Fallout 4 Game Review

Released: November 10th 2015

Developer: Bethesda Game Studios

Publisher: Bethesda Softworks

Certificate: 18

Formats: PlayStation 4, Xbox One and PC

Format played: PC

The Fallout franchise is one of the most venerable in the role-playing genre. After a five year wait and tons of anticipation, Fallout 4 was released, promising to be “Bethesda’s most ambitious game ever”. Contrary to this goal, it’s easily the weakest mainline game of the series, despite making some progress where the shooting is concerned.

Beginning in the year 2077, a soldier and his wife have come off a long war with China and hope to settle down with their infant son on the outskirts of Boston Massachusetts. However, a nuclear attack is imminent and the family hurries to Vault 111, an underground facility based in the study of cryogenic suspension. They enter the vault in the nick of time, unaware of the experiment they are about to be unwilling test subjects for. 200 years pass and the Sole Survivor reawakens to find their son gone and the world beyond the vault in ruins. From here he or she sets out to find their missing child while also coming across all manner of factions who wish to stake their claim on the technologically rich city of Boston. Fallout 4’s opening is incredibly flimsy with barely enough time spent with the protagonist’s family in the pre-war era to build a strong connection. You’re rushed to Vault 111 without any real build-up and things don’t really manage to pick up after that. The two biggest problems with the story are the voiced protagonist and an overall lack of personality and flair. Giving the main character a voice in a bid to catch up with current role playing titles was a very misguided choice; from the get-go, you’re stuck playing as either a rather generic soldier or lawyer character (Depending on the gender you choose) with little to no variation outside of appearance. Aside from a few select examples such as the savvy journalist Piper, the world they inhabit feels monotonous as well with factions that feel more like archetypes rather than intriguing additions to the Fallout lore; the most glaring of these are the Minutemen, a boring “good-guy” group who favour laser muskets and 17^th Century hats. The writing is very uninspired as well, severely lacking in a wit that would make you care for the characters and the world they inhabit. Throughout much of the main story, you won’t feel very invested in anything that happens, outside of a few select moments regarding the future technology the games are known for. Add to this a drastically reduced amount of player choices and you have the least memorable story in the entire franchise.

If you’ve ever played a modern RPG then Fallout 4 will be an easy game to get into. Exploration is still Bethesda’s major strength; it’s enjoyable to just wander around, coming across the newly added legendary enemies and weapons while completing the occasional side-quest. But where Fallout 4 takes a step backwards is in player investment, something made possible by the role-playing mechanics of previous titles. In fact, many of the systems that have become synonymous with Fallout are no longer present; the karma system, repairing weapons, skills and traits are all gone for Fallout 4 to deliver a more streamlined experience. The problem with removing these facets is that the role-playing aspects of this latest entry feel incredibly neutered; across any playthrough, your ability to use any type of weaponry, craft, pick locks and hack terminals are all fairly universal from the offset, instead requiring iterative perks to upgrade abilities. Of all the mechanics, it’s the iconic power armour that has undergone the biggest change, though this is for the better. Power armour is no longer an equipable item, but a vehicle that needs to be powered by fusion cores and constantly repaired with junk over the course of the game. When you’re using any of the customisable suits, it feels tremendously weighty and powerful while also providing buffs to carry weight, removing fall damage completely and reducing weapon recoil. It’s a far more balanced, well rounded system that fits seamlessly into the upgraded combat. This goes hand-in-hand with an extensive customisation system that applies to weapons, armour and the new settlement feature. Crafting modifications for equipment is a very welcome addition that adds purpose to all the bits of junk lying around the game world. The settlement feature doesn’t fare as well; clearly designed to cater to Minecraft players, at first building and managing settlements can be a worthy distraction, but it never mixes things up over the course of the game. You’re always doing the same thing; deconstructing wreckages into junk, attracting citizens and then defending them with turrets and other defences. Combine this with the soulless NPCs and there’s not a lot of motivation to keep at it. Fallout 4 ultimately feels like a collection of systems repackaged from Bethesda’s previous outing: Skyrim with a few extra bits added on top. Some of these do add to the game but most end up being regressive and detrimental to the game’s overall appeal.

Setting out to improve the core gameplay, the fourth main entry in the Fallout series achieves some success. The gunplay feels solid across the board; powerful weapons, a real sense of weight and impact and the newly added melee bash all contribute to shooting on par with most modern releases. Radiation levels now bleed the player's health bar rather than issuing negative status effects. Combat continues to be performed with a combination of real time shooting and VATS which slows down time to target specific body parts; landing crits is now dependent on building up a meter, making for better balance between the two options. Enemy AI has been updated too with raider gangs taking cover and retreating when on low health. It’s only when enemies start swarming at close range that things become woolly to control. On the other hand, partner AI could be much better; they constantly set off traps and occasionally interrupt combat with speech options. It was clearly a priority to significantly reduce the number of menus and pop-ups and Fallout 4 does succeed in some ways here. There’s a lot less stopping and starting during the action outside of the Pip-Boy menu as sorting items in containers is done organically in the game world. Not all changes here are for the best though; the dialogue system, in a bid to get alongside the likes of Mass Effect has been severely butchered, making it the worst aspect of the game. First, there are only four options to choose from, limiting your bearing in conversations; second, the options are vague, meaning you’ll often be confused as to what your character will say and finally, the conversations have a nasty habit of cutting out at random if you accidentally move, forcing you to reposition. All being told, the strong gunplay isn’t enough to keep the player fully engaged here. While some of the side-quests take you to varied locations, many are endlessly repeated quests from factions that have no bearing on the overall story whether it’s defending settlements or scouring locations for technical documents. With the reputation system from Fallout: New Vegas also absent, the complex interplay between factions and whom the player decides to assist has also been lost. A common gameplay formula I experienced in Fallout 4 usually involved finding a new location, looting it dry, selling off the junk and using it to repair gear, fast travelling back to a settlement to store it all before repeating the process again. Put simply, the game ends up removing much of the enjoyment I had with the series, a very unfortunate thing indeed.

Right from the off-set, Fallout 4 is a title that runs on the aging Creation Engine, sitting below other technical powerhouses and aiming to make its gameplay give the stronger impression. For a post-apocalyptic wasteland, the Boston Commonwealth is a lot brighter than previous entries, which may diminish the grim atmosphere for some. Character models look especially stiff with awkward facial expressions that create a further distance from any story engagement. While the graphics don’t really impress, the attention to detail, physics and animations have been upped; weather effects swap seamlessly between day and night. Leap down on top of enemies in power armour and the shockwave will stun them for a moment. Enemies such as mole rats and feral ghouls will crawl out of the ground and under obstacles and when travelling through the Commonwealth, you’ll also witness Vertibirds flying around and engaging other factions in battle, a sizeable step up from Fallout 3 and New Vegas. The music hums with an ambient, almost hopeful tone before giving way to tense combat pieces that provide a somewhat urgent backdrop that the game’s story can’t match. Bethesda’s latest title is no stranger to some bugs here and there, most notably floating bodies and items but none of these damage the game’s performance in any major way. With all its stumbles in design and gameplay, Fallout 4 manages to move past its simplistic textures and backgrounds, delivering a suitably efficient aesthetical upgrade in the process.

Fallout 4 makes a few steps forwards with presentation and gameplay mechanics, but it also makes very costly mistakes by stripping itself of much that made the series what it was. I really wanted to love the game but instead it feels rather pedestrian when compared to other modern RPGs, focusing on superficial distinctions that add little to its open world structure. It’s a shooter first and role-playing game second; to series newcomers this won’t be a problem, but for anyone who has played the franchise for a while, especially the old isometric titles, Fallout 4 will be very disappointing.

Rating 6.5/10 (Fair)