I have been playing Fallout 4 for days at this point; pretty much since it's lunch on november 10th I've been playing it non-stop and I finally am ready to talk about the game in depth.
Before I talk about Fallout 4 itself I want to explain where I am coming from: back when I played Fallout 3 I was much younger of course but I wasn't exactly into open world games like GTA, the closest franchise I was familiar with that has an open world format was Legend of Zelda. I always tended to imagine a game like Bethesda's Fallouts; a massive open world game with plenty to discover at our own phase and with the ability to force elements of the world through actions we make has players... Fallout 3 was for me that exact kind of game for me.
Fallout 3 wasn't just the first massive open world action RPG I had ever played, it was an experience all on it's own I had with a video game... so much in fact I find difficult to describe with words; I don't expect everyone to agree with me on this statement but to me Fallout 3 was one game that marked a new beginning for the way I look at video games in general. Fallout 3 touched upon so many characteristics I thought about but never even imagined being executed and I could talk forever about how impressive it was for me at the time, I still have fond memories of playing the game, witch is why I consider it one of the best in my book. Keep in mind, I never experienced TES Oblivion or Two Worlds so I was unfamiliar with Bethesda's work so it came has a complete surprise to me to play such a game like Fallout 3 nor was I familiar with the previous iterations of the Fallout games by Interplay and Black Island Studios.
When Fallout: New Vegas was announced I didn't exactly knew what to expect, I knew it was being made by many of the same developers of Black Island studios at Obsidian and has more content about the game was shown I started to see many aspects about the game that intrigued me, like the faction system, the locations, etc... I started to feel like Obsidian were really trying their absolute best to live up to the bar set by Bethesda with Fallout 3 and although I still consider it to be a copy paste Fallout 3 with a new code of paint; in some ways it's even better. New Vegas included a more fleshed out dialogue system, more weaponry to play with and much more incentive to replay the main story after the credits roll when you see all your choice's consequences play out.
Although Fallout: New Vegas was watered down by the fact it was running on the same Gamebryo engine has Fallout 3, it still turned out very good... I certainly enjoyed it although not has much has FO3 and it didn't quite surpassed it when you take all the some of it's parts and factor them in, it feels like a massive expansion for Fallout 3 (I still really liked this game!) and I am also glad that the old Fallout developers had the chance to make the Fallout 3 they couldn't make with New Vegas since many of the ideas they had for New Vegas were directly inspired by their Van Buren project.
It took 5 years without any news about the franchise except for a few leaks before the official announcement of Fallout 4, the game was very hyped by Bethesda themselves and in a way it worked to boost the sales of the game because the marketing of Fallout 4 was far more aggressive than any other game Bethesda had released before it. Fallout 4 sold 12 million copies within the first day (far more than Witcher 3 and Phantom Pain at the time), so the marketing that Bethesda pulled off definitely paid off... but what about the game itself?
The best way to judge Fallout 4 is not by how much it changes but by how much it improves; the change was already radical by the time Fallout 3 changed completely how the main series plays before it, I can honestly say Fallout 4 does indeed improve upon many of the elements incorporated from FO3 and New Vegas; however it doesn't improve has much has it could have.
The story starts at the wake of the great war that destroyed the world, you character survives in the underground vault of 111 and after certain events transpire they emerge has the the soul survivor of the vault after being in cryogenic sleep for 200 years. Much like in the previous Fallout games, you have a very simple reason to go into the world and eventually your character gets involved into a much bigger conflict (it has more in common with New Vegas than FO3 with it's story handling), If you ask me the story of FO4 is better than 3 and the motivation of looking for your missing son is something I genuinely like... even though I still like the story and motivation in FO3, I find the one in 4 much more involving. One major issue I have with the story is how there is no real big threat to the wasteland has in previous Fallout games and the involvement of the major factions feels somewhat muted.
The design philosophy of Fallout 4 is similar to that of FO3 and New Vegas, go wherever you want whenever you want and do whatever you want... you can even breaking the game at some points if that's what you desire; Todd Howard has said that the player is the best director of their own experience and to a certain extent I agree with this philosophy, but has much has i love the freedom to go and do whatever I want in a video game, I know of some people who need directions to be given to them... like being told what to do and when; you may argue that this people aren't the target audience for a game like Fallout 4 and arguably you might be right but I can think of other open world games that streamline their storytelling much better than this title witch is why I perfectly understand why some people find themselves lost in games like Fallout 4.
If there is one area where Bethesda gave special care on is in the writing department; I already talked about the main story but I now want to focus on the characters (another important characteristic of writing), particularly the companions. In the previous Fallout games the companions felt like nothing more than just someone who supports you in combat, New Vegas did added much more to the companions than FO3 ever did by giving them much more personalities and background... in Fallout 4 this was expanded upon to the point that your character and your companion can make a deep bond (becoming even lovers if you so desire), although many might immediately associate this concept to Bioware's key franchises like Dragon Age and Mass Effect it only serves has prove that all ideas come from somewhere: the character development in does games are much more well thought out than in most games, Bethesda took a page and did a great job recreating the system from the Dragon Age games where you see your companion having their own likes and dislikes towards the actions you take in-game and what you say in dialogues... but the characters themselves are more fleshed out witch means that Bethesda really seem to be trying to add more to their game worlds than just massive places to explore.
When it comes to gameplay Fallout 4 has increased improved on some areas while taking a huge steps back on others. On the bright side the shooting has been drastically improved to FO3 and New Vegas, if you ask me in what spectrum it is similar in style to FO3's mechanic but with modern FPS system, I enjoy this changes science it needed it dramatically after FO3, of course the only change New Vegas added was the aiming down iron sights but it still felt like the same clunky shooting from FO3. You can argue that this turns Fallout into a regular FPS game but in actuality it is just has I predicted in my post before the lunch of the game, some enemies take more than a single magazine to take out and you will find yourself circle striving around enemies before finally putting them down making it more like FO3 than it seems at first glance. The dialogue system is a hit and miss (mostly a miss), I am not bothered at all by my character having a voice and Courtney Taylor is a very talented actress giving my character more of a personality of her own, in previous games I could always go back and play has another character but I don't think I can do that with Fallout 4 has easily... that is not to say that Brian Delaney isn't good, he does a great job has well; how ever the problems with the dialogue system comes with it's usage, you can only give 4 options at the time and most of them work has an answer... basically there is no way of asking about the situation at hand before giving a definitive answer and the times you can are so few and far between that makes me question just how did this just gone under the radar during development, it's nearly impossible to know exactly what my character is going to say when I make a choice not to mention there is very little text explaining what that answer means; it's already bad enough but the worst is the "sarcastic" choice... although I find funny most of the answers in this choice, it's not really good when I don't know what the answer really is: it's pretty dumb.
The visuals are fine... I have never been a "graphics first" kind of guy, but here is my take with the visuals in games like this: it doesn't matter how good it looks at the time it will eventually feel dated down the line, not necessarily in a year but maybe 5, 10 or 20 years it will... Fallout 4 looks good for it´s standards but to me the games that truly stand the test of time in visuals are does that stand with interesting and focused art direction (examples: Wind Waker, Gravity Rush, Rayman 2, Resident Evil 4, etc...), Fallout 4 most certainly does´t fall into that category and I am sure that in 10 years time or maybe less people will look back and say: "it looked good back when it came out" but one think that nobody can deny is that it truly feels like a post nuclear world. The Commonwealth looks far better than the Capital Wasteland because of it´s art direction.
The character creation is far better than in any game I have played: instead of going for the typical layers on multiple sides you just have to pick the part of the face you want to edit and drag it to sculpt it... I wish this could have been the same for the general body instead of being exclusive to the face but to be honest I was able to create my character in just a few minutes where I usually take far longer in other games because the way it´s structured makes me wander where are the options I want to edit.
I also love the way you can mod weapons with different attachments you can craft with world items you collect, it gives more depth to the mechanic than New Vegas ever did... this mechanic also transfers to the settlements that you can craft places for yourself to live if you so desire, however I will say that I like the idea I just don´t find myself compiled to do any of this... to me Fallout is about exploring and having adventures not crafting locals for settlements because I just don´t care at all about that, the only place I ended up decorating was my Red Rocket Truck Shop where I kept all my items, equipment, and companions...
The bugs have always been a serious issue with Bethesda games and I am glad to see so many reviews take it hard on Bethesda because of this since this is just simply unacceptable, I know many would defend them saying that this is an open world game and so it shouldn't against them... I disagree, if a quest goes wrong and breaks by no fault of the player is frustrating, I know that coding and programing is an extremely hard undertaking but it still unforgivable. I know Bethesda aren't the only one responsible for this, CD Project Red´s Witcher 3 has plenty of glitches that nobody says anything about, but unlike Fallout 4´s they don´t entirely break the game... Bethesda should take all this criticism has a wake up call for their next project that glitches and frame drops are not forgivable no matter just how good their games are.
Fallout 4 feels like a complete package on it´s own, however before I fully close my review on this game I want to emphasis one last thing... 2015 had many good games and many came before Fallout 4, some of this games have been judge under standards of hype and controversy rather than actual game standards...
*cough* Phantom Pain *cough*
Fallout 4 released at the tail end of the year and it´s flaws where easy to notice because we got so many good high standard games that it pretty much got overthrown, I only wish does games would have gotten the same critical eye... in the future, in a couple of years they will and people will start to notice has they did with Bioshock Infinite.
Fallout 4 is everything I wanted from a true sequel to FO3 where New Vegas felt more like a massive expansion pack (in a good way), the story is better than in FO3, the companions are more fleshed out and the world is interesting to explore... if you have been holding back because of all the negativity, than maybe you can wait for a GOTY edition but if you love Fallout and are a fan of open world games than pick this game up and prepare for one hell of an adventure.
