This is a super late to the party review!
I sat on this review for awhile because it took me awhile to complete the main story with a faction of the Commonwealth and I also wanted to wait until Mods were released and how they worked out.
With both of those checked off the list and a calculated 3 days and 23 hours put into the game, both regular and modded Fallout 4 delivers on a more immersive RPG survival game with many changes and improvements to aspects of the Fallout series but is lacking in certain areas.
Welcome to the Commonwealth!
Fallout 4 begins on the day the bombs fell, the day when the world panicked in order to scramble towards the vaults to stay safe from the nuclear holocaust above. Our main character is put on ice, frozen until the world has been rebuilt.
We all unfortunately know how the world rebuilding thing goes...
Mean while our character is frozen, out of nowhere two strangers are seen breaking into the vault and kidnapping our infant son away from our spouse and killing them in the process. We wake up to get out of the vault and go find our son to find that the world has been destroyed and we have been asleep for a little over 200 years! Our quest to find our son and survive in the Commonwealth begins with no idea where to look and no idea what is waiting for us out there in Boston Commonwealth wasteland.
The story is very interesting in many parts but as mentioned earlier it is lacking and one of those areas is story. The fact that we are playing as a character that has first-hand knowledge of the world before the war and what is was like to see the bombs fall makes our character stand out very much from the other characters and citizens we meet throughout the world and in turn gives us some interesting dialogue between our main character and the NPCs.
There are some interesting stories to be told throughout the Commonwealth with some interesting characters but for some, not so much.
Looks...decent
Fallout 4 is brought into the next generation and looks good in many aspects but then....it doesn't look good in many others. For starters, a lot of items and objects throughout the world really look more like plastic props and toy guns rather than items that look genuine and have ware and tear to them. Certain locales in the world look awesome first glance but then closer look and the awe kinda fades away as it looks like props and plastic.
I'm not sure how most of you felt when you arrived at the Institute for the first time, but my reaction at first was "Amazing" because to see a place that well maintained and very futuristic in a game where the outside may as well be a junk yard, was such a shocking thing to see. After awhile.....it just looked fake and the walls looked like plastic and it was as if I was on a movie set for a B-movie science fiction flick.
Even the Commonwealth after awhile just seemed dull, albeit outside it looked nothing special, inside these buildings or factories was a completely different story. Other areas, to me, were confusing and full of all sorts of debris and random enemies that honestly made me felt like I was in a maze rather than I was exploring the ruins of Boston.
I'm the Wanderer
Fallout 4 really starts to shine in it's overall gameplay with tons of new things to do in the world of the Commonwealth. For starters, the game really makes you feel more like a genuine survivor of the wasteland by making items such as tin cans. aluminum cans, desk fans and coffee cups actually important to your experience in the Commonwealth as these items contain materials that you need in order to build up upon the new settlements which you can cultivate and build upon as well as taking these items to build stronger armor, weapons, settlement defenses or structures. Making items like this more important to survival makes it feel like you're a scavenger doing the best with what you find in your searches of abandoned office buildings or factories.
In Fallout 3 and New Vegas, you could mostly ignore these items and not even remotely consider picking up some of these items, now these items serve a key-role in determining the survival of your character but also your settlements.
Side-quests in the game are abundant and present all kinds of unique and interesting stories that of course can be interrupted by your curiosity of the surrounding areas, to find your way into a subway terminal that is home either to super mutants, raiders or ghouls. Breaking off from point A to point B ends up rewarding you with not only loot in the shape of resources that contain components in order to build stronger armor or better weapons but also interesting stories about the area you're in.
In my travel of the Commonwealth I found a private school which during the time before the bombs had been given this odorless, tasteless pink substance that was meant to be an alternative to proper food had turned out to be an experiment from the government and was paying the principal of the school money in order to conduct the experiments. The result was glowing pink ghouls and pink hand prints and splatters throughout the remains of the school giving this genuine sense of horror throughout the school but also had given the area a story. Which I noticed a lot that many areas of the Commonwealth have a story to them. These were not areas for side-quests or areas you needed to go to for the main story but parts of the Commonwealth you could freely explore.
The combat has changed to the point where fights are much more engaging with some more modern FPS tweaks made to the combat aka ADS system as well as enemies this time around being much more intimidating as you will end up finding a much more deadlier foe to face in this game by being at the wrong place at the wrong time.
Of course a MASSIVE change from Fallout 3 and New Vegas is mods. Mods in Fallout 4 allow players to enjoy something that PC players for the longest time could enjoy is now on consoles, granted that not all mods can work on the console and certain mods mixed together would end up in the game crashing on me several times when I'd be simply walking through the world or trying to inspect a particular item. Mods otherwise would add so many fun little details to the game that would end up making my experience in the Commonwealth much more interesting. You can find mods for things like radio stations, level up sounds, new weapons, character model changes, more customization options or changing the entire look of the Commonwealth with mods that add foliage and plant life to the wasteland making it seem as if the world around you was slowly coming back to life.
My favorite mod of all has to be the WRVR station which is a new station with a new host and a much better selection of songs than the stock Diamond City Radio station. WRVR has Ray Charlers and Chuck Berry with songs some of us are probably familiar with from films like "Planes, Trains and Automobiles" and "Back to the Future"
It all comes together in a package where after I have spent a combined time of 3 days and 23 hrs is still not enough to forget that the Commonwealth still has much to show me and to discover
Verdict
Fallout 4 is an almost perfect Fallout experience. With the game having so much to see and so much to do as well with an alright story and a varied amount of mods to now select from.
You will be finding it very hard to put down Fallout as even after beating the main story, you'll get the feeling that your journey into the Commonwealth is not finished and there is still so much to see within the Commonwealth
Fallout 4 gets an excellent 8 out of 10
I sat on this review for awhile because it took me awhile to complete the main story with a faction of the Commonwealth and I also wanted to wait until Mods were released and how they worked out.
With both of those checked off the list and a calculated 3 days and 23 hours put into the game, both regular and modded Fallout 4 delivers on a more immersive RPG survival game with many changes and improvements to aspects of the Fallout series but is lacking in certain areas.
Welcome to the Commonwealth!
Fallout 4 begins on the day the bombs fell, the day when the world panicked in order to scramble towards the vaults to stay safe from the nuclear holocaust above. Our main character is put on ice, frozen until the world has been rebuilt.
We all unfortunately know how the world rebuilding thing goes...
Mean while our character is frozen, out of nowhere two strangers are seen breaking into the vault and kidnapping our infant son away from our spouse and killing them in the process. We wake up to get out of the vault and go find our son to find that the world has been destroyed and we have been asleep for a little over 200 years! Our quest to find our son and survive in the Commonwealth begins with no idea where to look and no idea what is waiting for us out there in Boston Commonwealth wasteland.
The story is very interesting in many parts but as mentioned earlier it is lacking and one of those areas is story. The fact that we are playing as a character that has first-hand knowledge of the world before the war and what is was like to see the bombs fall makes our character stand out very much from the other characters and citizens we meet throughout the world and in turn gives us some interesting dialogue between our main character and the NPCs.
There are some interesting stories to be told throughout the Commonwealth with some interesting characters but for some, not so much.
Looks...decent
Fallout 4 is brought into the next generation and looks good in many aspects but then....it doesn't look good in many others. For starters, a lot of items and objects throughout the world really look more like plastic props and toy guns rather than items that look genuine and have ware and tear to them. Certain locales in the world look awesome first glance but then closer look and the awe kinda fades away as it looks like props and plastic.
I'm not sure how most of you felt when you arrived at the Institute for the first time, but my reaction at first was "Amazing" because to see a place that well maintained and very futuristic in a game where the outside may as well be a junk yard, was such a shocking thing to see. After awhile.....it just looked fake and the walls looked like plastic and it was as if I was on a movie set for a B-movie science fiction flick.
Even the Commonwealth after awhile just seemed dull, albeit outside it looked nothing special, inside these buildings or factories was a completely different story. Other areas, to me, were confusing and full of all sorts of debris and random enemies that honestly made me felt like I was in a maze rather than I was exploring the ruins of Boston.
I'm the Wanderer
Fallout 4 really starts to shine in it's overall gameplay with tons of new things to do in the world of the Commonwealth. For starters, the game really makes you feel more like a genuine survivor of the wasteland by making items such as tin cans. aluminum cans, desk fans and coffee cups actually important to your experience in the Commonwealth as these items contain materials that you need in order to build up upon the new settlements which you can cultivate and build upon as well as taking these items to build stronger armor, weapons, settlement defenses or structures. Making items like this more important to survival makes it feel like you're a scavenger doing the best with what you find in your searches of abandoned office buildings or factories.
In Fallout 3 and New Vegas, you could mostly ignore these items and not even remotely consider picking up some of these items, now these items serve a key-role in determining the survival of your character but also your settlements.
Side-quests in the game are abundant and present all kinds of unique and interesting stories that of course can be interrupted by your curiosity of the surrounding areas, to find your way into a subway terminal that is home either to super mutants, raiders or ghouls. Breaking off from point A to point B ends up rewarding you with not only loot in the shape of resources that contain components in order to build stronger armor or better weapons but also interesting stories about the area you're in.
In my travel of the Commonwealth I found a private school which during the time before the bombs had been given this odorless, tasteless pink substance that was meant to be an alternative to proper food had turned out to be an experiment from the government and was paying the principal of the school money in order to conduct the experiments. The result was glowing pink ghouls and pink hand prints and splatters throughout the remains of the school giving this genuine sense of horror throughout the school but also had given the area a story. Which I noticed a lot that many areas of the Commonwealth have a story to them. These were not areas for side-quests or areas you needed to go to for the main story but parts of the Commonwealth you could freely explore.
The combat has changed to the point where fights are much more engaging with some more modern FPS tweaks made to the combat aka ADS system as well as enemies this time around being much more intimidating as you will end up finding a much more deadlier foe to face in this game by being at the wrong place at the wrong time.
Of course a MASSIVE change from Fallout 3 and New Vegas is mods. Mods in Fallout 4 allow players to enjoy something that PC players for the longest time could enjoy is now on consoles, granted that not all mods can work on the console and certain mods mixed together would end up in the game crashing on me several times when I'd be simply walking through the world or trying to inspect a particular item. Mods otherwise would add so many fun little details to the game that would end up making my experience in the Commonwealth much more interesting. You can find mods for things like radio stations, level up sounds, new weapons, character model changes, more customization options or changing the entire look of the Commonwealth with mods that add foliage and plant life to the wasteland making it seem as if the world around you was slowly coming back to life.
My favorite mod of all has to be the WRVR station which is a new station with a new host and a much better selection of songs than the stock Diamond City Radio station. WRVR has Ray Charlers and Chuck Berry with songs some of us are probably familiar with from films like "Planes, Trains and Automobiles" and "Back to the Future"
It all comes together in a package where after I have spent a combined time of 3 days and 23 hrs is still not enough to forget that the Commonwealth still has much to show me and to discover
Verdict
You will be finding it very hard to put down Fallout as even after beating the main story, you'll get the feeling that your journey into the Commonwealth is not finished and there is still so much to see within the Commonwealth
Fallout 4 gets an excellent 8 out of 10
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