...and it's pretty alright.
Undeniably flawed, but it's definitely not bad.
To get the story - such as it is - out of the way, you are a former soldier in the United States military who was selected by Vault-Tec to be a resident inside Vault 111 in the wholesome and wondrous land of Boston. Sadly, you didn't get picked for the Vault that has all its entertainment tapes removed save for those of the Dropkick Murphys, but instead end up going the Captain America route and chilling out for a while in a cryogenic pod. Then you inexplicably wake up just as a man in serious need of facial reconstruction shows up and puts a bullet between your wife's eyes before stealing your baby, then you get put on ice again before making another inexplicable awakening and decide to avenge your dead wife and track down your son.
What I will say to Fallout 4's credit is that the customization options for both you and your spouse are so diverse that it's coconut and banana sandwich crazy and does help to add a little bit more of a feeling of ownership over your character. And indeed, even if you don't play the opposite gender, your customization options still stick and I was admittedly more motivated to pursue Scarface once he had killed Jennifer Lawrence and I had to go track him down to retrieve the proof that I had indeed tapped that.
Thus begins your journey to retrieve your son...which will very easily get buried under hours and hours of sidequests as sandboxes are wont to bury their players beneath. But Bethesda has anticipated this and has set the player up to fall into one of the several factions that are leading the Commonwealth. If you play nice and go along the path that Bethesda sets for you, the first you'll run into is the Minutemen. That is to say, one guy who is a Minuteman and a bunch of refugees he's running around with, who decide after you kill off a bunch of Raiders and a freaking Deathclaw for them to head back to your home neighborhood and set up a settlement.
The other three are, in order of how much of an evil bastard you are: the Railroad, the Brotherhood of Steel, and the Institute. Oh, wait. Nevermind. Just the Brotherhood and the Institute for evil bastardhood. Apparently Bethesda took into account the fact that there were decidedly few options for factions in Fallout 3 and decided to take the route New Vegas did. Unlike New Vegas, there's a little less reason to completely throw out any one faction to join, since it is admittedly a little more morally gray...well, except for the one faction that is so goody two-shoes that it hurts. I could really write a whole segment on just the factions and the different choices, and indeed I probably will sometime in the future.
Now as I set up a paragraph ago, we come to the settlement system, something which plays into every questline save for the Institute. Taking a cue from Hearthfire, Bethesda decided to not only give you the option of building your own home, but to also help build and grow entire settlements, each one needing the basic necessities of food, water, and defense. This can be done by getting a settler to harvest crops that either are naturally occurring or that you've planted, creating water pumps and purifiers, and making turrets. There's also the need for beds and then a smorgasbord of other handy little additions that aren't necessary but can add some aesthetic appeal. And if you bring in new people, you have to add more of each of these things and occasionally even have to build something unique or go and defend a specific settlement if you've failed to make a good defense for it.
What I will say to Fallout 4's credit is that the customization options for both you and your spouse are so diverse that it's coconut and banana sandwich crazy and does help to add a little bit more of a feeling of ownership over your character. And indeed, even if you don't play the opposite gender, your customization options still stick and I was admittedly more motivated to pursue Scarface once he had killed Jennifer Lawrence and I had to go track him down to retrieve the proof that I had indeed tapped that.
Thus begins your journey to retrieve your son...which will very easily get buried under hours and hours of sidequests as sandboxes are wont to bury their players beneath. But Bethesda has anticipated this and has set the player up to fall into one of the several factions that are leading the Commonwealth. If you play nice and go along the path that Bethesda sets for you, the first you'll run into is the Minutemen. That is to say, one guy who is a Minuteman and a bunch of refugees he's running around with, who decide after you kill off a bunch of Raiders and a freaking Deathclaw for them to head back to your home neighborhood and set up a settlement.
The other three are, in order of how much of an evil bastard you are: the Railroad, the Brotherhood of Steel, and the Institute. Oh, wait. Nevermind. Just the Brotherhood and the Institute for evil bastardhood. Apparently Bethesda took into account the fact that there were decidedly few options for factions in Fallout 3 and decided to take the route New Vegas did. Unlike New Vegas, there's a little less reason to completely throw out any one faction to join, since it is admittedly a little more morally gray...well, except for the one faction that is so goody two-shoes that it hurts. I could really write a whole segment on just the factions and the different choices, and indeed I probably will sometime in the future.
Now as I set up a paragraph ago, we come to the settlement system, something which plays into every questline save for the Institute. Taking a cue from Hearthfire, Bethesda decided to not only give you the option of building your own home, but to also help build and grow entire settlements, each one needing the basic necessities of food, water, and defense. This can be done by getting a settler to harvest crops that either are naturally occurring or that you've planted, creating water pumps and purifiers, and making turrets. There's also the need for beds and then a smorgasbord of other handy little additions that aren't necessary but can add some aesthetic appeal. And if you bring in new people, you have to add more of each of these things and occasionally even have to build something unique or go and defend a specific settlement if you've failed to make a good defense for it.
Which, of course, brings us to the crafting mechanic and by far what is the most utterly tiresome about this game. In previous Bethesda games, there was a bunch of junk that had been loving programmed into the games that was either worthless or worth so little that there was no point cluttering your inventory with them. Now, however, everything has some kind of value with crafting - more so if you get perks from level ups that will help you scavenge even more of them from certain objects. It becomes nightmarish when you get to the point of upgrading your weapons, armor, or Power Armor and have to stop and go rooting around for a few more helpings of adhesive.
Speaking of Power Armor, I have some mixed feelings about it. On the one hand, I do like how it's almost an alternate mode rather than just another outfit as it was in previous games, giving the player increased durability and yet another insane set of customization options that really help them to make it theirs. On the opposite hands, I do really see where people are coming from when they say getting the first suit early is astoundingly cheap and throwing it in right before a fight with a Deathclaw almost feels as though Bethesda was just trying to throw in as much Fallout-y-ness as they could in the first hour or so of gameplay with little regard otherwise.
In Fallout 3, getting Power Armor was a journey and a reward for getting far enough in the questline to earn the perk necessarily to use it (unless you just did Operation: Anchorage, in which case, fuck you). Even in New Vegas, you still had to go through quite a bit to get a full working suit of Power Armor that you could use (unless you went with the NCR set, in which case, ha ha! You're a dork!). In Fallout 4...you get it, pop in a Fusion Core, and get to work in the killing. Also, Power Cores are not as much as balance as Bethesda has led us to believe, since you're basically drowning in them if you simply go rooting around through some places and that's not even counting the perks that make each individual Core last longer.
I know by this point, if you haven't already stopped reading because of the lack of attention span that everyone who uses the internet has, that people are wanting me to stop dancing around the elephant in the room. The dialogue options are absolutely atrocious and are the absolute worst part of this game bar none. In previous games, when in dialogue with most NPCs, you were more often than not given a variety of options to work with via a list. Immersion breaking? Maybe, but it allowed you to add a little bit of personality to your silent protagonist. Now, however, your character is fully voiced and is given a Mass Effect/Dragon Age style interface that gives you either an option to say "yes", an option to say "yes", an option to ask for more information, and an option to say "yes", but in a sarcastic manner.
Look, Bethesda, I get it. You want to be like Bioware. Let's be honest, who wouldn't? They're known for creating fascinating worlds that are filled with well-written and well-developed characters that are beloved all over. They're the only reason I'm buying any more Dragon Age games despite the fact that they're owned by EA, who I hate. Their dialogue options for player characters tend to be very varied and allow us to mold our character in various ways, even if they're in the vein of "Virtuous", "Snarky Twit", and "Asshole". But the fact was that those choices made some things different. They gave choices. All that the dialogue does in Fallout 4 does is make sure that the player gets set on the path to do whatever the game wants simply because that's what they're supposed to do with absolutely no transparency over the fact that that's what's happening.
Speaking of Power Armor, I have some mixed feelings about it. On the one hand, I do like how it's almost an alternate mode rather than just another outfit as it was in previous games, giving the player increased durability and yet another insane set of customization options that really help them to make it theirs. On the opposite hands, I do really see where people are coming from when they say getting the first suit early is astoundingly cheap and throwing it in right before a fight with a Deathclaw almost feels as though Bethesda was just trying to throw in as much Fallout-y-ness as they could in the first hour or so of gameplay with little regard otherwise.
In Fallout 3, getting Power Armor was a journey and a reward for getting far enough in the questline to earn the perk necessarily to use it (unless you just did Operation: Anchorage, in which case, fuck you). Even in New Vegas, you still had to go through quite a bit to get a full working suit of Power Armor that you could use (unless you went with the NCR set, in which case, ha ha! You're a dork!). In Fallout 4...you get it, pop in a Fusion Core, and get to work in the killing. Also, Power Cores are not as much as balance as Bethesda has led us to believe, since you're basically drowning in them if you simply go rooting around through some places and that's not even counting the perks that make each individual Core last longer.
I know by this point, if you haven't already stopped reading because of the lack of attention span that everyone who uses the internet has, that people are wanting me to stop dancing around the elephant in the room. The dialogue options are absolutely atrocious and are the absolute worst part of this game bar none. In previous games, when in dialogue with most NPCs, you were more often than not given a variety of options to work with via a list. Immersion breaking? Maybe, but it allowed you to add a little bit of personality to your silent protagonist. Now, however, your character is fully voiced and is given a Mass Effect/Dragon Age style interface that gives you either an option to say "yes", an option to say "yes", an option to ask for more information, and an option to say "yes", but in a sarcastic manner.
Look, Bethesda, I get it. You want to be like Bioware. Let's be honest, who wouldn't? They're known for creating fascinating worlds that are filled with well-written and well-developed characters that are beloved all over. They're the only reason I'm buying any more Dragon Age games despite the fact that they're owned by EA, who I hate. Their dialogue options for player characters tend to be very varied and allow us to mold our character in various ways, even if they're in the vein of "Virtuous", "Snarky Twit", and "Asshole". But the fact was that those choices made some things different. They gave choices. All that the dialogue does in Fallout 4 does is make sure that the player gets set on the path to do whatever the game wants simply because that's what they're supposed to do with absolutely no transparency over the fact that that's what's happening.
I mean, I'm not saying I would, but what if I want to say "no" to a quest, put a bullet in the head of the quest-giver and wear their very fine jacket? That is freedom. And yes, I know that certain bits of the questline must always happen, but previous games in the series have been able to give freedom and still managed to keep the plot going along. Consider in New Vegas, where the player had multiple factions to choose from and could more or less switch around loyalties up to a certain point while doing quests that would effect their Reputation with other factions that could tip the scales in various ways.
Then again, Fallout 4 doesn't have a Reputation system. It also doesn't have a Karma system, which is utterly baffling considering even the additions to the series that didn't even get Fallout right managed to remember to do that. Even if you end up siding with the obviously not on the level Institute, there's very little effect on how the world interacts with you. What it will have some effect on is your companions. In a move that Bethesda made to be more like Bioware and actually succeeded somewhat is in the companions. In the previous Fallout games run by Bethesda, your companions reacted to your based on your Karma or Reputation. Since those are gone now, companions instead have their own personality quirks that must be adhered to gain points towards "like" or "love" and avoid "dislike" or "hate" or risk losing them.
Again, very Dragon Age, and it is applied well here. The companions are all very well written, having their own personalities and even their own personal quests to tackle for further adoration, loathing, and even romance for certain ones. Friendships also come with their own perks, and it's worth it to go and collect all of them.
All that considered, there's really not that much to say. I do like Fallout 4, but it really isn't enough to keep me from denying the flaws. The dialogue options are ridiculous and keep you on the plot railroad in a sandbox game, the crafting is nice and involving but rustling around for those last few bits of adhesive is an astounding pain in my ass, and the lack of the Karma system doesn't really give any feeling of responsibility or weight to any of your choices outside of a handful of interactions. I do like how the combat has changed (V.A.T.S. now actually forcing the player to stay involved rather than freezing everything around them) and the customization options are astounding for just about everything you're allowed to customize from your character to your settlements to your Power Armor.
This is really a game where you can make it your own. It's just a shame that it took away from the RPG elements that really make Fallout games good.
Fallout 4 is now available from Bethesda and Bethesda Game Studios for Xbox One, Playstation 4, and PC.
For the latest from the MadCapMunchkin, be sure to follow him on Twitter @MadCapMunchkin.
Again, very Dragon Age, and it is applied well here. The companions are all very well written, having their own personalities and even their own personal quests to tackle for further adoration, loathing, and even romance for certain ones. Friendships also come with their own perks, and it's worth it to go and collect all of them.
All that considered, there's really not that much to say. I do like Fallout 4, but it really isn't enough to keep me from denying the flaws. The dialogue options are ridiculous and keep you on the plot railroad in a sandbox game, the crafting is nice and involving but rustling around for those last few bits of adhesive is an astounding pain in my ass, and the lack of the Karma system doesn't really give any feeling of responsibility or weight to any of your choices outside of a handful of interactions. I do like how the combat has changed (V.A.T.S. now actually forcing the player to stay involved rather than freezing everything around them) and the customization options are astounding for just about everything you're allowed to customize from your character to your settlements to your Power Armor.
This is really a game where you can make it your own. It's just a shame that it took away from the RPG elements that really make Fallout games good.
Fallout 4 is now available from Bethesda and Bethesda Game Studios for Xbox One, Playstation 4, and PC.
For the latest from the MadCapMunchkin, be sure to follow him on Twitter @MadCapMunchkin.
No comments:
Post a Comment