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Just earlier today, I have finished my very first run of Fallout 4 and I want to share my thoughts about it with you, while it's still a fresh experience.
As usual, here are some remarks before I'll start the actual review:
What I like the most:
As usual, here are some remarks before I'll start the actual review:
- I love the setting with passion, I have played every other Fallout game (except Fallout 76) and I enjoyed every one of them. Some were better, some were worse, but each had this unique Falloutesque vibe that I enjoy so much. For some reason, Fallout 4 was the only Fallout game I have never played. Maybe because the reception was mixed, and I was scared it could ruin the franchise for me. But recently, the time had come for me to finally play it.
- As with Skyrim, this was also a modded run. I used a Wabbajack modlist, called Welcome to Paradise. The modlist is considered as Vanilla+ - mostly tweaking UI, graphics, crafting and contains all manners of quality of life tweaks. There are no new or altered quests, lands or NPCs as far as I know.
- I haven't used any Creation Club content stuff.
What I like the most:
- Exploration - man, I thought exploration in Skyrim was fun. Here, Bethesda took the exploration aspect to a new level. Literally every nook and cranny in this game is worth checking, you never know where you can encounter loot. You can find a broken tank or a vertibird with military gear, a skeleton of a poor guy, with some ammo, a gun and a stimpak, lying around the corner, in an easy to miss alley. This is one of those games that I had the most fun exploring. No joke. What I like probably the most is that each place, each little spot, has its own story, which even if not described on numerous terminals and notes, can be easily pictured in your head. You can literally guess, what happened down there.
- Visuals - I realize I've installed some graphics enhancing mods, but it wasn't anything drastic. Still, the graphics in Fallout 4 is surprisingly good. It's definitely more colourful than in Fallout 3 and Fallout New Vegas, but I actually didn't mind. The greenish tint in Fallout 3 and orange one in Fallout New Vegas, although cool, was not particularly realistic. Anyway, environment in this game is really great.
- Lore - as I've said in the preface, I love this setting. It's actually one of my favourite settings. And Bethesda did it the justice. Pure and simple. I'm not usually the kind of player that reads every book and note in the game (not that I don't enjoy it, I just lack the patience and time), but this time I tried to read all. And boy it adds so much value to the story, mostly to those mini stories scattered throughout the game. Not only that, but some can reveal a hidden safe or a cave, others can add a new location to the map. It's really awesome.
- Music - it's really great, to the point that I played with the radio turned off for the most time. The tracks on the radio are spot on, though. I like that music changes in different locations (or DLCs). There are not as many games, where I would praise the music, as one of the things I liked the most in game. But here we are.
- Combat - It's possible that some of the mods I used tweaked the combat a bit, not sure about that, but I must say I enjoyed it. I probably overused V.A.T.S, but I didn't want to waste too much ammo during real time combat. One thing I like the most when it comes to combat are power armours - I love that Bethesda made them the way you need to actually enter them and use a power core to juice it up. And the feeling when you jump off the roof and the ground is shaking, is not something that can be easily forgotten.
- Enemies - I really love that the same type of enemies can pose various threat, depending on the weapon they use and armour they wear. You can have a raider with a simple pipe rifle and one that wear a crude version of power armour and holds a missile launcher or a minigun.
- Story - Now, don't get me wrong, this is still a Bethesda level of writing, but I gotta admit, for me the story is much better than in Skyrim. And it's not only because I love the setting, but they simply did a pretty job with it. They did a damn good job portraying the main factions, to the point that I had a hell of a time trying to decide which one I'd like to ultimately join. And the one I chose was not the one that I thought of joining when I started the game and heard about it for the first time. Great job Bethesda with changing my mind. While I enjoyed the main story quite a lot, I enjoyed DLCs even more. Every DLC is completely different, with unique style. The grim mood of Far Harbor contrast with wild and colourful Nuka Cola. I've had a blast playing both DLCs. Bethesda seems to have a habit of writing better stories for their DLCs than the main game.
- Voice acting - finally, Bethesda learned their lesson. Not only voice acting is miles ahead of Skyrim, they seem to not overuse the same actors. Sure, you can feel a few of them play different characters, but even then they are playing them differently. It's still not the best voice acting out there, but it's surprisingly good.
- NPCs - don't get me wrong, NPCs in Fallout 4 are much, much better than in Skyrim and actually can comment, interrupt and react to the story, but it's still far from the level of Bioware or CDPR. But, I see you're walking a right path, Todd Howard. Don't stray of it.
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