gloomseeker

I gave it a quick try, it's not perfect but it should look ok in game:

I really like this one so I took the liberty of modifying it a bit to bring back some of the details from the original:

Plus voiced main characters make the addition of modded content problematic. Old CRPGs could get nice mods that felt well integrated because the voice acting was pretty limited (sometimes all you had was some soundsets to acknowledge generic actions and reactions). In more recent games it has become a nightmare for modders to add fan made quests no matter how good the writing can be simply because you need the contribution of amateur voice actors and to be able to get around some technical difficulties (lip syncing for instance) and that makes building up on existing characters a real pain. Some modders for Fallout 4 went really far using existing sound files and recycling lines to use for mods and you've got to admire the efforts it took to make it work. That's something worth keeping in mind when talking about a voiced protagonist.

I don't like voiced protagonists in CRPGs for the reasons listed above. I got used to Shepard being voiced in Mass Effect but that's the exception. For instance I really don't care for Geralt's American accent in the Witcher. Geralt and Shepard are set characters (more or less) so voicing them is not as jarring as in games like Fallout 4 in which the voice becomes yet another limitation when it comes to devising your character.

I do agree with gaming becoming much harder to fit in your daily schedule as you get older (unless you're retired presumably), I just feel the exact opposite when it comes to Tyranny. I tried to replay the game but I couldn't stick to it for a second playthrough as with hindsight it felt too binary to me (plus I went for the Anarchy path the first time which was really rewarding). I think the problem some people have with TOW is that you can cut corners if you decide to force your way through the game. If you rob and steal and kill important people you can complete some objectives pretty quickly. It gets even easier to do so if you're playing on Normal difficulty since you can get away with pretty much anything at that difficulty level. I'm not even saying that it's a bad thing. In a real pen and paper RPG if you decide that you don't want to play along with a quest giver and want to organise a heist instead of a trade it's totally up to you. We're just not used to games allowing us to go around a quest to complete it or letting us dispose of a quest giver instead of following the quest line. As for the game featuring hubs instead of a huge open world filled with question marks and useless collectibles, I guess that's a good thing. There are so many games these days that showcase really huge game worlds it's actually refreshing not to be overwhelmed with yet another huge world map filled with markers.

Also bear in mind you can build your character as a leader to boost your party and speech skills do actually come into play during fights. There is also an ability to slow down time. I second the use of melee. You can rush in and whack away and at lower difficulty that may work out pretty well. Especially with the right kind of damage. I don't think sneaking and sniping is going to work if you have trouble spotting enemies in the scenery. It is very colourful and saturated so that may make things a bit more difficult. If I were you I'd look at a let's play online showing the beginning of the game to get a better idea of how it plays like and if it looks like it can be enjoyable to you. Lastly I haven't checked mods for the game but it may be worth looking over at the Nexus if there is any mod that can be used to tailor the difficulty of the game even further (or even post there to ask for modders if they think that is something that can be done).

QFT. Some people are more interested in "beating" the game instead of actually experiencing it. In other words they miss the whole point, i.e. it's the journey that matters, not the destination.

I salute your ability to bring up constructive arguments and shed a new light on the topic at hand. Well done!

I'm not moved by what you're posting since I don't really care about your opinion. I can finish the original Fallout in less than an hour and it doesn't change the fact that it's still the best game I've ever played.

The moment you start bringing up the main quest of Fallout 3 as a reference that should be emulated is the moment when writing comes into question. If you think that Fallout 3 is up to par when it comes to writing then your standards are incredibly low.

When you're tired of playing looking for Daddy you can switch to Skyrim with guns and start playing looking for the misplaced son. If Bethesda's Fallout 3 is what you consider good writing then rest my case.

Keep praising the looking for daddy excuse for a game that is Oblivion with Guns, you're just making my point.

I may not be as hyperbolic as the OP but the more I play the more I like it. The game does bring back memories of playing the old Fallouts twenty years back and that alone is priceless. If only they hadn't gone overboard with the saturation...

No need for "suspension of disbelief" when it comes to having a multi-ethnic couple unless you're some sort of homophobe and white supremacist nut. Most of humankind is made of Asians. Deal with it.

Anyone comparing this fine game to the turd that is Oblivion with Guns can't be taken seriously.

For the record, I love Fallout 2 despite the references but there are just too many of them. Quotes from numerous movies including Star Wars, The Terminator, the Blues Brothers, The Good the Bad & the Ugly, The Silence of the Lambs just to list a few. Elton John and the Rocketman song are explicitly mentioned but the list goes on and on: https://fallout.gamepedia.com/Fallout_2_cultural_references

I call BS. If you're fine with what passes as humour in Fallout 2 then there is no reason to feel so irritated about TOW. Fallout 2 was filled with references to Monty Python's, direct quotes from movies and so many different pop culture references including Elton John and so many other things that broke immersion. If you don't remember that then you should stop posting and go back and replay Fallout 2. That will be educational.

Don't ever play Fallout 2 if you can't stand TOW because of its jokes. I haven't played Disco Elysium so I won't comment on the rest. Looks to me that they are not meant to be the same type of games though. From what I understand Disco doesn't feature fighting and plays a lot more like a visual novel or an adventure game whereas TOW plays like a shooter/looter. I do reiterate though. Don't ever play Fallout 2 under any circumstances. If you can't handle TOW then all the pop culture references, direct movie quotes and the jokes in Fallout 2 will make you feel miserable.

The saturation is in sheer contrast with the more serious dystopian elements and I suppose it's meant to reinforce the pulpy feel of the game. I don't care for it myself so I will probably be looking into ways to tone it down in my next play through.

Comparing this to Bethesda's Fallout 4 aka Skyrim with guns is a bit silly. They are not in the same league. Bethesda suck at writing characters and storylines. They rehash the same things over and over again. They try to gun for cheap effects in order to get some emotional response from the player but you have to be a pretty easy target for these to work on you. The one thing F4 has for it is the decent shooting which is a welcome change after playing F3 and FNV (I love FNV for the story but the shooting is still horrendous). The Outer Worlds is a clever game with what looks like layers upon layers of depth. I could relate to complaints having to do with the outlandish saturation or the fact that the music gets very repetitive (don't get me wrong it's good but either the game doesn't have enough tracks or there is a bug that makes the same tracks loop all the time). Complaining about not romancing NPCs (which is something that usually ends up feeling cheap and tacked on or just ruins the writing) seems a bit funny to me especially considering how much the NPCs will react to situations and environments and discuss things with your character. Simply put, there is no other game like this one. I had high hopes for Greedfall but it did fall short unfortunately (not by much but still somehow a bit of a disappointment but maybe I expected too much from it). At least a game like Greedfall tries to come up with an original setting which is more than can be said about F4 and it's mish mash of Fallout lore with some things that were directly lifted from scifi movies left and right. In this respect TOW feels very fresh and tends to prove that you can inform a game with relevance by tackling difficult issues like capitalism in a complex society uprooted in an alien star system. The depiction of corporatism pushed to extremes keeps reminding me of Paranoia (the roleplaying game). That's an interesting dystopia that is showcased and the way it impacts regular NPCs is something that keeps things interesting and relevant (and what a more mature and complex Mass Effect Andromeda could have explored). Last but not least, I've played through the first location and so far I haven't experienced any bug. People tend to blame Obsidian for releasing buggy games so it's good to be able to tell them that TOW is not a buggy game.

The metacritic score for FNV is probably a sore subject here. It's clear to anyone who played FNV when it first came out that it was released way too early. I guess Bethesda didn't want FNV to look too good in comparison to their Oblivion with Guns.

Open world fatigue is a real thing. Think a out Dragon Age Inquisition for instance. It ends up feeling like a second job which is clearly not the desired effect when you're sitting down to play a videogame. I think crafting is in but I've been trying to stay away from spoilers as much as possible so don't take my word for it.

I've already preordered but it's good to see that it's living up to expectations!

I disagree. In Mass Effect choosing the appearance of Shepard was the one simple thing that you could do to make the character your own. The other thing was to opt for Renegade or Paragon but that took time and was more of an ongoing process but choosing how the character was going to look was immediate and did convey a lot more information. Shepard was always something of a blank slate. You could pick up an origin and it would come into play at times but Shepard was never a fully defined character but more like a series of templates and as such it made sense to create a character. I would go as far as saying that the possibility to create your own Shepard is the one thing that made Mass Effect a CRPG. You're not limited by a protagonist that already exists, you create your Shepard just like in Fallout New Vegas you create your own Courier. We're not talking about The Witcher in which you're playing a predefined character with an existing background, a personality and very little wiggle room to make it your own.

Fallout 3 was Oblivion with Guns and as such it could be fun but it had nothing to do with the real Fallout games. Fallout 3 was about a kid looking for Dad, Fallout 4 was about a parent looking for his kid. That's what Bethesda can come up with. Those games are not worthy of the Fallout name. Fallout 1 is my all time favourite video game. There is no other game that can compare to it not even Fallout 2 (too many cultural references breaking any sense of immersion).