PC gamers certainly punished WB Games and the ones who ported Arkham Knight to the PC with that disastrous release. I'm sure they'll have the same standards when they see firsthand Fallout 4 performing as it shouldn't on their high-end PC.

It's an interesting question and I wish some gaming writer would ask it (though perhaps they have and didn't get an answer).  Fallout 3 had all of these bugs, which is somewhat understandable considering how much new stuff it brought to the table at the time.  New Vegas was a spin-off given to another developer, so they didn't really touch the engine at all and the bugs were exactly the same.  Skyrim had many of the same bugs but it also had a lot of improvements--or maybe they just didn't crop up as much because it used some different assets.  I can't say for sure.

I suppose the jarring thing is that many of the reviewers mentioned the high quality work Bethesda does in other, non-technical areas of game creation.

So why back to the well this far out with an obviously inferior engine?  I really have no idea, unless maybe they thought they'd lose too much time learning a new engine, as they'd have to try to make all of Fallout's classic systems work within a new framework.  Perhaps they tried it and they couldn't make it feel like "Fallout".  

Bethesda is a fairly small team in terms of "AAA".  If I remember right, it's actually like 100 people who switch between Fallout and Elder Scrolls.  They jumped on Skyrim immediately after finishing Fallout 3.  I'd like to see them hire a dedicated expert who can start working on the next next game-engine right now without feeling the pressure of time.

I saw this earlier and didn't get it.

Haha very funny.

I hear Konami is selling the Fox Engine. *joke*

How do you know many of them didn't take points off?  And what do you want them to say?  "I love Fallout 4, I had a blast playing it despite what I felt were minor issues compared to the whole, so ... I'm going to give it a 70"?  You want them to recommend it with their text and then tell you not to buy it with their score?  

Do you really want reviewers to care more about not having "a big graphical upgrade" than about how much fun they had playing a game?

But there's no bugs on the Wii U version.

No game either

Agreed although for a slightly different reason and not particularly with Fallout 4 since I haven't played it yet.

Going on a rant here:  I usually trust the gist of a review average but there are certain games in certain genres that almost automatically get high or low scores just because of set expectations.

So many Western reviewers don't give this kind of leeway to JRPGs.  Even I find high pitched characters annoying as hell, but that doesn't mean I'm going to just all of a sudden forget the rest of the game's story because of one or two annoying characters and say the whole game's story is going to be bad and not give it a chance.  Maybe some of us are more willing to push through lacking story elements because the narrative is so damn good, interesting and enjoyable or because the game is just too fun not to play. How to balance now eh?  

Also, I'm of the mind to  think that if games continue to provide too similar an experience in a series, even if they're enjoyable, they should still get docked for that no matter what.  You can cut and paste games like Fallout 3, Skyrim, SMB3, OoT, God of War, Halo and so on and more with a new coat of paint for eternity (even if with some new tricks, it's not good enough if the experience is too similar) and people will still enjoy them no matter what; but they still shouldn't be getting that high of praise regardless.  The release window shouldn't matter either.

OR here's something interesting: what about a game that is flawed but enjoyable in a way that you can't find so easily, and pushes to try new things and break boundaries?  Over time those games become far more exciting to play and sometimes overshadow the hype of GOTY games after those GOTY level games have long been past their prime. 

I don't know. I didn't encounter any bugs on PS4 until now, but I'm only 3 hours in. Just some framedrops here and there, but the game was always playable.

I did play Fallout 3 on PS3 though, and it had that issue in the op, the image just froze every now and then. The game also tended to just crash altogether and stuff like that, not even mentioning game breaking bugs. I couldn't finish a specific quest because of that.

Stuff like that sure is annoying, but I still was never mad at the games. Even if I do miss out on some content, there is still enough other stuff to fill 10 games easily. Talking about the graphics, I just don't give a shit. Fallout just has such a great atmosphere that I don't even notice bad textures or framedrops too much.

What I'm trying to say is, I will take a great game with endless good content and bugs over a bugfree game that isn't fun any day. Despite all its flaws Fallout 3 on PS3 is still one of my favourite games of all time. I only have good memories thinking of it, I almost completely forgot about the bugs and the poor loading times. There are just things that are more important to me. On the other hand I played Crysis 2, because I really liked the first one. Welp, the game sucked ass. I didn't encounter any bugs, but I still didn't have any fun at all. I wish I would have never played that shitty game.

Bethesda games have their flaws, but it's not like the games are completely broken to a point where they aren't playable anymore. (Ok, except for Skyrim on PS3 if you had a really big savefile :P). I let Bethesda get away with such things more easily than other developers, because their games are just so friggin' huge. I mean of course it's easier to get Call of Duty bug-free as the game is short as fuck! Oh, and they even can't get that done. Black Ops 3 seems to be a bloody mess on PC. Or have you played Arkham Knight on PC? Bethesda games are a dream in comparison.

Just my thoughts. Oh, and did you know that Fallout 4 wasn't delayed one single time? They told us a date and they got the game out at that date. That's something VERY rare in this day and age. There are countless other developers who just delay their game for two years or more and STILL deliver a bugfest with Day 1 patches. So all in all, I think Bethesda is better than their reputation.

70 = don't buy the game???

70 is a good score. More fitting for Skyrim, a game with glaring technical flaws, than the 94 it has on Metacritic.

80s and 70s are great scores. Hypothetically speaking, if New Vegas received 70s from different reviewers because Bethesda didn't learn from their previous release, they would've worked harder on polishing Skyrim.

ANYTHING rated 6 or even 5 in any other entertainment medium, movies or music for example, is worth checking out. But gamers feel entitled to higher scores and it just screams immaturity from both, reviewers who hand out 9s to games with glaring flaws and gamers who demand their fave games get above 80 on meta.

Im pretty happy with how the game is running on my 8350FX+970GTX combo. 50+fps at ultra, would be better if I disabled TXAA too which is complete overkill on my 24"display. The game itself looks sooo much better in person. Screenshots and youtube videos don't do it justice imo. The only obvious flaw I've encountered so far is the lip syncing, it is terrible. Granted Im only 2 hours in but I've got zero complains so far. The gameplay itself is also solid.