It’s here, it’s here, it’s finally here! The epic game of the month is here with a bang, boom and everything most people dreamed of.
It’s easy for me to say that I am a huge fan of the Fallout series. Ever since a few of my friends asked me why I hadn’t already plunged myself deep into the story line of Fallout 3, it has been one of my most heavily played games in my collection. Well, it’s time to put down number 3 and its stellar follow up with Fallout: New Vegas and pop on the first offering from Bethesda studios on the next generation consoles. Here I am presenting to you, Fallout 4.
The apocalyptic hit returns with visually stunning aplomb.
Firstly, let me just explain a little about what Fallout really is. The concept of the game is that after the Second World War and the dropping of the two nuclear bombs, mankind embraces nuclear power as a cleaner more efficient source of energy rather than living in fear as we are today. The world and it’s technology advanced at a much more rapid way so things like robot butlers and nuclear powered cars are a normality rather than a luxury. But as with most things in life the good times soon came to an end, with the supply of material for the nuclear generators running thin, the world was plunged into war and subsequently that is where you pick up the game.
So, first things first – you set about creating your own character. The customization is insane. You can sculpt pretty much any part of your face that you like to the point where you can make your more attractive doppelganger. There is also the option of playing as a female lead character so this game does not have any gender bias on who would like to enjoy it. You wander around a quaint little house in the suburbs of Chicago in a town called Sanctuary with your loving partner and a new born son happily chirping away in his crib. Your robot butler Codsworth quickly interrupts your tranquil morning and shows you a news broadcast warning civilians that nuclear bombs have been detonated across the country (USA) so you grab a couple of things and then run to a nearby shelter.
Naturally you do survive this rather pulse racing start to a game but there are a few events that occur while you are placed in a cryo-sleep chamber and lead to you finally awakening after more than 200 years to a desolate nuclear wasteland.
I must confess I spent the first few hours really getting acclimatized to the new surroundings because as with any huge RPG (that’s role playing game) it’s a good idea to get your bearings and certainly learn the limits of your characters capabilities.
On that subject the way in which your character can evolve has been substantially improved as well. Rather than a traditional system where you pick a few perks to enhance your player there is an entire wall chart system with multiple layers of upgrades utilizing the S.P.E.C.I.A.L system from previous Fallouts. These attributes include strength, perception, endurance, charisma, intelligence, agility and luck (spells SPECIAL get it?), all of which can be upgraded to give you better skills that relate to each one; for example if you have a high level of luck there are chances of being so lucky that bullets will not necessarily hit you but ricochet off you and actually kill the person who shot at you, or perhaps you may have a high level of intelligence and it will allow you to break down items to find more rare parts for that perfect weapon upgrade.
The weapons themselves fall into a select few categories; these are projectile, energy, explosive or melee all of which have their own strengths and weaknesses in the tide of a battle. Each weapon you collect can also have different modifications built on it from various different work benches, so a quite rubbish revolver you picked up could actually be converted into a huge long barrelled night vision scoped sniper rifle with the correct tinkering. Similarly other work benches enable you to craft upgraded armour, food or chems to benefit you in battle.
“Enough talk” I hear some of you scream, “What does the game actually play like?” Well I went into this game with dreams of it being my perfect play through for the next 6 months trying to accomplish every mission and every single legendary weapon collected but I have a few concerns. First off the graphics. Now up close and personal with people they are extremely good, but for a next generation game I have to admit they could have put more thought into some of them and the edging and facial detail could still be improved further. The problem is when you are looking at far away places or objects through something like a scope. The detail almost disappears entirely and that is simply not on. When I scope on Call of Duty I can almost see the facial expression on the man I’m aiming at but in Fallout 4 the outlines are almost something like a good Playstation 2 or Xbox game or a rather poor Xbox 360 title. The sounds and atmospherics have thankfully saved it here and when playing through my Cambridge Audio amp via a pair of Schure SRH1540 headphones I couldn’t put it down for about 4 hours straight. A good surround sound system or an awesome set of gaming headphones would be a must straight off the bat so you can really get a sense of when something is creeping up behind you or hearing bullets and explosions erupting all around you.
But now I get picky on a few things in the game. I have the feeling that despite the years it has taken them to produce this game, it feels rushed. There are glitches in this game that made me begin to question what they were even doing at Bethesda Studios and considering that they have had issues with these in the past, why they haven’t taken in fan feedback and made it right. For example, the other day I was walking around with my canine companion Dogmeat and he literally walked through a wall and ran off for no reason… similarly, my robot butler Codsworth AND my own character found a machine/enormous scary heavily armed sentry robot and we walked through it several times and it was as though they hadn’t even coded it to be there… Sometimes the weather will switch without warning but there is no attention to after effects like the fact that even in a warm climate rain doesn’t evaporate the moment after a storm has finished… why not leave dew on leaves or try and be clever about it… I mean these consoles are designed to have incredible game engine capabilities and it really doesn’t feel like they have used it to the best of their advantage.
Perhaps I’m reading too much into it, I really do love this game and have no doubts that once I start getting further into the story there will be no end for me and I won’t be doing many other game reviews any time soon. A few tweaks and this could have been the perfect 10 but just hope if there are any other titles in the Fallout series to tickle the Xbox One or PS4, they take a little more time to get it just right…
Pros: Huge world to explore, great character and weapon development system, the dialogue is pretty funny when it works, building your own town and getting it just right is so satisfying.
Cons: too many glitches, graphics need to be next gen not last gen style, not designed for a quick pick up and play scenario.
Author: Andrew, Weybridge store
