MadCap's Game Reviews - "Fallout 4: Automatron"

Well, it was unavoidable.  Given that Bethesda has for some reason taken it upon themselves to do what the modding community does way better, it was inevitable that they would eventually come around to the idea of "hey, maybe building robots as followers would be something they'd want".  And, surprisingly, they hit the nail right on the head this time...unlike that time. But enough about gigantic wastes of time, here's another gigantic waste of time...the difference is that this one is actually fun!

Yes, there's a plot and it's even a fairly decent one that involves the Commonwealth suddenly being overtaken by a robotic menace that is taking a page from the aliens from The Twilight Zone and are trying to "save" man...by killing every last organic around.

We all knew it was coming with Windows 10. We were more than warned.

Thus, it's up to the Sole Survivor of Vault 111 who is now the General of the Minutemen/Agent of the Railroad/Paladin of the Brotherhood of Steel/Director of the Institute to team up with a dry-witted 'bot by the name of Ada and take out the bots in question and discover the location of their leader - the sinister Mechanist. Yes, it seems that the character is making a return from Fallout 3...in name, at least, but that's not really the main selling point (and, indeed, it should not be). No, the main draw here is the customizable robot buddies.

Once Ada gives you the blueprints for the robot crafting station, you can get to work on any assortment of robotic parts that you have while crafting others depending on the perks the player has in their Science and other crafting skills. Any combination, you can imagine. Even your robotic companies like Codsworth and Curie (the latter pre-synth) can be modified in various ways. If you're not looking to bump up your skills, though, bits and pieces of robots can be salvaged from the newly-implemented scrapbots (though, oddly, not from existing robots in the vanilla game) that can be used to modified robots.

And, if you're feeling adventurous, you can just build one at any settlement through the station using your resources.  Including adhesives. Adhesives, that thing that there is never enough of and really should have been implemented far, far more in the game due to the fact that it's part of the mods for almost every item you can craft! Really, Bethesda! I don't wanna get up on a soapbox here, but you're hilariously unforgiving about this sort of thing. And yes, before anyone brings it up, I know you can "grow" adhesive, that isn't my point.

Not much more I can say about the actual add-on, though. It's what you'd expect from a Fallout game and it brings with it the quirkiness of "lol robots". Having a customizable companion to be a combat heavy or to have a good packmule (I affectionately named my first creation "Packrat") or to be ready for just about any conceivable situation is definitely a handy thing and not something I could ding Bethesda too much for.

Fallout 4's Automatron DLC is now available from Bethesda for PC, Playstation 4, and Xbox One.

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