[quote]The quests were tedious.[/quote] Every Bethesda game. Seriously, there are too many "get me X amount of this, or kill X amounts of these, or find this" quests. There are still more unique quests in all the others though [quote]The story was unoriginal and boring.[/quote] Every Bethesda game. This is why no one talks about how great their stories are. [quote]Everything ended in a gunfight.[/quote] Not necessarily, but yeah. [quote]The characters were pretty meh.[/quote] Now that can not be said with objective fact. Besides being cookie cutter lines of dialogue after their importance is over, they characters where pretty good. [quote]The world was pretty bland.[/quote] Fallout 3 was literally just grey. At least this has color. [quotr]The dialogue was horrendous.[/quote] That's absolutely true. [quote]The skill system had been tragically watered down.[/quote] Also true, for better or worse being debatable. Probably the latter.[/quote]

[quote]Regardless of the rest of the game, you're still going from street to street gunning people down in first person.[/quote]

My point went way over your head, didn't it? I could do knife only playthrough of CoD and say it isn't a gun game... But it is. Almost all of the game is resolved with some kind of conflict. Don't even try a no gun playthrough, the game is moving from room to room and killing people.

[quote]My point went way over your head, didn't it? I could do knife only playthrough of CoD and say it isn't a gun game... But it is. Almost all of the game is resolved with some kind of conflict. Don't even try a no gun playthrough, the game is moving from room to room and killing people.[/quote] No, I'm just rebutting your absurd idea of "everything ending with a gunfight" with another absurd idea, not gearing up in a hostile post-apocalyptic world. That brush you're painting the game seems a little broad. Everything doesn't have to end in a gunfight, especially if your character is developed along the fast talking charismatic mindset. The idea of expecting a conflict free game of this sort, with its premise is pretty silly. I'm guessing you picked up Myst & Riven and then complained when you couldn't find any weapons to wield or enemies to fight with. Seriously though, there are plenty of non-traditional games that don't have direct conflict in their makeup (Portal, Katamari Damacy, Little Big Planet and the aforementioned Myst/Riven come to mind) if that's your bent. Complaining about conflict and gunplay in Fallout is like writing speeding tickets at Daytona.

You're jumping from one end of the spectrum to the other. Now it seems like you've gone out of your way to make my point something it wasn't. I never at all took issue with the fact that there is conflict and gunfights in the game. I'm gonna bold this so that it can't be misconceived or twisted. [b]My issue is with the excessive amount of gunfights and conflict in an RPG.[/b] Are you telling me that it's all completely justified because of the setting? Bullshit. The devs were just too lazy to create a different situation and a different outcome.

[quote]You're jumping from one end of the spectrum to the other. Now it seems like you've gone out of your way to make my point something it wasn't. I never at all took issue with the fact that there is conflict and gunfights in the game. I'm gonna bold this so that it can't be misconceived or twisted. [b]My issue is with the excessive amount of gunfights and conflict in an RPG.[/b] Are you telling me that it's all completely justified because of the setting? Bullshit. The devs were just too lazy to create a different situation and a different outcome.[/quote] So, you've gone from the objective (and patently untrue) statement of "everything ends in a gunfight" to the subjective "excessive gunfights and conflict". Make sure and occasionally turn your head while you're backpedalling so you don't trip over anything. As far as the setting determining the level of conflict & violence I'll point out that there's not much reasoning with a deathclaw or radscorpion, [url=http://www.impawards.com/1982/posters/beastmaster.jpg] unless you're Marc Singer perhaps[/url], and maybe not even then. But, if it's violence among the human(oid)s that seems unrealistic to you I suggest you consider Chicago's nearly 800 murders last year, or the 50 already for this year and January isn't even over! This is in a major American city with an armed and organized police force. The world of Fallout would be like Smurf Village compared to the US in a WROL situation. Only the most naïve or obtuse would think otherwise. In any case, if it seems like I'm picking on you I'm not. I dislike absolutes ("[i]everything[/i] ends in a gunfight") and I still think that complaints about violence in a game like Fallout are sheer folly. But there are other very salient points in your list, (the dialogue - ugh!). Regarding your conflict & violence viewpoint about Fallout, have you played Dishonored? If you did, what did you think of it? I ask because I saw arguments almost diametrically opposed to the one we're discussing here when the achievement list came out for the original title. Some players complained about an achievement based on not killing anyone through the entire playthrough.

It's a hyperbolic statement. Honestly, I think you know exactly what I meant so now I'm beginning to not really care for your replies. Again, it's not the violence I care about - I don't think I've ever made a point about the level of violence in that game. It's the amount of situations presented to you that are resolved with violence. It's incredibly tedious. I feel similarly to Dishonored how I do with Fallout. Dishonored is a pretty solid game (though I'm struggling to bring myself to continue playing the second one), but I feel as though I'm doing the same thing over and over. The Last of Us was the same. I tried to get invested in the game, but I just couldn't. I just moved from room to room sneaking past zombies. Sure, I had the option to go in all-guns-blazing, but that just moved the problem.

[quote]I feel similarly to Dishonored how I do with Fallout. Dishonored is a pretty solid game (though I'm struggling to bring myself to continue playing the second one), but I feel as though I'm doing the same thing over and over.[/quote] Given the ground that's been covered that surprises me. I figured that you'd a fan of the more open gameplay of Dishonored (you did call it solid though). It's one of the best new IPs I've played in a long time. The option to go full killing frenzy or not kill a single soul seemed like it would appeal to you, as well as no magic or a lot of magic. Outside of a few situations that had different mechanics I do understand, and somewhat agree with, the repetitive nature. I haven't touched the second one, I knew I wouldn't get to it for a while. No sense paying day one price for something I'm not touching for a long while. So, for you, what's a good game with open options and relatively little repetitive situations and gameplay elements?

That's just dressing it up a different way. Giving me different options to accomplish a goal doesn't give me a new goal. I don't so much mind repetition as I do how it's handled. Have you ever played Shadowrun? It's a superb rpg despite the gameplay itself being pretty much the same every mission. But I don't feel like I'm playing a game because of the characters, the mission objective variety, the writing, the dialogue, the setting. The game just feels like it has life in it. Metro is basically the definition of a post apocalyptic corridor shooter, but do I even need to try and explain how the gameplay feels so much different between that and Fallout?

I skipped Shadowrun, I played the tabletop rpg and don't care for the game world. Cyberpunk was always the better game. Having said that, I'm cautiously optimistic and crossing my fingers that CD Projekt Red can finish and nail the execution of Cyberpunk 2077. Mike Pondsmith had been heavily involved in it so I'm hoping the game actually comes to fruition.

I remember when I went back to play 3 after I played 4 I assumed that it would have some much less action and gun fights...but no not really.The first hours of the game after you leave the vault are filled with walking through subways systems and blown out buildings shooting raiders,ghouls,and mutants.I was like "what the heck this game is full of fricking shooting."

[quote]The story was unoriginal and boring.[/quote] A man/woman is frozen in a pod because they ran to a nearby doomsday vault with their family to avoid an imminent nuclear threat. Man sees wife killed and child kidnapped while frozen in pod, eventually escapes and sets out to find them. [spoiler]In the end, man/woman finds out organization took their son to help rebuild underground and create the technology needed to bring life back to the planet. You confront leader of this organization, turns out it's been 60 years or something like that and he's your son.[/spoiler] How is it unoriginal? Boring is an opinion here but I've never seen another story quite like it lol.

So much of that -- such as being frozen -- was minor details. At its core, you're a parent looking for a son. Fallout 3 was a son looking for a parent. And you really think the victim has never turned out to be the bad guy?

I think that if you boil down your stories that much and stitch other parts of other stories onto it, everything has been done. If it's that simplified for you then there will be no originality to anything. It would be like saying the new 3 star trek movies are the same. In all 3 something dramatic happens to the enterprise, it's always a new alien threat never-before-seen. And yes, Khan is not human. Then at the end, the final confrontation is always a fist fight. Since nothing is original at the very, very simplest idea, it's about the writer's/creator's spins and twists on it.

But something happening to the Enterprise isn't exactly a critical story element in the same way. LotR is a good example, Helms Deep and Minas Tirith are two big fights that happen towards the end of the movie - but it's a set piece. It ties into the story, it isn't the base of it. The difference between FO and LotR is that looking for your parent/son is everything the story is about, whereas the two big fights are just a part of it. The biggest let down with Fallout 4 is that it doesn't even have an interesting twist or spin on it, though. Perhaps you're right, I could be looking into too much. But once I made it past the intro, my first thought for 4 was "... So it's just 3 in reverse? :S".