@chaplainDMK: There is no way to get a metric. But just visit any thread over there, and you will notice pretty much nothing but pure hatred for that game. That place has pretty high negativity overall, but for that game it is especially high.

It served as much of a purpose as the aging mechanics in the Wizardry series. It is something that drove you forward and gave you urgency. It may not have been strict enough, but even then, is that a problem, it let you do whatever you wanted, as long as you didnt dally around too much. It was an excellent mechanic.

"Towns were basically theme parks of various social themes the game wanted to explore. Vault City was a xenophobic technocracy, New Reno was hedonistic anarchy, San Francisco was a parody of Scientology, the Enclave were racist nazis etc. etc.."

Notice something they all have in common?

As for the GECK, its less absurd than you seem to state it is. Essentially the GECK is just a very potent fertilizer. Containing seeds, and a few other stuff necessary to start a community.

They made a misstep with Fallout 2 and then Bethesda took the mistakes of Fallout 2 too a whole new level. They didnt even achieve anything aside from "lol, so randumb!"

Furthermore, Bethesda made even more logical failures and clearly did no research of the established Fallout canon and influences. They show no understanding of how societies work or on 50s sci fi. They took one of the more memorable RPG settings out there and replaced it with a poorly researched, poorly thought out, setting not only contradictory with what it replaced, but also contradictory with itself.

Which brings me back to this,

http://pastebin.com/kV9zJkxu

You forgot people with standards.

An active modding community is good and the game has its fans. However, its fans are not the majority of the grognards. It does have a relatively good user score on metacritic, however, it is the lowest of all the mainline Fallout games (9.1 for FO2 (wut), 8.8 for FO1, 8.4 for FO:NV and 8.0 for FO3). There are people who like it, youtube celebs included. But at the same time, there are also groups very vocal on it, go ahead and browse say... 4chan's /v/, and you will find overwhelming negativity towards the game. If not outright hate for not only the game itself, but Bethesda Game Studios and Todd Howard and Pete Hines.

Either way, opinions are opinions. I dont think Fallout 3 was a worthy addition to the franchise, simply put, because it failed to understand what makes a Fallout game. As shown in the 2 quotes in the image above I linked.

It has issues for sure, but so does every other game in the Fallout franchise. Fallout 1 and 2 had pretty bad combat, Fallout 1 had the annoying timer that basically did nothing except annoy first-time players into moving too quickly, Fallout 2 is just one massive pop-culture reference. Plot holes/weird plots? How about Arroyo somehow being a freaking Hollywood parody tribal village, 80 years after being founded by Vault-Dwellers and various locals (none of whom were spear-wielding shaman-worshiping tribals). What about New Reno being a gambling hub with a porn industry.... In a wasteland with barely any power? How about just casually waltzing into the Enclave base and saying you lost your armor, and getting a new set no questions asked, especially considering Power Armor is probably the most complex piece of tech created in the Wasteland, requiring fusion power cells? Fallout 2 is just one massive plot hole and contradiction to everything Fallou 1 set up, yet it's generally seen as the best game in the series.

What exactly was wrong with the timer. The timer actually gave you a sense of urgency, and did something few RPGs do. Make time an actual resource.

I will agree about Fallout 2's world building and the bad combat of FO1 and 2 however. However, Fallout 2's randomness was not as bad as Fallout 3's and it certainly doesnt excuse the incoherrency of Fallout 3.

One key difference is that the randomness of Fallout 2 at least were somewhat tied into the overall narrative and didnt as blatantly feel out of place. While definately random and harmed the overall narrative, it at the very least had the decency to tie into the overall themes of the world, which is how society would struggle to rebuild after its downfall. The randomness and jokes in FO2 was also, for most of the part, locked away in smaller instances, rather than having an entire town built on one joke.

The combat, as bad as it may have been, did however, serve a purpose. Not only did it implement something with some resembelence of a tabletop RPG into a computer game, but it also showed just how dangerous the wasteland can be (where a single critical can hit you for over 100 damage).

We'll see, from what I saw for now it seems promising, and I enjoyed Fallout 3, so I can't say i'm too pesimistic for now.

There is a saying that goes, "a pessimist is an optimist with expierence" ;)

Personally, I do believe Fallout 4 will be good down the line, once the mods fix Bethesda's terrible design choices. But at launch, I expect a game that could be summed up as a train wreck, and so far, all the leaked footage (at least one person has even beaten the game) would indicate that this game is not of high qulaity.

@chaplainDMK: Waiting for the final game is the best move to take. Quality is subjective and so are all opinions.

However, people didnt change their minds about calling Fallout 3 oblivion with guns. It is just that they found things even more offensive in the game, aside from the terrible gunplay. The biggest offender was easily the absolute lore mishandling, The change from Isometric TB RPG was more of a symptom than a problem in itself. We loved Fallout New Vegas, but hated Fallout 3. And Fallout 4 looks to be like Fallout 3, but worse in nearly every aspect (combat, and graphics have been slightly improved).

Seeing as they pretty much imported the punching animation from Skyrim. Nothing would surprise me with this game anymore.

Some of us have seen the leaks of people streaming this game. And by all means, the gameplay looks just as bad as the graphics and animations.

• Gunplay is still below Call of Duty level, which by all means means it already fails to meet a rather low bar. It is even inferior to Project Nevada, a Fallout New Vegas mod.
• Mission, Quest and Level design removed what little interactivity there was in Fallout 3, now missions are almost exclusively done through linear repetitive corridors.
• Perks are borderlands tier of being uninspired.
• The dialogue system has been severely criticized. Showing that once again, gamers dont actually like dialogue wheels.
• AI issues, doesnt exactly make for engaging enemies.

Agreed. It provides for the occasional giggles.

You can walk FO4's map from one edge to the opposing side in less than 12 minutes, with barely any enemy encounters. In-game footage looks drastically different from PR shots. Will Fallout 4 still be one of the most aggressively defended game of the generation?

Walking across F4 world in 10 minutes

Also, take a look at this piece of fancy animation. http://gfycat.com/ImpoliteFancyFlyingfox

This fancy in-game screenshot or this PR shot.