I recommend the game, definitely. It does have issues. Yes. Some of which make me an unhappy player. But the vast majority of them can be fixed with mods.

The good: The new Special/Perk system is straightforward, and a big improvement from the mess SPECIAL had devolved into with 3 and later NV. VATS is a lot more real, in terms of true turn based mechanics. Modding and Settlement building are interesting. The Power Armor now feels like actual powered armor. It has weight and heft to it. (Also, so what if you get a rusted, busted up suit 10 mins in to kill a death claw? It was a high excitement moment...and, I have to say: pretty awesome, and a good way to give a tutorial for Power Armor). Ghouls and Deathclaws are scary again. Very much so.

The bad: The Story. Bethesda should have maybe have cut some budget out of Skyrim DLC so they could hire a better writer for Fallout 4. The story is very similar to the plot in Fallout 3...a great deal of the dialog is really...badly done. It's pretty clear that Emil Pagliarulo has zero clue when it comes to dialog supervision. A lot of the dialog seems contrived, rather than polished and honed. Only 5 vaults to explore in the base game. That's okay, I suppose.

The Ugly: But the real ugliness is that the game has been sanitized down again. No slavers, a lot of the sexual themes seem to have been toned down. In a nuclear wasteland, with no real government...and plenty of nastiness going on...a lot of the more brutal elements have been toned down. Thankfully, this can be solved with modding.

So, on the whole...very enjoyable game. You can even get paint jobs for the power armor. All and all, quite enjoyable. =)


EDIT: As I approach 80 hours in this game, and have finished using the Railroad ending...I can tell you right now, the writing between mother and son is absolutely terrible. It's stiff, static and without any kind of good story closure. It's just stiff, and cheap dialog. It never evokes anything. I stand by my original statements: Emil Pagliarulo is a terrible writer and it will show many times as you progress through the game. But I was very disappointed by what amounted to a final conversation between a mother and son. It was...really terrible. I hope the other endings have better dialog...but I won't bet my power armor on it.

EDIT #2: I have now hit about 260+ Hours into the game. I have encountered more bugs, but none of them are deal breakers. Still like the game a lot. After the time I have logged, I am still discovering new bits and pieces of content. Some people complain that it's been "watered down" from previous Fallouts. All I can say to that is: wait for the mods then. A lot of the issues people have with this game in terms of content/etc is all fixable with mods. The story writing still sucks, that can't be changed with a mod. That said, the mods already available have made this game an even better value. Q1 of 2016, when the CK hits...we should see some serious modding take off.

EDIT#3: 640+ Hours in game. Game is still awesome. The DLC was middling to okay. I'll be honest here, the DLC was a bit of a let down, especially Nuka World and Far Harbor which by themselves are great...but, it's clear in the main game these have been pasted on as an afterthought. I am pretty happy the DLC has all been released though, as now...the real modding can begin!

I recommend the game, definitely. It does have issues. Yes. Some of which make me an unhappy player. But the vast majority of them can be fixed with mods. The good: The new Special/Perk system is straightforward, and a big improvement from the mess SPECIAL had devolved into with 3 and later NV. VATS is a lot more real, in terms of true turn based mechanics. Modding and Settlement building are interesting. The Power Armor now feels like actual powered armor. It has weight and heft to it. (Also, so what if you get a rusted, busted up suit 10 mins in to kill a death claw? It was a high excitement moment...and, I have to say: pretty awesome, and a good way to give a tutorial for Power Armor). Ghouls and Deathclaws are scary again. Very much so. The bad: The Story. Bethesda should have maybe have cut some budget out of Skyrim DLC so they could hire a better writer for Fallout 4. The story is very similar to the plot in Fallout 3...a great deal of the dialog is really...badly done. It's pretty clear that Emil Pagliarulo has zero clue when it comes to dialog supervision. A lot of the dialog seems contrived, rather than polished and honed. Only 5 vaults to explore in the base game. That's okay, I suppose. The Ugly: But the real ugliness is that the game has been sanitized down again. No slavers, a lot of the sexual themes seem to have been toned down. In a nuclear wasteland, with no real government...and plenty of nastiness going on...a lot of the more brutal elements have been toned down. Thankfully, this can be solved with modding. So, on the whole...very enjoyable game. You can even get paint jobs for the power armor. All and all, quite enjoyable. =) EDIT: As I approach 80 hours in this game, and have finished using the Railroad ending...I can tell you right now, the writing between mother and son is absolutely terrible. It's stiff, static and without any kind of good story closure. It's just stiff, and cheap dialog. It never evokes anything. I stand by my original statements: Emil Pagliarulo is a terrible writer and it will show many times as you progress through the game. But I was very disappointed by what amounted to a final conversation between a mother and son. It was...really terrible. I hope the other endings have better dialog...but I won't bet my power armor on it. EDIT #2: I have now hit about 260+ Hours into the game. I have encountered more bugs, but none of them are deal breakers. Still like the game a lot. After the time I have logged, I am still discovering new bits and pieces of content. Some people complain that it's been "watered down" from previous Fallouts. All I can say to that is: wait for the mods then. A lot of the issues people have with this game in terms of content/etc is all fixable with mods. The story writing still sucks, that can't be changed with a mod. That said, the mods already available have made this game an even better value. Q1 of 2016, when the CK hits...we should see some serious modding take off. EDIT#3: 640+ Hours in game. Game is still awesome. The DLC was middling to okay. I'll be honest here, the DLC was a bit of a let down, especially Nuka World and Far Harbor which by themselves are great...but, it's clear in the main game these have been pasted on as an afterthought. I am pretty happy the DLC has all been released though, as now...the real modding can begin!