Fallout 4

The highly anticipated next gen Bethesda title recently hit shelves and took the world by two kinds of storms, one positive, and one pretty negative.

It is very unfortunate to say that this is not the Skyrim for Fallout, and whether you like it or not, the comparison will ALWAYS be invited. At best, it can be called an HD restructuring of New Vegas, which was practically an expansion for Fallout 3. The graphics, where sharper and well textured, are mediocre at BEST compared to Skyrim which, even before modding, was an absurdly beautiful world to be thrown into.

In the densely populated post-apocalyptic Massachusetts, the frame rate and rendering drop dramatically and the game seems like it’s struggling to keep up, once again I remind you that I run a high end gaming rig, so it’s certainly not a hardware issue. The game is bug ridden (in fairness, most Bethesda games are, and remain so long after launch, so I won’t single you out, Fallout 4), in that bullets fired at enemies hit invisible walls and grenades awkwardly ricochet back at you and all you can do is watch yourself blow up, both literally and in outrage.  

The game isn’t all bad, and I don’t want you to think that. If you’re a Fallout fan, there is DEFINITELY some disappointment to be felt, but Bethesda brings some pretty strong features to the nuclear table as well.

The game introduces settlements (And a fair amount of settlement perks) that can be customized, decorated, populated, and defended to your liking all over the Commonwealth. These settlements can be captured or acquired through quests, and they link together, providing healthy trade routes and making your life quite easy if you so choose to be a settlement leader. This does however become a hoarders worst nightmare as ofttimes you are forced to collect many things, only to scrap them later and use them for parts in your settlement where they could have potentially gone to subjectively better crafting recipes.

The game also introduces Power Armor, much teased in the trailers and earlier game screenshots. You can be the Tony Stark of the Wastes by collecting pieces, mods, and upgrades for your suit. The suit enables you to roam the wasteland like never before, increasing your strength, mobility, durability, and functionality if you choose to invest in upgrading it and going down the route of the power armorer (I have not), but if your playstyle is a balls to the wall, running gunning commando. You’ll get a pretty huge kick out of it.

The game removed the specific skillpoint allocation system from the games predecessors (Medicine, energy weapons, one handed weapons, etc..) and placed them under a generalized perk system, where one perk encompasses many skills in one. As an RPG fan, this is somewhat disappointing as I feel it robs me of my specific playstyle and makes picking a perk quite the annoying process, as one might contain a skill you want and five you don’t.

The Karma system has also been replaced by a general reputation system that was experimented with in New Vegas, giving you a bit more wiggle room to be selective with who loves and hates you, as opposed to being blatantly evil or good, you can essentially pick and choose where your loyalties lie (If anywhere, which is how I’m playing it thus far).

Overall, after clocking about 95 hours into the game, I can safely conclude it needs work, and I look forward to the inevitability of the Steam Worskshop coming into play, because that is likely to bring with it a flurry of revamp mods that will make the game a lot more entertaining. Where gripping in its own right, Fallout 4 still has a very long way to go in order to be Skyrim worthy.

And yes, there are Deathclaws.

And yes, they're terrible.