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"Fallout 4" Release Raises Questions About Reviews of Buggy Games (kotaku.com)

Posted by timothy on from the assume-it-was-great dept.

RogueyWon writes: Fallout 4, the latest instalment in the long-running video-game series and one of the most hyped titles of the year, was released on 10 November. The game has generally been reviewing well, currently holding a Metacritic score of 89. However, a number of reviewers have noted the very large number of bugs present in all versions of the game and have, in some cases, reflected on the difficulty that these pose for reviewers, despite still awarding positive overall write-ups. Can it be ethical to recommend a product to consumers on the basis of its strengths, despite knowing that it contains serious faults?

5 of 367 comments (clear)

  1. I'm 8 hours in by sokoban · · Score: 4, Informative

    And have no bad bugs to report. A couple instances of things disappearing and reappearing, but no hard crashes or getting stuck.

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    09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0 is the magic number.
    1. Re:I'm 8 hours in by Noah+Haders · · Score: 4, Informative

      It should be said, polygon has been giving games 'provisional reviews' and then updating a final review after a month. This is especially relevant for online multiplayer games that are most functional when there's a large community.

  2. Re:Not very ethical by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

    There is, and once they figure out how to solve the problem of ethics in games activism then maybe they can move on to dealing with journalism next.

  3. Terrible User Reviews by Coren22 · · Score: 4, Informative

    It is currently sitting at 5.3 User reviews. Reading through the negative reviews, they have a point. Many immortal characters (where is the kill anyone Fallout?), game on rails, only like 5 different enemies, terrible voice acting, horribly stupid AI, same quests over and over (go kill this many of this creature), refusing quests doesn't refuse the quests, the world is empty, only one city on the map, and a bunch of ruins with nothing there.

    It sounds like Bethesda forgot to actually build a game and just built an engine.

    I'll wait till it is $5 on Steam and has a ton of mods.

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    APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
  4. Re:Not very ethical by mvdwege · · Score: 1, Informative

    Actually, I don't ever buy AAA titles on release, and I never pay attention to early reviews. This problem has been known in the game industry for years, and has cost one reviewer his job, but 'gamers' are, curiously, relatively silent about it; some minor grumbling as on this thread is it. And yet for imagined faux-pas by women they bring out the torches and pitchforks.

    In short, I was being sarcastic about GamerGate's professed motivation.

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    "I know I will be modded down for this": where's the option '-1, Asking for it'?