Fallout's graphics, at least in the context of Fallout 3 and New Vegas, was never really anywhere near "current gen capability" levels. And the same goes for a lot of games.
And seeing as the graphics of a game is not actually that big of a factor, if a factor at all, on if a games story is good or not, or on if the game is any good at all to begin with... makes me not sure why people continue to use that as an argument for why X game would somehow be bad or disappointing due to it.
Graphics is one of those parts of a game that can have a huge effect on the game... and I am not talking about visually and how one reacts to seeing something in a game which looks really good... I am talking about the game it's self, and the development of it etc. "Awesome graphics" is very time consuming and expensive to make for a game company.
Not to mention that, by making the choice of making a game's graphics the best they can be, it will directly effect everything else in the game. Either by time and money being taken away from other aspects of the game, which will mean those other aspects of the game will probably be not as good as they could have been. But also on the game it's self in the sense that the game world can not be as big anymore, you can not have as many NPC's roaming around, possibly less amounts of buildings around you, etc. For the most part, if we look at the games out there with top notch graphics, you are going to find games who's maps are in general pretty small, your probably going to have to load into most maps in the game as you enter those areas, and the amounts of NPC's around you at any given time will probably be pretty limited.
And on top of that the amount of people who have the kinds of computers needed to see the best graphics possible are in a minority... which means that it is not to unlikely that the company actually lost money if you compare the cost of the "awesome graphics" with the amounts of money they earned from people with computers strong enough to even play the game on "Maximum-ultra-superduper graphics" or something...
So it is a call the game developers have to make... "What is the most important aspect of my game, and what will I have to drop or not spend as much time and money on due to it?" I doubt we would have had as good of a game as FO3/NV was if those games graphics had been top of the line when they came out... OR, it would have taken those companies a few more years to make those games... which then could result in that we the consumers would have to be the ones paying for those extra years by the fact that the company would have to sell the game with a bigger price-tag.
So... to me... when it comes to games within the RPG genre, graphics is usually the least of my worries. I mean I would be glad if the graphics looked good, but it is secondary to other aspects of RPG games. I would much rather they spent that time and money on the story for example, and also maybe a bit of it on the game mechanics and stuff like the characters development, equipment, inventory, NPC's and what not in the game.
