Fallout 4: Where Victory Turns to Ash In Your Mouth
Hello everyone! Been a while! Long time, no write? All that jazz. Sorry about that. To be honest, the holidays didn't leave me with a great deal of time to write about anything, hence my absence from this blog. So in order to make up for the time missed, I figured I'd swing in with a heavy hitter, and what better way to start out the new year with a new favorite, Fallout 4?
Now before I get started, let me begin by saying that I'm relatively new to the Fallout franchise. I gave Fallout 3 a few hours, at best, of gameplay because I was getting tired of being shot dead every ten minutes by raiders, or eviscerated by mutated fire ants. I soon walked away from the game, and simply never managed to return to it. I'm not proud of that fact, but it happened. That being said, Fallout 4 looked like a fresh start to the franchise, and I'll admit I gushed with adoration when I saw Dogmeat (didn't know there were dog companions in this game - that simple bit of info probably would have pushed me forward in 3 had I known, but I digress) so I knew I had to get this game, if for no other reason, my excruciating partiality to German Shepherds.
With that being said, let's begin.
We all love the 50s. A complete lack of civil rights, bubble chassis on cars, literal tubes for TVs, and of course, good old fashioned gangster spats and the ever encroaching threat to nuclear war. What wasn't to love? Once more, what wasn't to love that every aspect of that culture was propelled to exist into the year 2077?
I understand that this is the first time we've see the pre-war era of Fallout, and I was charmed by it, I'll admit. There's just something about the "good ol' days" even though they weren't really that good, nor that old. Dated music, dated dress, and dated decor just set the mood (not to mention a super hot husband and a robot butler! Hello 2077, I don't know what the Cold War era did to you but so far I'm liking what I see!) and, I presume much like my character, I didn't really want that fantasy to end.
Cue the Vault-Tech rep who cheerily reminds me of my impending demise. Was I the only one tempted to tell him to go fuck himself in the interest of seeing if I ended up screwing myself over by way of not confirming entry to the local vault? I should try that with a new play through to see if its possible. Regardless, I guess as the little wife I was allowed to make this decision without discussing it with my husband, as he seemed pleased with my decision to sign up once the rep went away. There's a few more minutes of peace and quiet before BAM! Your world's torn asunder (literally). Get your ass to the vault! Sorry Bot-Butler, humans only! Haul ass to Vault 111 just in time to see your world obliterated in a cloud of dust against the noon-day sun.
Oh, and also, don't forget to grab the baby. (Good thing my spouse did because I'd have left the little shit.)
Grab your vault suit and lets head over to decontamination! Only it's not decontamination, you're about to get cryo-frozen, because Vault-Tech apparently is run by assholes and not people working in the interest of preserving mankind. Was it just me, or did this seem like an oddly accurate assumption on how something like this might actually go down were we ever in need of real nuclear fallout vaults? Like, I could honestly see this happening. Preserve mankind, but in an utterly screwed up sort of way that suspends all ethics, because let's face it, in a nuclear holocaust what authority is there really going to be to answer to? And it's not like you can escape, the outside world in its entirety looks like the Glowing Sea right now.
So yeah, you're frozen, and wake up to see in horror as your baby is ripped from the arms of your dead spouse (shot by someone who will no doubt come into play later as a villain). You fall asleep again, however, and wake up later at an unspecified time. Upon recovery from cryo, you vow to avenge your spouse and find your child.
Now, the game begins.
Goodness, what a long intro. A little unforgivably long without getting to experience a great deal right up front. I guess I'm supposed to, as the player, glean something from these snippets of normalcy before being rocketed into the world of Fallout, but I felt as though we waited an unforgivably long time to get to what we already were expecting to see. Was there supposed to be a shock value attached to this excursion? If so, I wasn't feeling it. Bethesda failed me as a player here by trying to set me up with a life that didn't really mean much, and thrusting me out into the world as it now is, didn't have the experience I think the developers wanted me to have. We have a plot setup: find your kid and avenge your spouse, and that's it. But here's the thing, I was never one to buy into the whole "find your lost child" trope. I have, as Felicia Day's character "Codex" worded so eloquently in The Guild to a co-gamer, "the mothering instincts of a wood chipper". Finding a kid with no survival instincts in the world of Fallout? Might as well throw in the towel. That kid is Deathclaw chow, and the watered down Lucille Ball that I am is likely not too far behind.
So now let's get to the meat of the game. I'll bring up some plot points I felt to be flawed throughout this post, and believe me, story was probably one of the most disappointing aspects of this game.
This game was a little unforgiving to people who were new to the series.
Combat was fine, but I really wasn't sure what to do as far as generic actions went. What was with the power suit? I'm thrown one about an hour into the game, but I don't know that it's worthy anything as a first time player. I actually left that suit right where it died for about half the game before I realized that was even a thing. Granted, this was partly due to my lack of batteries, but I also wasn't convinced on its "power". The thing barely held up against a band of raiders, was it really going to work against a Deathclaw? That being said, the Deathclaw glitched on me and I never needed the thing when I was finally up against him save for a handful of bullets from whatever dinky gun I had on me at the time.
When it came to upgrades, I had no idea what I needed, and the beginning few hours of the game are ruthless. Scavenging is a risk that's almost not worth taking, but is also a main mechanic within the game, you later realize. You literally need almost every piece of junk you come across in Fallout 4, and that's saying something, because there's junk everywhere. I pray to god that I never run out of resources that provide me with copper, because trying to light just a single settlement eats that shit up like you wouldn't believe!
And on that note, settlement design:
Holy hell, this was like putting nails underneath fingernails. Was this not the least conducive, most poorly explained aspect of a game you've seen in years? Literally, years. This was the part of Fallout 4 that had to have been designed for the PC, because for the Playstation 4 this did not work at all. The camera would bug out at random. Item selection both from the menu and in the world itself constantly overwrote each other, leaving me accidentally having deleted a multitude of pre-fabs and other necessities, loosing all of the supplies used to put contraptions together in the process, and let's not even begin the complete lack of understanding on how things like electricity and water worked. This. Was. Infuriating. I don't know what happened to Bethesda here, but the console version of this aspect of the game needs some serious work. And don't even get me started on the crops. Assigning things to people who may or may not actually adhere to it because the whole thing glitched out?
I half expected to come back and see Preston having slit everyone's throat because he couldn't handle the pressure of walking around and looking somber all of the time. And grandma druggie was great, I guess. I nipped that habit in the bud quickly however because apparently everyone was upset when I became her drug peddler. The robot, ironically enough, also disapproved, which seemed strange because...well...he's a robot. Why does he have opinions on things?
Whatever.
I half predicted the end of the game, your main quest and the outcome therein. I won't throw spoilers here, but let's just say that was both deeply sad and somehow, deeply dissatisfying. I felt like my character deserved more, especially having sided with the institute, which I understand was not the common choice for many Fallout 4 players. I won't defend my choice, however. I picked the institute for two reasons: one, it felt like it was true to what my character would have done given who she was, where she came from, and what you end up learning about Shaun. Second, yes, they may have done some questionable stuff and had some pretty awful goals, but as their leader you would have the ability to actually change that, and the Institute is a far better long term investment than the Brotherhood of Steel who simply horded technology and wasted anyone who was 'biologically inferior' which unnerved me to some degree. They were also a little too religious oriented for me, almost like an aggro-tech junkie version of the Inquisition, or Crusaders. No thanks! I used them long enough to get the better power suit (I did eventually learn!) and then ditched that gravy train.
But this was another big issue I had with Fallout 4. There are four main factions: The Institute, The Brotherhood of Steel, the Railroad, and the Minutemen. Everyone by default ends up with the Minutemen, much like almost everyone became a Companion in Skyrim. Okay, not a big deal. Here's a quick option for some quests that will level you up fast. Great! I won't complain. But I couldn't have hated a character more than Preston Garvey, nor sympathized with a group less than the poor sods he ends up dragging along with him to Sanctuary. These people are ungrateful, and would mouth off to me at every turn whenever I was there. I didn't care about these people. I didn't want to help them, but the game made me, and it was never really made worth my while.
A quick note: settlements could have been done much better than they were, and not just the building/creating side of things. I would have rather changed upon people needing a rescue and a safe place to stay instead of the steady stream of strangers coming into the place. There also seemed to be too many settlements. Like seriously, is the Commonwealth only KIND of doing poorly in the way that Mitt Romney KIND of knows what it's like to be poor? With all the settlements that were popping up and needing my help we could have dominated one whole corner of the map instead! That would show those pesky raiders, super mutants, etc. But there's never an option to merge settlements. Sure you can move people, but others will pop up to take the place of the first group. Overall, this was a pretty stupid mechanic. Could have definitely used some cleaning up.
The Minutemen offer me little else though by way of gameplay, and I was a little worried until I ran into the Brotherhood of Steel. These guys were a little too intense for me, but I needed some XP, and their quests really helped me knock a few of my lower teen levels out. I ran with them for a while even though I'd already decided against them, and the more I learned about and talked to these people I realized that they were the Fallout world's equivalent to racists and xenophobes. They talked about Super Mutants and Ghouls as though they were nothing more than vermin waiting to be exterminated, and at the end of the day they started to remind me a bit too much like the begging days of the Third Reich. Nope, not for me.
The Railroad was next, and these people were whack jobs. I'm not all against synths being a thing, but I'm not dying for one. I'm sorry, but I'm a real flesh and blood human being that can procreate, has memories, and learns in a way that I might imagine a synth just can't do. I'm supposed to risk my life helping what's supposed to be a modern day equivalent to slaves? No, I'm sorry. The situation is not the same, and I'm surprised more people weren't offended by the comparison Fallout 4 made. Trying to be liberal, but failing to understand in the end, the Railroad concept and missions received no more attention to me than I could afford to give it, and I wasn't terribly sad when I was required to put a bullet in everyone's skull to ensure my membership with the Institute.
I will say that I feel the same way about the Brotherhood.
Now. The Institute.
This annoyed me. Like, more than I can put into words.
I tried digging as desperately as anyone could to discover that the Institute really wasn't as evil as everyone claimed them to be. I got into all of their computer terminals, talked to all of their employees, all of their synths, went through all their paperwork, even cornered and interrogated children! And never once did I find anything that gave them any forgivable depth. I got nothing. Talk about all work and no play, I received little to no reward going above and beyond in anything in Fallout 4, and this was the final straw that broke the camels back. The Institute, being on the surface everything it was claimed that they were, and worse - there being nothing beyond that surface - I decided that Fallout 4 was honestly a crappy game, and Bethesda had simply crapped this out because they know the franchise will sell even if people are disappointed with the product. I deserved more for siding with the Institute, for making what was the right choice for a mother desperate to see her son live on, even if only in his legacy, and I got nothing.
The most rewarding aspect of this game was Dogmeat through and through. I felt that at least in this desolate wasteland, he had a companion, and so did I. Screw Shauin, Paladin Dance, Piper, and the Commonwealth. A woman and her dog will do as they damned well please.
On that note, would it have been so hard to have a few more interactive options with Dogmeat? Why can I not play catch with my best buddy in the Commonwealth? What about feeding him treats every time he eviscerates a raider? And how about him performing a few more tricks to be extra-extra-extra adorable? Come on Bethesda, you're not even trying here! (I will say, thanks for not letting him be kill-able, because that would have broken my heart.)
Overall, everything was pretty streamlined, and game play held very little creativity or variation. Most missions ended with "go here and shoot this", and almost no RPG elements were involved in Fallout 4, which really took away from the experience. I'll have to revisit Fallout 3 and maybe earlier titles still to get a better idea of what this franchise used to be, as opposed to what it is now.
I have one most post that I'd like to add to my Fallout 4 series that I'll bring up later in the week. It's one thing I felt Bethesda was really wrong about, and was a wasted resource turned background decor, especially when the game made the effort of taking you there in the first place. I'm talking about the Memory Den. What a wonderful idea that could have been played with, even turned into some much needed mini-games.
My next post will essentially be a critique on what Bethesda really needed to do with this technology, both during and after the game.
For now I'll rest with saying that, while Fallout was fun, it was not a satisfying game, especially from a studio that gave me my beloved Skyrim. I hope they won't try something like this again, and get back to making games with some real meat, and not just a pretty outer surface.
Now before I get started, let me begin by saying that I'm relatively new to the Fallout franchise. I gave Fallout 3 a few hours, at best, of gameplay because I was getting tired of being shot dead every ten minutes by raiders, or eviscerated by mutated fire ants. I soon walked away from the game, and simply never managed to return to it. I'm not proud of that fact, but it happened. That being said, Fallout 4 looked like a fresh start to the franchise, and I'll admit I gushed with adoration when I saw Dogmeat (didn't know there were dog companions in this game - that simple bit of info probably would have pushed me forward in 3 had I known, but I digress) so I knew I had to get this game, if for no other reason, my excruciating partiality to German Shepherds.
With that being said, let's begin.
We all love the 50s. A complete lack of civil rights, bubble chassis on cars, literal tubes for TVs, and of course, good old fashioned gangster spats and the ever encroaching threat to nuclear war. What wasn't to love? Once more, what wasn't to love that every aspect of that culture was propelled to exist into the year 2077?
I understand that this is the first time we've see the pre-war era of Fallout, and I was charmed by it, I'll admit. There's just something about the "good ol' days" even though they weren't really that good, nor that old. Dated music, dated dress, and dated decor just set the mood (not to mention a super hot husband and a robot butler! Hello 2077, I don't know what the Cold War era did to you but so far I'm liking what I see!) and, I presume much like my character, I didn't really want that fantasy to end.
Cue the Vault-Tech rep who cheerily reminds me of my impending demise. Was I the only one tempted to tell him to go fuck himself in the interest of seeing if I ended up screwing myself over by way of not confirming entry to the local vault? I should try that with a new play through to see if its possible. Regardless, I guess as the little wife I was allowed to make this decision without discussing it with my husband, as he seemed pleased with my decision to sign up once the rep went away. There's a few more minutes of peace and quiet before BAM! Your world's torn asunder (literally). Get your ass to the vault! Sorry Bot-Butler, humans only! Haul ass to Vault 111 just in time to see your world obliterated in a cloud of dust against the noon-day sun.
Oh, and also, don't forget to grab the baby. (Good thing my spouse did because I'd have left the little shit.)
Grab your vault suit and lets head over to decontamination! Only it's not decontamination, you're about to get cryo-frozen, because Vault-Tech apparently is run by assholes and not people working in the interest of preserving mankind. Was it just me, or did this seem like an oddly accurate assumption on how something like this might actually go down were we ever in need of real nuclear fallout vaults? Like, I could honestly see this happening. Preserve mankind, but in an utterly screwed up sort of way that suspends all ethics, because let's face it, in a nuclear holocaust what authority is there really going to be to answer to? And it's not like you can escape, the outside world in its entirety looks like the Glowing Sea right now.
So yeah, you're frozen, and wake up to see in horror as your baby is ripped from the arms of your dead spouse (shot by someone who will no doubt come into play later as a villain). You fall asleep again, however, and wake up later at an unspecified time. Upon recovery from cryo, you vow to avenge your spouse and find your child.
Now, the game begins.
Goodness, what a long intro. A little unforgivably long without getting to experience a great deal right up front. I guess I'm supposed to, as the player, glean something from these snippets of normalcy before being rocketed into the world of Fallout, but I felt as though we waited an unforgivably long time to get to what we already were expecting to see. Was there supposed to be a shock value attached to this excursion? If so, I wasn't feeling it. Bethesda failed me as a player here by trying to set me up with a life that didn't really mean much, and thrusting me out into the world as it now is, didn't have the experience I think the developers wanted me to have. We have a plot setup: find your kid and avenge your spouse, and that's it. But here's the thing, I was never one to buy into the whole "find your lost child" trope. I have, as Felicia Day's character "Codex" worded so eloquently in The Guild to a co-gamer, "the mothering instincts of a wood chipper". Finding a kid with no survival instincts in the world of Fallout? Might as well throw in the towel. That kid is Deathclaw chow, and the watered down Lucille Ball that I am is likely not too far behind.
So now let's get to the meat of the game. I'll bring up some plot points I felt to be flawed throughout this post, and believe me, story was probably one of the most disappointing aspects of this game.
This game was a little unforgiving to people who were new to the series.
Combat was fine, but I really wasn't sure what to do as far as generic actions went. What was with the power suit? I'm thrown one about an hour into the game, but I don't know that it's worthy anything as a first time player. I actually left that suit right where it died for about half the game before I realized that was even a thing. Granted, this was partly due to my lack of batteries, but I also wasn't convinced on its "power". The thing barely held up against a band of raiders, was it really going to work against a Deathclaw? That being said, the Deathclaw glitched on me and I never needed the thing when I was finally up against him save for a handful of bullets from whatever dinky gun I had on me at the time.
When it came to upgrades, I had no idea what I needed, and the beginning few hours of the game are ruthless. Scavenging is a risk that's almost not worth taking, but is also a main mechanic within the game, you later realize. You literally need almost every piece of junk you come across in Fallout 4, and that's saying something, because there's junk everywhere. I pray to god that I never run out of resources that provide me with copper, because trying to light just a single settlement eats that shit up like you wouldn't believe!And on that note, settlement design:
Holy hell, this was like putting nails underneath fingernails. Was this not the least conducive, most poorly explained aspect of a game you've seen in years? Literally, years. This was the part of Fallout 4 that had to have been designed for the PC, because for the Playstation 4 this did not work at all. The camera would bug out at random. Item selection both from the menu and in the world itself constantly overwrote each other, leaving me accidentally having deleted a multitude of pre-fabs and other necessities, loosing all of the supplies used to put contraptions together in the process, and let's not even begin the complete lack of understanding on how things like electricity and water worked. This. Was. Infuriating. I don't know what happened to Bethesda here, but the console version of this aspect of the game needs some serious work. And don't even get me started on the crops. Assigning things to people who may or may not actually adhere to it because the whole thing glitched out?
I half expected to come back and see Preston having slit everyone's throat because he couldn't handle the pressure of walking around and looking somber all of the time. And grandma druggie was great, I guess. I nipped that habit in the bud quickly however because apparently everyone was upset when I became her drug peddler. The robot, ironically enough, also disapproved, which seemed strange because...well...he's a robot. Why does he have opinions on things?
Whatever.
I half predicted the end of the game, your main quest and the outcome therein. I won't throw spoilers here, but let's just say that was both deeply sad and somehow, deeply dissatisfying. I felt like my character deserved more, especially having sided with the institute, which I understand was not the common choice for many Fallout 4 players. I won't defend my choice, however. I picked the institute for two reasons: one, it felt like it was true to what my character would have done given who she was, where she came from, and what you end up learning about Shaun. Second, yes, they may have done some questionable stuff and had some pretty awful goals, but as their leader you would have the ability to actually change that, and the Institute is a far better long term investment than the Brotherhood of Steel who simply horded technology and wasted anyone who was 'biologically inferior' which unnerved me to some degree. They were also a little too religious oriented for me, almost like an aggro-tech junkie version of the Inquisition, or Crusaders. No thanks! I used them long enough to get the better power suit (I did eventually learn!) and then ditched that gravy train.
 |
| Paladin Douche Bag |
A quick note: settlements could have been done much better than they were, and not just the building/creating side of things. I would have rather changed upon people needing a rescue and a safe place to stay instead of the steady stream of strangers coming into the place. There also seemed to be too many settlements. Like seriously, is the Commonwealth only KIND of doing poorly in the way that Mitt Romney KIND of knows what it's like to be poor? With all the settlements that were popping up and needing my help we could have dominated one whole corner of the map instead! That would show those pesky raiders, super mutants, etc. But there's never an option to merge settlements. Sure you can move people, but others will pop up to take the place of the first group. Overall, this was a pretty stupid mechanic. Could have definitely used some cleaning up.
The Minutemen offer me little else though by way of gameplay, and I was a little worried until I ran into the Brotherhood of Steel. These guys were a little too intense for me, but I needed some XP, and their quests really helped me knock a few of my lower teen levels out. I ran with them for a while even though I'd already decided against them, and the more I learned about and talked to these people I realized that they were the Fallout world's equivalent to racists and xenophobes. They talked about Super Mutants and Ghouls as though they were nothing more than vermin waiting to be exterminated, and at the end of the day they started to remind me a bit too much like the begging days of the Third Reich. Nope, not for me.
The Railroad was next, and these people were whack jobs. I'm not all against synths being a thing, but I'm not dying for one. I'm sorry, but I'm a real flesh and blood human being that can procreate, has memories, and learns in a way that I might imagine a synth just can't do. I'm supposed to risk my life helping what's supposed to be a modern day equivalent to slaves? No, I'm sorry. The situation is not the same, and I'm surprised more people weren't offended by the comparison Fallout 4 made. Trying to be liberal, but failing to understand in the end, the Railroad concept and missions received no more attention to me than I could afford to give it, and I wasn't terribly sad when I was required to put a bullet in everyone's skull to ensure my membership with the Institute.
I will say that I feel the same way about the Brotherhood.
Now. The Institute.
This annoyed me. Like, more than I can put into words.
I tried digging as desperately as anyone could to discover that the Institute really wasn't as evil as everyone claimed them to be. I got into all of their computer terminals, talked to all of their employees, all of their synths, went through all their paperwork, even cornered and interrogated children! And never once did I find anything that gave them any forgivable depth. I got nothing. Talk about all work and no play, I received little to no reward going above and beyond in anything in Fallout 4, and this was the final straw that broke the camels back. The Institute, being on the surface everything it was claimed that they were, and worse - there being nothing beyond that surface - I decided that Fallout 4 was honestly a crappy game, and Bethesda had simply crapped this out because they know the franchise will sell even if people are disappointed with the product. I deserved more for siding with the Institute, for making what was the right choice for a mother desperate to see her son live on, even if only in his legacy, and I got nothing.
The most rewarding aspect of this game was Dogmeat through and through. I felt that at least in this desolate wasteland, he had a companion, and so did I. Screw Shauin, Paladin Dance, Piper, and the Commonwealth. A woman and her dog will do as they damned well please.
 |
| Ugh, you lovable little bastard. |
Overall, everything was pretty streamlined, and game play held very little creativity or variation. Most missions ended with "go here and shoot this", and almost no RPG elements were involved in Fallout 4, which really took away from the experience. I'll have to revisit Fallout 3 and maybe earlier titles still to get a better idea of what this franchise used to be, as opposed to what it is now.
I have one most post that I'd like to add to my Fallout 4 series that I'll bring up later in the week. It's one thing I felt Bethesda was really wrong about, and was a wasted resource turned background decor, especially when the game made the effort of taking you there in the first place. I'm talking about the Memory Den. What a wonderful idea that could have been played with, even turned into some much needed mini-games.
My next post will essentially be a critique on what Bethesda really needed to do with this technology, both during and after the game.
For now I'll rest with saying that, while Fallout was fun, it was not a satisfying game, especially from a studio that gave me my beloved Skyrim. I hope they won't try something like this again, and get back to making games with some real meat, and not just a pretty outer surface.
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