Fallout 4 Wins Best Game At Bafta Awards (bbc.com) 120
An anonymous reader quotes a report from BBC: Fallout 4 has won the best game of the year at 2016's British Academy Games Awards. It marks the first time its US-based developer Bethesda has won the prize. It did not win in any other category. Fallout 4 is an action-focused role-playing game set in Boston following a nuclear war. It contains hundreds of hours of storyline to explore. Like last year's winner -- Destiny -- it had not won a prize in any of the other categories before taking the top award. The studio's European managing director said he had not expected the result, and recalled that although Fallout is now one of gaming's biggest franchises, it too started out small. "You don't have to have the multi-million dollar budgets to make great games -- I've seen a huge amount of evidence for that tonight," said Sean Brennan.
Bafta? (Score:2)
What do films have to do with games?
Re: (Score:1)
And unlike a film or TV show which you can watch in a couple of hours and decide if it's good or not, a good game can take months to appreciate. And there's no way any human can devote many man-months to many games in one calendar year, and also have a job, so as usual with any game review results are completely unreliable.
It all sounds like an act of desperation for a tired old industry to try and stay relevant, but failing miserably.
What does Fallout 4 have to do with GotY? (Score:1, Insightful)
Absolutely nothing. Fallout 4 was a rip-off of its predecessors. It offered less content in parts that were liked in previous releases and offered more content in areas that nobody was interested in. They tried to make Fallout 4 the new Sims. Hell, even the soundtrack was the same as in the previous one!
Re:What does Fallout 4 have to do with GotY? (Score:5, Insightful)
I love Fallout 4, and I've played all the Fallout games. People are still bitter that Bethesda got the license and are holding a grudge.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
What I don't like about the reboot Fallout games is that they took a good RPG and turned it into a twitchfest FPS.
Fallout 2 is still the best in the entire series.
Re:What does Fallout 4 have to do with GotY? (Score:4, Informative)
I have played every PC Fallout game when it came out. I have finished and enjoyed every single one of them until Fallout 4. Fallout was a wonderful surprise, Fallout 2 was more of a great thing, Fallout Tactics was a interesting diversion that scratched my Jagged Alliance itch reasonably well, Fallout 3 was a mediocre transition to a new engine which grew, with the DLCs to a enjoyable game, and New Vegas was once again, pretty damn great.
I have not finished Fallout 4, I have no interest in doing so, and about every single thing about it annoyed me. By the way, I'm an MIT student, and I loved Boston (It helped that I went there from a colder climate)
That Fallout 4 can receive a game of the year award in a year that saw The Witcher 3 and Life is Strange come out? To me this simply underlines the utter irrelevance of the reviewers who awarded it.
Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)
Re:What does Fallout 4 have to do with GotY? (Score:4, Informative)
Compare to Fallout 3. More to explore (the major point of the game). More songs, and yes a few repeat from Fallout 3). More interesting combat options. Things respawn fast at times, but that happened in FO3 also. And dogmeat is actually useful unlike the one in FO3. Can't think of any way it's not improving on FO3, though the different level/stats/perks is more of a side move than improvement. The things that don't feel so great feel that way in FO3 also. Not finished with the main quest and I'm an embarrassing number of hours into it.
Re: (Score:2)
No people are just pissed off that it was a shitty game with all of the things that made previous Fallout games great. That includes: Removal of the karma system, streamlined leveling, non-shit writing, did I mention non-shit writing? Mediocre plot, and shit writing. On the otherside the whole base-building thing was pretty great, and so was the weapon mod system that they pulled from FO:NV. But overall it was a mediocre game, and would easily rate a 6/10 game on my scale. FO3 would be a 7/10, where at
Re: (Score:2)
Play it again, Johnny.
Re: (Score:2)
The karma system was shit. "Stealing" from the people who just tried to kill you is bad, mmkay?
That part is still broken in FO4, too. Wiping out an entire settlement is ok and the companion will even help out, but "Codsworth didn't like that" when you "steal" the stuff they left behind.
Re: (Score:2)
Karma system was silly. The entire world instantly knowing that you stole a sweet roll (suweeeet rooolll!). Never made any sense. Max out karma very quickly, shoot up an entire village and karma is only at neutral.
The plot is very good, better than Fallout 3, better than Fallout New Vegas (which had zero surprises). But remember, this is an open world sandbox, it is NOT a stupid plot on rails like 99% of the games out there. The main plot is a very minor part of the game. You can go one hundred hours
Re: (Score:3)
I love Fallout 4, and I've played all the Fallout games. People are still bitter that Bethesda got the license and are holding a grudge.
I'm only bitter about that because Bethesda can't code their way out of a nutsack. Even their Amiga games had graphics glitches and crash bugs. Now that they are making dramatically more complex games, they are creating dramatically more complex bugs. I'd love to play F4, but I'm not dumb enough to pay Bethesda for an unfinished game any more. Now I will wait for the rest of you to jump on that grenade, and I will wait until I can get the game cheap, reasonably bugfixed... they never fixed all the bugs in N
Re: (Score:2)
they never fixed all the bugs in New Vegas, why would I assume they would fix all the bugs in F4?
I don't know why you would use New Vegas bugfixes as an indicator for FO4. New Vegas was developed by Obsidian Entertainment which was founded by people from the studio responsible for Fallout 2 which was created from people who were part of Fallout. FO3 and FO4 were developed by Bethesda Game Studios which were also responsible for Morrowind, Oblivion, and Skyrim. The only linking factors between New Vegas and Fallout 4 is that they share the same Fallout IP and were both published under Bethesda Softworks
Re: (Score:2)
The only linking factors between New Vegas and Fallout 4 is that they share the same Fallout IP and were both published under Bethesda Softworks.
The publisher matters because they decide whether/when to ship.
Re: (Score:2)
Bethesda is not stereotyped by shipping too soon. They're sort of the opposite in many ways.
Re: (Score:2)
Bethesda is not stereotyped by shipping too soon. They're sort of the opposite in many ways.
Whether the games are bugfests because they include everything or because they don't take their time, either way that's the publisher's call.
Re: (Score:2)
I have not seen Bethesda's more recent games as bugfests. The games are playable all the way through before even the first (mandatory) patch.
Re: (Score:2)
I have not seen Bethesda's more recent games as bugfests. The games are playable all the way through before even the first (mandatory) patch.
I haven't even played F4 yet I know there are a shit-ton of major bugs yet unpatched. That it is possible to complete the story is not really the bar, for me.
Re: (Score:2)
I think it's ironic because some of the most bitter haters of Bethesda love Obsidian to death, proclaiming Fallout 3 the worst game of all time and Fallout New Vegas as the best.
As for bugginess, Fallout 4 seems pretty good overall. People with some high end graphics setups seem to have troubles but for my system which doesn't even meet the minimum specs is getting good performance and have never had a lockup or hang or a broken quest. Fallout 1 on the other hand, which I love, is one of the buggiest game
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Fallout 4 is much less buggy than Fallout 3 or NV, which was an Obsidian game, not Bethesda. Easily the most "non-troublesome experience" from Bethesda game I've played other than Oblivion.
I've only pre-ordered ONE Bethesda game, that being ESO, which is Zenimax Online studios and not Bethesda Softworks. And THAT was for the PS4, when it had been out on the PC for a while and thusly was more likely to have issues worked out.
.
Re: (Score:2)
I love Fallout 4, and I've played all the Fallout games.
Same here.
I was a big fan of Oblivion and hated Skyrim, found it tedious, ruined the Elders Scrolls franchise for me. When I heard there would be a Fallout 4 I was afraid they would do the same kind of "reengineering" but I was immensely relieved to see that they kept the thing very close to the Fallout spirit.
There are a few annoying things (like those redundant settlement missions) but the improvements like point-and-loot or the possibility to setup a gun turret to protect my stash are terrific.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Bafta? (Score:5, Informative)
What do films have to do with games?
/sips cup of proper tea, not that Lipton nonsense.
Well you see the British are a progressive lot, except when it comes to naming. The BAFTA is the academy for modern art forms such as film and television and so it was natural to extend this to video games. The problem is BAFTA is a recognised name and therefore, cannot be easily changed as their role evolves. This is why the MOT is still called the Ministry of Transport instead of the Department of Vehicle Bastardry.
The introduction of video games into the BAFTAs has been a big thing in recent years and I think, better off for it.
Re: (Score:1)
What do films have to do with games?
Ron Perlman.
Re: (Score:2)
Not anymore :( (Score:5, Interesting)
"You don't have to have the multi-million dollar budgets to make great games -- I've seen a huge amount of evidence for that tonight," said Sean Brennan.
I think that used to be true. In the 80s and 90s perhaps, you could start small.
The "evidence" we have here is if you started in the 90s and were popular, then you can have the necessary multi-million budget to make successful games now.
A quick google search places Fallout 1 estimated budget as $3M ($4.5M in current money) and Fallout 4 at anywhere between $150M and $250M (or possibly even more, this is not the highest estimate I saw).
Re: (Score:1)
You are so dead wrong...
Especially in the last few years (since Kickstarter took off) the entire Indie-thing really has taken off. Faster Than Light, Pillars of Eternity, Divinity: Original Sin, ARK Survivial evolved and all the countless, countless, countless other cool titles on Kickstarter and Steam Early Access are speaking a very loud voice.
And how can say "You need a big budget" in the era of Minecraft is totally beyond me, how again did Minecraft start out?
Further, a lot of those 100 and 200 million
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Pillars of Eternity
... which really should have been awarded any "best game of 2015" kind of thing. Best thing I played in 2015 for sure. Beat Fallout 4, IMHO.
But to be fair games like Pillars were not exactly made on a shoe string budget. You're talking millions of dollars to make something like that, with a staff of several dozens of top-talent experienced game devs, who worked night and day on it for several years. It's not something that a 1-3 developer garage studio is going to crank out, no matter how much money the
Re: (Score:3)
Of course if the management is retarded, the game can't be made popular on a reasonable budget.
This was always true. Just think of the budget behind Atari 2600's E.T.
Take Minecraft as a counter-example.
Re: (Score:2)
Fallout 4 at anywhere between $150M and $250M
Considering that gamers are entirely unimpressed with it, thats really sad.
I've yet to meet a single person that cares at all about Fallout 4. Its just another New Vegas ... which is to say: Its a let down for all of us still hoping to get that feeling we got from Fallout 3 back.
I'd love to know where the money went.
Re: (Score:2)
Fallout 4 at anywhere between $150M and $250M
Considering that gamers are entirely unimpressed with it, thats really sad.
I've yet to meet a single person that cares at all about Fallout 4. Its just another New Vegas ... which is to say: Its a let down for all of us still hoping to get that feeling we got from Fallout 3 back.
Hi, Fallout 4 fan here. Now you've "met" one.
It's strange to claim that Fallout 4 is "just another New Vegas" -- the complaint from all the Black Isle/Obsidian fans is that Fallout 4 isn't like NV, Fallout 2 and Fallout 1.
Re: (Score:2)
I think he meant to say that it's just as mediocre as New Vegas.
This Bethesda title was clearly a miss, they made a game as bad as Obsidian.
Why it would get a game of the year award makes no sense whatsoever.
Re: (Score:2)
Methinks both Fallout 3 and NV are great. I like the setting of the capital wasteland better, and I think it has more memorable locations. But there is no question that the plot in F3 is badly written and borderline ludicrous, whereas NV has a good narrative and is way more interesting and gives the player more options in that regard.
I haven't played F4 yet, as I always wait for bugs to be squashed and all DLC to be released first. The ideal "new" Fallout would be with world design by Bethesda, and plot and
Re: (Score:3)
Different strokes for different folks. Fallout 3 left me bored, I never could get into it. I just didn't care. NV was worth playing. Fallout 4 kinda falls between the two. I enjoy it while I am playing it but I don't seem to ever feel an incentive to start it up.
Re: (Score:2)
I'd love to know where the money went.
Coke, blackjack and whores are the usual suspects in these cases.
Re: (Score:2)
Or someone paid more.
These game awards shows exist for the sole purpose of marketing, and huge $$$ change hands under the table.
Re: (Score:2)
Having a semi-large youtuber play/endorse the game AND winning a game show award gives them better marketing than just having a semi-large youtuber play/endorse the game.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
No it isn't.
Find anything online on any gaming site that agrees with you.
Popular opinion is that New Vegas as a shitty sequel that added nothing to Fallout 3 except more brown and green.
Re: (Score:1)
http://www.gamespot.com/forums... [gamespot.com]
http://www.falloutfacts.com/ot... [falloutfacts.com]
(Doesn't say NV is better: http://forums.steampowered.com... [steampowered.com])
https://www.reddit.com/r/Fallo... [reddit.com]
So on so on. Google has the links.
Re: (Score:2)
I just say two words: "candy crush".
Re: (Score:2)
"You don't have to have the multi-million dollar budgets to make great games -- I've seen a huge amount of evidence for that tonight," said Sean Brennan.
I think that used to be true. In the 80s and 90s perhaps, you could start small.
You still can.
Whilst I feel Fallout 4 deserved its award despite not being as good as New Vegas, personally I would have awarded it to Rebel Galaxy as it managed to do far more with the money it had.
Games like Rebel Galaxy and Planetbase are good examples that you dont need multi-million dollar budgets and huge names to make a great game. Even competing head to head, Cities: Skylines outperformed Sim City 4 with far less of a budget by simply being a better city sim.
For the most part I ignore the
Re: (Score:2)
personally I would have awarded it to Rebel Galaxy as it managed to do far more with the money it had.
Really? Rebel Galaxy is good, but not THAT good. I'd personally rate it somewhere between a 6.5 and 7.5. It has it's own issues and slightly annoying ways....it's evil ways. You set out....cross that way...doing repetitive missions...to make your pay....and shoot neutron rays...at others evil ways. Though I must admit, I'm hoping they do a sequel with a somewhat bigger budget.
You actually had to manage resources, going in guns blazing on 20 hp was a sure fire way to die, sometimes you needed to eat irradiated food to survive or go the long way around and hope you didn't encounter any ghouls. Hell, going in guns blazing as a LV 4 character at the Corvega factory was asking to die. You had to be a little tactical, a little thoughtful in your actions.
Well yes, at least early on. The game IS better balanced than Fallout 3. You know how it was, you reach level 20 in 3 and you'
Re: (Score:2)
I'd say it is THAT good considering it was made over a few months by 2 guys on a budget of a fiver.
You're right about it's flaws, but the game was still better than most AAA dreck with a hundred times it's budget. COD has been using repetition since 2004, the same game gets released every year.
I'd have to disagree. If you didn't use VATS and played FO:3 like a no
Re: (Score:2)
Still true today, actually - a small one or two person shop can make a great game. We call them "indie games" and there are millions of them. Most of them are crap, and really do reflect the fact that it was done by a one or two person shop, but there are a few gems the pop
Of course it did (Score:1)
It is the best art for preparing the general population for the step down they are about to take in the new world economy
Re: (Score:2)
Other, lesser politically-backed up games.
The BAFTA awards are now much like Eurovision: politically-heavy bullshit. It's no longer about the games themselves but who backs them up and what's in it for various lobby groups.
Re: (Score:1)
Should win for special effects (Score:5, Funny)
Stuff disappears from companions inventory, guns become transparent when you crouch, scorpions walk in the sky, raiders taunt you as they patrol from the bottom of the sea, severed limbs spin forever... Special effects are amazing in Fallout 4!
And to make sure you enjoy them, especially the rotating items on display during loading, the engineers brilliantly injected a random delay of up to 1 minute each time you enter a building or fast travel.
Re: (Score:2)
And to make sure you enjoy them, especially the rotating items on display during loading, the engineers brilliantly injected a random delay of up to 1 minute each time you enter a building or fast travel.
Well the new hardcore/survival mode partly fixes that -- you can't fast travel.
But, seriously, get a SSD, makes load times much more bearable.
Re: (Score:2)
But, seriously, get a SSD, makes load times much more bearable.
Can't do that in my Playstation 4 I think.
Nonetheless, it's a new bug. I played the game for a while, loading was ok. Then there was a patch, and now it's taking forever to load sometimes. I did zero investigation but my immediate suspicion is that they're "calling home" during load and their web server is slow to answer, I see no other obvious reason. Disk isn't spinning, nothing.
I'm sure someone with a better network setup will eventually catch them if they're doing that.
Re: (Score:1)
But, seriously, get a SSD, makes load times much more bearable.
Can't do that in my Playstation 4 I think.
You certainly can. First upgrade I made to my PS4 was installing a 500Gb SSD. Instructions are all over the web.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Well, it is Fallout 4 Beta. Just like Windows 10 beta. It's the new way.
Always been like that with Fallout. New Vegas was particularly buggy on Xbox. But those games are awesome so you put up with it. I'd say that's the biggest difference with Windows 10...
Re: (Score:2)
Why the hell are you playing on a console?
You're part of the problem.
Re:Should win for special effects (Score:5, Insightful)
The same issues happen on a PC.
Even with an SSD, there is way too much waiting at load screens. My PC has 32 GB of RAM sitting unused by the game as it reloads the areas from disk over and over again. If I enter, exit, then reenter the same building, the areas are reloaded from disk every time. When I'm approaching a building, there's no disk activity at all when the game should be preloading adjacent areas.
Consoles are to blame, but not in the way you're suggesting.
Re:Should win for special effects (Score:4, Insightful)
Absoutely this. I have 32 gigs of RAM. I currently have 22.5 gb available. I could nock that down to 26 easy by closing all of my browser windows and a few other programs.
My Fallout 4 directory is 25.9 gb. There's zero reason any asset should ever be loaded more than once, and pretty much no reason to ever release anything once it's been loaded.
Re: (Score:2)
I was going to make a comment to this effect, actually; I've seen it suggested for a lot of games.
Re: (Score:1)
My PC has 32 GB of RAM sitting unused by the game as it reloads the areas from disk over and over again. If I enter, exit, then reenter the same building, the areas are reloaded from disk every time.
Sounds like your OS has a major bug. Free memory should be used as disk cache. There's no reason a user program should be trying to keep stuff in memory, that's the OS's job.
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
And to make sure you enjoy them, especially the rotating items on display during loading
You can move and rotate the items on the screen, so that's something to do while you wait for the next section to load :)
Re: (Score:2)
And to make sure you enjoy them, especially the rotating items on display during loading
You can move and rotate the items on the screen, so that's something to do while you wait for the next section to load :)
I don't know if it does that all the time, but twice I've moved that thing like crazy out of boredom and the whole game froze. I had to re-kill a friggin deathclaw.
Re: (Score:2)
scorpions walk in the sky
You're expecting life to be normal after a nuclear war??
Re: (Score:1)
There's a mod for that.
Seriously? (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm guessing not too many people on their judging panel actually play all that many games. I could have imagined Fallout 4 being Game of the Year material... if it had been released in 2010 or so. As it is, I found it distinctly underwhelming, and I don't seem to be even close to alone in that.
Leave aside for a moment the bugs and technical issues (serious though they are). The game itself just feels dated and not particularly interesting. After a reasonably effective opening sequence (possibly all the judges played?) the writing is generally quite stiff and sterile. There are few NPCs who display any signs of actual character. Ironically, one of the very rare exceptions is a robot.
The main plot is a by the numbers affair whose "big twist" is easily predicted within an hour or two of starting out. With one or two exceptions, the sidequests and environmental storytelling are flat. The combat is poor (immersion-breaking movements speeds and bullet-sponge enemies), the stats system is nothing to write home about and all of the best bits of the game were basically present in Fallout 3 and New Vegas.
By almost any measure, there have been better games released in the last 12 months. The Witcher 3, while not without occasional technical issues (albeit much less severe than Fallout 4's) was jaw-dropping. The writing, which I would expect BAFTA to have a particular focus on, was superb. Everybody talks (quite justifiably) about the Bloody Baron questline, which remains a superb example of moral nuance in games, but that was just one of many plot-threads written with both intelligence and humanity. The world they created also did a great job of looking and feeling like a low-tech fantasy world, right down to a prevailing moral compass that is a long way from the early 21st century.
I'm not sure what their eligibility window was (so its release may have been slightly too early), but Bloodborne would also have been a strong contender. It does the "environmental storytelling" techniques developed in the Souls series and takes them close to perfection, building an incredibly rich seem of lore with only the broadest of brush-strokes (and doing the most successful evocation of the spirit of H. P. Lovecraft in a game that I've ever seen). It's also much, much better than Fallout 4 in gameplay terms, being deeper, more fluid and more satisfying.
Hell, even Metal Gear Solid 5, glorious trainwreck that it was, must surely rank above Bethesda's clunking bug-fest. Sure, the ending is clearly unfinished and it occasionally dips into the depths of Kojima-stupidity, but it's a hell of journey along the way (and, unlike the other games I've mentioned, pretty much perfect from a quality assurance and technical performance point of view).
God almighty... Fallout 4? Seriously?
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Seriously? (Score:4, Insightful)
I'd like to suggest that it's more a matter of taste than you're implying. For example:
The Witcher 3, while not without occasional technical issues (albeit much less severe than Fallout 4's) was jaw-dropping.
I played a bit of it. Found it boring. Didn't want to continue. "Oh, look at me, I'm Mr. Toughguy-ponytail-douchebag. I have a gruff voice and a bad attitude, and I show sex scenes, so that 13 year-old boys think I'm the coolest guy ever!" Combat was boring hack-and-slash. I don't want to make potions. I don't want to worry about repairing weapons or whatever. I don't want to play card games in my RPGs.
I didn't play Bloodborne, but I didn't care for Dark Souls. Maybe it's just because I don't have the time or interest to "get good" at games, but it just felt like a repetitive grindy game where I had no idea who I was, where I was, what I was trying to do, or why I should care about any of it. I bought it, played for several hours, and promptly forgot about it.
I guess my point is, there's a consensus among a lot of people talking on websites that Fallout sucks, and Witcher 3 and Dark Souls are the best games ever. I'll probably get modded down for suggesting otherwise. When share the opinion that's popular on the Internet, it's easy to think that you're just unquestionably correct. However, it's possible that not everyone agrees with you.
Re: (Score:1)
Bloodbourne won the game design award but wasn't nominated for best game.
Fallout in name only (Score:2, Insightful)
How can it be Fallout when it's not top-down and turn-based? Everyone knows Wasteland 2 is the true modern Fallout.
MOD PARENT UP (Score:2)