Recent reviews by Halifornia

Seems to be a lot of negative feedback on this subscription. I haven't been playing for years, so I can't comment on whether or not the value has decreased over time.

But, I HAVE played enough both with and without the subscription that I can speak to it's current benefits.

- Unlimited storage space for scrap and ammo: it's incredibly relaxing to not have to worry about throwing stuff out after every adventure and figuring out what to keep for that next crafting project, only to realize "Ah crap! I NEEDED THAT!" five minutes later
- Ability to create private worlds: you can create your own server instance and play inside it with 7 other players, which is pretty awesome and a nice change from having to deal with public ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ (personally, I get tired of the "I shat my entire CAMP inventory onto the ground, doesn't it look great? It's the ultimate bedroom of a 10 year old nerd!" that are EVERYWHERE)
- 1600 atoms every month: sure, it could be more, but this is plenty to get some pretty awesome and useful items on a regular basis, stuff that drastically improves in-game life, like the fusion core recharger
- Fallout 1st exclusive stuff in the store: there's always discounts on various items, and it changes often, for Fallout 1st subscribers; there's also items that are exclusive to Fallout 1st subscribers, and they're not just something lame like an emote or an icon
- Survival Tent: also a fantastic feature. You get your own tent with a Stash and a Scrap container you can interact with, plus a bed, and fast travel to your survival tent is free no matter where you are on the map. It also persists across servers unless there's something in the way when you log in. If there IS something in the way, it gives you option to jump to another server.

For the price of two Starbucks coffees I get a massive amount of enjoyment out of this game, and a lot of perks/quality of life improvements that make it relaxing and fun. Definitely gets my upvote.

A bit different from prior Fallout games, but still fun as hell. Five years on, and it's a lot more stable than it was on release. The story is quite enjoyable and, in my opinion, a significant improvement over the Fallout 4 story. Finding some folks to group up with makes it even more fun. Just Google "fallout 76 discord servers" and take a look at what's available.

Resource management, construction, exploration, and ridiculous things like making yourself a human cannonball. What's not to like?

Seriously though. This game is POLISHED. Even the Early Access versions were solid as a rock. A lot of fun solo, even more with friends.

Everything that needs to be said about this game has already been said a thousand times over.

My take? If it's your style of game, it's perfect.

Moved from WoW to FFXIV, and have zero regrets. It's a fantastic story, the gameplay and character/class management is a million times better, and the crafting is both fun AND useful. And best of all? The level of toxic BS is pretty much zero compared to WoW.

Voice acting is fantastic, weapons are a a LOT of fun, all of the side missions and tasks give it a lot of flavor, and the story/character development is excellent. Reminds me of many of William Gibson's earlier books.

My only complaint is that DLSS on this game is 100% broken, and has been since the beginning, at least on GTX 30xx cards. I run an MSI 3060 Ti, and with DLSS enabled there's a massive FPS drop when entering or leaving a submenu. Open your map? FPS drops to 5-10. Gotta wait seconds for it to recover. Close the map? Same thing. The longer the game is running, the worse this gets, with recovery times reaching 10+ seconds, and some menus it just never goes back up (crafting menu never got above 5 FPS for me).

Quick search shows tons of people seeing this issue, and CDPR has never bothered to fix it in the almost 3 years this game has been out. Tried upgrading to the DLSS 3.5 DLL. Zero improvement. I gave up on it and switched to traditional graphics. Zero problems after that, but it doesn't look nearly as good as DLSS either. Damn shame.

An amazing story, told in so many different and beautiful ways. Never have I been punched so hard in the feels as I was by this game. Just... play it. That's all I can say.

Mix together some Mass Effect, Borderlands, and throw in a dash of Jennifer Government (book by Max Barry) and you have The Outer Worlds. Great characters, some of which are easy to hate. Complex situations that don't have any clear "good" outcome. Rich graphics and enough variety and complexity in weapons to keep things interesting. Obsidian hit it out of the park with this one.

Overall an amazing game and well worth the time. It has a few problematic mechanics that can get frustrating, but the gameplay, story, and character development (yours and NPCs) massively outweighs any issues.

Thumbs up:
- Top tier voice acting
- Fantastic graphics (I run on a 1060 at 2k resolution, and FPS is plenty high)
- Beautiful environment
- Gunplay is some of the best I've ever experienced, with plenty of weapons and ammo types to further flavor the experience
- Secondary weapons are fully functional rather than an afterthought, and incredibly useful in appropriate situations
- Storyline is about as epic as you can get, with both major and minor events having repercussions later

Middle-ground (not sure if it's good, bad, or neither):
- Some NPCs are true ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ and you may end up hating them with a passion, with no option to get rid of them, but this is at least realistic in that some percentage of people are truly ♥♥♥♥♥♥
- Far fewer buildings are accessible than I had hoped - let us explore abandoned and isolated houses, even if it has no impact on the story!
- Certain side quests "expire" eventually, with no indication that this will happen - none have any impact on the story, but it would be nice - on the other hand it also makes sense because life goes on, and people find other means of doing things if you don't bother to come back to a task fast enough (hint: get that lumber as soon as possible)

Thumbs down:
- Many primary and secondary quests will railroad you without warning - ignored that NPC offering a quest for too long? Too bad! You now have no choice, and all other quest markers on the map are now gone, and any NPC that WAS there is now missing, until this one quest is complete
- Most encounters allow you to fight back to survive, but a handful don't and you're insta-killed, and you won't know which one is which, so be on alert if you run into anything unusual - this can also be inconsistent, such as being able to fight off a massive half-ton bear, but some hillbilly ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ slits your throat in a single swipe
- NPC behavior can be incredibly stupid (not often thankfully) - riders veering into your path rather than avoiding you, people driving wagons run over you for no reason and make no attempt to slow down or go around you
- Some map design elements are outright stupid - hitching posts placed too near a streetcar line that allows your horse to get whacked in the ass and freak out, possibly kill bystanders by kicking them, and then run off - Why Rockstar? Why did you put that hitching post there if there is LITERALLY not enough room for a horse to stand without being run over?
- Be wary of train rides if your horse is not stabled - it may "appear" in a spot at your destination station that causes it to get hit by the train, killing it (horse death is permanent if you can't get to them quickly enough with medicine) - this is particularly a problem when arriving in Saint Denis via train so be careful and save often

If you're intending to play this as a single-player game, DO NOT BUY THIS. The sheer amount of time involved in doing anything solo in this game is ridiculous. Want to build a hut? Spend hours running back and forth chopping trees and crafting your hut, one piece at a time. The weight limit on your character is awful when you start. You can carry ONE wall, or ONE piece of roof. Fast travel is a joke, as it strips you of EVERYTHING you were carrying. Sure, it leaves behind a "cache" of your items, but it's buggy as hell, and the cache can end up inaccessible. The building system is terrible, with no clear indication how pieces will be used. You'll have to construct pieces to find out if they fit, and if the building geometry will allow you to use things such as stairs and ladders. And if it doesn't work? Demolishing the building pieces returns a fraction of the materials used.

I imagine in a multi-player setting this game would be fantastic, with a team working to build up a base and tame the dinos, but for solo play (which is what I bought it for) it's just a complete flop.