Oh, The Lies!

[kraag]

Coming from a review on the 9th of November 2015 by Dennis Scimeca @ DailyDot. I'll only need to post the first few paragraphs for it to have maximum effect. It is seriously uncanny how much of a mirror image this review paints of the true Fallout 4, nearly everything in it is an outright lie. And so early, wasn't the game released on the 10th of November? This comes off as being paid for by certain corporations. Feel free to post any other pieces from that review that you'd like to pick apart. The title of the review itself is quite laughable.

Fallout 4 justifies all the hype. It is an improvement on Fallout 3 in every way, and borrows popular systems from Fallout: New Vegas to create the most vibrant Fallout game yet.

Fallout 3 was praised so loudly that you wouldn’t have blamed Bethesda if it had decided to play it safe with Fallout 4 by sticking to the same formula. Instead, very few game elements have gone unchanged.

The writing is better, the characters are more fleshed-out, there’s more variety of environments, combat is more thrilling, and you have substantial opportunity to shape the world rather than simply living there. Fallout 4 has "game of the year" written all over it.

...
Disclosure: Our Steam, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One review copies of Fallout 4 were provided courtesy of Bethesda.

 

[Crni Vuk]

Considering how few informations Bethesda has shown from F4 before the actuall release, you at least can't say that they lied ... I mean the game looks like the images they have shown and they never told much about the gameplay really.

 

[MercenarySnake]

borrows popular systems from Fallout: New Vegas

I didn't happen to realize it did such a thing, besides the very poor impersonation of companion quests.

The writing is better, the characters are more fleshed-out

Yes the characters are fleshed out like Piper getting turned on whenever you pick a lock(that's one way to get to "unlock" her love). The writing is terrible when there is writing, things like "Kid in a Fridge" prove the writing to be a disaster.

there’s more variety of environments

There's only a few unique places I found, the rest were copy and paste buildings.

combat is more thrilling

Killing Orc-hulk #1,000 is indeed "thrilling".

you have substantial opportunity to shape the world rather than simply living there

Oh yeah I can have The Sims in my Fallout that does...nothing. I can shape the world by blowing it up if I'm a psychopath or not. Such a defining "choice".

 

[Spacemunkey]

I love these perfect score reviews given to a game that the reviewer himself said "the companion AI is terrible. Idiot companions will move ahead of you into rooms while you’re in sneak mode, breaking stealth by attracting attention to you both." and "I highly recommend against trying to change any of your companions’ or an NPC’s undergarments, like a Vault Suit or military fatigues, while that character is wearing armor. Trying to do so crashed Fallout 4 every time I tried it." Even if I loved the game as a reviewer these 2 quotes alone should have warranted giving it 3.5-4 out of 5; people who write articles for a living should at least know the definition of basic words like perfect.

 

[PossibleCabbage]

A lot of the people who ended up disappointed in Fallout 4 actually enjoyed it quite a bit for a good number of hours at the beginning. I imagine that the structure of the professional review system work in Bethesda's favor here, since critics are up against a deadline to play enough of the game that they feel comfortable rendering judgement in a review. Since review copies are sent out a week or two before the embargo, a game that goes on for a long, long time could conceivably overstay its welcome at a period later than any critic has a realistic chance of reaching if they're to publish before the embargo is up.

It's like eating something where the first few bites are great, the next few bites are okay, and by the time you get to the end you'd prefer to be eating nothing than eating this.

This isn't necessarily a problem, but it becomes one in video games because "Initial impressions" matter so much in the games business, because games make almost all their money in the first two weeks after release, and studio bonuses are based on things like metacritic which will not update scores for revised opinions. I'm really not sure how to fix it.

 

[Ben Soto]

I'd say to extend the review period for games, i.e. give the games out a month before the embargo is lifted. That way, first impressions will be whisked away by a more complete impression.

 

[MercenarySnake]

I doubt that's going to matter much as long as these reviewers are paid under the table by them. When you're Bethesda you always win.

 

[RangerBoo]

Tell me lies, tell me sweet little lies!

 

[MercenarySnake]

Tell me lies, tell me sweet little lies!

You forgot this:
"All of this..just works!" -Todd Howard

 

[PossibleCabbage]

I'd say to extend the review period for games, i.e. give the games out a month before the embargo is lifted. That way, first impressions will be whisked away by a more complete impression.

The issue though is that once the game goes gold, the time until the game is available for sale is basically based on how long it takes to manufacture, print, ship, stock, and shelve the game. There's no real incentive to waiting, but you can set aside some of the first handful of printed copies of the final product on the first day after the game goes gold and ship those off to the critics ASAP. So the time they have to review the game is basically limited by that. There's really no incentive to not release the game once you have all the copies printed and in stores ready to be put on shelves.