Would people be interested in contributing to NMA's Fallout 4 and DLC review?
- Thread starter The Dutch Ghost
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Carbon Dated and Proud
Ediros
Water Chip? Been There, Done That
Well, I have completed my second take on Fallout 4. The base game is covered, but I couldn't write too much about DLCs. I am too burned out by this game, but here you go:
Intro:
Fallout 4, a game many players thought would be a successful successor to Fallout New Vegas and Fallout 3. Many people including me, expected things such as: good writing, believable characters, multiple side quests, sticking to the lore and such. However, Bethesda’s first try called Fallout 3 was not what Fallout fans wanted, so they hoped the company would fix what they have broken. Unfortunately, this is not the case. Fallout 4 is in my humble opinion one of the worst Fallout games I have ever played in my entire life. It is even worse that Fallout Brotherhood of Steel or even Fallout 3. That said, I will explain my stance on it as well as I can.
General Story/World:
The story of Fallout 4 is a rehash of the previous game. In the previous game we were looking for our dad as a player character. The game allowed limited role playing capabilities and was plagued with poorly written storyline and ridiculous locations. Still, despite its’ flaws it had some interesting locations, if it was a Fallout spin off and fixing some of its’ writing it could be a decent game. Fallout 4 on the other hand, doesn’t even try to resemble previous Fallout games, especially 1 and 2. The story is cliché and full of plot holes. To put it simply, we start of minutes before the great war in a peaceful little settlement with our wife/spouse. In the next few minutes we are introduced to both of them, but there is no connection established. Bethesda expected the player to care about those characters because they are family, but it didn’t work.
Not even for a second did I feel anything positive about the child or the wife/spouse. Seconds later a Vault-Tec Representative appears out of nowhere and tells us about a vault that is located 100 meters away from our house. It is kind of odd, that none of the characters knew about it beforehand. To make it worse, we sign in the papers and magically we are on the list, despite not filling a request or anything. It gets worse as we go along, I could spend an entire review just pointing out terrible writing, but it would take too long. So, let’s instead focus on the world.
The world of Fallout 4 is small, there is no other that sums it up better. It is smaller than skyrim and much more boring. All locations are basically the same, with super mutants, ghouls, raiders, gunners (which are just another raiders) etc. and a random crate with loot at the end. To make it worse, it is full of nonsense such as: settlements surrounded from three sides by deathclaws, raiders, super mutants and such. Or even better power armour that is basically everywhere. You find frames basically everywhere. For a technology that is supposed to be rare and end game loot you can find it anywhere. And it is even worse, by the fact it is all level dependant. If you find a power armour at level 1, it will be most likely t-45. The same frame will be Enclave Power Armour if you are level 50. There are no unique weapons in this game, the way I see it. Bethesda implemented weapons called Legendary that are basically magic. Healing Fat Mat, Double Shot Fat Man etc. Not only these weapons are completely ridiculous, they also brake the lore.
Right, the lore. To put it simply Bethesda retconed everything, even their previous Fallout game – Fallout 3. There is just too much to count it. The plot, the world and the lore are all broken.
2/10, only because some of the locations were a okayish.
Gameplay: Dull, boring, repetitive and terribly balanced. The guns all feel the same, there is very little variety – 50 types of all weapons including legendaries. It doesn’t matter that you have got 750 mods, if it all comes down to which one deals the most damage. And the worst part is that 80% of everything you do in Fallout 4 is shooting things. The are basically no sidequests so you can do that or build pointless settlements that don’t do anything. To make it worse, Bethesda went and made all enemies bullet sponges by making them scale with the player. So you are level 250 character, travelling through the Commonwealth when suddenly Super Mutant Suicider level 250 appears. And then you shoot him 100 times in the head before he finally dies. This is not difficult, it is just tedious.
Shooting is a bit better than New Vegas, but that is about the only thing I can say is positive about it.
2/10.
Graphics:
Old and dated, compared to the likes of Witcher 3 or other games like these. Fallout 4 pales in comparison. Animations are decent but that’s it. The game runs like crap no matter how good your PC is. It is terribly optimized. I don’t know what else to say, it is just that bad.
3/10, at least some of the enemies look a bit better than in Fallout 3, but that’s not saying much.
Music/Sound:
There were some good tracks here and there, but the music didn’t feel like Fallout the way I see it. I can’t for the live of me remember anything else except: “Atom bomb, baby” and only because it ran constantly in trailers. Forge table, but not annoying one of the better parts of Fallout 4.
5/10
Replayability: I will start of with the fact that Fallout 4 doesn't let you roleplay too much, if at all. You always start of as a concerned father/mother who is looking for his/her son. Now, having a set background wouldn't be bad if it was designed properly, but unfortunately it is not. The player is forced into being a goodie-to-shoes good guy or sarcastic guy. The game does not allow you to play as, for example: Crazy Maniac, Sir talks a lot (can avoid almost every combat, by talking), Evil Emperor, or something in between. You can decide to not do a quest, but that is it. Either way it is still waiting for you and you can pick it up at any time. Of course there are times when you can be little bit evil, but they are far and between. So re-playability and role-playing were cut down a lot, which for RPG fans is a great deal, especially since most of them prefer to play as a someone they imagine rather than someone designed for them.
Of course there are games that are exceptions such as: Mass Effect or Witcher 3, but those games have got preset protagonist, while Fallout franchise never had one. Of course you would be: Vault Dweller, Chosen One, Lone Wanderer, Courier, but those are just titles and it is up to player to decide who they are and how they act. In Fallout 4 we do not get that freedom.
1/10, I can’t find a single reason to replay this game.
Final Thoughts/ Conclusion:
This game is nothing more but an insult to Fallout Franchise. It repeats the mistakes of its’ predecessor and adds a ton of its’ own. What we get is small, boring sandbox, with bland characters, terrible plot and being OP way too quickly.
It also featured one of the worst season passes ever, 4 of which are crafting dlc for 5$.
Disappointment of the decade as far as I am aware. 3/10
DLCs
1)Contraptions Workshop + Vault-Tec Workshop + Wasteland Workshop = 15$.
15$ DLCs, that add some content for settlements and such, but are they worth it?
Short answer NO.
Long Answer NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.
And I am going to explain why:
a)These DLCs add only a couple new elements, including traps, some more stuff to put in your settlement, building vaults, some pointless machines and arena fights.
b)The traps don't work like they should. If you expected a hunting game with ensnaring, beating your opponent without killing him\her, it won't be this way. Instead you put a cage and suddenly via Fallout Magic (terrible writing) opponents spawn into the cages. SPAWN, not get caught, spawn.
c)It insults the intelligence of almost every human being. "Free Bullets" trap, that acts like you think it does. Who the hell would fall for something like this?
d)The mods have already done more than that.
If you want this DLCs, download one of the mods, it will be cheaper and will provide much more stuff to play with.
b)Automatron:
I have to admit, it proved to be a bit better than I expected, but it is still not worth your time and money.
The robot modifications are fun to mess with, but it gets old fast. If you want a long range support pick sentry bot legs and some other stuff. A brawler, MR handy is great.
The fun it provides is short and the whole quest is basically the same as the base game, aka SHOOT, LOOT AND RETURN.
Overall worthless and expensive piece of DLC.
In comparison for Fallout NV for 15 $ you got a new Landscape, multiple quests, weapons, armour, good storyline etc.
Here you get some a few pieces of equipment and ability to customize robots that should have been in the base game.
Even Fallout NV had MOD called ROBCO CERTIFIED, which is better and more versatile. Do yourself a favor and install it for Fallout NV or download one of the mods for Fallout 4 that have already done that.
c)Far Harbour:
This DLC is just a different take on Point Lookout from Fallout 3, except I found it even worse that this. I am going to list all the things I found to be just dumb or ridiculous:
First cliche of all, we look for a daughter and guess what? She thinks she is a synth, of course nobody saw that coming...
The boats are fully automated and can swim on their own to Far Harbour.
When we first arrive there is an attack so it boost our ego of the defender of this place.
New enemies like Gulpers, anglers and fog ghouls are terrible. Very uncreative and act like any mirelurk king.
Vim instead of Nuka Cola (and I still have found Nuka Cola in Vim's fridges...)
I have got no clue how did those people survive on this stupid island for more than a year.
Also fog that kills, that drives people mad, that is responsible for all the horror. Can it get any worse? Yes it can.
Trappers are just raiders and they were driven mad by the fog.
There are non mutated wolves on the island for some reason, even though they have got nothing to hunt, without being killed.
Another acid trip with a fog mother that was taken straight from a point lookout.
Cannibals eat synths.
Children of Atom, three words. KILL THEM ALL. This faction is so stupid so lore breaking, so pointless, and makes no sense. First time I went and killed everyone inside but I couldn't progress any further because I had no clue how to power up a certain computer. That means I was stuck doing stupid quests for stupid people, while losing all the valuable brain cells.
For 25$ completely not worth it.
Intro:
Fallout 4, a game many players thought would be a successful successor to Fallout New Vegas and Fallout 3. Many people including me, expected things such as: good writing, believable characters, multiple side quests, sticking to the lore and such. However, Bethesda’s first try called Fallout 3 was not what Fallout fans wanted, so they hoped the company would fix what they have broken. Unfortunately, this is not the case. Fallout 4 is in my humble opinion one of the worst Fallout games I have ever played in my entire life. It is even worse that Fallout Brotherhood of Steel or even Fallout 3. That said, I will explain my stance on it as well as I can.
General Story/World:
The story of Fallout 4 is a rehash of the previous game. In the previous game we were looking for our dad as a player character. The game allowed limited role playing capabilities and was plagued with poorly written storyline and ridiculous locations. Still, despite its’ flaws it had some interesting locations, if it was a Fallout spin off and fixing some of its’ writing it could be a decent game. Fallout 4 on the other hand, doesn’t even try to resemble previous Fallout games, especially 1 and 2. The story is cliché and full of plot holes. To put it simply, we start of minutes before the great war in a peaceful little settlement with our wife/spouse. In the next few minutes we are introduced to both of them, but there is no connection established. Bethesda expected the player to care about those characters because they are family, but it didn’t work.
Not even for a second did I feel anything positive about the child or the wife/spouse. Seconds later a Vault-Tec Representative appears out of nowhere and tells us about a vault that is located 100 meters away from our house. It is kind of odd, that none of the characters knew about it beforehand. To make it worse, we sign in the papers and magically we are on the list, despite not filling a request or anything. It gets worse as we go along, I could spend an entire review just pointing out terrible writing, but it would take too long. So, let’s instead focus on the world.
The world of Fallout 4 is small, there is no other that sums it up better. It is smaller than skyrim and much more boring. All locations are basically the same, with super mutants, ghouls, raiders, gunners (which are just another raiders) etc. and a random crate with loot at the end. To make it worse, it is full of nonsense such as: settlements surrounded from three sides by deathclaws, raiders, super mutants and such. Or even better power armour that is basically everywhere. You find frames basically everywhere. For a technology that is supposed to be rare and end game loot you can find it anywhere. And it is even worse, by the fact it is all level dependant. If you find a power armour at level 1, it will be most likely t-45. The same frame will be Enclave Power Armour if you are level 50. There are no unique weapons in this game, the way I see it. Bethesda implemented weapons called Legendary that are basically magic. Healing Fat Mat, Double Shot Fat Man etc. Not only these weapons are completely ridiculous, they also brake the lore.
Right, the lore. To put it simply Bethesda retconed everything, even their previous Fallout game – Fallout 3. There is just too much to count it. The plot, the world and the lore are all broken.
2/10, only because some of the locations were a okayish.
Gameplay: Dull, boring, repetitive and terribly balanced. The guns all feel the same, there is very little variety – 50 types of all weapons including legendaries. It doesn’t matter that you have got 750 mods, if it all comes down to which one deals the most damage. And the worst part is that 80% of everything you do in Fallout 4 is shooting things. The are basically no sidequests so you can do that or build pointless settlements that don’t do anything. To make it worse, Bethesda went and made all enemies bullet sponges by making them scale with the player. So you are level 250 character, travelling through the Commonwealth when suddenly Super Mutant Suicider level 250 appears. And then you shoot him 100 times in the head before he finally dies. This is not difficult, it is just tedious.
Shooting is a bit better than New Vegas, but that is about the only thing I can say is positive about it.
2/10.
Graphics:
Old and dated, compared to the likes of Witcher 3 or other games like these. Fallout 4 pales in comparison. Animations are decent but that’s it. The game runs like crap no matter how good your PC is. It is terribly optimized. I don’t know what else to say, it is just that bad.
3/10, at least some of the enemies look a bit better than in Fallout 3, but that’s not saying much.
Music/Sound:
There were some good tracks here and there, but the music didn’t feel like Fallout the way I see it. I can’t for the live of me remember anything else except: “Atom bomb, baby” and only because it ran constantly in trailers. Forge table, but not annoying one of the better parts of Fallout 4.
5/10
Replayability: I will start of with the fact that Fallout 4 doesn't let you roleplay too much, if at all. You always start of as a concerned father/mother who is looking for his/her son. Now, having a set background wouldn't be bad if it was designed properly, but unfortunately it is not. The player is forced into being a goodie-to-shoes good guy or sarcastic guy. The game does not allow you to play as, for example: Crazy Maniac, Sir talks a lot (can avoid almost every combat, by talking), Evil Emperor, or something in between. You can decide to not do a quest, but that is it. Either way it is still waiting for you and you can pick it up at any time. Of course there are times when you can be little bit evil, but they are far and between. So re-playability and role-playing were cut down a lot, which for RPG fans is a great deal, especially since most of them prefer to play as a someone they imagine rather than someone designed for them.
Of course there are games that are exceptions such as: Mass Effect or Witcher 3, but those games have got preset protagonist, while Fallout franchise never had one. Of course you would be: Vault Dweller, Chosen One, Lone Wanderer, Courier, but those are just titles and it is up to player to decide who they are and how they act. In Fallout 4 we do not get that freedom.
1/10, I can’t find a single reason to replay this game.
Final Thoughts/ Conclusion:
This game is nothing more but an insult to Fallout Franchise. It repeats the mistakes of its’ predecessor and adds a ton of its’ own. What we get is small, boring sandbox, with bland characters, terrible plot and being OP way too quickly.
It also featured one of the worst season passes ever, 4 of which are crafting dlc for 5$.
Disappointment of the decade as far as I am aware. 3/10
DLCs
1)Contraptions Workshop + Vault-Tec Workshop + Wasteland Workshop = 15$.
15$ DLCs, that add some content for settlements and such, but are they worth it?
Short answer NO.
Long Answer NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.
And I am going to explain why:
a)These DLCs add only a couple new elements, including traps, some more stuff to put in your settlement, building vaults, some pointless machines and arena fights.
b)The traps don't work like they should. If you expected a hunting game with ensnaring, beating your opponent without killing him\her, it won't be this way. Instead you put a cage and suddenly via Fallout Magic (terrible writing) opponents spawn into the cages. SPAWN, not get caught, spawn.
c)It insults the intelligence of almost every human being. "Free Bullets" trap, that acts like you think it does. Who the hell would fall for something like this?
d)The mods have already done more than that.
If you want this DLCs, download one of the mods, it will be cheaper and will provide much more stuff to play with.
b)Automatron:
I have to admit, it proved to be a bit better than I expected, but it is still not worth your time and money.
The robot modifications are fun to mess with, but it gets old fast. If you want a long range support pick sentry bot legs and some other stuff. A brawler, MR handy is great.
The fun it provides is short and the whole quest is basically the same as the base game, aka SHOOT, LOOT AND RETURN.
Overall worthless and expensive piece of DLC.
In comparison for Fallout NV for 15 $ you got a new Landscape, multiple quests, weapons, armour, good storyline etc.
Here you get some a few pieces of equipment and ability to customize robots that should have been in the base game.
Even Fallout NV had MOD called ROBCO CERTIFIED, which is better and more versatile. Do yourself a favor and install it for Fallout NV or download one of the mods for Fallout 4 that have already done that.
c)Far Harbour:
This DLC is just a different take on Point Lookout from Fallout 3, except I found it even worse that this. I am going to list all the things I found to be just dumb or ridiculous:
First cliche of all, we look for a daughter and guess what? She thinks she is a synth, of course nobody saw that coming...
The boats are fully automated and can swim on their own to Far Harbour.
When we first arrive there is an attack so it boost our ego of the defender of this place.
New enemies like Gulpers, anglers and fog ghouls are terrible. Very uncreative and act like any mirelurk king.
Vim instead of Nuka Cola (and I still have found Nuka Cola in Vim's fridges...)
I have got no clue how did those people survive on this stupid island for more than a year.
Also fog that kills, that drives people mad, that is responsible for all the horror. Can it get any worse? Yes it can.
Trappers are just raiders and they were driven mad by the fog.
There are non mutated wolves on the island for some reason, even though they have got nothing to hunt, without being killed.
Another acid trip with a fog mother that was taken straight from a point lookout.
Cannibals eat synths.
Children of Atom, three words. KILL THEM ALL. This faction is so stupid so lore breaking, so pointless, and makes no sense. First time I went and killed everyone inside but I couldn't progress any further because I had no clue how to power up a certain computer. That means I was stuck doing stupid quests for stupid people, while losing all the valuable brain cells.
For 25$ completely not worth it.
AgentBJ09
Vault Dweller
Dissent is not treason!
*looks back*
Oh no...
True, it isn't, but since the majority opinion here is a negative one, it provides a nice contrast to the very positive, almost exclusively positive, 'professional' takes on the game.
Well here's my Introduction so far if anyone is interested in reading it.
It really is just something I put together in like an hour last night so don't expect it to be too fleshed out.
It really is just something I put together in like an hour last night so don't expect it to be too fleshed out.
Introduction
War… War never changes.
Those words have echoed through the franchise for nearly two decades, and while the series has changed hands, been through countless retcons and has even had a major shift in target audience, yet it’s those words that have felt consistent throughout the series.
Yet with the release of Fallout 3 back in 2008, the design principle had changed.
Gone was any choice that impacted the outcome of the game, instead we were given an open sandbox to give us the freedom to shoot our way across a post-nuclear Wasteland, and in many regards, Fallout 4 continues this idea of restricting the choice and consequence for a more streamlined approach to storytelling.
Fallout 4 in many regards, shows the continuation of the biggest change the Fallout series has experienced so far, in many respects, it’s easier to write Fallout 3 and 4 out of the continuity of the original isometric games and New Vegas as its design and approach to storytelling are on opposite ends of the scale. This is evidenced by the opening cinematic, which replaced the usual Ron Pearlman narration for one of a player character. Note that I use “A Player Character” and not “The Player Character” as this opening doesn’t take into account a female protagonist.
With this opening speech, I found my first critiques of the game, all traces of character backstory are pushed aside to give us the option of a solider or a lawyer, and the fact that this choice is chosen through gender showcases the lack of understanding that went into writing this story.
Why can’t the female be a soldier?
Why can’t the male be a lawyer?
Why has my backstory been predetermined in a series about player choice?
These questions remain unanswered as the game presses on with the first gameplay segment, the character creation.
Admittedly, this remains to be one of the most in-depth and most creative character creation modes in a modern game. It was clear that a lot of time had been spent improving upon the mechanics from Skyrim to allow the player to be more creative with their character.
However, once this has ended, we are forced into the introduction of the game, which takes places in Pre-War America.
Here, we are introduced to our spouse and our son, which brings up a problem towards the game.
In the first few minutes, we have a career, a sexual orientation and a family already given to us. There is no way we can break away from this introduction. Fallout 3 also gave us this and gave us a backstory that we have no way of changing. I find this baffling in a Bethesda game as the Elder Scrolls series at least lets us make up our own backstory. We can create any character we want without breaking the established character.
The character creation and character backstory go into direct conflict with one another. Why would Bethesda create a system that allows us to create any character we want, only for that character to have a pre-determined history?
But putting the character aside, the introduction feels extremely rushed. This feels like a direct response to the opening for Fallout 3 where the first hour was spent seeing our character grow before taking off on their own adventure. Also, the Introduction feels pointless to the rest of the game, it could have been cut out, the story changed a little bit and we would have at least had more room to role-play, but I’ll get onto the main story a bit later.
For now, I’m going to move on with the intro a bit.
So once we’ve created our character, we get a knock at the door and it’s a Vault Tech Rep, here we input our name and put in our Special Stats.
With this moment, we get our first glance at the dialogue system, and if there’s one major thing that is letting Fallout 4 down, it’s the dialogue system.
Bethesda chose to go with the Mass Effect style dialogue wheel, where we are given a choice of about four things to say, yet what is seen on the screen is a brief explanation of what our character will say. Even in Mass Effect, this was proven to be largely unpopular, so it makes me wonder why Bethesda thought they could pull it off?
Yet they managed to make the system worse than Mass Effect, because our choices have a very vague explanation of what our character will say, not only that but our choices don’t matter in the long run.
In previous games, conversation was treated as a make or break moment. In Fallout 1, when you’re up against the Master, if you go through the wrong dialogue branches, you could lose on outsmarting him and be attacked by him. Not only that, but there was a chance of joining him and getting a bad ending which is the equivalent to a game over screen.
In Fallout 4, any idea of talking someone down from a fight is nearly completely removed. I found maybe one or two instances where this wasn’t the case. But I’ll get into this as we move along the story.
As soon as we are finished with our conversation with the Vault Tech Rep, we are thrown outside our house and headed towards the Vault with our wife and child.
As I mentioned earlier, I feel this segment was very rushed and it felt more like a marketing gimmick rather than an actual part of the main game itself. For starters, we don’t have any context that explains life before the pre-war days. In fact, what we are shown in the intro is a direct contradiction to how life was described before the war. We were told that it was a dystopian like future where civilisation was already on the way to collapsing. The price of petroleum was at an all-time high and only the very rich had any semblance of stability. Yet, we are shown the generic Nuclear Family, a loving spouse, a child and a robot servant in a bright and colourful little Town. The game doesn’t even go further and maybe allow the player to experience the difference between the 210 year gap. We are given a perfect life with no substance and yet the developer expects us to be invested in the game. We can’t say no to going in the Vault, we are forced to, we don’t have any chance to explore the Town and get to know the people around it, we don’t even get the chance to develop the relationship between our character and their family. We are told to go there and we do.
Once we get to the Vault, we see the bomb explode before us as we head into the Vault. It’s already been talked about to death as to why this is a stupid moment, but I will that I don’t think suspension of disbelief covers surviving a nuclear bomb before you unharmed in a game about how Nuclear bombs destroyed the World.
Once inside the Vault, we are given a brief glimpse of potential as the Vault aesthetics are an improvement over the dim and grey Vaults of Fallout 3 and New Vegas. For once, it seemed like the developers wanted to replicate the style of the first two games and make it 3D.
Vault Tech themselves are portrayed as very suspicious and secretive, they are portrayed as I would see a Company like Vault Tech being played.
This is one of the very few sections where being rushed feels like a natural state of progression and not just a choice on behalf of the developers to get the player to play their game.
Vault Tech seem very eager to just put the residents in status without any explanation why. Our character is just forced to comply without questioning and it adds something to the World. What the Character doesn’t know adds to the atmosphere the game is trying to portray.
It’s a brief glimpse of genius in a game filled with so much stupid filler that it makes me wonder if this was a happy accident. Was this the intention of the Writer to make this place feel as uncomfortable as possible or was it just to rush the player into the next part of the game?
Either way, I feel this is the only part that really works in the first few moments of the game, it stops feeling like a game and turns into an actual story for a second.
War… War never changes.
Those words have echoed through the franchise for nearly two decades, and while the series has changed hands, been through countless retcons and has even had a major shift in target audience, yet it’s those words that have felt consistent throughout the series.
Yet with the release of Fallout 3 back in 2008, the design principle had changed.
Gone was any choice that impacted the outcome of the game, instead we were given an open sandbox to give us the freedom to shoot our way across a post-nuclear Wasteland, and in many regards, Fallout 4 continues this idea of restricting the choice and consequence for a more streamlined approach to storytelling.
Fallout 4 in many regards, shows the continuation of the biggest change the Fallout series has experienced so far, in many respects, it’s easier to write Fallout 3 and 4 out of the continuity of the original isometric games and New Vegas as its design and approach to storytelling are on opposite ends of the scale. This is evidenced by the opening cinematic, which replaced the usual Ron Pearlman narration for one of a player character. Note that I use “A Player Character” and not “The Player Character” as this opening doesn’t take into account a female protagonist.
With this opening speech, I found my first critiques of the game, all traces of character backstory are pushed aside to give us the option of a solider or a lawyer, and the fact that this choice is chosen through gender showcases the lack of understanding that went into writing this story.
Why can’t the female be a soldier?
Why can’t the male be a lawyer?
Why has my backstory been predetermined in a series about player choice?
These questions remain unanswered as the game presses on with the first gameplay segment, the character creation.
Admittedly, this remains to be one of the most in-depth and most creative character creation modes in a modern game. It was clear that a lot of time had been spent improving upon the mechanics from Skyrim to allow the player to be more creative with their character.
However, once this has ended, we are forced into the introduction of the game, which takes places in Pre-War America.
Here, we are introduced to our spouse and our son, which brings up a problem towards the game.
In the first few minutes, we have a career, a sexual orientation and a family already given to us. There is no way we can break away from this introduction. Fallout 3 also gave us this and gave us a backstory that we have no way of changing. I find this baffling in a Bethesda game as the Elder Scrolls series at least lets us make up our own backstory. We can create any character we want without breaking the established character.
The character creation and character backstory go into direct conflict with one another. Why would Bethesda create a system that allows us to create any character we want, only for that character to have a pre-determined history?
But putting the character aside, the introduction feels extremely rushed. This feels like a direct response to the opening for Fallout 3 where the first hour was spent seeing our character grow before taking off on their own adventure. Also, the Introduction feels pointless to the rest of the game, it could have been cut out, the story changed a little bit and we would have at least had more room to role-play, but I’ll get onto the main story a bit later.
For now, I’m going to move on with the intro a bit.
So once we’ve created our character, we get a knock at the door and it’s a Vault Tech Rep, here we input our name and put in our Special Stats.
With this moment, we get our first glance at the dialogue system, and if there’s one major thing that is letting Fallout 4 down, it’s the dialogue system.
Bethesda chose to go with the Mass Effect style dialogue wheel, where we are given a choice of about four things to say, yet what is seen on the screen is a brief explanation of what our character will say. Even in Mass Effect, this was proven to be largely unpopular, so it makes me wonder why Bethesda thought they could pull it off?
Yet they managed to make the system worse than Mass Effect, because our choices have a very vague explanation of what our character will say, not only that but our choices don’t matter in the long run.
In previous games, conversation was treated as a make or break moment. In Fallout 1, when you’re up against the Master, if you go through the wrong dialogue branches, you could lose on outsmarting him and be attacked by him. Not only that, but there was a chance of joining him and getting a bad ending which is the equivalent to a game over screen.
In Fallout 4, any idea of talking someone down from a fight is nearly completely removed. I found maybe one or two instances where this wasn’t the case. But I’ll get into this as we move along the story.
As soon as we are finished with our conversation with the Vault Tech Rep, we are thrown outside our house and headed towards the Vault with our wife and child.
As I mentioned earlier, I feel this segment was very rushed and it felt more like a marketing gimmick rather than an actual part of the main game itself. For starters, we don’t have any context that explains life before the pre-war days. In fact, what we are shown in the intro is a direct contradiction to how life was described before the war. We were told that it was a dystopian like future where civilisation was already on the way to collapsing. The price of petroleum was at an all-time high and only the very rich had any semblance of stability. Yet, we are shown the generic Nuclear Family, a loving spouse, a child and a robot servant in a bright and colourful little Town. The game doesn’t even go further and maybe allow the player to experience the difference between the 210 year gap. We are given a perfect life with no substance and yet the developer expects us to be invested in the game. We can’t say no to going in the Vault, we are forced to, we don’t have any chance to explore the Town and get to know the people around it, we don’t even get the chance to develop the relationship between our character and their family. We are told to go there and we do.
Once we get to the Vault, we see the bomb explode before us as we head into the Vault. It’s already been talked about to death as to why this is a stupid moment, but I will that I don’t think suspension of disbelief covers surviving a nuclear bomb before you unharmed in a game about how Nuclear bombs destroyed the World.
Once inside the Vault, we are given a brief glimpse of potential as the Vault aesthetics are an improvement over the dim and grey Vaults of Fallout 3 and New Vegas. For once, it seemed like the developers wanted to replicate the style of the first two games and make it 3D.
Vault Tech themselves are portrayed as very suspicious and secretive, they are portrayed as I would see a Company like Vault Tech being played.
This is one of the very few sections where being rushed feels like a natural state of progression and not just a choice on behalf of the developers to get the player to play their game.
Vault Tech seem very eager to just put the residents in status without any explanation why. Our character is just forced to comply without questioning and it adds something to the World. What the Character doesn’t know adds to the atmosphere the game is trying to portray.
It’s a brief glimpse of genius in a game filled with so much stupid filler that it makes me wonder if this was a happy accident. Was this the intention of the Writer to make this place feel as uncomfortable as possible or was it just to rush the player into the next part of the game?
Either way, I feel this is the only part that really works in the first few moments of the game, it stops feeling like a game and turns into an actual story for a second.
CT Phipps
Carbon Dated and Proud
I think the article should just reflect the honest opinions of No Mutants Allowed, good or bad.
I might have to pull out of it, but that's only really because I can see my own review being way too long.
All I've done so far is talk about the introduction and I'm already three pages in.
Plus, I might do these type of reviews for all 5 games and DLC, turn it into one long essay for the entire series or so
All I've done so far is talk about the introduction and I'm already three pages in.
Plus, I might do these type of reviews for all 5 games and DLC, turn it into one long essay for the entire series or so
CT Phipps
Carbon Dated and Proud
I'd love to read about it on a separate blog, here on the forums, or as an essay. It sounds fascinating. I'd love to hear about it as a full length work.
Also, dibs on his position!
JK
Kohno
Water Chip? Been There, Done That
CT Phipps
Carbon Dated and Proud
Some review that would become. "It's full of shit. I love it."
I swear on my novels that I would actually avoid scoring it and only talk about its flaws and what I perceive to be its benefits.
CT Phipps
Carbon Dated and Proud
Well, here goes nothing.
Intro
Fallout 4, the much anticipated sequel to Fallout 3 and Fallout: New Vegas, is a work which I spent an hour waiting in line at Gamestop at midnight in the rain to get. In the end I got my money's worth but instead of being an unqualified success, I can't help but think the game floated rather than soared. There were numerous changes to a formula which had proven successful and while some were definite improvements, others were failures. Warmed-over Fallout is better than ninety percent of the games on the market, though, and I'm still playing it but the flaws of the game were never fixed.
General Story/World
The story is a reversal of Fallout 3 where a child was looking for their father. This time, it is a parent looking for their child. This is a questionable choice because as many reviewers have noted, it doesn't make sense to do sidequests when you have a helpless child missing versus an adult. I will give applause to the game developers for creating a Main Quest which results in you interacting with the four main factions of the Commonwealth, however, and coming to see their various points of view.
Unfortunately, even this is hurt by the fact the primary antagonist in the Institute is underwritten and confusing in its goals while the Minutemen faction lacks the ambiguity which would make it interesting. I appreciate the handling of the Brotherhood of Steel, though, since it is revised from its "white knight" status in Fallout 3 to something more interesting. I actually think they make more effective antagonists than the Institute and this is why I always choose to side wiith the latter. The Railroad, by contrast, has interesting characters but I don't know how they got together nor how they became such a powerful faction.
The world, itself, is a disappointment as there's some truly great set pieces like the Glowing Sea, Institute, and Diamond City but the majority of the map is nothing more than nearly identical settlements along with ruins which lack grandiosity. Exploration rarely rewards the player character with fascinating new locations and this is perhaps Fallout 4's biggest flaw. The game would have strongly benefited from more eye-popping locations or taking advantage of Boston's more famous locations and history.
If I were to give one area credit, it would be the Companions and their stories. These are the most detailed and interesting companions in the series yet. I especially loved the characters of Piper, Nick Valentine, Cat, and Paladin Danse. I think the option to allow romances was a good one as well even if the "Like" and "Dislike" system is very clunky. The fact they're player sexual and capable of being romanced in multiple ways may strike some people as unrealistic (which it is) but I think it was a good choice. I also felt like the game discouraged lore-seeking as there's only a few places where the past 200 years of the factions is explorable.
The DLC for Fallout 4 is a mixed bag with the majority just being additions to the Settlement system, which I consider to be divorced from the main game. While Automaton had a decent enough quest, it was very short and merely there to pad the "Build your own robot" tool which I have never made use of. The only real expansions in the game are Far Harbor and Nuka World, both of which I believe to be superior to the actual game itself.
Far Harbor is a about trying to get multiple factions to work together and the price you must be willing to pay in order to have that happen. It's framed as needing to go after a missing child but, thankfully, it's not your child this time. Even so, it is interrupted by an unexpected Minecraft-esque gameplay change in the middle of the story which I found to be very irritating. Despite this, i consider it to be better than the actuak game.
Nuka World, by contrast, contains all of the ambition and interesting sights which I felt the main game was lacking. Based explictly on Disneyworld and Coca-Cola, there's many nods and Easter Eggs for fans both. It also has the return of Hubologists as well as several fun sidequests. The chief appeal for me, though, is the opportunity to become a Raider. Unfortunately, this is hurt by the fact you are railroaded into this quest and while you can be a "good" Raider, you lose a lot of the game's appeal if you decide to simply slaughter the park's evil populace.
Gameplay
The dramatic changes for gameplay are the next most troublesome element after the blandness of exploration. The addition of a voice actor to do the lines of the protagonist should have been a big boon but the majority of the lines lack emotion and are blandly written. Worse, there's no real ways to affect the outcome of events save through Speech checks.
There's no option to use your Science skill or Bargaining to get what you want instead. Instead, much like Skyrim, there's just a chart of Perks with your Attribute requirements. These are less interesting, roleplaying wise, than before. Worse, they've gotten rid of some of the more interesting ones like the social effects of Lady Killer along the entirety of the bisexual or gay options. This is upsetting as part of the appeal of Fallout has always been doing it your way.
Combat is slightly improved from the previous games with the fact Stimpacks and other materials no longer instantaneously heal you. Better still, the amount of radiation you have detracts from your maximum number of Hit Points. This is genius and really brings home the dangers of radiation in the Post-War world. V.A.T.S. also functions as bullet-time rather than a time-stop effect.
The enemies also level with you, which has its upside as keeping combat appropriate for every level. However, it prevents enemies from becoming too dangerous while also resulting in "Legendary" enemies that are just enemies who have multiple health bars. Oddly, if I have one real complaint aside from the Skill system, then it's the ghouls. They now run, which should be terrifying but unlike in zombie movies, they can't kill you in one blow so it just becomes a giant slap fight.
The Settlement System is probably the most controversial element of the Fallout 4 and, honestly, feels like the developers found it significantly more interesting than I did. The Settlement system allows you to build almost a dozen towns and populate them with locals. The DLC are mostly focused on giving you the option of developing these places as you want as well. I had fun building up Sanctuary Hills but if this is where the majority of development time went, I think the game would have been better serviced to release it as a Fallout spin-off like "Fallout: Rebuild" or something else.
Graphics
The graphics are noticeably improved from Fallout 3 and Fallout: New Vegas, especially in faces but the Commonwealth overall looks much the same as the previous generation's graphics. Compared to The Witcher 3, it's a massive graphics step down and isn't even as good as Dragon Age: Inquisition. There's also a flaw in the fact the designs don't seem terribly inspiring. With the exception of the Institute and Glowing Sea, there are few places which really jump off the screen.
I think the biggest improvement is the faces of the game not only improve on the gawdawful faces of Fallout 3 but actually improves on the ones in Skyrim. The options for faces include scars and other options.
Both Far Harbor and Nuka World have interesting sights with the former being a radioactive fog-covered regon which is beautiful to explore while the latter is a surreal theme park which has been taken over by scum. Both locations show an ambition of design which goes in different directions that I love. I particularly loved the Galactic Zone in Nuka World because there's a point-by-point reproduction of Space Mountain that can be explored both with as well as without its lights on.
Music Sound
The ambient music of Fallout is large, bombastic, and a little off for the tone of the character I wanted to play. I wanted to play a melancholy haunted character and it was hard at times. The sound selection of 50s music is great, though, even if it is loud and joyous. I particularly liked "Wanderer", "Atom Bomb, Baby", "Don't They Know It's the End of the World", and "Rocket 69."
The DJ Travis for Diamond City Radio is somewhat annoying and even though you can turn him into a better broadcaster, I actually think it would have been better to have someone with more confidence. Still, his stuttering and nebbishness is actually rather endearing and I quickly grew used to his stagefright. Much better is the Nuka World DJ, Redeye, who has a number of original songs and Raider stories which I think would have been awesome to do as a contrast to Travis in the main game.
Replayability
There are four different factions which you can side with in this game, which you would think would provide a lot more replayability but there's really only two different endings. The endings for the Brotherhood of Steel, Minutemen, and Railroad are identical. The only different ending is siding with the Institute against the Brotherhood and Railroad. This strikes me as a poor decision on their part as replayability has always been the Fallout games' chief appeal.
The fact your character's backstory is already predefined with either a Military Veteran or Lawyer also hurts the story. While the Fallout games have always predefined your character, this was not the case in the Courier and it could have been better.
Final Thoughts/Conclusion
Fallout 4 is a game which feels like it's been horribly underdeveloped. The Settlements are nearly identical, there's not nearly as many Sidequests as the size of the game should attest, and the lore is virtually absent. Still, I enjoyed playing the game and it served as an excellent time-sink. Even so, I felt there was too much time devoted to the Settlement system over the main game and its traditional values of choice as well as writing.
Intro
Fallout 4, the much anticipated sequel to Fallout 3 and Fallout: New Vegas, is a work which I spent an hour waiting in line at Gamestop at midnight in the rain to get. In the end I got my money's worth but instead of being an unqualified success, I can't help but think the game floated rather than soared. There were numerous changes to a formula which had proven successful and while some were definite improvements, others were failures. Warmed-over Fallout is better than ninety percent of the games on the market, though, and I'm still playing it but the flaws of the game were never fixed.
General Story/World
The story is a reversal of Fallout 3 where a child was looking for their father. This time, it is a parent looking for their child. This is a questionable choice because as many reviewers have noted, it doesn't make sense to do sidequests when you have a helpless child missing versus an adult. I will give applause to the game developers for creating a Main Quest which results in you interacting with the four main factions of the Commonwealth, however, and coming to see their various points of view.
Unfortunately, even this is hurt by the fact the primary antagonist in the Institute is underwritten and confusing in its goals while the Minutemen faction lacks the ambiguity which would make it interesting. I appreciate the handling of the Brotherhood of Steel, though, since it is revised from its "white knight" status in Fallout 3 to something more interesting. I actually think they make more effective antagonists than the Institute and this is why I always choose to side wiith the latter. The Railroad, by contrast, has interesting characters but I don't know how they got together nor how they became such a powerful faction.
The world, itself, is a disappointment as there's some truly great set pieces like the Glowing Sea, Institute, and Diamond City but the majority of the map is nothing more than nearly identical settlements along with ruins which lack grandiosity. Exploration rarely rewards the player character with fascinating new locations and this is perhaps Fallout 4's biggest flaw. The game would have strongly benefited from more eye-popping locations or taking advantage of Boston's more famous locations and history.
If I were to give one area credit, it would be the Companions and their stories. These are the most detailed and interesting companions in the series yet. I especially loved the characters of Piper, Nick Valentine, Cat, and Paladin Danse. I think the option to allow romances was a good one as well even if the "Like" and "Dislike" system is very clunky. The fact they're player sexual and capable of being romanced in multiple ways may strike some people as unrealistic (which it is) but I think it was a good choice. I also felt like the game discouraged lore-seeking as there's only a few places where the past 200 years of the factions is explorable.
The DLC for Fallout 4 is a mixed bag with the majority just being additions to the Settlement system, which I consider to be divorced from the main game. While Automaton had a decent enough quest, it was very short and merely there to pad the "Build your own robot" tool which I have never made use of. The only real expansions in the game are Far Harbor and Nuka World, both of which I believe to be superior to the actual game itself.
Far Harbor is a about trying to get multiple factions to work together and the price you must be willing to pay in order to have that happen. It's framed as needing to go after a missing child but, thankfully, it's not your child this time. Even so, it is interrupted by an unexpected Minecraft-esque gameplay change in the middle of the story which I found to be very irritating. Despite this, i consider it to be better than the actuak game.
Nuka World, by contrast, contains all of the ambition and interesting sights which I felt the main game was lacking. Based explictly on Disneyworld and Coca-Cola, there's many nods and Easter Eggs for fans both. It also has the return of Hubologists as well as several fun sidequests. The chief appeal for me, though, is the opportunity to become a Raider. Unfortunately, this is hurt by the fact you are railroaded into this quest and while you can be a "good" Raider, you lose a lot of the game's appeal if you decide to simply slaughter the park's evil populace.
Gameplay
The dramatic changes for gameplay are the next most troublesome element after the blandness of exploration. The addition of a voice actor to do the lines of the protagonist should have been a big boon but the majority of the lines lack emotion and are blandly written. Worse, there's no real ways to affect the outcome of events save through Speech checks.
There's no option to use your Science skill or Bargaining to get what you want instead. Instead, much like Skyrim, there's just a chart of Perks with your Attribute requirements. These are less interesting, roleplaying wise, than before. Worse, they've gotten rid of some of the more interesting ones like the social effects of Lady Killer along the entirety of the bisexual or gay options. This is upsetting as part of the appeal of Fallout has always been doing it your way.
Combat is slightly improved from the previous games with the fact Stimpacks and other materials no longer instantaneously heal you. Better still, the amount of radiation you have detracts from your maximum number of Hit Points. This is genius and really brings home the dangers of radiation in the Post-War world. V.A.T.S. also functions as bullet-time rather than a time-stop effect.
The enemies also level with you, which has its upside as keeping combat appropriate for every level. However, it prevents enemies from becoming too dangerous while also resulting in "Legendary" enemies that are just enemies who have multiple health bars. Oddly, if I have one real complaint aside from the Skill system, then it's the ghouls. They now run, which should be terrifying but unlike in zombie movies, they can't kill you in one blow so it just becomes a giant slap fight.
The Settlement System is probably the most controversial element of the Fallout 4 and, honestly, feels like the developers found it significantly more interesting than I did. The Settlement system allows you to build almost a dozen towns and populate them with locals. The DLC are mostly focused on giving you the option of developing these places as you want as well. I had fun building up Sanctuary Hills but if this is where the majority of development time went, I think the game would have been better serviced to release it as a Fallout spin-off like "Fallout: Rebuild" or something else.
Graphics
The graphics are noticeably improved from Fallout 3 and Fallout: New Vegas, especially in faces but the Commonwealth overall looks much the same as the previous generation's graphics. Compared to The Witcher 3, it's a massive graphics step down and isn't even as good as Dragon Age: Inquisition. There's also a flaw in the fact the designs don't seem terribly inspiring. With the exception of the Institute and Glowing Sea, there are few places which really jump off the screen.
I think the biggest improvement is the faces of the game not only improve on the gawdawful faces of Fallout 3 but actually improves on the ones in Skyrim. The options for faces include scars and other options.
Both Far Harbor and Nuka World have interesting sights with the former being a radioactive fog-covered regon which is beautiful to explore while the latter is a surreal theme park which has been taken over by scum. Both locations show an ambition of design which goes in different directions that I love. I particularly loved the Galactic Zone in Nuka World because there's a point-by-point reproduction of Space Mountain that can be explored both with as well as without its lights on.
Music Sound
The ambient music of Fallout is large, bombastic, and a little off for the tone of the character I wanted to play. I wanted to play a melancholy haunted character and it was hard at times. The sound selection of 50s music is great, though, even if it is loud and joyous. I particularly liked "Wanderer", "Atom Bomb, Baby", "Don't They Know It's the End of the World", and "Rocket 69."
The DJ Travis for Diamond City Radio is somewhat annoying and even though you can turn him into a better broadcaster, I actually think it would have been better to have someone with more confidence. Still, his stuttering and nebbishness is actually rather endearing and I quickly grew used to his stagefright. Much better is the Nuka World DJ, Redeye, who has a number of original songs and Raider stories which I think would have been awesome to do as a contrast to Travis in the main game.
Replayability
There are four different factions which you can side with in this game, which you would think would provide a lot more replayability but there's really only two different endings. The endings for the Brotherhood of Steel, Minutemen, and Railroad are identical. The only different ending is siding with the Institute against the Brotherhood and Railroad. This strikes me as a poor decision on their part as replayability has always been the Fallout games' chief appeal.
The fact your character's backstory is already predefined with either a Military Veteran or Lawyer also hurts the story. While the Fallout games have always predefined your character, this was not the case in the Courier and it could have been better.
Final Thoughts/Conclusion
Fallout 4 is a game which feels like it's been horribly underdeveloped. The Settlements are nearly identical, there's not nearly as many Sidequests as the size of the game should attest, and the lore is virtually absent. Still, I enjoyed playing the game and it served as an excellent time-sink. Even so, I felt there was too much time devoted to the Settlement system over the main game and its traditional values of choice as well as writing.
Last edited:
aenemic
Sonny, I Watched the Vault Bein' Built!
So yeah, I realized I'd have to replay the game and the dlc to write something proper. And I can't be fucked, it's not worth my time.
Chud
Still Mildly Glowing
Talk about can't be fucked to care. I did my bit on Survival Mode, and I'll go over it and maybe edit it up some, but I no longer have it in me to play anymore. If anyone's willing to write up on the DLC, be sure to cover all of the Season Pass stuff; what was promised and hinted at, and what was delivered; the price hike; and general rushed nature of it all.
0wing
Все умрут, а я волномут
Do we have any schedule?
Hey guys,
I have not followed the development on the review very much since I opened a Google Document for it and started to invite in all the participants as I had some real life matters to attend to.
Perhaps I should have contacted you all through conversation (can always do that later) but I wanted to ask what progress has been made on the review. (still have not heard from Hassknecht on if he has already started)
Have people here already finished their own parts? Are there people who still have to start?
Hmm, giving a deadline is probably good by now as this is not something that should take months to be finished.
If people people have no problems with it due to commitments I would like the review to be finished around the 20th so that it can then be checked and be put online around the 23th (good symbolic date as it was the day on which the great war started)
If there are some delays or problems, please contact me and we could talk about what the best solution would be.
Hassknecht, if you see this, please give me a call to inform me on how far you are.
I have not followed the development on the review very much since I opened a Google Document for it and started to invite in all the participants as I had some real life matters to attend to.
Perhaps I should have contacted you all through conversation (can always do that later) but I wanted to ask what progress has been made on the review. (still have not heard from Hassknecht on if he has already started)
Have people here already finished their own parts? Are there people who still have to start?
Hmm, giving a deadline is probably good by now as this is not something that should take months to be finished.
If people people have no problems with it due to commitments I would like the review to be finished around the 20th so that it can then be checked and be put online around the 23th (good symbolic date as it was the day on which the great war started)
If there are some delays or problems, please contact me and we could talk about what the best solution would be.
Hassknecht, if you see this, please give me a call to inform me on how far you are.
Jogre
So Old I'm Losing Radiation Signs
I've finished my part. Looking over the review, and seeing how it hasn't been expanded much recently, I'd assume everyone else has too.
0wing
Все умрут, а я волномут
I've yet to write about presentation and epilogue.
Chud
Still Mildly Glowing
I think I'm done; I added a few minor changes and found a few mistakes.
Good to hear guys, perhaps I should have been a bit more 'hands on' but as I only played the game for a few weeks, never finishing it, and I have never worked on a collaborative review I decided to let you all do your own thing.
AgentBJ09
Vault Dweller
I think I'm done. Mechanics and the like were what I noticed most versus anything dealing with the story. I may look over a few bits for clarity's sake, though.
Since I pitched this before, I'll do it again now. If anyone needs an editor for their parts, let me know.
0wing
Все умрут, а я волномут
I'm desperate for someone who'll make my writing more readable and understandable and shorter overall.