I'm not on the fence, I'm just testing my willpower. I honestly nearly caved to impulse tonight when 20 of the people on my friends list were playing it, but I held off . . .

I know pretty much without a doubt that I'll love Fallout 4. I loved Fallout 3, I loved everything Bethesda has done back to Morrowind (which is still one of my all time favorite games, and I wish they would go back to those mechanics. I miss my number crunching and character building!).

I just have too much to do, both in real life and gaming wise to add the hundreds of hours I know I'll spend in Fallout 4 to that list. I've finally been able to put Destiny down, I don't need another huge time sink to immediately take its place!

I am going to watch your stream for a bit, though.

It is REALLY good so far. Feels good to be back in the wasteland. Movement feels much better than before, as does the first-person shooting.

I'm holding off until I finish Halo 5's story mode; I'm also considering getting an external drive before downloading Fallout 4 for the reported performance boost. But I will be getting it soon and it will eat hugely into my Destiny time for probably the next month or so; I spent a couple hundred hours each in the Capital Wasteland and New Vegas and I expect to spend at least as much in the Commonwealth.

-- Steve's got more great games than spare time right now, which isn't the worst problem to have, is it?

All of this discussion is really tempting me.

I also just saw this commercial on television, and it made me really hyped for no real reason:

I might cave soon. /:

So I thought that before I payed $60 for a game I was't sure I would like I decided to watch some streams. In all the streams I watched there was only a couple minutes worth of interesting stuff. Almost the entire time was people going through their inventory, their dogs inventory or picking up crap off the ground.

Is that what the game is really about, scavenging and inventory management?

...before submitting I went and watched another random couple random streams just in case I had a streak of bad luck with the streamers. Nope, pretty much the same thing, although one did shoot a couple things. Most of the time was looking through buildings and picking up every random piece of garbage that they could find.

I don't think this game is for me. The time investment appears to be huge compared to the action offered.

www.twitch.tv/theechaos12

Nothing special going on, just figured some of you might be on the fence about the game (YOU SHOULDNT BE). Feel free to come by and hang out. Its just me so I wont be saying much unless some one joins.

Watching your stream, saying how fantastic the graphics looked, and then remembering the complaints... Some people need perspective...

Having to manage food, water, sleep, and the weight of all that ammo made the game so much more interesting to me. I'm really disappointed that it isn't part of the new game. The closest is "combat is really hard and also there's less ammo" which is just fundamentally not the same.

...and I'm mildly impressed. For the most part it's what I thought it would be. A new Fallout game. Better graphics. A few gameplay enhancements.

What I didn't expect was to like the story as much as I am so far! Don't get me wrong, Fallout 3's was interesting but I never really liked any of the characters. They were a means for Caps and XP and were quirky and that was about it. Already in 4 I'm loving my character (he responds "correctly" nearly every time I make a speech choice), and several of the story characters and story situations have been a lot of fun. Valentine, for instance. Just perfect, so far. That, and rescuing him from the gangsters in my first real test of my fully repaired Power Armor with plenty of minigun ammo left over? It was glorious. I was like Robocop combined with the Terminator or something. Just walking on in and tearing apart any fool who dared face me while taking a grand total of maybe 20% damage!

Also, the best part of the game by far is its main theme. It's just so heartwarming! It feels familiar too but I can't quite place what I'm relating it to... A cross between the slow Cortana part of the Halo theme combined with those few piano notes when Shepard dies at the beginning of Mass Effect 2, perhaps??

Oh... question. I was putting the game to bed for the night and was going to fast travel around and check on my settlements. First one was fine but when I got to there I saw a message that I'd failed to defend the second one... How was I supposed to know to defend it? Is there a message or something I missed?

I'm currently about 17 hours into my play through. I've mainly focused on the main story quests, with the first few Minutemen and the very first Brotherhood of Steel quest thrown in, along with a few random ones and a few hours worth of settlement building.

I am in love with this game. As we've discussed in this thread, I don't get the complaints of it not being "next gen" enough. I think it's a perfect evolution of what we got with Fallout 3 (I never played New Vegas, so I can't comment on that). It feels so great to be back in the world of Fallout, and this game is packed with so much world building in almost every little corner. The crafting system fits in perfectly with the nature of the game and the world; making weapons and armor out of junk is just perfect. It doesn't feel shoehorned in like in some other games.

I really enjoy the settlement building aspect, too, although it is not explained very well (or at all). It took me ages to figure out how to make the Local Leader perk work for the supply runs and that you had to actually assign a person to make the runs. It also took me way longer than I'd like to admit that you can't break down all your junk into crafting components, and that it's done automatically just buying storing your junk in the workbenches. That said, the system is actually pretty deep, and I'm sure we'll see some amazing stuff out of it from the community. I haven't been too deep into it, yet, as I'm too eager to experience that real meat of the game.

Some other random thoughts:

-I keep accidentally activating my pip-boy because when I loot stuff, I still reflexively press 'B' to get out of that menu. It's really awesome that it's just a contextual menu that you can just walk away from, but I just can't break that habit!

-Radiation storms are freaking amazing. Seriously, probably one of the coolest effects I've seen in a game ever. Walking through Boston with a green fog, low visibility, and that awesome lightning sound . . . it's seriously creepy.

-I don't get what people are complaining about with the graphics, either. Sure, it's no Destiny, but I think it looks pretty damn good. The details might not look great individually, but the art design is so cohesive and damn near perfect that it looks great as a whole, I think. Plus, I think the Bethesda has done a pretty good job with the faces and facial expressions and animations in general, given what they're known for.

-I'm really digging the companions. I haven not spent a single moment alone, which is saying quite a bit considering that I NEVER used a companion in Skyrim because they were so bad. They still have the occasionally janky pathfinding, or lodge themselves in a doorway, but it's not enough to detract from how interesting they are. I love hearing their quips or finding out their backstories. Been rolling with Piper pretty much since I got to Diamond City, but I only have four of them, I think.

-Power Armor (as discussed in this thread) is awesome. I still only have the starting set, but since we talked about it, I've been using it quite a bit, and it's really fun. I explore without it (I don't have the cores for that!), but if I'm going into a place I feel like might be a tough fight, I go grab my Power Armor and then come back and wreck shit. It's a lot of fun, and a nice change of pace from my normally sneaky character.