[..]
Recently my brother told me the game is getting some bad reviews... what is the general consensus here? Flawed masterpiece or just not very good? [..]
Flawed masterpiece in my opinion.
Cons:
Settlement building is badly implemented. Very badly implemented.
- It all has to be done in first person, which is perfect for an RPG or FPS but completely wrong for a construction game. That should be "god view" perspective, with variable distance and angle third person perspective.
- Snap to fit should be optional per piece so that it's possible to do things such as placing items next to each other but at different heights so you can, for example, building a wall on a slope.
- It should be possible to make internal walls so you can make rooms.
- Resizing pieces would be a very good extra too - you're making these floor and wall sections from scratch, so why would it be impossible to make them to the size you want?
- Bugginess causes settlements to randomly (and quite frequently) lose resources and people while you're away. Look in the pip-boy and the settlement has lost all water and food and half a dozen people have died or left...go to the settlement and it goes back to normal, but the happiness rating remains reduced.
- You can't scrap junk to turn it into materials (that only happens automatically when you build something using that material), so your workbench inventory quickly gets so full of junk it's difficult to find anything. You will find yourself having to scroll through dozens of pages of junk (because you can't search it it any way). You can't find out how much of any material you have unless you try to build something with it. Are you short on, e.g. plastic? You have no way of knowing.
- Settler control is ludicrously bad. You can't find out who is assigned to what tasks unless you can stumble across them in view of the task they are assigned to, enter settlement building mode and look at the person - if the task they are assigned to is within view it will be highlighted. That's the limit of what you are allowed to know. The least bad workaround is to dress assigned settlers in a similar manner based on what you've assigned them to, e.g. all my shopkeepers wear suits, all my provisioners wear combat armour. That helps prevent assigning a settler to one task when they're already assigned to another task, but it's awkward (you need to rummage through your pointlessly inconvenient settlement building workbench inventory to find the clothing you've assigned to a task, retrieve it, find the settler you want, talk to them, dress them and then assign the task) and probably won't be the roleplay you want (if you still care about roleplay while playing FO4, which you probably shouldn't).
Dialogue wheel. It's crap. Only 4 options allowed and the labelling is often unclear and often doesn't match what the character says.
Companion pathfinding. Last night I did a mission which requires you to play with a companion and to follow them - you're being hired as an extra gun, they're in charge. Partway through, they got stuck in the floor trying to walk up a fallen ceiling section which gave access to a higher floor. This apparently isn't all that unusual, but it's particularly irritating when you need to follow that NPC and, of course, can't because they're not going anywhere. I worked around it by carrying on solo until they teleported towards me, but I can see it being an issue for anyone who plays with a companion (I don't).
Voiced character. As a result, you can't roleplay as anyone other than the character that Bethesda created. Since you can't even know or control what that character will say (due to the dialogue wheel), this is even crappier than it would be anyway.
Story. Parts of it make no sense (e.g. friendly characters trying to kill you for no apparent reason). The writing is of variable quality, with quite a bit that gives me the impression of being cobbled together quickly to fit a desired plot point. Also, I find that I don't care about it to the extent that the story seems an inconvenience to me. I think this ties back to the roleplaying - since you can't, what would make you care about the story?
Pros:
It's a proper Fallout game. Exploration, with hundreds of locations to find and explore. A blighted environment with pockets of hope and determination in the form of farms and traders travelling around, with a few small towns (that are more like villages, given that the population is so small). There are numerous side stories and backstories. I'm much more interested in those than the main story.
Equipment is well implemented, with significant scope for crafting and legendary items providing bonuses.
Character improvement is well implemented, with stats and perks.
Settlement building. It's very badly implemented, but it is settlement building and that's very well suited to a Fallout game. This is what I'm doing for roleplaying - I'm being a benevolent dictator, genuinely caring about my subjects and striving to do what I can to improve their lives. So, for example, I have built a large pub in Sanctuary, complete with pool table (with cues and balls), jukebox (powered and working), bar, restaurant, tables, comfy chairs, sofas, nice lighting and floor and wall decorations. This has absolutely no effect in the gameworld, but it's roleplaying which is sadly lacking from the main game. I provide good chairs for shopkeepers because it's malicious cruelty to make people stand while working when it isn't necessary, a custom that exists solely to harm them in order to emphasise their inferior status. Of course, they don't actually use the chairs because it's not programmed into the game, but it's roleplay for me. I'm building high concrete walls and over the top security so the people of my settlements can feel safe - attackers never even get to the settlements I've finished the defences for. If they do find the gates, the 8 heavy machinegun turrets at each gate shred them. If they did manage to get through, the gun platforms running around the 1st floor of every building would shred them. Silly overkill in-game, but it's roleplaying. I am an effective dictator - you are safe in my settlements.
Overall, I am well pleased with FO4. It's excellent value for money, since the £36 I paid for it is working out as just pennies per hour of entertainment.
double damage on full health + sneak bonus.
