A couple of months ago, I bought an Xbox One. Later, I bought Fallout 4, and after about 50 hours I finished one of the main storyline paths. I’m a little late, but I thought now would be a good opportunity to take a break from my hiatus to talk about my thoughts on Fallout 4 with you.
One of my biggest feelings about the game throughout was how “samey” it felt to FO3 at a core game DNA level. Mostly, this meant the limitations and what I expected to be able to do within the engine. Given that this is a Besthesda game, and their open world RPG games are similar with marginal changes, I wasn’t very surprised. A good example of this was the introduction. While it was a refreshing change to start the game before the War, seeing my home, my wife and my baby boy, it all was so obviously limited. The wife was so lifeless, it was disturbing. When the vault-tec salesman knocked at the door, I didn’t want to answer; I would rather explore the house, so I did. I ignored him for almost an hour, the man constantly knocking, me thinking “doesn’t he get the point!?” while my wife pestered me to “just get the door honey”. For a fucking hour. This was when I realized the game would not take a realistic approach to choice, and I would have to talk to the man to finish the introduction. Maybe if I never answered him, the sun would never set and the bombs would never fall, but it was not meant to be. Oh, Bethesda.
So at this point I literally hated my wife, and got to listen to some asshole try to tell me about how I was “specially selected” to stay in a vault, no matter how many times I picked the “Go away, not interested” option. What a great way to start. 5 minutes after talking to him, LO AND FUCKING BEHOLD, the sirens go off. How convenient. The bombs are dropping, and our neighbors are running around in a frenzied panic. Luckily, I was just chosen to be saved! In the street, soldiers are directing people to a nearby vault. Me being a rebel, I ran in the opposite direction only to be instantly vaporized by atomic bombs as soon as I crossed my neighborhood boundary. I mean, this happened at least a dozen times. This was a railroad, and I wasn’t getting off the damn train. So I follow these guys to the vault. Theres some losers being outside crying about not being “chosen” to go in, but I don’t give a fuck about them because I’m special.
So myself, my wife and baby boy get inside the vault. As we go down the elevator we get to see a beautiful nuclear sunset. Inside, its pretty chill (pun intended heh). The goofy G-men fucks tell us to go to these weird pods to be “decontaminated” or something. Come to find out, it was all a sham, and everyone was put in cryostasis for some reason. This part was actually an interesting twist, even if it took control away from the player. You get to experience a deep freeze in first person, you see your wife’s pod being opened up by some strange dude who takes your baby and shoots her in the face while you stand there helpless. WHAT THE FUCK! But like I said earlier, I hated her, and she didn’t do anything for me in the introduction to make me care so that point was pretty null. Somehow, my pod opens on its own and I am able to escape the vault. Theres nobody around, and some time has passed (spoiler: its been 200 years, and your son is now an old man trying to take over the world, who shares zero emotional connection with you at all) and I’m finally free to explore the world at my whim.
I went into a lot of detail about the intro, but I think it says a lot about the game as a whole. Honestly, I probably had more fun in the first 2 hours, before the bombs went off and trying to test the limits of the engine, than the entire rest of the game. The game is pretty great (more about the good stuff below), but there were few surprises. Much like the intro, Bethesda tried to have some real twists, but never actually let your decisions affect the game. This is no Deus Ex.
Boston as a setting was pretty cool. Its nice that FO4 takes place near the Capital Wasteland, while being distinct and having its own history. Incredibly, there are a few returning characters and familiar rumors from FO3. I was really surprised at how detailed Diamond city and downtown Boston were. This was one of the first games I’ve played where you could walk around a city and go inside literally every damn building and feel like theres something new to find. The areas around Boston, although sparse, have a lot of variety and character. The glowing see, forests to the south, and ocean and islands to the east were enjoyable to explore. I felt like the desert wasteland was played out after FO1, FO2 and NV.
When you talk about character interaction, that's where one of the biggest flaws starts to show. Put simply, the dialogue choice system is terrible. Always having 4 choices when talking to anyone, usually only 1 or 2 words to describe your reaction, is a frustratingly arbitrary decision. (heres a good video detailing this problem
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WqkZXNZwZq4) Comically, the voice acting quality is top notch. So even though your character rarely says what you’d want or expect him to, his smooth sexy voice makes it all okay. Theres also a mind-blowing amount of voice acting, more than Skyrim and FO3 combined. Honestly though, in a series known for in depth dialogue choices, this is an incredible disservice to the series. The only reason it exists is because consoles have 4 main buttons, and Beth didn’t want players to have to read too much. That's a shame.
Many other parts of the game felt same-y, with strange new changes. Why does time now move slowly in V.A.T.S.? Why are skill trees changed, and I can upgrade my SPECIAL stats every level? Why is there no level cap? Overall, these changes facilitate this as an “action game with some RPG elements” than the other way around. Also, I really felt there was too much emphasis on combat in this game. At some points, I felt like I was playing Call of Duty, and that's a fucking problem. At later levels, most enemies become bullet sponges, sometimes taking hundreds of shots to kill.
There are a few nice new additions though. Having 4 major factions and having to choose between them was pretty cool. I choose the Brotherhood ending, because it seemed the most logical, even if they were fairly evil. I really liked how synths and the Institute were incorporated into a big conspiracy theory among the NPCs. The workbench base building system was pretty incredible. So much depth, being able to tear down ruined houses essentially piece-by-piece for materials was pretty mindblowing. But again, it never feels holistically involved with the game as a whole. It becomes a borderline “Doll house simulator”.
Overall the game was a bit underwhelming, but still enjoyable. Earlier I said it was “great”, and while I believe that, its also been bogged down by sameyness and some decisions that limited its effectiveness continuing the series I think.