Brother None said:
But it's not supposed to be satire. It's simply supposed to approximate, which it does pretty well.
They almost edged into PoS territory with that procreation joke, but for the most part it's well done.
Well, it seems pointless to argue about it, first of all because I appreciate your voice as being that of level-headed reason and secondly because there are just so many greater flaws in this game - but, I don't think I can agree with your view that it was supposed to be an approximation. The way that the Mister Handy threatens the man behind his back, the joke-scenes for each member of the family (and their actor's reaction to them) -- I'm not saying that it makes it clearly satire INSTEAD of approximation, but I think there's at least bit of both at work, because obviously certain elements of the approximation are being exaggerated for (an intended, if not achieved) comedic effect. But surely, whichever one Beth was aiming for, it could've been done better here. It's more than I was expecting of Bethesda though, so ultimately I'm taking-away from the experience a smiley feeling.
As for the physics -
Remember Soldier of Fortune 2? Or 1, even. Bethesda's gore system offers hardly any improvements to that one. And as for Havok, I thought it rather amusing, in Oblivion, that I could lob a small plate or glass off of a mountain-top, watch it strike rock a few hundred feet below, and roll away undamaged. I think all the silliness is just due to the fact that Bethesda seems to make very little of its games itself - unless I'm mistaken, they license the core technologies, adapt and optimize them only minimally, plug in their own graphical assets, setup quests via graphical editor, and ship. As a result, lots of logical details are simply neglected, outside the scope of their development process.
I can't comprehend why anybody finds anything appealing about "ragdoll physics" - but that's a topic for another thread I guess.
Back to the video:
Almost anything can be made to look impressive when shown in quick-cut editing - I don't think this video is as useful as the "walkthru" posted earlier. It is clear though, now, at least, that all of the returning organic critters/baddies from FO1/2 are almost completely unrecognizeable, having been converted to Japanese survival-horror style. Sad.