I just couldn't take reading this thread and listening to my mates harp on about how good this is so I bit the bullet and traded in a load of my old games for this, definitely worth it.
I'd heard about the ridiculous amount of bugs but I'm still surprised how many crashes I've had and how many hard resets I've had to do in the 10 or so hours I've put in, in 1st pov my gun regularly moves up and down the screen, enemies frequently sink into the floor and get stuck in scenery, the radio stations play the same 5 songs over and over again even though there are supposed to be about 30 in the game. Yes it's annoying but the game has been so good, such an experience, so far that I don't even care.
It's Obsidian. Their reach has always exceeded their grasp and god bless them for it. Anyone who expects a polished, bug free product from them, much less any entry in the Fallout series, just hasn't been paying attention.
It's certainly much more of a challenge than F3, after only a few hours I can tell how much more depth there is to the combat and even just surviving when walking about. When I started, I still had my F3 mentality of, "I can and will kill everything." Almost found out the hard way how wrong I was. Now I have to actually think before I act, and I like it.
I've tried doing a bit of exploring away from the freeways and everytime I've been killed almost straight away, single swipe from a deathclaw - dead, 2 giant Radscorpions - dead despite me empting about 50 rounds into them, barely even scratched it. I've even been killed by a single Ghoul Reaver when I was at level 4.
Your character is also far weaker in this new game. Perks every two levels, instead of one. Armor is much, much, much more important. I can only imagine how tough the Brotherhood guys in power armor are going to be, if I can barely dent a Radscorpion with a shotgun at point-blank range. I'm loving the challenge of it, the prospect of Hardcore mode terrifies me though...all that having to drink and sleep regularly to stay alive?! I'll save that for my second playthrough.
The scripting and storytelling is far superior to F3 as well, everyone in that seemed to have the same voice and personality whereas this game already has a number of memorable characters and I'm barely into it. It's very funny too, blackly funny in places. Primm Slim's story about Vicki and Vance had me actually laughing out loud, don't think a game has made me do that since Portal.
