Hawesome news ! Where do you saw that he can be an optional companion ?
This sounds extremely on rails.
How? We can switch between them at any point
Meh. On rails might not be the best way to describe what I'm trying to get at. Can't think of how to say it though.
Limiting maybe? I suppose I'm annoyed that we're getting a companion this immediately.
The article does make it sound like things are on rails with, "you will get several opportunities to go back and switch between them." That said, I'm highly skeptical that this won't be a sandbox game and it would pretty much have to not be for you to be stuck elsewhere depending on where you are in the story.
Not a bad thing, though. It's kinda fair if you're making a non-combat character. Would be more useful in old Fallouts, though, because attributes and skills don't matter anymore. But it's optional, anyway, so you don't have to get them. I know I won't.
We haven't seen anything definitive about skills yet, right? Also why won't you get them? I mean invulnerable allies are dumb but it's possible that when they said they can't die that they still implemented a KO system like they had for quest NPCs in Oblivion. It's still stupid but it will keep it from breaking the game.
Also I have to say that while the protagonist has a crappy, emotionless voice actor that the other characters in the game play demo seem to have better voice acting than Fallout 3. Maybe they finally hired a new sound director? Also I'm really happy with the art direction that we've seen so far, I feel like it better captures Tomorrowland than Fallout 3 did.