Than just write about the main game Ediros, that is not a problem.
It doesn't have to be very elaborate/complex Aenemic, just write a piece you feel reflects/embodies your thoughts on the game.
Okay, sorry if it sounds like I am angry. I didn't mean to sound like an ass.
I covered some parts of Fallout 4 in my review on steam but there is plenty more. I could post bulletpoints here or something.
Okay, here is an uncut version of my review. I tried to cover as much as I can:
I decided to rewrite my review, because my previous one was more of a rant than a proper review, so I will try to avoid all the mistakes I have made previous time. With that out of the way, shall we begin?
Now, first thing I would like to say is that I am fan of Fallout New Vegas and I enjoyed it much more than Fallout 3 for many different reasons, such as: Multiple ways to finish the game, likeable and believable characters, multiple ways to do quests, reputation, karma etc. Overall Fallout New Vegas was supperior to Fallout 3 in many ways and I a regret to inform you that Fallout 4 is nowhere near that level. In fact, I consider Fallout 4 one of the weakest entries in the franchise, even worse than Fallout 3, but I will explain below why.
I will start of with the fact that Fallout 4 doesn't let you roleplay too much, if at all. You always start of as a concerned father/mother who is looking for his/her son. Now, having a set background wouldn't be bad if it was designed properly, but unfortunately it is not. The player is forced into being a goodie-to-shoes good guy or sarcastic guy. The game does not allow you to play as, for example: Crazy Maniac, Sir talks a lot (can avoid almost every combat, by talking), Evil Emperor, or something in between. You can decide to not do a quest, but that is it. Either way it is still waiting for you and you can pick it up at any time. Of course there are times when you can be little bit evil, but they are far and between. So re-playability and role-playing were cut down a lot, which for RPG fans is a great deal, especially since most of them prefer to play as a someone they imagine rather than someone designed for them.
Of course there are games that are exceptions such as: Mass Effect or Witcher 3, but those games have got preset protagonist, while Fallout franchise never had one. Of course you would be: Vault Dweller, Chosen One, Lone Wanderer, Courier, but those are just titles and it is up to player to decide who they are and how they act. In Fallout 4 we do not get that freedom.
Now onto the characters. Most of the NPCs in the game are boring as hell. Even companions are hardly interesting and the way the react to your actions and how long it takes is poorly designed. Foe example, there is Curie, who you can impress by being nice, siding with Railroad, etc. But even after I did many things like that it takes ages to romance her, so no easy way with it I am afraid. The only companions I like so far are Dogmeat and Cadsworth, but other than that I want to shoot some of them in the face.
And here we get to another stupidity of Fallout 4- essential characters, they are almost everywhere. Basically, You are connected to the quest, I can't kill you. It breaks immersion and is annoying when there are some NPCs, like Mama Murphy who you want to shoot in the face, but you can't. The only thing you can do about her is to build her a chair, somewhere where no one will ever find her.
Now let's talk a bit about character progression and how inferior it is compared to Fallout NV or even Fallout 3. In both of those games you had to pick your special carefully, otherwise your build would be flawed and you would suffer a lot. They were RPGs that punished players for making stupid builds and mistakes. You could not become a Jack Of All trades because levels and perks were limited so you had to be careful what to choose. In Fallout 4 though, there isn't such thing. You can become 10 across all special, or even 11 if you pick boobleheads just by leveling up. There are very few builds that will make player miserable, such as the one focused on Charisma so it much less punishing than previous games. It is more streamlined, which for me is not a good thing.
Anyway, as you level up you can either boost your special or take a perk, which sounds good on paper but in practise it takes away from the game, because the most important thing in this game is to get you damage and let you build weapons. Other builds are much less optimal. It wouldn't be that bad, but because Bethesda cut out Skills, karma and reputation there almost no alternate ways to do quests. The only instance that required high int and nothing more was found by me after 40 hours of playing the game, which is just bad.
Now onto the quests and main storyline. The main quest takes the player through the ruins of commonwealth in order to find Shaun, the son of the Protagonist. Unfortunately it is quite predictable, and does not allow too much flexibility. In the end we find him and we have to decide which faction to support. So the main quest is bad, but it has never been great in most Bethesda games or even the most important. Side quests were the most important part of playing Fallout games. For example in New Vegas, there was a quest in Goodsprings, where you could side with either the town or the powder gangers. Doesn't seem impressive, does it? HOWEVER, you could join one of those sides whenever you wanted or even back stab the one you supported, for example: Side with powder gangers, but lay mines on the road and kill them all before they come to the town or just murder them after everything ends so you could take all that sweet loot.
And once again Fallout 4 disappoints in that regard. 90% of the quests are like this: GO THERE, KILL RAIDERS/RESCUE SOMEONE, GO BACK. The amount of radiant quests is staggering and quests that are not radiant still disappointed me most of the time. The issue with them is once again is that there are very few alternate ways to them. The only good quest so far for me is: Silver Shroud, a bit cliche and still not that great, but I enjoyed it. Unfortunately I can not say the same about most of the other quests.
Before we go into combat though, I want to pinpoint a tiny detail, which is no level cap. Sounds awesome doesn't it? Unfortunately it once again is poorly designed system that does not work well with the franchise. This game features way too many radiant quest that are meant as nothing more, but a grindfest. This game is full of grinding, grinding and grinding, otherwise your character is just weak and it still not done that well, because you receive little experience for most of the quest and it would require hundreds of them to get you above level 100, which just plain stupid.
Now, let's talk about the combat and difficulty. I have to admit it is one of few things Bethesda managed to improve. It feels much more fluid and natural, although it is still nothing incredible, quite mediocre I would say. It is still a step up from Fallout 3 and NV, though. Unfortunately the same cannot be said about difficulty. As I was playing with my level 250 character (cheats, I wanted to verify something), I came across a super mutant suicider with level 250, the same as my character. I think you understand what that means? Level Scaling and Bullet Sponge Enemies are the bane of this game. How is it that .50 caliber sniper rifle does nothing against him, even though I hit it in the head??? It is really frustrating. And the game is full of them + legendary enemies are basically buffed up versions of them. Also the different levels of difficulty are like this: you deal less damage, take more damage, enemies deal more damage, enemies take less damage. Just bad.
Right, legendary enemies are enemies that spawn randomly in the game. Whenever you kill one of them it drops an item with additional effect, such as: Penetrating laser musket (ignores 30% of armor or something like this). Sounds good on paper, but most of the time you get something like this: Ghoul Hunter Gamma Gun (Deals 50% more damage to ghouls) with radiation? So it does nothing against them, in fact it should even heal them more, which makes no sense. Sure not all enemies scale, but it is still poorly designed system, with way too many flaws.
And not, lets talk about a world a little. It was supposed to be fun, exciting, but it turned out like Skyrim, or maybe even worse. The world is rather small (11 minutes jogging from one end to another), but is filled with tons of places to discover, loot etc. Unfortunately you get to the point where gathering resources and looking through all those containers becomes a chore, since you got so much stuff you do not really know, what to do with it? Foe example, I have got over 1000 bullets .45 caliber and I doubt I will ever shoot out all of them. Early on, you want to explore, but then it is just annoying, mostly because you need a ton of stuff to craft, modify your weapons, upgrade your armor etc.
Now, lets talk about weapons, crafting and armor. It is great that you can modify your weapons, power armor and such. It feels natural, they also completely removed weapon degradation so you don't need to worry about carrying 10 rifles, so you could repair your favorite one. However, that lead to the fact that the most important aspect is crafting and materials + armor and weapon inflation. The game becomes too easy with couple of mods to hunting rifle. You waste so much resources on crafting it is not even funny and the game is rather hard without it, so you can't really skip it.
A now Power Armor, it is genuinely bad. First of all, why are there fusion cores in game, when T-51 onward didn't need them? I can accept T-45, but later models, especially the enclave power armor? It makes no sense. We can let it slide for the sake of gameplay. However, what I can't accept it that Bethesda used Damage Resistance not Damage Threshold. It means that our power armor gets damaged, by molerats, flies, dogs, pot shoots etc. I can not like this, it just stupid. On top of that we get power armor very early in the game with minigun and kill our first deathclaw. You can easily play the entire game, without exiting power armor too much, all you need is 9 int perk and luck 2 – scrounger.
Both graphics and music are on decent level. There were a couple of moments when I genuinely enjoyed the game, but the benefits end here.
In the end we get small, boring sandbox, with bland characters, terrible plot and being Over Powered way too quickly.
Disappointment of the year for me, wait for the mods and all the DLC.
5/10;
