Games Inbox: Is Fallout 4 still worth playing?

Fallout 4 – have you played it lately? (Picture: Bethesda)

The Friday letters page thinks it could run EA better than the current execs, as one reader is unimpressed by Immortals Of Aveum.

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Nine years later

It certainly has taken its time, but I find myself strangely excited at the idea of playing Fallout 4 again, except this time with the next gen update. Perhaps it’s the hype brought by the TV show being good, but I think Bethesda were right to delay the patch till now, to get the maximum number of people interested in the game.

They might be similar in terms of gameplay but I’ve always much preferred Fallout to The Elder Scrolls, which I’ve always found a pretty generic fantasy world. Fallout is fairly unique, or at least was originally, but most importantly, for me, it has a sense of humour. Maybe not as good as the early non-Bethesda entries but I appreciate it doesn’t take itself completely seriously.

I am curious to know whether it still holds up after all this time though. I think it does – I was playing around with some mods just a year or so ago – but I’d be interested in hearing from anyone else that has played the whole thing through more recently. Although either way, I’m still going to give it another go once the new patch is out.

Codie

A long wait

Crazy to think Fallout 4 is almost a decade old now, I had that in my head as a still relatively new game and I’m not sure if it’s a good or a bad thing that I’m wrong. But knowing we might not get Fallout 5 even this decade is madness and the perfect illustration of how game development has got out of control.

None of this is Bethesda’s fault but let’s say Fallout 5 is out in 2030, which seems to be pretty optimistic, by that point Fallout 4 will be 15 years old and Todd Howard will be 60. Things can’t go on like this, not if company’s want a franchise to continue and expect people to stay fans of them. I just imagine some twentysomething gamer in 2030 being surprised they made a game out of that old (by that point) Amazon Prime show.

Actually, maybe this is kind of Bethesda’s fault though, because there was that story that they refused to let Obsidian make any more spin-offs. They really should’ve said yes to that.

Gladborne

Easy job

The more I learn about the games industry the more I feel like anyone could do it. Not make the games – that takes expertise, commitment, and talent – I mean running a publisher. Everyone just seems so bad at their jobs.

I don’t need to get into Sony and Microsoft but just consider EA and Dead Space. What were they expecting? The original games were never that big and yet all of sudden they expect people to be buying a remake in their millions, because… they also bought the Resident Evil remakes?

Ignoring the fact that Resident Evil has a completely different tone and is considerably more beloved, even they don’t sell as much as people probably think. Dead Space was never going to sell more than a million or so, I could’ve told EA that. They should’ve given it to an indie developer to make a new game. I bet they would’ve done it for a tenth of the price and made a nice healthy profit.

Foxhound

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Research failings

I’ve been playing Mario + Rabbids Sparks Of Hope for the last few… weeks? Must be. I got it before Christmas for £15 and thought it would be good from the reviews. And it was! I really enjoyed the first few days. But towards the end, it dragged out something chronic. It’s my fault for being a completionist I suppose, if I hadn’t tried to do everything I’d have been done a lot quicker. As it is if I ever see another rabbid it’ll be too soon.

I purchased Faeria and Ys Origin in the recent eShop sale. I’d put Faeria on my wishlist a while back, as it looked good, but I wished I had done some research. It requires an Internet connection at all times and, from what I’ve seen on the Faeria Reddit page, is predominantly a multiplayer, which is not what I wanted. Alas, here’s hoping Ys Origin proves its worth.

Solabound

Back in stock

For amiibo fans like me, there is a lot old amiibo, from 2014 onwards, relisted on Nintendo’s UK Store but not in stock currently (Thursday 1.30pm). I expect they will come in stock soon, as that is what normally happens when they list ‘new’ amiibo. When I say new I mean ones that have not been in stock for a long time and are now newly listed.

There is the Peach amiibo no. 2, Little Mac amiibo from Punch-Out!!, Falco amiibo from Star Fox, and the various Mario characters and Bowser amiibos in their wedding attire from Super Mario Odyssey! As well as others. Diddy Kong is in stock now though. When I searched for ‘amiibo’ there was 137 results the other day and now there is 151 results.

Andrew J.

Currently playing: Moss: Book 2 (PSVR2) and Strange Brigade (Xbox Series X)

Midnight viewing

Lately, I have been rather enjoying Marvel’s Midnight Suns. Not as polished as XCOM, but more accessible. But first, I need to tell you about the demo I played for SaGa: Emerald Beyond. It’s… extremely underwhelming, with a protagonist who actually introduces himself as the ‘hero of the story.’ He makes Bubsy the Bobcat seem humble. It’s better than Unlimited SaGa on the PlayStation 2 I suppose, but that’s such a low bar that it’s in Hell.

Regardless, in the tedious tutorial section you have to press a scan button in order to progress. But, due to the heavy serifs used in the typeface (that’s serif, not sheriff), the ‘c’ looked like an ‘e’. ‘The Sean button? Who the hell is Sean?’ I asked myself. It took a moment and some squinting to realise my mistake. And soon after delete the demo.

Back to Midnight Suns. Yeah, I love it! And I really enjoy just mucking around at the Abbey, getting to know everybody. My goodness, though, it is ropey – isn’t it? Music stops and starts, the loading times are huge, and textures go all blurry on the characters’ outfits at times.

And yeah, the voice acting is patchy. The guy playing Tony Stark is good enough to not be doing his weak Robert Downey Jr. impression, but I guess that’s what the director wanted. Wow, his ego is truly the size of Galactus. Doctor Strange is really bad, like why is he camp and almost British? Because old Benny Cucumbers from the films is British? I mean, I think I’d take his atrocious American accent over what we got here.

My favourites are Nico and Magik, though. ‘Is portal.’ She is so brutally Russian, I love it. Bit of a stereotype? Maybe, but I find her to be great fun. And I fell in love with Nico from the SyFy TV series The Runaways. She is basically Marvel’s answer to Raven. And the same actress, Lyrica Okano, even voices her here! Isn’t that nice? Not much trace of any LGBTQ content or representation here, though, which is a bit of a shame.

Oh, and Robbie – aka, better Ghost Rider – is adorable!

DMR

GC: What format where you play it on? We didn’t experience any serious bugs and that was on PC. The voiceovers are general pretty weak though, we agree.

Obvious faults

It seems to me pretty obvious from the first hour why Immortals Of Aveum flopped. It’s absolutely mind-bogglingly rubbish.

The budget was probably big but despite having Unreal Engine 5 under the hood it still manages to feel incredibly cheap and devoid of character.

Wonk

GC: We don’t know about ‘absolutely mind-bogglingly rubbish’ but it’s definitely not very good.

Blowing steam

My engagement in and enjoyment of gaming is waning at the moment. It seems to do so at intervals. Apart from Balatro (which is addiction more than pleasure!) I just can’t seem to gain any pleasure from anything and I’ve even hit a bit of a brick wall with the dreaded orange stake.

I decided I needed to try something new or revisit a discarded title. I have been wanting to try a big budget, well reviewed title like Spider-Man or The Last Of Us since the Steam Deck has opened up such possibilities for me. God Of War put me off this idea and made me weary of all the positive reviews, since I tried it and found it dull beyond belief.

I went to YouTube and found a video called something like ‘should you play The Last Of Us on Steam Deck’ clicked play, skipped advert, and watched. More and more often I find when I watch a review on YouTube that they are completely obsessed with frame rates and graphics. The ‘reviewer’ did not mention the actual game once in the whole video.

I saw a few interesting clips of what looks like quite visceral combat and interesting looking sneaking around a nice game world, but all the voiceover would talk about was dips and anti-aliasing. I know I could have found an actual review but I’m just making a point and this video is by no means unique.

This really disheartened me and proved once again what is wrong with the industry, in my opinion. I long for the days when you just put the cartridge in your console and played (thank goodness for the Switch). I’m forced to dabble a bit now that I own a Steam Deck but I try to keep it to a minimum and just google the settings.

I don’t want to watch comparison videos and somebody changing numbers by tiny increments and then showing some boring repetitive clip of a game which was made to be played, not tinkered with like a classic car. The annoying thing is every individual’s insistence that ‘their’ graphical set-up is correct and you would be a fool to do anything other than follow their template.

I find with the Steam Deck I am constantly reminded that I’m playing a video game, it’s so immersion breaking. I’m constantly thinking that I should change some setting to make it smoother or save battery life, that I’m ‘playing it wrong’.

TheMadMonk82

GC: We mean… thanks for not reading our reviews. Although we wouldn’t have said a big cinematic blockbuster like the ones you mention were very suitable for a portable. We certainly wouldn’t want to play them that way.

Inbox also-rans

That was quite a neat little indie version of a games showcase but I really don’t like the look of that Prince Of Persia game. And why are all their faces purple?!

Herbie

That Gestalt: Steam & Cinder looked like a really neat 2D Metroidvania, in that indie showcase. Definitely got my eye on that one already.

Primo97

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The small print

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