Fallout 4 Review

Fallout 4 is more evolutionary than previous Bethseda RPGs. But it’s so good that I couldn’t give a monkeys about that. I love it.

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Falling in and out of love:

Bethseda make my favourite games. On the last generation, they only put out a handful of RPGs, but about 500 hours of my life has been sunk into them. How does their latest turn out?

Story:

Fallout 4 lets you (albeit briefly) explore life before the nuclear apocalypse, before you’re ushered into a Vault, only to find yourself cryogenically frozen; woken 200 years later, your family gone. Whilst the game sadly doesn’t even begin to explore the mental trauma of waking up all this time later, and seeing the changes and havoc that have been wreaked upon our planet, nearly every other aspect of the story is perfect.

There’s always something of interest to find, explore, do or speak to. Fallout 4 feels like such a richly populated world, full of life wherever you may be in it. Your quest log soon becomes overflowing, but never in an unmanageable way.

The greatest challenge is simply which horizon to walk to next; which questline to prioritise; which ruin to explore.

Gameplay:

Fallout 4 doesn’t choose to make many changes from Fallout 3 or New Vegas; instead, there’s an element on subtle updates to flesh out the game world and focus on the quality of content, a choice that I’m completely fine with! If you are the kind of person who needs more than incremental updates and quality improvements, Fallout 4 may feel more like a glorified expansion pack. VATS, the system which allows you to target enemies, now doesn’t stop time, but merely slow it, and this change is complemented by the real-time shooting now actually being a viable option.

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Make no mistake, Fallout 4 is not a shooter, but the combat now feels robust enough to not be a frustration. Your pip-boy, which tracks quests, inventory items and the like, has also seen some improvements, and the levelling and perk system is much more user-friendly than previous games. Everything has now been streamlined into SPECIAL (your stats), or perks, which allow you to take individual bonuses, with the prerequisites and ability to spend points much more clearly laid out.

You’ll need your wits around you though, as my experience was that Fallout 4 is a much more difficult game than its predecessors. Navigating around ‘the commonwealth’, as the area surrounding Boston has become known, can be tricky and frustrating until you learn to keep hitting the quicksave button. Enemies seem more numerous, more intelligent; more likely to take cover and work together than aimlessly shoot in your general direction or charge straight into melee.

But there’s plenty more life to Fallout 4 too. Your companions, including ever faithful pooch Dogmeat, are much more useful, less likely to get lost, and somewhat more useful than just extra carrying space this time around. But you can also help out normal citizens.

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Fallout now includes a full crafting system, and you can build up your own little town to help you survive the wasteland, including buildings, defences, traps; and then you can move your own citizens into your own little bit of post-nuclear land. You can also craft upgrades and modifications for your weapons, adding some much-needed variety to the combat. And I was glad that Boston seemed to be more full of life than Washington or New Vegas, because the dialogue system now gives you more options; more ways to potentially win people over with dialogue, and a clearer understanding of your likelihood of success. It’s not always perfect, as your character (who is no longer a silent protagonist), doesn’t always seem to say things that link up with the on-screen prompts, but it mostly worked out for me.

Good

  • Huge world
  • Enormous amount of quality content
  • Engaging plotlines

Bad

  • Bethseda jank
  • NPC animation
9.2

Amazing

Story - 9.5
Graphics - 9
Sound - 9
Gameplay - 9
Value - 9.5
Editor - Reviewer GamerKnights

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