[slphil]

I have bad news for you: Fallout 4 is an incredible game the first time, but the second time through you notice that the game has very little depth. I had a blast the first time, but couldn't force myself to finish a second. I say this as someone who beat New Vegas at least a dozen times.

Fallout 4 has tons of options that are flavorful and make you feel like you live in a dynamic world, right up until you realize there's not much actual dynamic content.

[jvanderbot]

That is a shame. But Fallout 2 had ... zero dynamic content? It was absolutely the same scripted events and environments every time, with the exception of random encounters, which I never prioritized "farming".

New Vegas was a special beast, with its myraid choices and great writing. I will have to replay that. But FO4 on survival mode is a great experience, with plenty of danger and tradeoffs, and so much that I literally cannot do everything (I fail quests just due to lack of fast travel sometimes). And for that, I can thank Bethesda for a new kind of "more real" fallout experience.

[Ralfp]

> zero dynamic content

This is true, but the reason why Fallout 2 is considered great (and why so is New Vegas), was in number possible paths that player can take during gameplay. Writing in those games was all about presenting gray and grayer dilemmas to the player and leaving it up to them to follow quest lines for either of those.

It was rarely things like "take the lost kitten from a tree or set the tree on fire" types of "good and evil" pseudo-dilemmas that end with player being a paragon of justice or chaotic evil, something that keeps plaguing role-playing games to this day.

[mauflows]

Fallout 3 doesn't get enough credit here. Maybe not the whole main quest, but there are tons of side quests that get this for me. Some that I remember toiling over are whether to set Harold on fire and what to do about the Pitt considering I thought the leader was had a set timeline and seemed trustworthy

[aqme28]

Not just dynamic content-- It allowed you to approach problems in different ways. You could talk your way out of things, or sneak around, go in guns blazing. In FO4 you have the same skills, but the game consistently forces you into a firefight.

[BiteCode_dev]

Depends what you call dynamic. The way you handle gecko changes the interaction that you can have later for sure, and the geopolitics of the surrounding area. Same for new Reno.

In Fallout 1, the entire Necropolis arc is time dependent, and what you can do in there depends of the time you arrive: the Vault Dweller can save Necropolis from the slaughter by killing the Master before the Lieutenant and before 25 March 2162 but after 110 days have passed.

[ivankolev]

That's true, Bethesda are focusing on the wrong things since they bought the IP, of the "new" fallouts, only New Vegas is more than so-so, and it was because it was outsourced. I am hyping myself up for Wasteland 3 as thetrue spiritual successor of the original masterpieces.

[Crinus]

After Oblivion, Bethesda's games become sandbox themeparks where you can do a lot of stuff with little substance while chipping away any RPG mechanics.

I think Oblivion's success despite its shortcomings on the RPG side gave them the message that this works and Skyrim's success reinforced it even further.

Though personally i find Morrowind the best of their games by far, especially on the writing side (not a surprise considering the writers they had - and lost right after Morrowind). Not as chaotic and repetitive as Daggerfall and Arena's random generator-based worlds, yet still with solid RPG mechanics, writing and exploration.

[slphil]

I own Wasteland 2 but I haven't been able to make myself play it. It's my own failing, but it's just so old-school. It's very hard to find a game that keeps old-school charm without the old-school mechanics.

[ivankolev]

I recently started again after an abandoned attempt to play it when it came out. Surprisingly, it does not look or play bad at all, it is just unapologetically hard game, if you build your party the wrong way, you won't be able to progress. Hopefully with 3 they will balance it out better. You should also take a peek at Metro: Exodus, if first person post-apocalypse is your thing. Short and far from trully open world, but very well made and atmospheric

[mattmanser]

I didn't find it hard, I just found it boring. With some truly terrible design choices because it was trying too hard to be oldskool. It seemed to be pretty easy if you min-maxed your characters.

I remember getting to the 2nd map (Los Angles?) and the first mission was this huge map which was hardly used. Massive waste of my time baby sitting and watching people walk.

And that was when I had enough of the game designers wasting my time so much and stopped.

[shantly]

Tyranny's got a pretty good balance of old-school CRPG feel without old-school difficulty or unfairness. Good gimmick & setting, and good-enough story, to boot.

Shadowrun: Dragonfall and Hong Kong are also really good. I hear "Returns" was OK but not nearly as good as those, haven't bothered with it.

Divinity: Original Sin seemed really promising but I got sick of it crashing like 1/hr and dropped it.

Perspective: aging former gamer whose access to long gaming sessions for deep single-player stuff is now tightly restricted by adult responsibilities—i.e., kids.

Favorite older games of that sort, for reference, are Baldur's Gate, FO1 and (especially) 2, Arcanum, and (stretching "that sort" a bit) Darklands. Still haven't beaten Planescape: Torment after my game started repeatably crashing ~2/3 of the way through years ago, but that was really good.

[gknoy]

Seconding the Shadowrun games from Harebrained Schemes. The mechanics in the first one (SR: Returns) are a bit meh, decking kindof sucks, but the story is Pretty Darned Good. Dragonfall follows up with adding a GREAT set of supporting characters, and adds some neat mechanics. Hong Kong is fantastically done, and mixes the best of both.

The story lines are linear, but the stories are rather good. There's a lot of user generated content, and some are OK, but none of them are as good as the original. (I _think_ someone remade the original game's campaign in the Hong Kong engine, but don't recall for sure.)

[Semaphor]

Shadowrun: I can only recommend using mods to play returns in HK or DF (iirc you need the game files of returns). While it’s a somewhat linear story, the story itself is still amazing and feels more Shadowrun to me than the others. Playing it as a mod ensures you get the QoL improvements of the later games.

DoS 1/2: Never had any crash in either game and played both from release on.

[baud147258]

I agree that Returns wasn't as good as Dragonfall (I've yet to play HK), but I feel that the plot is more focused, as there's not that 'collect money' part in the middle, like in DF, which slow down everything. And I've felt the ambiance way better in Returns (of course that point is a big YMMV).

[mattmanser]

Divinity Original Sin 2 was one of the best game experiences of my life. Replayed it co-op, had even more fun.

No need to play the first.

[shantly]

Yeah I actually think 2 may have been the one I tried, not 1. IIRC I played it on Mac (Intel graphics) and my Windows-using friends reported no such problems. So it was probably just my machine, but regardless, it seemed good but I can't personally provide a strong recommendation for it as I only made it a few hours in.

[Semaphor]

Personally, I love the old-school mechanics.

[theandrewbailey]

Halfway through my second playthrough of Fallout 4, I realized that I had been playing (more or less) the same game for 10 years (TES4, F3, TES5, F4). Same gameplay loop, more shallow characters, and more mediocre writing, and to top it all off, I wasn't enjoying the open world/sandbox all that much. Not to mention, all of them have the same weird kinds of bugs and crashes.

I hurried through and went back to Witcher 3.

I decided that until Bethesda starts writing games properly (story- and code-wise), I'm going to pass. Fallout 76 didn't interest me, and stayed away from that soon to be dumpster fire. I found it hilarious that most Fallout 4 criticisms applied to Fallout 76.

[ascagnel_]

On a second playthrough, I wish Fallout 4 would've let you _actually_ lead the Minutemen (given that they were most closely aligned with the settlement mechanics) in rebuilding the wasteland, and let you manage the internal politics of a large organization (eg: you could let the synths in and merge with the Railroad, but you'd lose some subset of followers in the process).

[jvanderbot]

You know, Ive got almost 150 hours on Fallout 4, and I'm not done with the main arc and havent started Far Harbor. On survival, I had to be careful and theres no fast (or safe!) travel. I'm not sure I'll need a second playthough at this rate!