplay complexity standpoint. And people will blame everyone and everything for that, from "console peasants" to "mainstreaming" you name it... but the truth is that game developers don't want to challenge the status quo. Nobody big really wants to experiment anymore because there is too much money on the line now. They need to sell a bazillion copies to break even financially, so the games have to be watered down and homogenized to appeal to the widest audience possible... which means complex things like emergent gameplay and nonlinear pathing give way to fetch quests and low scope hand holding. It also means that the crowned king of lazy game design, the multiplayer shooter, rules the roost as it caters to the industry strength which is brute force graphics dominance with cookie cutter established gameplay and zero story complexity.

Same. Not for nostalgic reasons either. It was the depth of gameplay and freedom that had me hooked.