potatojohn
Arcane
- Joined
- Jan 2, 2012
- Messages
- 2,646
tl;dr It is very good.
I played the first half on hard difficulty but after I read that survival spawns more legendary enemies I switched to survival.
It became easier toward the end as I maxed sneak, ninja, mister sandman, lone wanderer, and rifleman (4/5). I would often one-shot kill legendary enemies with a combat rifle.
I liked the leveling system. I ended the main quest on level 43 and there were tons of useful perks left to take (I had no crafting at all, no pickpocket, only rifleman weapon skill, etc) It's not really dumbed down - you just take perk levels 1-5 instead of skills 1-100 (or 255 in F1/2). There are also more weapon "skills" and they're more logical, which is great after the stupid way it worked in NV.
I liked the story. It had some thoughtful moments, like when you go into Kellogg's mind, or when the institute sends you after a synth that became a raider, and the theme of AI and AI rights ties in nicely to contemporary discussions. It also wasn't too "whacky" unlike some parts of NV (like yes-man).
The factions were also quite cool. None of them were evil and all had some good points to make, either directly or through quests. It was surprisingly difficult to choose one.
The dialogue system is... I don't know. It's a big improvement in some ways. For example you can walk or look away and back or pull out a gun, and conversations involving multiple people feel far more natural than before.
The writing is good for what it is. I'm normally quite sensitive to this, but I don't remember anything particularly bad. It was occasionally funny or thoughtful, which I think places it high among video games.
The map is nice, especially the huge urban area where the threat often comes from above, and the glowing sea, where you have to wear a hazmat suit but also face some of the toughest enemies.
I liked that you got the power armor early. I always hated how in NV you had to get through some of the toughest quests in the game to get it. It's well balanced since it needs power to run, takes damage, makes sneaking hard and you can't get as many bonuses as from normal legendary armor.
Equipment modding greatly improved the game. I especially liked how I often used worse guns with mods because I didn't have those mods for my better guns. There are also interesting trade-offs, like adding a scope reduces hip-fire accuracy and costs more in VATS, and silencers reduce range.
The settlement building was entertaining, marred only by the lacking interface. It really needs some sort of table where you can see what settlers are doing and assign jobs to them.
The random legendary enemies and items felt out of place. It did make the combat a bit more interesting, but I think they should've at least had some more restrictions on what kind of effects types of items can receive, since a lot of combinations are nonsense. Overall I think this is the weakest point of the game. Since it's random and NPCs never comment on it it's easy to ignore. I also didn't like that the power armor spawns were based on character level. They should've just put more powerful ones in more dangerous locations.
As usual, the interface is awkward and takes some getting used to. I wish there was some way to make "armor sets" so you could quickly switch between them. The amount of time I spent clicking to switch between combat armor, charisma boosting clothing and the hazmat suit... ffs. But I'm sure mods will fix it.
The graphics are great in my opinion. The lightning is often beautiful, colors are vibrant, animations are good, character faces finally look decent and you can have different body types (and it's even reflected in armor).
I played the first half on hard difficulty but after I read that survival spawns more legendary enemies I switched to survival.
It became easier toward the end as I maxed sneak, ninja, mister sandman, lone wanderer, and rifleman (4/5). I would often one-shot kill legendary enemies with a combat rifle.
I liked the leveling system. I ended the main quest on level 43 and there were tons of useful perks left to take (I had no crafting at all, no pickpocket, only rifleman weapon skill, etc) It's not really dumbed down - you just take perk levels 1-5 instead of skills 1-100 (or 255 in F1/2). There are also more weapon "skills" and they're more logical, which is great after the stupid way it worked in NV.
I liked the story. It had some thoughtful moments, like when you go into Kellogg's mind, or when the institute sends you after a synth that became a raider, and the theme of AI and AI rights ties in nicely to contemporary discussions. It also wasn't too "whacky" unlike some parts of NV (like yes-man).
The factions were also quite cool. None of them were evil and all had some good points to make, either directly or through quests. It was surprisingly difficult to choose one.
The dialogue system is... I don't know. It's a big improvement in some ways. For example you can walk or look away and back or pull out a gun, and conversations involving multiple people feel far more natural than before.
The writing is good for what it is. I'm normally quite sensitive to this, but I don't remember anything particularly bad. It was occasionally funny or thoughtful, which I think places it high among video games.
The map is nice, especially the huge urban area where the threat often comes from above, and the glowing sea, where you have to wear a hazmat suit but also face some of the toughest enemies.
I liked that you got the power armor early. I always hated how in NV you had to get through some of the toughest quests in the game to get it. It's well balanced since it needs power to run, takes damage, makes sneaking hard and you can't get as many bonuses as from normal legendary armor.
Equipment modding greatly improved the game. I especially liked how I often used worse guns with mods because I didn't have those mods for my better guns. There are also interesting trade-offs, like adding a scope reduces hip-fire accuracy and costs more in VATS, and silencers reduce range.
The settlement building was entertaining, marred only by the lacking interface. It really needs some sort of table where you can see what settlers are doing and assign jobs to them.
The random legendary enemies and items felt out of place. It did make the combat a bit more interesting, but I think they should've at least had some more restrictions on what kind of effects types of items can receive, since a lot of combinations are nonsense. Overall I think this is the weakest point of the game. Since it's random and NPCs never comment on it it's easy to ignore. I also didn't like that the power armor spawns were based on character level. They should've just put more powerful ones in more dangerous locations.
As usual, the interface is awkward and takes some getting used to. I wish there was some way to make "armor sets" so you could quickly switch between them. The amount of time I spent clicking to switch between combat armor, charisma boosting clothing and the hazmat suit... ffs. But I'm sure mods will fix it.
The graphics are great in my opinion. The lightning is often beautiful, colors are vibrant, animations are good, character faces finally look decent and you can have different body types (and it's even reflected in armor).
