Fun is subjective.Eh figures, some people can't give an objective analysis because they'd make themselves look like fools arguing this
Looks better than this
That this
Is more fun than this
But look wise, Bethesda games look so kuch better.
Fallout Perpetual Debate of Bethesda Versus Interplay/Obsidian Fallout World Design
- Thread starter ThatZenoGuy
- Start date
But look wise, Bethesda games look so kuch better.
Scooby Doo
Well-known member
I rate fun on a scale of how much freedom the game gives you to do combat and FO4 gives you a lot more options to approach in combat than FO2 does.
FO2 combat is basically stand in place and trade blows until you win, Fallout 4 at least mixes up the dynamic instead of being a repetitive slop of taking turns getting hit.
Fun is still subjective, so not the best metric.
Thiugh most older turn based games have that same style.
Modern day Isometric and turn based have a lot more variety then the older ones
Interesting that you're using things that cannot be fairly measured due to the age difference between the games. Things like "more detail" are very arguably subjective. If you mean more detailed environments, then absolutely the Bethesda Fallout games have more detailed environments. They also are decades more recent than FO2 and are using a dedicated 3D engine that lends itself to fiddly details.
But if you mean overall worldbuilding and locations feeling like actual locations, I have to disagree. Many of the settlements and location in FO2 have a level of detail with logically placed outhouses, farmland, stores, and living quarters that FO4 lacks, plus FO3/4 suffers from Bethesda's tendency to compress settlements down to be minimalist looking, where in FO2 the locations felt much bigger and more expansive even though you were often limited to a fairly small play area.
"Faster gameplay" is a purely subjective matter, and considering that 2023's Game of the Year was a Turn based RPG much more in line with FO2 than FO4 it is clear even today people can and do enjoy a slower more tactical pace. The fact that you didn't find other ways to approach FO2's combat isn't because the game lacks those option, because there's numerous ways and builds in FO2 that are viable... heck, FO3/4 even explicitly made sure that certain strategies from FO2 could be replicated because they were that well known and popular (IE. the Sneak + Pickpocket + Planted Explosives combo was only included in FO3 because it was a humorous and popular strategy in FO2). Unarmed Combat, Sneak and snipe, charging in power armor with heavy weapons... all those strategies could be pursued in FO2.
As to puzzles... I'm honestly not sure FO4 even HAD puzzles? None that I really remember. FO2 wasn't really that puzzle heavy either.
As to better graphics, music, etc. Again, not a fair comparison and you well know it, decade and more of difference, completely different hardware expectations. Music is entirely a matter of technological progress. The entire Fallout 2 install, including music, is ~625 MB. FO4 is ~37 GB... so yeah, no shit is it going to have better music, even if they had the exact same song in both games FO4's would be less compressed and thus have higher audio fidelity because... that's the way audio compression works. A modern high quality, near lossless audio recording can easily come in at over 50 MB for a 3 minute song... not going to be including many of those on an old CD-ROM.
But let's get into some of the areas that you carefully avoided, firstly, the RP options. Yes, FO4 is fully voiced... and that makes it so there's much FEWER actual options to RP your character as you envision them, and in fact FO4 is notorious for really only being able to be "nice guy, smart-aleck, or meanish", and because everything is fully voiced. In comparison most FO2 dialogue trees had considerably more depth to them and more branches, since it was mostly a written game with only partial voicing.
Additionally FO4's "SPECIAL" system is a ghost of what it was in FO2, having dropped most everything that made the SPECIAL system, well, special and cool in favor of a watered down Skyrim esq. system that barely paid lip service to the PnP feel of the original Fallout games. FO3 and NV both managed to keep a better PnP feel with their version of the SPECIAL system than FO4 and FO4 clearly was dumbing down the system in order to appeal to FPS players who would be intimidated by the more complex PnP system that underlaid the older Fallout games.
As to better weapons, as someone who loved Small Guns in FO2, let me tell you FO3 and 4 did small guns dirty by dropping the best small guns and changing them into Energy weapons for... reasons? The Gauss Rifle and Gauss Pistol in FO2 used to be the best Small Guns for that skill and allowed small guns to remain competitive into endgame, in FO3 and 4 for some reason those weapons were moved to Energy Weapons and it actually left a massive hole in Small Guns that made it so they no longer had a high tech capstone weapon where Energy had both the Gauss Rifle AND Plasma rifles (which, going back to FO1 the Plasma rifles were the traditional top end capstone of the Energy Weapons).
This is before we get into the loot-shooter nonsense of randomized Legendary weapon drops that FO4 introduced...
God that bothered me so much.
For some context.
FO1's small guns capped out with the .223 pistol, which while it's an excellent gun really did not compare to the Turbo plasma rifle, so the 'meta' was to go into energy weapons late in the game.
FO2 tweaked this by adding some new top tier weapons for every category, small guns got gauss weapons, and energy weapons got pulse weapons.
Gauss rifles/pistols were deadly accurate, hit like a truck and let you use your established small-guns skill to take on end-tier threats with ease, while Pulse weapons were complete powerhouses which weren't particularly accurate but overshadowed the plasma weapons. Pulse was also way harder to find, like...One or two locations tops.
The FO3 comes along and uhh, it's small guns don't really have a 'top tier' weapon. Maybe the sniper rifle or lincoln's repeater? But absolutely nothing as powerful as a gauss rifle. Until finally they DID add a new model of gauss rifle! Annnnnnnnnd because Bethesda is either too lazy to add a new ammo type, or simply misunderstands how gauss weapons work, it's operated by energy cells so it's an energy weapon. It's Bethesda, give them a pass I guess?
NV launches and they actually re-use the FO3 model, with some tweaks and because Obsidian is Obsidian they do the damned same mistake, making it powered with energy cells so it has to be classified as an energy weapon! They could've added the gauss pistol and 2mm EC cartridges but nooooooooooooooooooooo!
The shocking thing is Bethesda outshined NV in FO4, with the Gauss rifle being a 'gun' again. But in usual Bethesda fashion for FO4 they designed the gun out of tuna cans, spare parts and garbage so there's no way it'd work.
stephen the barbarian
Well-known member
yes in fo-nv, however because they nerfed the minigun in fo-4 it could be argued that it's closer to 5.7x28 or 4.6x30.
and now i want to be able rechamber the combat pistol into 5mm.
That's just a game balance decision because Bethesda doesn't understand how firearms work. By the same logic, .308 must be a pistol cartridge because it does about the same damage as .45 in FO4.
Since FO1 5mm is supposed to be a distinct ammo type that would be useful for large scale military usage without large scale civilian usage. So it still has to be quite punchy.
It wouldn't make much sense for the AK-112 to use a PDW cartridge.
Scooby Doo
Well-known member
FO76 makes the weapon balance make more sense than it did in FO4.
The weapons feel relatively strong despite the lvl scaling.
The weapons feel relatively strong despite the lvl scaling.