Fallout 4 Over · 2:34am Nov 16th, 2018
I'm tired out of it. Got a hot redhead for a new wife, got a new son, settled all the settlements and most of them are inhabited by people armed with high-tier weapons and combat armor, build a huge Vault (four floors, five if I wanted to use the top level), nuked the Institute, nuked the Children of Atom in Far Harbor, freed Nuka World from raiders, got a warehouse full of Power Armor suits, I'm level 90-ish, and I've explored every location on the map.
Time for thoughts.
I'll start with the good. The new weapon and armor crafting system are great, I love being able to freely customize different weapons and armor. My complaint would be that it's dull how the top-tier upgrades of each class are always the best - with the exception of a rifle or pistol-type grip, changing the caliber of a weapon and making it automatic or not, mostly you just scroll to the bottom of the parts list and select the lowest, best choice. With some tweaks they can add a real element of strategy to this, like not having Large Fast Eject magazines so we have to choose between Large and Fast. Legendary effects are an interesting idea and most of the effects are good, but the randomness of this system makes it unreliable. Like I have half a dozen Combat Armor Left Arm pieces with good effects. Perhaps a high-tier Perk to allow us to remove and reapply Legendary effects like a mod? But maybe that would be too overpowered.
LOVE the settlement system, being able to build bases is awesome and my only complaints with the actual building is not being able to build all the scenery I wanted (no showers or computers?), and the clunky detection of where stuff can be built, like when Wall A won't let me build it next to Wall B with Roof C already there, but if I remove Roof C and put in Wall A I can snap Roof C back after. Whatever. The mechanics of settlers though is very monotonous and demands a lot of busywork to equip all of them individually. I also wish there was more for them to do than farm, scavenge, or run guard duty. I mean it's not like I ever visited any of the stores I had them run because they don't sell anything worthwhile. I have settlements where a full half the population is on scavenging duty.
The new Perk system is fine in concept but not executed well, due in part to how so many of the high-level Perks are so useless. I never needed Nuclear Physicist and only took it because a mod that added more types of Power Generator needed it, by comparison mods to affect damage output and crafting options are invaluable and I maxed out pretty much all of them. I do miss Skills though. I wouldn't mind seeing this Perk system be merged with the Fallout 3 and NV model, with fewer unique Perks in favor of more tiered ones.
Another thing I liked about the game was a pretty respectable challenge level. I was very impressed with how smart the enemy AI is in this game, humanoid enemies visibly utilizing cover to reload and heal, fanning out in large areas to hit me from mulitple angles, and often having a variety of weapon types when fought in groups. And gone are the days of Skyrim Sneaking, unless you invest Perks into stealth they will detect you and they will find you. Going with this, enemy types felt more distinct, the Gunners are obvious stand-ins for Talon Company but are more than merely "Tier 2 Raiders", it feels like Gunners fight smarter than Raiders in the ways I mentioned. Super Mutant behavior is kind of in the middle and I remember it seemed they were more likely to engage me in melee combat, their hounds aside. Animals are also different, particularly Mole Rats and Radscorpions. A lot of animals still have that "rush him!" mindset but even then, fighting a swarm of roaches was different from fighting a pack of dogs. And DAMN did they make Feral Ghouls scary and annoying, bastards rush at me flailing, shoot off an arm and they still come at you.
Overall this meant that even at high level I never got complacent because enemies were keeping up with me well enough and fought differently enough that I couldn't be lax in combat. But at the same time the game wasn't punishingly difficult or frustrating. Aside from Super Mutant Suiciders (THOSE BASTARDS CAN ROT IN HELL), whenever I died it was because of genuine failure on my part, like not healing in battle or letting myself be overwhelmed by multiple enemies when I was in a bad position to fight back. This is a game that wants me to play smart, or at least to pay attention, and I appreciate that.
I also liked the world. Fallout 3 had two environments, basically - Downtown DC was a spider web tangle of subways, sewers, maintanence tunnels, and old buildings, and it made navigating the area next to impossible without relying on the Pip Boy quest markers. But then you leave downtown and get into the flat, wide-open wasteland with the very occasional ruined building or bunker or subway station. This game balances it better and it makes Boston a joy to explore, with ruined office towers, old factories and warehouses, subway tunnels, collapsed highways, stores, mansions, military outposts. You're always stumbling across new and unexpected things where you least expect them. And yet the map still has distinct regions, with the north being more mountainous, the east being the downtown core with high rise towers and narrow streets, the west being the suburbs and industry areas, and the south being marshland.
And now the bad... and yeah, you know the bad. The story sucks. It doesn't overtly suck, though. In fact in some ways the story is very good. I love the juxtaposition to Fallout 3 where you're looking for your son who was abducted, reversed from looking for your dad who left. Kellogg is a great villain and the level where you explore is memories is strange but a highlight of the story. The companions, at least the ones I met, are all memorable and distinct and likeable. But, Nick Valentine, I love Nick, he's cool, but... he has Belethor's voice. I already recognized some voices between Fallout 3 and Skyrim, and recognize some here too, but who had the bright idea to make one of the main story companions have the same voice as the main shopkeeper Skyrim players do business with over and over? It's just distracting, that voice is so distinct you can't misplace it if you tried.
I like the shift in the Brotherhood of Steel, not to an outright antagonistic faction (coughwtfnewvegascough) but to one ambiguously benevolent, like you can tell in talks with them they really do mean well, but their methods leave something to be desired. The Minutemen are cool guys but needed more fleshing out so we can actually want to side with them instead of them being a generic nice "neutral" faction. The Railroad are mishandled, several of their members come off like jerks and I hated how Desdemona tried to demand I declare loyalty to them over the Minutemen or else I can't continue their questline. Lady, shut up we don't care about Synths, I'M the General of the Minutemen, I'm here wanting to work for you, isn't that enough for you!?
The Synth plotline is... mishandled. The major problem is that the debate of "are Synths actually sapient, or is it just their programming" doesn't really offer evidence to the latter plot point, unless it's buried in Institute conversations I missed since I didn't help them. Deacon in the Railroad brought up valid points on the different types of Synth showing different levels of awareness, and if the sapience discussion can be applied not just to Synths but to other robots who seem to have personalities yet are treated as slaves. But no one else in the game seemed to want to have those discussions with me. So the game by default says "yes, the Synths have sapience" and thus instantly cast them as sympathetic. But then you hear about stuff like Synths impersonating people and find out it's true, the Broken Mask Incident, your settlements being infiltrated, and you realize all the concerns about Synths are valid. For all we know, yes, at any moment the Institue could flip a switch and turn Nick Valentine into a serial killer, or erase his memories, or take control of his body, or just be remotely surveilling him and using him as a recon agent without him knowing it. Even if you believe Synths are sapient, there are valid concerns about them that the Railroad doesn't seem to want to talk about; the Brotherhood will but they want to wipe out the Synths, so we're stuck between two extremes.
The Institute... man was that mishandled. I keep using that word because its apt, the ideas are valid but the execution is lacking. Why does the Director want us to be part of the Institute, he doesn't seem to care much now that we're here, and consider the spoiler reason behind who he is - there's plenty of reasons he could want us to join him, and apparently there are reasons in-game but they come deep in the Institute plotline and no, in-universe he should just say so if he wants to win our loyalty. I was so frustrated with how you can't talk to him after the initial welcoming conversations, this guy should have dialogue trees so deep they make Caesar seem verbose, but no. The other Institute guys don't make much of an initial impression, which is a shame, because again, shouldn't they want to win my loyalty? The random Synths walking around talk about how they are honored to meet me and have heard so much about me, that kind of attitude from the humans in the place might help win me over, but no.
They were obviously trying to copy the New Vegas model of the different factions, and actually I think in some ways they handled it better, with how the story nudges you to meet all the factions in natural flow with the main questline and do some light work with them to wet your feet, and several quests where you can rat out the faction-giving quest to a rival to change how the quest plays out. I also do like how none of the factions are evil but none are good, except for the Minutemen but they're a shadow of their former power. Even the Institute, I don't think they're evil, not like Caesar's Legion were evil - I just don't think the writers properly demonstrated the positive elements of the Institute enough to stop us from assuming they're the "bad guys".
That's also not mentioning the plot holes with the Institute, like why they only took Shaun and left you in the Vault, why they needed Shaun at all (it's for his pure genes unaffected by radiantion, but the Institute has been around since before the war, so shouldn't everyone have pure genes down here?), how their teleportation technology should let them effortlessly conquer the Wasteland, how their goals are so vague and undefined. I liked the plot twist with the true identity of the Director and think the game did a good job hiding it, but they didn't do a good enough job building up the cover story that should conceal the twist, and then the twist is delivered in a dull way. The player character is never given opportunity to discuss inconsistencies in their view of events with anyone, so any chances to give hints or hand waves about things are squandered in equal measure.
Finally, the new dialogue system everyone hates and apparently even Todd Howard admitted he sucked. Even with a mod to display the full dialogue options in a menu like FO3 and NV, it sucked. Every conversation boiled down to "Uncertain Yes, Sarcastic Yes, No, Confident Yes." I'm glad the devs realize this system didn't work and hopefully we can go back to proper dialogue trees in the next game.
Do I like Fallout 4 better than Fallout 3? Yes, gameplay is overall superior and the story is weaker, but FO3's story wasn't amazing anyway. Better than NV, no comment, it's apples and orange in regards to what they are and what they were meant to be. Overall, Fallout 4 is mindless, empty fun. Enjoy gunning down enemies, enjoy building elaborate bases for your settlers to man, enjoy scouring the wasteland for every tin can and old light bulb you can find for crafting components, and enjoy exploring the ruins of Boston for new things to see and do. Just don't squint too hard at the narrative holding it together or it'll crack apart as quickly and as badly as old plaster in a hot sun.
My first 20-hours-or-so in Fallout 4 were great, mostly because I made a serious commitment to roleplaying a father who is desperate to rescue his son, and avenge his wife. I also decided to remove compass markers, not use fast travel, and avoided Power Armor entirely. This made for some very immersive memorable moments, particularly the trek through The Glowing Sea. But the story really falls apart after reaching the Institute, around which time my commitment to roleplaying also went away. I wound up not even bothering to get to any of the actual endings, despite investing some good 80 hours into the game.
Did you find the bar where everybody knows your name?
Just one? My friend who plays Fo4 constantly has like, over 800 suits at this point. <.<
Good times.