Recent reviews by Trixie Bunnyfeet (she/her)

Played on an RTX 3060Ti on the 'High' in-game preset with DLSS set to Performance. Pretty decent FPS; 70~ on average! It looked great. This gets me excited for the future of RTX Remix; this technology with other old Source games like Half-Life 2 will be the dream.

Fallout 4 is a very good game. I do not think Fallout 4 is a perfect game or that everyone will enjoy it, but if you're into a great post-apocalyptic FPS open world RPG, Fallout 4 will deliver that with the same sandbox vibe you come to expect from the developers at Bethesda, and more.

I played this game on Hard difficulty. Although my account doesn't show it, I have over 24 hours into the game at the time of writing (I was offline for many of them, Steam isn't counting those. Add 14 hours to my current playtime to get an estimate). My extended review is based off these 24-odd hours of gameplay.


----EXTENDED REVIEW----



::The Good::


The shooting is pretty good. Like, surprisingly so. Previous games from these developers, Bethesda, have always had combat animations and general weapon feel be pretty clunky. In Fallout 4, however, you should expect to shoot some baddies with some pretty good feeling guns. The developers really went pretty far in improving the weapon feel in this game, it is much more satisfying than any of their games have been in the past. And that's backed up because...

The AI is pretty decent. They're not super intelligent, but they're smart in the same way that typical modern first person shooter AI can be smart. Again, this is something that previous Bethesda games have always lacked in. The AI gets behind cover. They're much more attentive and quicker to react than previous Fallout entries. They're fairly difficult too, because...

The game has little qualms with throwing the player into difficult situations. Make no mistake, Fallout 4 is pretty tough at times. The difficulty in general feels a little less artificial than previous RPGs made by the same developers. The difficulty seems to come from the fact that enemies are fast and flank you, moreso than being bullet sponges, which is how previous RPGs by Bethesda did it. The game has no qualms with allowing you to enter areas of the game where enemies are much higher level than you are, either. The game's signature Power Armor, unlocked really early in the game, can be of service in these difficult encounters. Many of the areas you will come across are teeming with dozens of tough baddies that will make short work of you, if you don't have the skill or levels to get by. And speaking of these areas...

The signature 'Bethesda'-style exploration and open world feel is fully intact and in full force in Fallout 4. Fallout 4 will see the player being able to explore from several environments, such as radioactive marshes, coastal regions and various islands, and the downtown city. You'll also see a healthy variety of dungeons too, from tech bases, the signature fallout shelters called 'Vaults', military installations, skyscrapers, metro tunnels, caves, and many more. The variety of environments here on offer is great and is a huge step up from Fallout 3. You'll want to explore every inch of these places for some delicious loot, because...

The loot system caves into the same feel that games such as Diablo or Borderlands would give you. Fallout 4 boasts an impressively full crafting system which allows you to customize weapons piece by piece, and while some weapons are sadly lacking in customization options, ALL weapons can be customized in at least some way. If you don't want to deal with this system, this is where the 'lootgrind' element of a Borderlands game would come in. If you prefer to not craft things, enemies will drop pre-customized weapons for you to compare with your own. Special enemies called Legendaries (similar to the 'Badass' versions of enemies from Borderlands) sometimes spawn which drop special weapons that feature modifiers on them frequently unattainable through crafting. Some of these modifiers can be quite fun to use, such as weapons which never have to be reloaded, or weapons which freeze enemies on hit, among other amusing things. There's a lot of variety here.

The settlements are fun and interesting. This game features a settlement system which plays sort of like a miniature city builder. You can build settlements at a number of in-game sites, construct power generators, water purifiers, farms, and other things to supply your villagers and keep them happy. As your settlement grows, it increasingly becomes the desired target of a number of post-apocalyptic bad guys. Defend your settlements from attack to keep your settlers out from harm's way. It's a very appreciated new addition to the Fallout series, and it adds a lot to the game. A very neat feature indeed, and one many might find themselves sinking a lot of time into.

The graphics. They're fairly gorgeous, and look much better in motion than in screenshots. Not much else needs to be said, it's just a great-looking game.



::The Bad::


This game suffers from many of the same problems that the previous game by the same developers, Skyrim, had. Lack of choice in quest paths, flatly-delivered voice acting in many spots, a generally unengaging plot. If you were expecting writing on the same quality as the spinoff title 'Fallout New Vegas', then I'm afraid you're looking at the wrong game. Plotlines and quests in this game are flat and unengaging, and if it wasn't for the sizable improvements to the gameplay, combat, and exploration, it would make Fallout 4 an uninteresting game.

The RPG elements are subdued in favor of this combat-centric system. This one is fairly divisive and, I'll admit, I actually kind of like the new system. But if you are the kind of person who prefers an RPG with many stats and character builds to choose from, Fallout 4 goes for a far more streamlined approach. It's not bad per-se, but I can easily see why many would be upset with it. Fallout 4 is a very streamlined RPG. If you want all the stat-building of other RPGs, look elsewhere. If you've played a lot of Skyrim, you would be intimately familiar with the system used in this game. I will, however, say that I think the RPG mechanics in this game are a bit more rewarding and open than Skyrim, however.

Lip-sync and dialog animations are generally fairly poor and are on par with the previous game, Skyrim. It's a shame, because many of the other, non-dialog-related animations are much better looking than Skyrim.



::The Ugly::


The controls in some spots are cramped. A small few amount of controls are not rebindable. For example, Fallout 4 features a button for throwing grenades, and a button for quick melee. These are, in fact, bound to the same button -- to throw grenades, you must hold down the melee key. It's awkward, you can't decouple these two functions and seperate them to their own keys, and it's clear this system was adapted from the console versions. The city building mode also has some unfortunate controls. No ability to use the mouse to control it, and you must use the arrow keys to navigate it easily. Again, it's awkward. Keyboards have way more buttons to work with than console controllers and there's no reason for this system to work just like this on keyboard and mouse. OTHERWISE, the controls are fine.

There is, yet again, a lack of super high framerate support in this game. For a long time, Bethesda games have forced you to cap the framerate at a maximum of 60, otherwise various gameplay-breaking bugs will occur. Fallout 4 is no different.



Conclusion:

All-in-all, Fallout 4 hits way more often than it misses. When it does miss, it's certainly unfortunate, but that doesn't take away its many successes. Bethesda have really outdone themselves with this entry into their line-up of open world games, and it shows. A solid 8.5/10.

Should you buy this game?

(yes)

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IF YOU LIKE THOSE KINDS OF GAMES YOU SHOULD BUY IT

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