3
And it's probably the worst Fallout game I've ever played.
It took a while for me to realize this. I also kind of hate the game engine that they used, because the graphics aren't really that much better than Fallout 3 or Skyrim. I'm going to come right out and say it. The graphics look really, really dated. But I was prepared to forgive them this, because graphics aren't really the most important part of the game.
The most important part is either a good story or a fundamentally entertaining core gameplay (e.g. killing bad guys or sneaking around or using dialogue or whatever core paths the game allows) or both. Fallout 4 has neither.
The story is so absurdly unengaging, it's like a C-level science fiction series on Netflix. It just grows increasingly complex without any kind of emotional build-up at all. At level 37, I'm heavily involved in three powerful rival factions and to be frank, I don't really care which one I should pick to complete the game. And the actual main quest in the game (spoiler alert: you're looking for a person) is perhaps the most anti-climatic plot twist I have ever seen in a game, ever since I played Dragon Age 2. (I spent the whole game trying to help the Qunari, only to find out that it doesn't matter, because you ultimately can't change their fate anyway)
Basically, the whole point of Fallout 4 is to find someone, and when I found him / her, I almost wished I'd just spent the whole time working on my potato farm settlement instead. And to make matters worse, the feeling seemed to be mutual! The other person didn't really seem to care that I found him / her either. Yaay...
Ok, so Fallout 4 has the worst story of any Fallout game. Fair enough. What about the actual core gameplay? Well, it's basically a typical lazy RPG system in the framework of a very, very simplistic first person shooter. Almost immediately as the game starts, you'll have power armour and laser rifles and miniguns. Remember Fallout 2, when you had to work real hard to progress from knives and spears to simple pistols and hunting rifles? Yeah, forget that. But to make it "interesting" and provide some feeling of progression, your early weapons are almost useless against powerful enemies.
Simply put, when you grow tired of killing bandits in leather jackets with your automatic rifle, you'll encounter super bandits wearing super leather jackets. And to kill them, you'll need a super automatic rifle. Failing that, you will need to shoot them in the face at least 100 times with a regular automatic rifle. Much realism. Wow. Very immersion. At some point, unless you've upgraded your weapons to super weapons, you'll engage in firefights where you're literally standing 10 meters away from your enemy, as both of you unload hundreds of rounds of ammunition into each other's faces in a long and uneventful war of attrition.
But what about non-violent ways of playing the game? Like Fallout 2, where you could win the game through intelligence and dialogue. Is that fun in Fallout 4? Nope. Your dialogue options are extremely limited. Basically, your 4 answers to anything the NPCs say are almost always
- 'I hate you',
- 'Tell me more'
- 'Sarcastic joke'
- 'Uh-huh. Just skip the story, tell me how many wolf pelts I have to collect to get the magic sword.'
I don't know if I'm even going to complete this game. It may be the first Fallout game I don't finish. Hell, I even played through Fallout Tactics a couple of times! I'm a die-hard Fallout fan, but I just can't work with this.
Worst Fallout game ever.
Edited by Alistair Winter, 21 November 2015 - 12:20 AM.
