Fallout 4 - Introduction

Fallout 4 has shipped 12 million copies and has dominated social media and even the news. Employers across the country probably had a few interesting excuses for why employees didn't show up for work, while you could barely talk to anyone without Fallout 4 coming up. As one of the most anticipated games of the year, it has had a lot of attention focused on it. We've had a lot of time to play it, bringing you guides and opinions based on in the past few weeks, and now it's time for us to sit down and share our official opinion on the game. Is Fallout 4 really worthy of the hype?

Some interesting stats about Fallout 4:

  • 12 Million Copies Shipped
  • 450,000+ concurrent players on Steam
  • Available on PC, Xbox One, and Playstation 4
  • Available for rent in Redboxes to "try before you buy."

Fallout 4 - Positive Marks

Fallout 4 is a good game and there is a lot of things that bring this together. For Fallout 4, it’s the wealth of content the game has to offer, the story as a whole with everything in the game combined, and the various things going on with everyone you could possibly meet. It’s the fact that everything is optional, but whatever you do decide to do can be approached in many different ways. The world itself is more alive than ever, with people going about their lives and others sitting and waiting to ambush those living peacefully. It’s a world that’s just at the cusp of recovering from the Great War, yet, at the same time, is at its worst it might have ever been.

There are dungeons after dungeons of wasted buildings. Random encounters throughout the world which invite you over to share your opinion on if someone should or shouldn’t pull the trigger. There are settlements that need freeing and of course the main story. There are vaults to explore and loot, and lots of hidden treasures located everywhere. While you can gain access to some of the game’s most powerful tools at the start, you can also engage the game’s most powerful encounters right from the get-go. There is no barrier of entry into anything you want to do.

The new perk system makes leveling up a different experience than before. Instead of picking a selection of possible skills to have, you have a whole map to pick from, with the near infinite level cap, you don’t have to feel so bad when you engage down a specific path. The fact you can even alter your SPECIAL points by increasing them is noteworthy, because you can’t really ever break a character and make it too hard to explore the wasteland.

On top of the mechanics and contents introduced to the game is the ability to mod the game and create whatever you desire. From new outfits and encounters to a whole new game experience. You can tweak various settings, have new graphics, and much more through the mod system. As the game ages, it’ll only grow better, as modding extends gameplay drastically. (PC only)

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Settlements are a massive time sink, and that’s a good thing, because there is something fun with placing a random collection of junk on the ground and making a fortress. For consoles, they can be a painful experience of constantly gathering resources, whereas on PC it’s reasonable to turn off the need to grind adhesives and just focus on the building aspect.

The segments that feature the pre-war at the start were actually enjoyable to get a glimpse of what it was like before the Great War, not to mention the short vault tutorial getting you into the game rather quickly. Not to mention your ability to run into some of the characters before the war as ghouls, no spoilers, but it’s a great example of the massive attention to detail Bethseda has put into the game.

While there are many parts to Fallout 4 and some are better than others, the sizable sum of things to do that could appeal to anyone’s taste, from dungeon crawling to city building, provide hours and hours of gameplay enjoyment. There is something very satisfying with sitting at a game and trying to hash out what you could do from a list that’s very, very long. For many, it’s that 20 hour mark where you’re still hanging out near the start of the game working through all of the things you can do and explore.

Fallout 4 - Average or Neutral Marks

Your inventory will hurt – there is so much to loot. Workshops provide a way to store your loot, but you’ll need to fast travel to and from quite a bit. On PC you can mod your inventory to make this less frustrating or not even a big deal at all, but consoles will suffer. Some find this an authentic experience, I find it a nuisance (and modded it out quickly).

The main story isn’t the most interesting story ever. For some this isn’t an issue, as the main story has little to do with why they’d play the game, but in order to get access to specific things in the game, you must do some quests, although the first part is rather short and can land you with non-hostile status with lots of the wandering denizens in the world. The story as a whole though, on the other hand, is rather good as always.

Fallout 4 - Below Average or Negative Marks

The factions are more uninteresting than ever, with the Brotherhood of Steel at some point making the most sense to me. I find it a flaw when the fanatical zealots crusading on a broken platform, a paradox unto themselves, are a voice of reason when there problems, however numerous they are, are beyond common sense to fix. The Minutemen, met within the first slice of the big pie, are nothing more than a vague excuse to give you your own personal army, while everyone else is basically crazier than ever.

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The ending was a massive disappointment, taking the extremes of “resolving every plot thread” to “resolving none.” I get that for many, Fallout 3’s ending included far too much detail, but the absolute lack of resolution of anything left me with a bitter taste in my mouth and a sick desire for the DLC, to see what else might play out in the Commonwealth.

The setting is far too similar to Fallout 3, just with far less wasteland, and more city to crawl around. Gone is the subway that you were constantly forced to pace through, but at the same time, there isn’t large swathes of land, devoid of life. Everything is packed together very tightly, which makes travel times short, but doesn’t have that romantic feeling of the world being so big. As you play, it gets smaller and smaller, until you feel as if it’s gone.

Combat is the same as Fallout 3. A few new weapons, some new skills, but ultimately it’s going to boil down to a mediocre FPS as you battle against enemies far too far away to hit, plinking at you, while a legion of ghouls are rushing your face.

Conclusion and Final Score

Fallout 4 is an outstanding game well worth the money. While the base game itself can be lacking in some areas, there is so much content that it's hard to say it's not worth the price tag. In addition to that, the fact you can mod it to extremes and many of the Skyrim mods should find their way over to Fallout make it probably one of the biggest content games out there, if you include the community. It's fun and worthwhile, with patches coming in constantly to fix bugs. Sure, you may find something not fun in the game, but at the same time, you'll likely to find something as interesting as well. I'd give it our seal of approval for sure.

Ten Ton Hammer Staff Rating
8.0
Last Updated: Mar 13, 2016

About The Author

Get in the bush with David "Xerin" Piner as he leverages his spectacular insanity to ask the serious questions such as is Master Yi and Illidan the same person? What's for dinner? What are ways to elevate your gaming experience? David's column, Respawn, is updated near daily with some of the coolest things you'll read online, while David tackles ways to improve the game experience across the board with various hype guides to cool games.

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