Fallout 4 VR - Great game with Technical Issues

Hello fellow VR fans,

If you follow VR at all, then unless you've been under a rock this past week, you'll know that Fallout 4 VR was finally released this week.

As someone who has finished the "pancake" version of Fallout 4 twice, I pre-ordered the VR version the instant it was announced by Bethesda and came up on Steam. I am a massive Fallout fan and was completely overjoyed to learn that it was being re-released for Steam. Even the £40 ($60) price tag didn't put me off in the slightest.

However, I knew there was a risk about how good a port this would turn out to be, but I decided to just go with it.

This blog post is about my first 3 days playing Fallout 4 VR.

Performance

Perhaps the biggest question coming from people that don't currently own the game is "How well will it run on my system?"

If you read the likes of the Steam discussion forums and Reddit r/vive, there are many many complaints of people with high-end systems say they have performance issues. Comments like "I have a 1080ti and <decent processor> and I am only getting 45 fps/massive reprojection/etc" are rife.

And I do find it a bit strange, because I have exactly the spec for general entry-level VR, an Intel i5-4590 and Geforce GTX 970, and I find the game to be totally playable with no supersampling (Wikipedia) and TAA (Wikipedia) off (more about that later). Of course, I am getting reprojection (Wikipedia), a lot of it, and with the graphics running at native Vive resolution and no anti-aliasing (Wikipedia), it is quite pixelated (Wikipedia), but it is still definitely good enough for me to forget all that after 5 minutes and just get lost in the game.

So, without intending to unduly trivialise the experiences other people are having, I can't help but feel a lot of peoples' experiences fall into one of three scenarios:

• People with high-end specs are used to getting zero reprojection in normal made-for-VR games and are just focusing on the data rather than just feeling how the experience is. There is a suggestion that perhaps people on low-end specs, like me, have less expectations and therefore less likely to be disappointed.
• People have ganked their configs with dodgy tweaks killing their performance, and then complain it is the game's fault.
• People just liking to complain that, at the end of the day, this is a port of an already known-to-be flawed/old gaming engine. It was never going to be awesome work of art in VR because it was never awesome on the flat screen.

I repeat, I have an i5-4590 and GTX 970 and I'm loving playing Fallout 4 VR. I do not deny, however, that this game is challenging to deal with from a performance perspective, I'm not say people with high-end rigs aren't right to expect better.

Technical Issues

The second biggest thing (a close second) are the technical issues.

It has to be said that Fallout 4 VR has released with some head-scratching bugs. Head-scratching because they don't seem to be particularly fundamental issues, and one is really left wondering how such issues could have been missed.

Case 1: On release, the rendering resolution in the game was locked to what your current desktop resolution was. It was a really crazy problem that was causing a wide range of issues. For me, my desktop runs at 1080p, so the result for me was really crappy looking graphics but reasonable performance. Other folks with 4K displays were finding they had great looking graphics but really crappy performance, because the 4K desktop resolution was effectively supersampling the crap out of the graphics.

It's such a crazy bug, why on Earth the desktop resolution should have anything at all to do with the rendering on the VR headset is just totally bizarre, as is how such as bug could be missed before release.

The plus side on this is that this issue proved Bethesda was completely poised to resolve early issues, and they released a Beta patch for this problem within 14 hours of game release. They have continued to release 2 further issue-resolving patches up to now as well.

Case 2: TAA is really a problem. TAA is the default anti-aliasing algorithm Fallout 4 VR uses to smooth the graphics, and it looks blurry as hell. It seems to me that TAA is something that works perfectly well on the flat screen, but no-one in Bethesda did too much research into how well it looks on displays 1 inch from your eyeballs.

TAA on - Everyting is severely blurred.

The Reddit/Steam communities saved the day with that one, with a simple console command to turn off TAA and either just leave all AA off (like I currently do) or use a different better anti-aliasing method like SMAA.

TAA off - Sharp but severe pixelation

Bethesda seem to be focusing on resolving supersampling issues as a way to resolve graphics problems than messing about with anti-aliasing, which is fine. I'm on a low-end system anyway so I chose to just leave TAA off for best performance and deal with the pixelation.

Case 3: The most annoying bug for me, the tendency for the game to crash when performing certain container inventory actions. I have been getting crashes to desktop when trying to retrieve an item from a crafted container in my home hub of Sanctuary, plus now also getting crashes when just opening a random container out in some location in the Commonwealth. Bethesda released another Beta patch late last night that I haven't had chance to test yet, but it purports to resolve inventory crashing problems so I am hopeful this problem is also fixed.

So, this whole saga seems like we are on the bleeding edge, and you might call it bleeding edge if Bethesda was the first company to port a pancake game to VR, but Croteam showed how it is done with their Talos Principle VR port, so one wonders a little about Bethesda's approach to all this.

Bottom line is, if you feel like you can wait a little while before buying Fallout 4 VR, or want the price to drop, then you can probably avoid all this community enthusiasm for solving these technical issues.

I stress again, however, I am still loving Fallout 4 VR despite all this, I am a technical person so I can deal with these issues, and whatever their faults, Bethesda are watching community comments like a hawk and resolving issues fast, so they at least deserve credit for that.

Case 4: Scopes do not work, period. The scope lens renders opaque, so you can't look through them. Bethesda says they are going to fix that in an update, but we don't know when. So you are limited to iron sights like the glow sights or reflex sights for now.

The Gameplay Itself

I'm not going to go into what Fallout 4 is like in general, you can read any number of reviews for the original game for that, but rather the VR-conversion specifics.

It's a bit of a mish-mash really. The hand controllers are fully integrated, which is a massive plus, but, well, it would be dumb if they weren't, so you are fully capable of doing everything you need to in the game fairly intuitively. I do struggle a little with the over-sensitivity of the Vive touchpads, but it's a minor inconvenience.

Combat in particular is fun. You can smack things with melee weapons or even pistol-whip baddies by just waving your weapon around with the controller. Guns seem to handle well, despite even the huge ones being one-handed. Aiming is a bit odd, in general there seems to be an "RPG effect" where you can get your aim spot on, but there is still some "chance to hit" applied which may or may not cause your bullet to shoot at a slight angle to where you are aiming. You can look down the iron sights and fire a gun and see the bullet go off to one-side. It seems to be the same mechanic as when playing the "pancake" version, where you can see bullets spray around your target reticle. It doesn't work so well in VR though, but it's not such a big issue, especially when you are also using VATS to fight.

The biggest missed opportunity, I won't say disappointment, is the vast majority of interactivity with the game world is still via menus, albeit floating menus. Get stuff in and out of a container? Floating menu. Interact with an NPC? Floating menu. Remove a power core from a generator? Floating menu. Pick up an item in the game world? Point at it and click "pick up." There is only basic tactile interactivity with the world, even picking up objects to move them around is odd at the moment (likely to be fixed later I should think). I guess, with such a huge game to deal with, Bethesda felt this was the best approach, but it is the biggest missed opportunity to me. It's not something I find myself focusing on when playing so it doesn't get in the way, but still, I hope there are mods developed that bring some of these factors into the game.

Floating displays are core to gameplay - functional but not immersive.

Conclusion

I think choosing to buy Fallout 4 VR right now really depends on the type of person you are.

If you are like me, which means you *love* the Fallout and Elder Scrolls series, you are a VR nut, you have technical ability (and perhaps by that I mean real IT experience and/or know-how as opposed to being just some Joe who is as likely to break something by tinkering than improve it), then Fallout 4 VR is totally worth it. Despite the issues, I have no regrets about paying £40 for it and getting stuck right in.

If, however:

• You expect a game to just work when you buy it, which is quite reasonable and, ironically, the basis I have previously reviewed a lot of Indie games.
• Don't agree with paying top-dollar for what could be argued is still a work in progress (again, reasonable).
• Are expecting Fallout 4 VR to be some pinnacle of technical achievement. I'm not really sure why this should be the case but a lot of folks on the forums seem to be acting this way.
• Just can be arsed with all the bugs(back to being reasonable again).

Then waiting for a while before you buy is probably wise. I'm not sure if Fallout 4 VR will go into a sale price over the Steam Winter sale but it might be worth just to wait a couple of weeks and see.

I, however, am not disappointed!

Dark Legion VR Review (Verdict: Good, Shame About the Bugs)

Hello my fellow VR enthusiasts,

We have another game review for today, Dark Legion VR.

I actually don't remember how this game got into my library, I think I must have picked it up on a freebie. It's a shame I couldn't find out for sure, because when you can get your money's worth out of this game depends on whether you paid a very small amount or got it for free.

Which doesn't bode well I know. However, this game does have some redeeming features that at least might merit some further interest if you can pick it up for a steal. It's not as bad as some other rock-bottom VR titles, like the awful Marlene Act 1 Betwixt I reviewed in my last post.

Dark Legion VR - The Plot

Orange leather doesn't stop her from getting left behind.

As is often the case with Indie VR titles, the plot for dark legion VR is quite thin. I've seen worse, however.

You appear to be some kind of space mercenary. You start off the game in your main ship, in a training arena, with your ridiculous orange-leather-bound female companion there also. Your companion takes you on a walk around the area showing you all the features, and then there is an achievement for completing certain tasks in the shooting range and other areas.

Actually, as far as tutorials go, it's quite well done. There was only one thing I wasn't sure about, because there were not any visual cues as to whether I was doing the exercise right, but otherwise it's a great introduction into using the weapons.

So you go on your first mission and, whilst you are in your shuttle, something goes wrong. You crash land and need to find a spare part to fix your shuttle and move on.

Whilst looking for a spare part (in the middle of nowhere) you start getting attacked and you apparently quickly forget about your shuttle (and companion) and go wondering off trying to find the source of the aggression.

The Game Mechanics

Thankfully, I found the core gameplay for Dark Legion VR to be very enjoyable. Weapons work well and you soon get into a rhythm of managing shots left and reloading. Combat is urgent but geared such that you aren't forgetting yourself and running into your real world walls trying to dodge projectiles. As you get further into the game you can slip into a well-worn cover and shoot mechanic to battle most of the enemies, and every so often the game tosses into something slightly different to shake up the gameplay, such as snipers you can't simply shoot from far away, riot shields that block standard bullets, and bosses where you are forced to get out of cover and take on much more directly.

So despite some depressingly familiar bugs, which is why this game doesn't actually get a thumbs-up rating (explained later) the core game entertained me well enough that I stuck with it through the bugs and to the end. It's about 3 hours gameplay and so, if you are picking this up for a pittance, not bad value.

More Details

The pistol is great fun to use, and the iron sight works well.

With the high level overview of this game explained, I will slip into the good, the bad and the ugly for more details.

The ugly first:

• The game crashes on every level transition, including when defeating the last boss. Normally, it autosaves right before the crash so you can just reload the game, jump back in and carry on. On killing the end boss however, the game crashes instantly (again) and when you reload, it dumps you in an empty boss room with no way to progress, so.... you don't actually get to see the end game movie/credits/whatever.
• It bears repeating, on top of crashing in-between every level, I persevered through the crashes and my reward was to know I beat the game but never get to see the ending.
• As many others have stated, the dumb little flying robot is idiotic, it frequently gets right in the way of where you want to shoot whilst you are getting shot back.

Now the good a.k.a. why I persevered with this game:

• The graphics in the game are pretty good. They aren't outstandingly beautiful, and they are a little basic, with a lot of flat surfaces. However, the graphics do work well, particular for seeing and aiming at things at reasonable distances. Visual cues are also apparent without standing out like a sore thumb.
• I actually quite like the main duck/cover and shoot mechanics on how you do most of the fighting. It's a bit contrived, with extremely basic enemy AI particularly, but nonetheless I quite enjoyed ducking in and out, popping off a few shots and reloading.
• Weapon selection and reloading is again nicely done for the most part. You can pick up weapons off your belt in either hand and use the other hand to pull clips from the back of your belt, pop the clip in the gun and, depending on the gun, also pull the lever to prime the gun and start shooting.
• In particular the pistol, which is the first weapon you get, is great fun to use (although that is also a bad thing).
• The bow as well is quite well done. It's been done well in other games too but it works well here also.
• Depth perception is spot on, which means you can shoot from the hip, shoot round corners, but also use iron sights very effectively for well placed headshots.

It's a shame this robot is bullet-prood, stupid little git.

Finally, the bad (or perhaps just not so good):

• Although the graphics are quite good, the sound is a little lacking. Sound effects are basic although monster noises do a good job of alerting you of what's around the corner. The music is quite dreadful however. Mostly it is background noise, but the overly dramatic music on boss fights grates after you hear the one minute song on loop for the fifth time.
• The controller-trigger activity depends on the context of what your hand is pointing at, and the game can get very confused. If you are struggling to pick up a gun from your belt, it's probably because your hand is pointing at something on the floor or wall you can interact with.
• Weapon balancing is iffy. I spent most of the time using the pistol because it is a) easy to reload b) has no spread, c) the iron sights are extremely accurate and d) the pistol has infinite ammo. The shotgun is little more than useless, the automatic rifle has too much spread, you only use the bow when you need to because drawing arrows takes time, and the rocket launcher is squandered if you use it on anything except bosses.
• The sniper rifle is worth singling out. It has a top-mounted zoom display so you can try those round-the-corner shots. However, the zoom level is quite high and my hands are just not steady enough to use the rifle effectively. There has to be a way to solve a lack of steadiness for long-range weapons in VR games, it's not like you can lean on anything to steady yourself.
• Your female companion, who helps you through the initial tutorials, is ridiculously dressed. The arse-tight leather and pointy nipples will appeal to the young lads I'm sure.

The game breaking level-transition bug is a real shame, because that is what stops me from giving this game a thumbs-up. However, without such a stupid bug, Dark Legion VR is a fun little Indie game that is fun to while away a few hours in, so I don't have the heart to give it a thumbs-down either.