Fallout 4: A Wonderful Game That Doesn’t Quite Live Up To Hype

Hey didn’t we just do this game? No, my friends it is time for the great, 7 year wait, hype explosion of a game that is Fallout 4. Well, let’s explain it once more shall we? Fallout is an RPG, open world game that is set in a nuclear wasteland. A journey and world in which you can never forget and can spend countless hours in and many days of my life is to be absorbed into it. My good friend and fellow writer, Nathan, will be joining me in a brief discussion and interview about the game. All aboard the hype-train!

Story

You, your wife, and your newborn son are in your humble little house in Sanctuary. A city just outside of Boston, New York. You are on your way to a veteran’s banquet when you hear a knock on your door. It is a representative from a business telling you that you can now have a spot in a vault to protect yourself and your family from “total atomic annihilation”. After you a have a conversation of your choice, because the game gives you the freedom of choice in dialog, you get an announcement on your television. The United States is under attack, nuclear strikes have been reported all across the east coast. You make your way to the vault hastily and in utter panic. As you make it to the gate of the vault, you see many people in panic trying to get in, but can’t. Even the person that sold you the spot in it can’t get in. You, however, do get your spot. You are on top of the vault, on an elevator. You tell your family you love them.. and then see a blinding flash of light as you are lowered into the vault…

Gameplay

If you had read my previous Fallout 3 review, you would know how the gameplay is in this game. It is almost identical, but I will give you a description anyways. It is an open world game like I said, But it has more of a FPS kind of thing going on. But you can also alternate to third person view. You go through your journey receiving random quests at time. You can also follow a main story, though no matter what you do you will get your own story. You will find a variety of enemies throughout your journey ranging from raiders, to super mutants. But don’t underestimate your enemies because they are not as easy as they appear. They are very difficult due to the sporadic and fast movements they use. Though the Vault-Automated-Tracking-System, or VATS, Allows you pin point accuracy, and the ability to slow down to pick your targets with precision. Providing you have upgraded the right skills and a good amount of luck. You see, there is a system of points you can put into your character. These attributes are known as S.P.E.C.I.A.L. They stand for Strength, Perception Charisma, Intelligence, Agility, And Luck. Each one allows you to get specific perks from their tree in varying tiers. Each perk in a tree has a different amount of  tiers  but the most common is 4 tiers per perk.

One of the biggest features of this game is the addition of the crafting system. Like most nuclear holocausts, there’s junk lying about waiting to be picked up and used. So what Bethesda did in this installment was give use to junk and other assets. Allowing you to collect materials and upgrade weapons and armor found throughout the world. By customizing equipment already found and adding onto them, or making your own. With this, combing and layered armor system that allows different pieces of armor to be worn on a specific body part, that allows you to mix and match. Even further customization is added. The sad part is, some clothing in the game can’t have the layered armor system work with it. Through Nathan’s (someone who will come up here in a bit)  travels in the game, he ended up skimming over a lot of cool and fun items simply because the stats on the clothing weren’t as good. Since the game is based in a 50’s culture in the future, there’s tons of cool looking suits and other apparel that simply isn’t worth using or picking up. They’re mostly just to sell to vendors for currency, so that part is disappointing. You can do more than just customize your weapons though. You can also craft and customize your very own set of “Power Armor”. A very heavy and powerful (as the name entails) suit of armour that makes you almost like a walking tank. While weapon mods focus on damage output, this puts the focus on damage resistance. You can use the power armour is much as you want, providing you have the fusion cores. Fusion cores are a drop you can find in the game that powers the suit allowing you to move and perform actions in the suit. They are moderately rare but not incredibly. Some sections, the difficulty just spikes by an amazing amount. So it is essential in those parts to use power armour so you don’t pretty much have an automatic failure. Though these parts are rare, it’s not a bad idea to have some Power Armor close by with some fusion cores in your pocket.

The settlement feature is a new addition to the series. You collect materials to build your own settlement with residence and protect it to the best of your ability from a variety of enemies. mostly it is raiders and such but you get the occasional super mutant. This is a very difficult system considering the rarity of certain materials and how the building works. It’s a good system but it’s easy to run into problems. Especially when you have to assign certain villagers to certain jobs. There are many jobs but the one most people like to focus on is guarding. You can also set traps for your “friendly” neighborhood raiders, they go from machine gun turrets to flame walls. This is a brand new system and it is very interesting to see what you can build and challenge yourself to do.

I conducted a short interview with Nathan Currier, a person who has played the game since launch and has completed that game currently, who’s played the game much more extensively than I have, and has also played all the past Fallout games.

Q: So what is your overall opinion of this game?

“It’s been one of the best game I have played in a long time, and the industry has gone downhill in the past few years and this has revived my love for the genre.”

Q: Is it worth the price it is currently?

“Yes, definitely. I’m not even done with the story, and I am 37 hours in. There is so much time you can put into the game it it definitely worth the amount being asked. Sales are always better, but right now it’s a deal.”

Q: What are some specific parts that you enjoy about the game?

“I don’t know where to start. Basically just how much better with such a more fluid combat system and wild exploration and near endless story. And base building. That is a great mechanic.

Q: Is this a story driven or gameplay game?

“This is more gameplay wise. The story is pretty good, but the problem is that it feels like they dumbed down the rpg mechanics. But it feels like your options are more limited. Just how the story is written you can’t get more of the web you can in other games. But it is a game of the modern age and isn’t in the muddyness that it used to be. And it is easily one of the best games I have played.

Q: How many hours do you have?

“I have around 37 hours. Help.. it’s consuming my life…..”

Q: Do you think this game hold up to its hype that has been building up for 7 years?

“I don’t think any game can live up to such hype it generates. Not that it’s bad, there just has never been a game that has lived up to hype it gets. It is still worth the hours you put in it. If not, the modding community will fix it anyways.”

Music and Graphics

Well, if I said I wasn’t impressed with the graphics with the games I would be lying. Of course they aren’t the best in the world but hey, gameplay over graphics right? This was actually a hot topic when the game was in development in fear that the game would be not up to the standards of today’s graphical values. Though I believe it does, most people disagree. I guess you could say it is personal preference but I believe that if the game has decent graphics with great gameplay (Which it does) then it is worth the time. Not onto the music. The music of this game is… Peaceful? I say that with a question mark considering it is an open world, apocalyptic, hectic game. I mean I get the whole ‘50s vibe thing but seriously? I do enjoy the music don’t get me wrong, but I feel that it needs some much needed oomph.

DLC and Bonus content

At the moment, the only “DLC” you could really get is the season pass. All this does is it ensures you every future dlc, when they come out on their respective dates of course. At the time this is going for $30.00 USD. Which I think is a fair price and is definitely worth checking out for all the future goodies that are definitely in store for us from our good friends at Bethesda studios.

Verdict

Honestly, I have to say I’m disappointed. Not that it isn’t a fantastic game. I actually think it’s the best one to come out in all of 2015. It’s just that it didn’t live up to the hype behind it. But then again, has any game? I give Fallout 4 a 9.0 out of 10. A fantastic game, and most DEFINITELY worth the price. I recommend you pick up this game IMMEDIATELY.