Fallout 4 Review

Fallout 4 entices you with mystery, and once you taste adventure, you’ll want more. The dense wasteland is teeming with resources, people, and locations to discover, always leaving something unexpected in the wretched landscape. Bethesda has taken everything that made Fallout 3 and New Vegas such a captivating experience and improved on it in almost every aspect.

Yes, a few glitches do occasionally ruin the experience, but the post-nuclear apocalypse version of Boston is a wonder to explore. I've invested over 60 hours in Fallout 4, and I'm still discovering new things to explore.

From a nobody to a leader, you are the catalyst that will change the wasteland forever through a series of dangerous and sometimes weird missions. It’s hard to believe, given where your character starts, as a well-established citizen living in 1950s Boston, after a peaceful morning with your spouse and child, disaster strikes.

An emergency broadcast alerts you of growing hostilities, and then you see it, a giant explosion off in the distance. Leaving behind your life and your robot butler, you rush into a nearby Vault 111 that Vault-Tec luckily granted you a reserved spot inside only moments ago. After being in cryogenic stasis for over 200 years, you wake up devastated and confused.

Your spouse has been murdered while trying to protect your son from kidnappers in front of your eyes. The world you knew is gone, and now it’s time to build a new life in the year 2277, where what is left of Boston has become known as The Commonwealth.

For the first time, Fallout 4 features a fully voiced, male or female protagonist. After a deep facial customization system, I immediately began to connect with my character. They weren’t another mute block of clay that I forged over the course of the game; he/she was alive and spoke with incredible vigor every decision I made. 

You won’t be mindlessly running around the new world, though; your objective is clear: find your son. This tragic event marks the beginning of your journey, ultimately leading to a myriad of new friends, enemies, loyalties, and treacheries. The environment is beautifully decorated, setting the stage for a world that has been destroyed and is attempting to recover from its devastation.

Radiation storms can occur at any time, toxic pools dot the landscape, and enemies emerge from nowhere. Bethesda has already established a reputation for building worlds that feel alive, and Fallout 4 is no exception to this.

The world of Boston is filled with things that want you dead, everything from mutated horrors to humans. Fallout 4 regularly challenges you with morally dubious choices while fending off these hostiles. Players can be given up to four options to choose from during each conversation.

Nuclear war has made a lot of people desperate, focusing on survival above all, while some cling to a tattered code of morality. The Institute seems to have an idealized view that the world can be controlled.

Operating from the shadows, The Institute serves as the primary antagonist of Fallout 4. This disturbed version of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology serves as the source of Fallout 4’s bioengineered androids, called Synths. The first models served basic needs, but over time, the Institute has developed elegant new versions that could easily pass for humans.

The populists are scared, believing that anyone could be a Synth, has caused people to question everyone from strangers on the street to their own family and friends. Fallout 4 challenges your views of what it means to be human by providing morally ambiguous choices that redefine humanity.

Boston is filled with small groups, each attempting to survive the destruction of the powerful, overarching groups. It seems easy enough: choose to help those who want to do good. However, that same person won’t bring you any closer to finding your son; instead, it’s the latter option.

Throughout Boston, there are many secondary quests, most of which lead to raids in desolate buildings or the retrieval of specific items. It’s these smaller stories that give Fallout 4 its charm, encouraging you to look into areas you would normally ignore. Sometimes they’ll offer a new NPC to speak, offering a job, or it could be a dangerous trap.

These challenges often require you to fight, and combat has greatly improved from previous iterations. V.A.T.S. makes a return, and with it, players can target specific body parts and get a percentage meter of how likely they’re to hit their mark and the damage. Unlike Fallout 3 or New Vegas, V.A.T.S. no longer stops combat; instead, everything moves at a slower pace.

In addition, your AP meter, which determines how much you can fire a specific weapon in V.A.T.S., is now tied to sprinting. Sacrificing too much power to fighting a losing battle can put you at great risk when fleeing is the only option.

Fallout 4 has a broad array of enemy types. Raiders, super mutants, and many more creatures populate the Commonwealth; each with legendary variations that drop promising gear if defeated. Some variations of enemies will also behave differently, for example, the Ghoul variant called the Glowing One can revive fallen Ghouls.

Of course, V.A.T.S. isn’t a requirement, as Bethesda has improved real-time combat greatly. Fallout 4 plays more like a quality FPS, allowing for precision aiming by holding down the sights, executing melee attacks with a gun in hand, sprinting, and swapping weapons on the fly. At times, I forgot about V.A.T.S. and played without needing to rely on assisted targeting.

Enemies aren’t the only obstacles you’ll face. Radiation saturates the Commonwealth, lowering your maximum health the more you’re exposed to it. Traps in the way of turrets, mines, and tripwires can spell doom for those attempting to bolt through dangerous areas.

Playing smart, such as sneaking around, can not only yield bonus damage against hostile targets but also opportunities to turn enemy defenses against their owners. Gaining experience and leveling up is still a major incentive in Fallout 4.

Each time you gain a level, you can invest a point into one of seven attributes: Strength, Perception, Endurance, Charisma, Intelligence, and Luck. Each one has a set of sub-skills that can only be reached if one of the primary attributes has enough points invested in it.

Each one has been brilliantly animated with the iconic Vault Boy’s design. Small touches, like having the Vault Suit wearing graphics appear after waking up, are delightful additions from developers who care about their work.

You’ll also be able to further enhance your abilities by acquiring new gear. Weapons and armor are littered throughout Boston, and looking for new loot is a constant pursuit. It not only grants increased resistance to certain hazards but also puts you in a position to gather much-needed resources.

Gadgets, housewares, and other previously inconvenient items can now be disassembled into their primary components and repurposed for building or modifying your equipment. Workbenches, cooking stations, and chemistry labs are scattered throughout Boston, providing access to custom-made items that can only be obtained through crafting. Thankfully, you won’t need to repair weapons anymore.

The new armor system lets you equip six pieces of armor. A helmet, chest plate, and each individual arm and leg can be suited with a specific item. If you want something more deadly, Power Armor is available for use.

Requiring a Fusion Core to use these walking tanks grants the user increased defense, mobility, and a badass appearance. The issue is that these run on a finite amount of energy and cannot be customized as deeply as other pieces of armor. 

Health items and ammunition are still key to your survival, not to mention bottle caps. Bethesda has done a wonderful job of crafting a real-time looting system where menus are a thing of the past. Just walk over an item, and you can loot whatever item from the target without having to go into another menu. After experiencing this system, it’ll be impossible to use older methods without becoming incredibly vexed.

If you want the rare commodities, you’ll have to access hidden or locked rooms. These activities usually involve puzzles in the form of terminals and locked doors. At first, you’re encouraged to plow through these small distractions with the promise of interesting items. However, most of the time, these small tasks become more taxing than rewarding, with locked doors and chests becoming more frequent but less alluring. 

Scrapping material has become a new norm in Fallout 4. Whereas other games had you hoarding items for selling, this time you can deconstruct items into their basic parts for building material. You can build homes, cultivate gardens, fortify defenses, and establish thriving communities.

These are limited to certain confined sections, but seeing your community grow is very rewarding. The major issues stem from the inability to share resources among the settlements. Attempting to regulate each community’s resource intake and protection becomes draining; ultimately, I ended up investing in one settlement, leaving the others to perish.

The Pip-Boy still serves as your one-stop interface for everything from switching weapons to viewing your map. The developers have included many interesting additions to this handy device, such as the ability to play video games on it and sort items based on a selected option.

The menu interface remains the same as past installments. You navigate a series of menus to access aid, weapons, armor, and other inventory you’re carrying. Fast-traveling is made possible through the map interface, although it’s nowhere as intuitive as Skyrim’s interface.

The biggest issue with the map stems from the navigation bar, which, for some strange reason, only highlights the distance from your target when you’re 100 meters from it.

As you continue your journey, you’ll encounter many faces along the way, and some will join you. Unlike Fallout: New Vegas, companions play a larger role in Fallout 4, passing judgment on your decisions, offering insight into certain quests, and even becoming romance options.

Issuing commands involves you moving the cursor over the companion and choosing an option. During combat, these prove troublesome. Each companion offers different services and talents; some excel in combat, while others aid in finding hidden items. I never felt that I had to take one ally over another; it was always my choice who I favored.

With a game this large and complicated, you’re bound to run into a few issues. On several occasions, my game would refuse to register commands or fail to bring up my Pip-Boy interface. The worst issues came from frame rate slowdowns and complete hitches that would last for up to 10 seconds. Despite these constant recurring issues, I still found myself having difficulty putting down the controller. There was always some location I hadn’t explored yet, and I had to see what was inside.

It’s impossible to deny, Fallout 4 is extraordinary. The world, crafting, exploration, and story all come together into one hugely wonderful sandbox role-playing game. It obsessively encourages you to explore every area and horde items while looking for your next mission. Technical issues still plague the overall experience, but once the momentum starts, it’s hard to stop playing.