I don't know if this has been mentioned or not, but wow, what the fuck is up with the character movements in this game? Just watching your character move from a third person perspective is laughably bad because of how dated it looks. Is there even an excuse for this?  I don't see how they could overlook how awkward it looks as you glide around on rocky terrain and not even look like you're on ground. It's like Bethesda imported the physics from every generic FPS that allows you to glide, hop and strafe without actually looking like you're affected by friction or gravity. I don't even remember seeing little effects like dirt clouds or footprints as you run across certain types of terrain, so that also contributes to the problem. It's very 1996.

My second gripe is with the sound design. All you really get is a mix of left and right channels with fluctuating volume levels so that you can tell how far or close something is. Sounds good in theory, but it's executed poorly because it just doesn't work well and it's inaccurate. For example, I was standing on top of a bridge and there were a few enemies all the way at the bottom on land (several feet below), yet their voices were at max volume as if they were right behind me, but of course they weren't. The game's sound doesn't take into consideration how high or low you are as well as reverberation and other things that are commonly disregarded--even the left and right mixing is atrocious because of how unrealistic it is. If you're in third person perspective, the grunts your character makes as they attack are literally still at full volume even if you're about 20 feet ahead of the camera and outside - you can zoom out or in as far as you want and it'll always be the same. So what's the deal? It's not a new practice because musicians commonly use techniques to create the illusion of a "3-d" sound environment, so I don't see why it couldn't be done with this game. Dead Space pulled it off nicely, that's for sure.

You guys might not think it's a big deal, I just think it's annoying when I hear a voice at full volume and turn around thinking the person is behind me (sometimes they are!) when they aren't.

Just watching your character move from a third person perspective is laughably bad because of how dated it looks. Is there even an excuse for this? 

The excuse: It's Bethesda, who actually can't create animation for shit.
It'd be nice if they suddenly crank out more animations in Fallout 4, complete with Euphoria physics... But I doubt it, since it's Bethesda!

Oh, and is it really too much to ask that developers support controllers other than Microsoft's? It's really not hard to implement a universal "bind key" feature so that it detects whatever joypad button is pressed when configuring. It's annoying because this isn't the only recently released game to skimp on controller support and now I'm pretty much forced to buy the Microsoft controller if I want to use one because developers are too lazy to implement such a simple feature that would save everyone a ton of time and possibly money (yes, I'm aware of xpadder and Joy2Key). The problem with those programs is that you sometimes have to sacrifice functionality in order to have everything configured. For example, I can use xpadder if I want, but menu navigation is done with the right analog stick and not the left because mouse movement is set to the right analog (in the PS3 version, the left analog would be used for menu navigation whenever the Pipboy is brought up, pretty much how it is in any other game). Configuring the analog sticks to be at the perfect sensitivity and speed can be a chore if you don't know what you're doing. Again, EA actually got something right with Dead Space because my controller was auto detected and it worked right off the bat without needing any configuration.

dude gz is a supergamer. not like he necessarily plays a lot but he gave chef and i a prelim barkley to check the balance of the fights and they were not doable. you would have to idk sit there and spreadsheet that shit out to beat it.

and he had beaten it like seven times.

gz probably catches individual drops of water in a rainfall.

I mean I can do it and with a sniper rifle its especially easy but I usually just go straight for the head because aiming at various limbs is kind of pointless when you can just unload 3 shotgun blasts to the face and and end it right there because they'll just keep coming even if you break their leg.

or do they fall over if you break both legs? I guess that would be cool.

I loved how in the original games if you shot someone in the groin or the eyes other characters would go "Ouch, that's got to hurt!" and the characters you shot would say hilarious things like "oooh, i'm gonna get you" even though you just blew their testicles off.

I'm about 23 hours in and counting on my first play through.

Despite some glitches, after all it is from BUGthesda, I've been having a pretty fun time in this game. Overall the feel is still very Fallout, although there are a couple points where you're outside of the radio station's range and the ambient music track comes in - a bit too Oblivion-ish. The pose with the game's sword weapons is a bit familiar as well.

The V.A.T.S targeting works really well, and if you have the stats for it, combat becomes fun and in many cases, funny. I was getting my ass handed to me early on by Raiders with combat shotguns. Solution? Shoot the weapon out of their hand first, then beat them to death with a baseball bat to conserve ammo. The A.I. seems to anticipate this later on...there are bodies and discarded weapons around - you shoot the weapon away from your target only to see him/her/it scramble for a suitable replacement. Nice touch. I used to get concerned facing an enemy packing grenades, now I smile. Target the grenade and blow it up in the enemy's hand...or better yet, wait until it is thrown - pop into V.A.T.S and detonate it in the air...over the heads of a couple of enemy mercs. Another nice touch.

In one area, I set a bunch of mines in a choke point, and then used some gunfire to draw the enemy to my position. It worked like a charm.

I don't know if it is a fault or a credit, but when I went on walkabout, I actually jumped ahead in the main quest line because I stumbled onto the location of a major character.

Also, thus far I've found Dogmeat to be pretty handy to have around - though I haven't tested his find ability out yet. I leave him behind when I'm trying to pure stealth, because he has a habit of running towards the nearest super mutant, growling and snapping - and me being a dog person, I abandon my slow crouch and charge up right after him, machine gun blazing, to keep him from getting blown away or smeared by a super-sledge.

For me, aiming has been working outside of V.A.T.S. just fine. I get critical/crippling hits on super mutants when I tag them in the head with a hunting rifle, I've shot off limbs with the shotgun, etc.

Yeah, I imagine aiming to be much easier on PC. I was watching the walkthrough videos of Fallout3 for the 360 his aim was horrible. (no wonder the put the VATS in the game, heh heh heh)

Man I saw some of that 3rd person stuff in a video and it looked like ice skating ugh it was bad. Still don't know if I'll play this or not. Certainly not anytime soon since I'm not all that familiar with the series and it's not a priority by any means. Some of it looks kinda neat but what I've seen of Far Cry 2 looked better.

What can i say..love guns..

also slightly odd but I only just found it's Bethesda. not that I ever had to say it out loud but I always read it as Bethseda, and pronounced Beth-see-da. dumbp. got dsyelxia i guess.

Anyway, I'm contemplating whether or not I should blow up Megaton, I actually managed to bribe Burke into offering 500 caps for the job, but I still don't have a high enough explosives skill. I was playing around with the quick save and load to see how certain choices affected my karma among other things (by the way, completely broken mechanic as you can basically fly through the game as if you were using an emulator) and killing him actually increases your karma, but saving the sheriff from him yields absolutely no reward other than the crappy item drops Burke has, so that was pointless.