Terrible user reviews for fallout 4?

I know user reviews are not everything but it's ridiculous to see how many negative reviews there are from users. I was looking at metacritic and steam. On steam its 80% positive which I guess is still okay but i guess its a far cry from the critic review scores.

Have you read some? What are they complaining about?

User reviews are always terrible.

user reviews are unpaid so it results in much lower scores.

i actually trust user reviews a lot more since there are many more reviews to go by, and they have nothing to gain or lose from giving an honest opinion of the game.

if i take the time to write my thoughts about a game, i'll say exactly what i think and don't care if it doesn't please fanboys of the game

I never pay any attention to user reviews

@Yams1980: there are some user reviewers tha are either fanboys or haters who either give the game a 1 or a 10.

I find you tube reviewers are the best source at the moment.

The game has been getting a lot of bad reviews because it simply doesn't work for a lot of players. Additionally, the controls and UI are pretty bad. It really doesn't seem like the best PC port.

Besides that...eh, the game is a bit bland. Weak roleplaying and floaty combat isn't helping it very much.

i've avoided user reviews for fear of spoilers so not sure what people are saying but from my very short time with the game so far i must say that

1. it feels good to be back, there's plenty of improvements over the previous two games and combat feels much more fluid. it's too early to comment on the depth of rpg aspects yet though.

2. there's a disappointing amount of bugs in the ps4 version - lots of glitches and a few crashes so far and i'm not much further than a few hours in. the graphics are similarly disappointing. visually this is barely fallout 3.5 never mind the "next generation of open world gaming" they promise on the box.

early days yet though...

I've played it all day and bad reviews just seem stupid to me.

It's Fallout 4.

Did you like Fallout 3? It's that same thing but with more stuff bolted on, prettier, and with better music.

Did you NOT like Fallout 3? Then why would you think you would like Fallout 4?

Fallout 4 is like your uncle coming back home to visit. Did you like him the last time? If you thought he was annoying, well he hasn't changed. Why would you think he would? If you liked him, and many, many, many people do... he's back with new stories and a few presents for you.

I literally have no idea what you're talking about. Can I ask how you purchased the game? It shouldn't make much of a difference these days, I suppose, but I downloaded it from PSN. I have played it for about 8 hours and I have notices NO glitches, and NO crashes.

What are you qualifying as a glitch?

@kiddynamo: maybe its because they think they didnt innovate enough. its just like how people dont like cod anymore. this argument however doesnt apply to me because this is going to my first fallout game so im probably gonna love it :D

I tend to feel like user reviews are far MORE based than professional reviews. User reviews tend to be more invested in the subject matter. This can mean a few things. 1) A person can WANT to like something more and therefore give it an inflated score. 2) A player can be huffy that one specific thing they wanted wasn't addressed and therefore give it a bad score 3)A player gives it amore radical score because they have no reason to be reasonable. i.e. if it's good, it's great. If it's slightly bad, it's garbage. 4) users can be anybody with any background. Tomb Raider might get a 3 because Lara Croft doesn't get naked. Deadpan might get a 10 because "its hilarious!"

@kiddynamo: biased as they may be, their opinions count just as much as anyone else's. Imo just wait a week or two and the user score will even out. Right now I agree they are giving the scores without even having played enough hours. Remember that all other games are subject to the same so-called 'unfair' user reviews so its an even playing field.

Nothing to gain or lose can also mean you can just throw all critical thought out of the window and simply state your opinion without providing any additional information. It basically allows you to say whatever you want, including nonsense. With website reviews reviewers generally at least give me some information to work with. In the case of many user reviews, I just have to take people's word for it, which is far from enough.

There seems to be forced mouse accelleration in the game. At first I thought I was too casual to notice, but after I changed the ini-files I did notice a beneficial difference. I don't know, the combat seems fine. The fact I can shoot people without V.A.T.S. is a plus. Of course, that should be a given in a game with guns, but well... after F3 and NV it feels like a big improvement.

I can't say anything about the roleplaying, because I generally don't really care about that, although I do wish there was more information in the dialogue options.

While I can understand the blandness to a certain extent, there seems to be enough going on. So far I'm constantly bumping into events or interesting spots to explore. Neither UI nor controls have given me any particular problems so far. While the pipboy map is still a bit vague, I never really use it that much anyway and the local map has improved in detail. Building bases is a hassle, because you have to do it in first person and because you can't go through the menus while looking at stuff you've built, because the menu select button is the same as the object select button. The rest of the UI seems pretty straightforward to me, though. The inventory is maybe a bit cumbersome, but I have found a system now, so it doesn't really bother me anymore.

I guess that if you compare it to other games, it falls short in a lot of areas. But if you compare it to previous Fallout games (disregarding the isometric ones) there seem to be a lot of improvements (apart from the dialogue stuff, which is what I dislike the most by far). Again, of course, those improvements should be a given and it's not fair to only compare this game to its predecessors, but F4 gives me a better version of F3 and that's really all I wanted. But yeah, if you wanted more, then I can understand why some might feel disappointed.

it's not hard to figure out is it. what you mean is: i've not experienced a glitch / crash so no-one else possibly could have either.

for the record the main ones so far are i've had a quest stall because the npc wouldn't initiate the next dialogue sequence because he'd got himself trapped behind some debris, had to reload an earlier save to get around that. dialogue has cut off mid sentence several times so i didn't get to hear what people are telling me to do, replacing favourited inventory items doesn't always work (the previous item sometimes remains), i got stuck on top of a car roof that i could only get off very, very slowly and i died and twice the game crashed and quit out as it attempted to reload from the previous save.

mine's a physical copy, the clue was when i quoted a line from the box

@loafofgame: I wasn't talking about the mouse acceleration. Everything about the UI and the keybinding is simply...wrong.

For example, take crafting in town. You need to hold "V" (which is normally assigned to changing views - and should *never* have been used for a completely different feature) to bring up the menu. Then you need to take your hand off the mouse and use the arrow keys to navigate the menus. Once you've located your object and selected it with "E", move your hand back to the mouse and press the left and right mouse buttons to inaccurately spin the object clockwise and anticlockwise until it's vaguely in the right direction. If you've picked the wrong object, press "R" to store it, then "TAB" to go back a menu (not "Escape", which brings up the game menu). Connect wires with "Space", deconstruct with "Q", locate and assign people with "E", and...probably a lot of other features I've forgotten the buttons for.

Of course, while doing that the game glitches half of the time and I lose the ability to press any other buttons until I leave the town. But even when it is working, it's a total mess.

That's not to mention that melee attacks and grenades are both bound to the same key "Alt". Levelling uses T. The inventory menu is tiny, shows very little useful information, and is fiddly to navigate. Even simple things feel weird, like the way dialogue options turn up as tiny clickable circles but only after you wait around the people you're talking to for 15 seconds.

Oh, and I couldn't even use my mouse when I first turned on the game, since the game defaulted to my gamepad without any option to switch control schemes, or just alternate between the controls. I had to physically unplug my gamepad to play the game...which is pretty sad for a major 2015 release.

---> Having said that, it's probably the best launch a Bethesda game has ever had.

@Planeforger: Man, that sucks, then. I don't know, I didn't have all those problems. Or well, I did, but at some point I just got used to it. But I totally agree that the building UI and button mapping could be far better. I didn't experience any glitches during building, though. And the inventory menu never bothered me either. Not that I can argue against what you said, it just didn't bother me. All the necessary information is there and you can sort the lists. I never had annoyances using it. I don't use grenades, so I never noticed that issue. And I don't have a gamepad, so I didn't have that issue either. I do agree about the dialogue options.

Well, that was useful for you, wasn't it? ;-P

Most negative user reviews are people with no lives on the 'said' games. I'm coming across as harsh but that's how it seems. They feed on being troIIs and raining on anything that's fun. I remember reading a MetaCritic review for Monster Hunter and they stated it as a "terrible platformer"? BAKA!!

I could agree with this. Even though it's a new engine for the first time ever, it still feels very much like the old Fallout games but with a streamlined UI/perks/skills system and better graphics. You still have the same "magic zoning doors" to move from one area to another, the same stiff manequin NPCs, etc.

However, it's still "Fallout" and I love it. Maybe it's a little bit closer to the old games than I was expecting, but in many ways that's not a bad thing for me. They might not have updated it as much as I was expecting, but they at least updated it "enough" for me to be happy.

-Byshop

I don't know if you've played the Souls Series ( Demon Souls, Dark Souls.....etc ). They are all very similar to each one's predecessor. It's not a bad thing in their case.

I haven't played Fallout 4.. but I can't picture Fallout 4 all too different from Fallout 3 or FNV.

A game this big is destined to have its fair share of detractors. Whether or not the criticisms are founded I have no idea because I have yet to play it.

I never look at user reviews. I'm sure there's good and fair ones out there but I'd rather just stick with the professional reviews.

And lots of those were put on there the first day. Like they had actually even played it yet. Just dumb trolls being dumb trolls.

@BboyStatix: wait a few weeks and you will see what people think about it

Game works fine for me, there are few bugs but whatever. My issue is the game is kinda... meh. I loved new vegas ,fallout 3 ,oblivion and skyrim but I'm not having too much fun whit this one.Don't like the combat, leveling system , crafting/build is annoying mess whit crappy interface . Quests are boring. Also the parts of the game don't seem to come together all that well.

As long as they'll be hotly anticipated games there will be idiots online who post fake/terrible reviews when usually not even playing them. It's sad.

I have a number of things I can say about the leveling system and they are not good. If you want me to sum my feeling up in to one sentence: "It is less open and hard to call it a RPG."

I haven't played Fallout 4 yet but I'm sure the low user review is a bit disproportionate. It's just like Mass Effect 3. This is why metacritic is awesome, if one is way higher or lower than the other you'll be able to tell immediately one side is being extreme. I presume the fair score is somewhere around 8 or 8.5

user reviews on PC games are often redicilous. people trying to play games with their crappy old PCs and then they get crashes etc. I wish their PCs would simply explode. Maybe that would teach the dummies.

and when it's not a hardware issue, many people rate games either 1 or 10, depending if they like it or not. i guess thinking is too challenging. i mean, if some Douche McBagger experiences 1 crash with some great game, it's insta-1 rating for it.

my personal rating is moving around 8-9 at the moment, when i'm only 20 hours in. the most disappointing thing is that it feels a lot like Fallout 3 when you start the game, but when you keep playing you'll find enough new things and mechanics, so that the game can keep it's grip on you.

Lets face it. Its very unpolished. Theres Bugs aplenty(some game breaking ones too) and its not the most complex game. Animations some times break the experience while dialogue options are vague and somewhat limited. These are 2 areas I think are importand and need an overhaul. Another thing I noticed and I can't help but compare to witcher 3 are the side missions. They are unimaginetive, dull and repetitive as all hell. In witcher 3 you had small stories with each sidequest that made you invested in them, even the more conventional ones.

So the problems are

-Many bugs

-Animations that remained unchanged since TeS:Oblivion

-Dialogue is mediocre

-Side missions are crap

Much to the dismey of many people, most of these things have always plagued Bethesda's games. When after 4 games Bethesda failed to fix them, people are bound to nay say.

Never trust user reviews on a big title like Fallout 4 , particular not when you have it in a genre where we other games like Dragon´s age and Witcher 3.

Fans of CDPR will spam metacritic because in their mind, there is not enough room for both games.

@Jacanuk: lol yeah if u really think cdpr fanboys have nothing better to do. And this applies to both sides because i was checking the metacritic user reviews and there were some suspicious user ratings where some people gave fallout 4 a 10 and witcher 3 a 0 pretty much on the same day. I honestly think thats not the main reason the user ratings are so bad

I can agree with the unpolished part, although I have not encountered any major bugs, only a few minor ones (50 hours in). In that regard, the experience is similar to TW3 (playing on pc). I can also agree on the animations, but it's not something I personally find particularly important. I'd also say the dialogue is competent, not mediocre. It's convincing and standard enough not to distract. I do, however, not like the limited dialogue options.

As for the side missions, while I can see where you're coming from, I have absolutely no problem with them, because the value of the experience lies in the exploration and, so far, that part has not disappointed. I've run into several very entertaining events, some of which appeared random. And I'm always rewarded for exploring (not just with xp, but also nice loot). I also like that there are often these little stories connected to one specific location, which you can learn through notes or monitors. Sure, they're a bit shallow and short, I guess, and it demands a bit more of your imagination, but I still like them. The quests themselves are sometimes pretty barebones, but the journeys from one place to another are very satisfying. I personally never played Fallout for its story anyway, so most quests are simply there to send me on my way, so I can create my own adventures.

This game is very similar to Skyrim, in that its characters and main storylines are rather forgettable and uninteresting, but its exploration is very rewarding (for me, at least). And I personally like a post-apocalyptic setting much more than a fantasy setting.

That said, TW3 was awesome aswell, but I think both games require a different playstyle and/or mindset. They scratch different itches, I think, even though TW3 does seem to be the more complete of the two. But that doesn't mean I'm having less fun with F4.

Because it's a shit game

Yup, and that´s why it´s constant among the top 4 most played games on steam, because it´s a shit game and people love to play shit games

i don't mind the bugs too much, although it is disappointing and surprising that there are so many (thankfully most are small and not game affecting), and i've actually quite enjoyed some of the side missions, they seem much more interesting and varied than in previous bethesda games. the biggest issues i have with the game are:

• the vaguely labelled dialogue choices, pleasantly voiced protagonist and removal of karma leave you without much room to impose your own choice of personality on your character through in game actions. i don't enjoy playing as the super nice guy and don't feel there's much i can do besides use my imagination to change it.
• the removal of xp awarded for in game actions means your character's skill levels no longer reflect your play style. if i spend a lot of in game time doing or using "x" then that should be reflected in my skill points / levels like in previous games, but for the most part it isn't and that's disappointing for a survival rpg.
• the lack of explanation for important new features.
• the graphics. frankly at times they're absolutely wretched (ps4). and not just in terms of the visual detail but performance wise too. any time there's steam or smoke, despite absolutely nothing else of note being on screen, the game coughs and splutters down to sub 20 fps. there are moments when the scenery / lighting look quite realistic / atmospheric / passable but on the whole, visually, it just reeks of last gen and it's pretty audacious of bethesda to release something so sub par.

but regardless of those things and plenty of other little frustrations i can't tear my self away from it. there's something so compulsive and un-put-down-able about bethesda games, despite all their faults. hours melt away when playing and adventures materialise out of nowhere. a solid 8.5 / 10 so far from me around 25 hours in

Yeah I give it a 8/10 as well. I think there are some people who would have given it a 10/10 no matter what. Quite personally, I would have given it a 10/10 if they actually did something new.

In fallout 3, every one of their gsmes, especially the fallout series fallow a specific pattern. A character comes out of the vault and you are welcome to this wasteland by a big shiny star that illuminates the screen. Playing fallout 3 then fallout 4, it feels more like running the same game that's been updated. It's like they have this recipe that worked and they don't try to redefine it or do major updating, they try to keep it the same as much as possible. Going from

Oblivion to Skyrim has a lot similar play patterns but at least there are major changes. This game, I feel like it's a heavily modded fallout 3z

That's my biggest problem with it. Had I not play fallout 3, is rare this game much higher

^ This.

When it comes to reviews I do not believe that their opinions count just as much as anyone else's. If someone only put 15 minutes into the game prior to reviewing it, do you want to hold their opinion in the same regard at someone who put 40+ hours into it? We live in a world where everyone has to have their opinions and thinks they need to have their opinions validated. Just look at social media and news these days, opinions spread like wildfire and often aren't even held by those who spread them. It's like the hype machine or the social-media demands that someone quit their job because of one little screw up. Do people really each carry this opinion or did they get influenced by a biased-unresearched click-bait article they read from some lousy source?

Opinions are like butts, everyone's got one but we doesn't mean we all need to expose our rear-ends for the world to see. Let's support rational thought and well-researched opinions whether a professional reviewer or a user-review.

I didn't like Fallout 4 for the first several hours but once I understood the systems and the mistakes I made I started over made a new character and now I'm probably 40 hours in and am loving it! I'm so glad I didn't hastily write a review after a few hours figuring out whether I liked Fallout 4 or not.

Okay this part I totally get you. It's like everybody on facebook is a scholar of some sort these days.

I get that the opinion of someone who played only for a few minutes is quite frankly rubbish but this is what the world we live in. It's like a democratic election. Every single person has a say. Even those who have no idea about the candidates and would randomly vote. But who are we to judge whose opinions count and whose doesn't. Again I totally get that some people are just giving retarded opinions but sadly we are in no position to judge the worth of that opinion.

Also, I think it evens out in the end because all games, not only fallout 4 are subject to these retarded opinions. But yes, I definitely do see a LOT of complaints about things that tbh don't really detract from the gameplay But they are targeted at the inability of Bethesda in making a polished game. I know the game is still ridiculously fun (haven't played it btw) but I guess people really got disappointed that it wasn't the leap over fallout 3 that they expected.

This is in line with my biggest problem with the game. The level system is just not as robust as the older games. You have not real way to affect your role in the game play. It is sad when a role playing game removes the role playing game play.

@wiouds: I'm surprised they didn't use the excellent XP/upgrade system from Skyrim for the leveling up system.

Meanwhile, Twilight is a pretty popular book...

And? or wait was that a failed attempt at saying that quantity is not the same as quality?

50 hours in here. I have experienced 2 bugs where I just reloaded the autosave and everything was okay. I know I've said this on gamespot a couple times now and I know the game is still new and I might be getting wayyyyy too excited or sound like a fanboy, but Fallout 4 is the best game I have ever played. It really is. It has been a long time since I've waken up literally almost every day at 6am to play a game for an hour or two and then get ready for school, come home and play 6-8 hours more before the day is over. I love how they improved many things about the game and kept some things the same.

I was honestly worried at like 20 hours in that there were too many boarded up houses that you cannot walk into (whereas 3 and NV had like most of the buildings you could enter and not too many just sitting there as decorations), but that worry has gone as I'm still finding new places to go to, have roughly 20 quests to do, and many of these new places I just skip so I can come back to during fast travel as I keep going and find even more new places. It is exactly what hooked me about Fallout 3. I love this.

The combat is soo much better now, and honestly that is the only thing I wanted Bethesda to improve. It feels faster, more robust, something like Rage or Doom (and with Bethesda saying how they had id provide help in that department, the similarity is not too far-fetched).

The settlements and weapon mods offer a lot to do to collect junk and use it for building a new glowing sight for a gun or beds, water pumps, power, etc for your settlement. I spent a good amount of time so far on these two new aspects.

Another thing are the quests. As Skyrim was super shallow and not nearly as creative with its quests as Oblivion, I was a little worried that the same kind of thing would happen in Fallout 4, but no. A lot of quests are simply go here and eliminate the raiders and/or bring back a flux capacitor or w/e. But then some quests are neat where you are helping the radio guy regain confidence or you are walking underground with a couple NPCs to blast a hole through to supposedly rob a strongroom above earth. These are unique and fleshed-out in my opinion, and they eliminated the worry I had that Bethesda was getting shallower with its creativity as seen in Skyrim.

Also, the radiation storms and The Glowing Sea!!!! These new additions truly make the wasteland much more horrifying than Bethesda or Obsidian ever did before. The atmosphere gets darker and greener, lightning flashes, you hear strange almost-electrifying sounds ripping through the air. I love it! Very neat how they handled it.

Sure there are bugs, the graphics are not as good as games are today like Witcher 3 and MGSV (although I honestly don't care; people say the same thing for Dark Souls 2 and I played the hell out of that one too), the dialogue Mass Effect wheel was not a great replacement for the old talking system in 3 and NV (I agree with that one), and maybe some other minor things that I can't think about right now. But it is Fallout through and through. I was soooo hyped when they revealed this in June and I'm glad that it lived up to everything I wanted. I think other people that hate this game wanted it to be the second coming of Jesus, so I sorta feel bad for Valve if/when Half-Life 3 comes out. You KNOW people are gonna shit on that one for anything.

My problem with Fallout 4 was the same problem with Skyrim system. I find picking one perk is just too narrow and not open enough to affect your character role.

Also, I find playing a character that starts being great at all combat and can get better is not much of a role playing.

@Chatch09: Outside of the enemies being able to destroy structures in settlements, what exactly did you want Bethesda to do to make it live up to your expectations?

@Chatch09: But I mean what exactly? I mean all sequels are just newer versions of their predecessors when you really break them down. Far Cry 3 was Far Cry 2 with better graphics, combat, exploration, story. Bioshock Infinite was Bioshock 1 and 2 with better graphics, combat, and I think story (although many people hated it for that part). New Vegas was literally 3 but with factions, sort of a turf war story, better aiming, and a different setting. Assassin's Creed...well, 2 was pretty neat in combat advancement and the mechanics of running around on rooftops, but ever since then the new iterations seem sort of bland. Fallout 4 delivered everything they showed at the conference back in June. They took some steps back with the dialogue wheel which I don't like. But otherwise, it is the Fallout experience we've come to know since 3. If it had been too different I think people would have been even more pissed that it wasn't really Fallout.

People usually feel badass when they get to hate on a game that's popular.. Their criticism usually ends up being irrational and limited in view of the game.