I had a good time, but not a great. A sequel should be better than the previous version, and I'm not sure this one is.
The story: you're a pre-war relic trapped in a cryo facility in one of the infamous Vaults (structures designed before the fall of man to withstand an all-out nuclear war). At some point, mercenaries invade the vault, shoot your mate, and kidnap your child for unknown reasons. During the attack, the computer system holding you in suspended animation fails, so you're enabled to escape. You're supposed to track down those who did the deed and recover your kid. Secondary mission is, of course, to traverse and explore the wasteland as you see fit. Help or hinder, it's up to you.
My positive impressions first, because I have a lot of negative ones:
1. The graphics are a step up. In particular, people look more like people. Flesh looks more like flesh. Water really looks a lot like water. Is this a life-changing step up from New Vegas? Will it blow your mind? Not by a long shot, but you will notice it.
2. More in less. Though the world doesn't seem much larger than the one we are given in New Vegas, there's more in it: more buildings to explore, more camps, factories, compounds, etc. There isn't much aimless meandering. You're always getting in trouble.
3. Junk is not junk. New Vegas (via an add-on) allowed you to do a few things with the junk you found. But here, that idea assumes Biblical proportions. No longer will you encounter useless tin cans, pencils, and empty bottles. Everything can be gathered up to serve a purpose. Use those aluminum cans, for instance, to build a wall around your favorite community. Collect old light bulbs to supply your current hub with electricity. Yeah, that's kinda cool.
4. More companions. You don't need to search as much for people to back you up in this version of Fallout. Customize your adventure. Travel with a hero or an antihero, it's up to you. Wander with a dog, robot, or drug-addled wasteland wench, whatever you want.
5. More side missions, so that the gaming environment becomes less like a third person shooter and more like a traditional rpg. What this really means is more gaming hours. The quests you go on are more generic, but are more numerous, cropping up in a more or less random way. For example, there are endless quests to clear environments of monsters, or penetrate buildings in order to secure precious pre-war technology. And that is fun, for a time.
6. A more dynamic world. In previous Fallouts, if you cleared an area of hostiles, that was it. No more fun to be had there. If you cleared all the areas, or most? The game was pretty much a dead duck. You could keep wandering, but to no purpose. There was nothing living. Here, enemies keep cropping up and new quests keep popping up without a seeming end. That's nice.
7. Mod your gear. Finally. Take that sniper rifle and make it even more powerful. Tinker with your armour until it's better able to withstand bullets or energy blasts. Modify even your power armor, so that you can become a true wasteland conqueror. Fun. Fun. And fun. My modded shotgun could devastate even the toughest enemies up close. I named it Alonzo. Oh, what fun.
8. Treasure hunt to your heart's content. In New Vegas, you might eventually run out of ammo entirely. Uncool. You might run out of boxes to loot. Unfun. But not here. If you have the money (and you can always get the money), you'll always find your favorite ammo or drug of choice. Loot a box, come back later, and you can loot it again; but different stuff is inside. I like that.
9. The introduction of special weapons and armour. For example, there are guns that do 2 times damage versus mutants, no matter what perks you have. There is armour that is 50% more effective against humans. You'll find them either lying around, or on the corpses of the stronger of your enemies. I found a beautiful shotgun on a bloated fly that turned out to be one of the most powerful weapons in the game.
Now the extensive negatives:
1. An entirely lackluster storyline. Seriously, this is bad. Didn't care if I ever found my son again. Found him, but was bored in the finding. Androids? Yeah? So what? New Vegas had a story, a real story, a dark, twisting, labyrinthian story. Rome arising anew with crucifixions. Hell YEAH. Gambling and drugs and mafia-run prostitution rings?! AWESOME. This game has historical references to the Salem Witch Trials and Paul Revere's ride. Boring. A highlight is to visit a famous bookstore. Are you kidding me?!
2. What the heck is going on with the companion system?
I don't understand. Skyrim, which came about two plus years before this game, got it right: choose your companion, and outfit them accordingly. But in Fallout 4, they won't wear the equipment you give them. Why? And a terrible gliche I encountered: a companion will disappear entirely, yet the system says you still have one. So you try to recruit another, because you're fighting alone, and can't. You dismiss the current companion (which you don't see), in favor of another, and guess what?! The new companion vanishes also. What's the problem, when Bethesda had this right years ago?
3. Mapping system STILL makes you angry. Another thing I don't get. Beautiful, easy to use maps in skyrim. Confusing maps in Fallout. Why?!! If this is a limit of the Pip-Boy; fine, then allow for upgrades. Otherwise, I am tired of looking at a map that belongs to a 1990's-era Wizardry series entry.
4. The dialogue system. Again, why?! When earlier games had it right. In Fallout 4, you're presented with a few choices on how to respond during a dialogue conversation -- ala the Godfather games. I hate this. Let me ask what I want to ask, of whomever I want to ask it. Please. And don't let me not know when a response is going to cause a fight. If I want to fight, I'll fight. If I want to talk, I'll talk. Particularly frustrating is when you bother one person in a community, and suddenly every man, woman and child in it is trying to kill you.
5. Mod system needs work. And a lot of it. Yeah, I want to modify my guns. But I have to spend some of my precious perks to do it, and even then, can create only a moderately powerful gun? Come on. I had to waste a dozen perks on modding, which means hours and hours of gameplay. In the end? A powerful gun and a good set of armor, but a frustrating time getting there.
6. The quest system is too straightforward. You have the main quest, then a few (not very many) side quests, like building up communities. Again, I go back to Skyrim. The world is huge; give us many and various missions. Skew the perspectives. Give us large rewards! Fallout 4 seems to give more missions, but they are generic. Skyrim gave us both more special missions and more generic missions, which made it replayable.
7. The world is ugly. Yeah, it's post-apocalyptic, but this is ridiculous. House after house, building after building, city after city of the same old. There aren't even any real cave systems to explore. Just more of the same desk, shelf, door, skeletal frame, new room, etc. Yawn.
8. No cities?! New Vegas was a blast to explore. But Fallout 4's major city is a village in a ballpark. Really? I hate exploring it. Where is the vice? where is the fun?
9. Once again, you're kind of forced to play the hero. Find your kid, build up communities, help the Brotherhood of Steel or the Patriot group. Come on! Why in the world can't I play a villain?!
10. A pointless "legendary" system. Special enemies will appear with the "legendary" tag. Kill them, and you get a unique reward. The problem? Those rewards are practically worthless. A piece of armor that protects your right arm from 25% damage caused by mutants? Really? When a regularly modded piece of equipment does better. Whose idea was this?
11. Gliches. I understand that most of these will be cleared up in time. But still. This is a lot of money to pay for what is essentially a half-finished game.
Again and again I am left with the question: why is Skyrim, which came out years ago, so much better a product than Fallout 4? I play Skyrim every day. I played Fallout 4 for a few weeks, then was done, very disappointed.
It's not much different from previous games, actually. You're again exploring a post-apocalyptic wasteland, encountering critters and creatures, and making new friends and enemies. You're trying to turn your character into a survivor. This one has you looking for your kidnapped son, a plot device I found ho-hum. New Vegas had a much better, not to mention, more involved, storyline.
The main difference between this game and previous versions seems to be that there are more side quests here. And that's good at first. It's kind of fun to rescue people, or build a shelter. But there are huge flaws in the system. First, it's easy to see that the quests are just kind of popping up at random, the same way new areas used to do in older RPG games that sought to expand the gaming world by taking shortcuts. No one likes the shortcuts because they're too easy to see. What happens immediately rings false. You'll go on a mission to clear out ghouls, then have to clear the same ghouls out later. Or this time they will be raiders. Another problem with these side quests is the weight issue. In order to build up your little communities, you need junk, lots and lots and lots of junk, but the junk weighs too much. Before long, you'll find that all you're doing is going from place to place collecting pencils, tin cans, and etc, running them back to your survivors, then starting out again. Not fun, seeing that you don't get much of a reward for doing this.
It's still fun collecting new weapons and pulverizing enemies. And the game does look nice, if a bit bland. Good graphics, but the world doesn't have enough variety. A nice historical setting, but not one that's very entertaining to play in. Where are the big settlements? At least one to rival New Vegas.
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About This Game:
Bethesda Game Studios, the award-winning creators of Fallout 3 and The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, welcome you to the world of Fallout 4 – their most ambitious game ever, and the next generation of open-world gaming.
As the sole survivor of Vault 111, you enter a world destroyed by nuclear war. Every second is a fight for survival, and every choice is yours. Only you can rebuild and determine the fate of the Wasteland. Welcome home
Key Features:
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Freedom And LibertyDo whatever you want in a massive open world with hundreds of locations, characters, and quests. Join multiple factions vying for power or go it alone, the choices are all yours. |
Collect And BuildCollect, upgrade, and build thousands of items in the most advanced crafting system ever. Weapons, armor, chemicals, and food are just the beginning - you can even build and manage entire settlements. |
Super Deluxe PixelsAn all-new next generation graphics and lighting engine brings to life the world of Fallout like never before. From the blasted forests of the Commonwealth to the ruins of Boston, every location is packed with dynamic detail. |
Violence And V.A.T.S.Intense first or third person combat can also be slowed down with the new dynamic Vault-Tec Assisted Targeting System (V.A.T.S) that lets you choose your attacks and enjoy cinematic carnage. |
Tips From The Vault:
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Adapting To The OutsideYou've Left The Vault. Now What? The moment you exit the vault, you will notice a piercing bright light. Like a creature of the night, your eyes are not accustomed to the bare sun. Make sure to shield the retinas with tinted goggles. |
Radiation And YouBeware The Silent Killer: While some harmful radiation should have dissipated years ago, lingering radiation will remain. In the Wasteland, ceaseless radioactive bombardment will attack your body without warning until it’s too late and you begin to suffer the debilitating effects of its poisoning. This will be a real threat to your survival. Use your Vault-Tec assigned Pip-Boy to monitor radiation levels at all times. |
Don't Forget!Order your copy of Fallout 4 today. Available for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC. |
Customer reviews
I could not get the game to load onto the ps4, returned one disk and had the same problem with the 2nd disk. System reads dvds (It hates Blu-ray) just fine but refused to download Fallout 4. DO NOT BUY THE PHYSICAL DISK...JUST GO DIGITAL 🤬 PS4 BEGAN HAVING 'ISSUES' RIGHT AFTER THEY RELEASED THE PS5...rather coincidental if you ask me....
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Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on May 1, 2016
Platform For Display: PlayStation 4Edition: StandardVerified Purchase
Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on November 25, 2015
Platform For Display: PlayStation 4Edition: StandardVerified Purchase
Top reviews from other countries
Cander Sohen
Bethesda, Bethesda never changes.
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