Fallout 4 Review - After the Dust has Settled
Written by Aaron (TrueAppleJay)
Also Available on Xbox One
The Fallout series has always been a staple for the Post-Apocalypse in video games and over the years we've seen the series span a number of different sub-genres. Each of these sub-genres is attached to a sense of familiarity which tends to be rooted at an RPG base. The original titles (Fallout 1 and 2) saw the series launch with a turn based, isometric feel and as the series has evolved we are now seeing it start to focus a little less on the core RPG mechanics that fans have grown attached to, and a little more on the minute to minute, action based gameplay of the more recent first person installments by Bethesda Game Studios.
In 2008, Bethesda released their first Fallout title in Fallout 3, a game which divided fans due to it being the start of the first person entries for the franchise but ultimately pleased what feels like the majority of its player-base. Long-time fans seem to like the game but feel it feathered in lore inconsistencies that were relatively unnecessary albeit not detrimental to the overall experience, still feeling pleased overall that their new game had the signature Fallout feel they feared it would lack. Fallout as a series follows a deep lore, creating an alternate timeline branching off from our own late 1940's into an advanced, yet unfortunate, view of our future. Fallout 4, the second title in the series from Bethesda Game Studios, proceeds with this continuity as it places the player in the world of The Commonwealth, or Boston if you’d rather.
As a quick interjection, I’d like to note here that this review includes Fallout 4 and all of its downloadable content as one package. The game has been out for almost four years now and the DLC Automatron, Far Harbor, and Nuka World offer loads of content that only enhance the main game. If you’d like to hear about the base game itself, I’d suggest reading reviews from around the time of release as those would be more fitting for you. With that out of the way, let’s move on to the review.
Fallout 4 begins with a series first Pre-War segment which serves as your character creator and leads into the tutorial for the base mechanics and structure of the title. The character creator itself carries a lot of depth as you’re able to grab and manipulate parts of your face, select scars and blemishes, and even change your overall body weight. This segment also introduces another series first to the player, your protagonist has a voice. This fact in and of itself is not inherently negative and has worked in the genre before, however in Fallout 4 it feels very limiting. Dialogue options are limited to a few words or a phrase, but when the character speaks they can go on a tangent in a completely different tone than you were lead to believe. It’s unfortunate as the acting itself is superb but in an open game attempting player freedom, it feels bizarre and out of place.
As you go about your daily life, preparing for a public speech by you or your spouse depending on chosen sex, events transpire and you emerge around 200 years later as the "Sole Survivor" of your local fallout shelter. It is here that the game opens up and thrusts you into the finely detailed world of Fallout 4. You are set on the path of finding your son in a world of which your character is uniquely familiar with and it’s up to the player to figure out where to start. The game does a very good job at pulling the player along the narrative while also reminding them that they’re free to do as they please at any moment they so choose. As you embark on your journey, you’ll meet a slew of unique characters, terrifying creatures, and rewarding challenges that all entangle together in a fulfilling web with a few kinks along the way.
There is a fairly strong focus on the main narrative in Fallout 4 that is unlike most games from the developer. It focuses on the player and their relationship with their son as they struggle to figure out the core ethics regarding synthetic humans. The game kicks off very story heavy, even when it opens up it continues to pull you along with more story elements, and while you’re being introduced to new areas, mechanics, and characters, I personally felt a sense of urgency that wasn’t expecting and I ultimately struggled with as a player. Yes, the game does allow for a lot of freedom in your activities and you don’t actually have to complete one main questline after another, but an area I feel the game actually struggles with is finding a balance. The narrative being told should feel urgent, you’re finding your son in a post-apocalyptic wasteland, but it feels as though that is completely contrasting to the overall feel of freedom that the game is offering to the player. The two focuses are always pulling on opposite sides the same rope and while neither focus is executed poorly, they’re also impeding the other from succeeding. The narrative itself is strong and tells an interesting story about a parent and their child but when the player is getting bombarded with side quests or menial tasks, it’s easy to become distracted and forget any sense of urgency they built up. Likewise, because the story is attempting a constant sense of urgency, when the player feels the desire to explore the many features Fallout 4 offers, the narrative rarely supports that decision and suggests that the player just continue down the path they originally set out on. That being said what narrative the game does offer is written to be very sound and structured. It pulls the player into questioning their own actions at times and arguments can be made that every major choice offered to the player can be justified. Bethesda has improved their writing exponentially as their games have evolved and I do think that I can offer legitimate praise for this even if the game and the narrative are constantly at odds with each other.
Fallout 4′s side quests are varied in both scope and quality. In your ventures into the post-apocalyptic wasteland you’ll find that there are a slew of lengthy and engaging side stories that flesh out the world and provide thought provoking insight towards the main issues that the game’s main story focuses on. While not always the case, there’s a strong sense that these stories all interweave on some level whether it be the world itself or the result of the player’s actions in a prior quest. This feeling of connectivity is especially true in the expansion quests from Far Harbor and Automatron as characters will recognize companions you have or dialogue options will change based on previously completed quests. This really provides the player with a sense that the world is alive and will persist after the character they play as leaves. While there is a lot of good here, it’s easy to point out missed opportunities that would have been so fun to explore that just weren’t. It seems like Bethesda had set up a lot of worthwhile stories to tell but then just never did. Maybe they didn’t have the time but regardless, it seems disappointing that certain areas are underused or entire questlines just weren’t implemented. More than that, Bethesda has introduced a large number of repeatable quests that just continue as the player plays the game. Many quest lines eventually taper off and you’ll find yourself realizing you’ve been doing the same thing for the past thirty-odd minutes and yes, the next quest is the same thing yet again. It’s a controversial addition to the game that serves as an artificial way to prolong the game’s life but in the end, it doesn’t harm the player and provides opportunities to explore areas they otherwise wouldn’t be provoked to.
The dark and gritty feeling of the post apocalypse is hard to capture in a way that feels interesting to explore, there’s a feeling the setting offers that provides a challenge to developers where you don’t want your game to feel too barren but offering too much at every turn may make your game feel very, well, not apocalyptic. Fallout 4 manages to strike this balance and does so in a unique way that seems both devastating and charming. The art style has a mix of exaggerative realism and dark humor that mesh together very well. While not appealing on a technical level, Fallout 4 really nails the atmosphere and environmental storytelling one would hope to get out of a game set in a post-apocalypse. Whether the player is exploring the Boston ruins or traversing the mysterious fog-ridden land of Maine in Far Harbor, you really get the sense that catastrophic events have occurred and people are doing whatever they can to survive. The desire to explore every location the game has to offer tends to come naturally and Fallout 4 lands the feeling of traversing through a wasteland, scavenging for parts, and taking in the sights with a level of detail unlike most others in the genre. While not every location is made equal, whether the player explores the remnants of a direct nuclear detonation or a raider city made from an abandoned amusement park, there is always something in the horizon pulling the player along to the next location.
Exploring the world of Fallout 4 and its companion expansions is only encouraged by the main new feature Bethesda has pushed for us, Settlement Building. Seemingly inspired by the widely popular mods to previous Bethesda Game Studios titles, the player is nudged into their ability to build settlements at select locations throughout the playable map. You are able to activate a red workshop which opens up a series of menus with many different objects ranging from walls to refrigerators that you can create within the vicinity of your settlement. You’ll need resources to do this, however, and if you’re not loaded up on bottle caps enough to buy the items needed from vendors, you can venture out into the wasteland and collect the materials needed from nearly every object in the game. Plans for practical or fun objects can be found scattered throughout the world which begins to open up the doors for even more craftable objects as the player gets familiar with the mechanics. The system in place is not perfect though and it can be frustrating at times when you’re trying to snap a wall to a foundation for five minutes and it just won’t seem to work until you tweak the placement ever so slightly and it was like there was no trouble at all. Still, it’s a welcome addition to the game despite its flaws and was only expanded upon with a few content packs.
Another new and welcome addition to Fallout 4 is a smooth and serviceable combat system. One of the major problems with the past first person Fallout titles was the archaic and buggy combat system. In Fallout 3 you couldn’t aim down the sights of your gun which made the player rely on a random weapon spread for hitting a target and while slightly improved in that regard, Fallout New Vegas still felt slow and muddied at the time. Bethesda Game Studios has enlisted the help of id Software (DOOM, RAGE) this time around and together they have created gunplay that feels satisfying and refreshing. You can now snap over cover in tricky situations and bash your enemies with the stock of your gun if they get too close and you need to find a quick exit. The shooting mechanics no longer seem to be fighting the player and remain fluid as the player aims around a corner and tracks their enemies as they run down a hallway. Melee weapons feel impactful as they hit your opponent with a real sense of force and your enemies react according to the momentum of the hits, though attack animations are limited to say the least. Another area the combat is improved is in the enemy A.I. as players will find their enemies actually use cover and hide for ambushes against the player. The A.I. is not perfect though, there are times you’ll find your enemy will just stand out in the open or hesitating to reload their weapon. They also don’t always register what’s happening appropriately, which tends to be immersion breaking when you kill an NPC and their friend stares at you for a few seconds before running away in terror. While not a monumental leap for the industry, Fallout 4′s combat is a major step in the right direction and provides a fun and intuitive experience despite its few shortcomings.
With combat comes experience and leveling up. Experience is gained when you complete one of Fallout 4′s many tasks such as killing an enemy or picking a lock. As you gain experience, you level up and with leveling up comes the picking of perks so long as you have the appropriate prerequisite to earn it. Fallout 4 offers a wide variety of perks that range from simple skill enhancements such as 20% damage with pistols to gameplay effecting features like the ability to breath underwater. Unfortunately the leveling system is shallow as the majority of these perks don’t offer many interesting or new ways to play and by the time you’re done with Fallout 4, you’ll have accumulated the vast majority of them which seems to take away from the actual roleplaying the series is known for. It’s not terrible, but it’s not great either and in the end feels serviceable at its core.
A signature of the series at this point, the music in Fallout 4 is simply wonderful. It offers a wide variety of genres while staying consistent to the retro-futuristic style that the franchise is greatly known for. Both the soundtrack that’s mostly a mix-mash of music from the post-World War II era and the score by Inon Zur are breathtaking and enhance the gameplay experience through sound so well.
At the time of writing this, Fallout 4 has a feature called Creation Club which serves as a distribution platform for additional content not included with any package of Fallout 4. There’s a small selection of content available as of right now but, while I haven’t played all of them, they’re relatively overpriced and disappointing for the most part. I’m sure there are a few gems available but the majority of what I played is a variation of a small quest followed by gear that is kind of cool to look at for a little while before the novelty wears off.
Fallout’s lore is varied and lovably deep, this makes it incredibly frustrating when it becomes inconsistent as some of the side quests in Fallout 4 do contradict previous entries in the franchise. While this isn’t necessarily a huge issue, fans will notice a side quest’s retconning of established lore and that shouldn’t be ignored here as it happens with a decent amount of side content in the game, even if the aforementioned quests are written well and are fun to play. It’s not all bad though, as both Fallout 4′s main story as well as its expansion packs provide some of the most interesting stories the franchise has offered to date. Far Harbor offers a trifecta of morally gray factions for the player to choose from as they work through its story and it works on returning a lot of Fallout 4′s missing roleplay through its many branching side quests, it even tells a thought provoking story that enhances the lore of Fallout’s setting on the east coast better than a lot of the content in the base game. Fallout 4 also does a great job at tapping into the franchise’s history of dark humor with references to aliens and turning a quest about a television show into a fun and engaging experience.
There is a lot that Fallout 4 offers on a smaller scale that makes the overall experience much more user friendly and enjoyable, even improving immediately over previous installments. For starters, the loot system now offers a quick loot style menu where every item in an inventory is displayed upon hovering over the target. Enemies have a number of characterized tiers to them which get stronger as the player levels up which provides an immersive sense of progression that rewards the player as they take out higher tiered enemies. Weapons and armor can now be modified with a range of addons such as bayonets and scopes to suit the player’s play style. Companions are given more life with companion quests and personal morality meters. While not a reasonable stand in for full side quests, radiant quests do offer the player fast and easy ways to make money or gather resources. Perhaps the biggest improvement is the user interface, which not only provides more visually appealing colors to chose from but also improves upon the layout provided from previous installments while providing more information to the player at all times.
When the dust has settled, it’s hard to look at all of the content Fallout 4 offers and not recommend it. There’s just so much there and while it doesn’t nail everything down to an absolutely perfect degree, it scratches an itch that not a lot of other games scratch and it does so while providing a plethora of meaningful content and a solid sense of progression despite its disappointing shortcomings.
Started at a base of an 8 because my overall experience with the game left me feeling very positive, but while I have a strong connection to the title I can’t help but think of what it could have been.
Relevant Context and Storytelling - The story is great, but there’s just a lot of push and pull with all of the side quests that really bog it down. It feels like it’s constantly at odds with itself and there needed to be more guidance with lore consistencies and overseeing.
Soundtrack / Sound Design - Genuinely fantastic in both regards. The OST is something I listen to regularly as it is a great collection of retro songs that still sound amazing and the score is just put together so well.
Artwork / Animation - Again, a lot of push and pull. I feel like a lot of the animations are slow and repeated too often but has a good amount of weight and impact to it. The general artwork is incredible and the art style while not incredible will probably age well.
General Tone - Fallout’s setting and atmosphere are among my favorites in the entire medium, if not my favorite. it’s almost not fair how solid of a foundation it has and Bethesda just nails it with the level design and ambience.
Believability in Performances - The voice acting itself is great but this is one of those things where I just don’t think it benefited the game because of the way it was presented. It was really bizarre and out of place for what the game was going for despite the actual performances themselves being quality.
