Fallout 4

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Created on Wednesday, 18 November 2015 19:30

Written by KTP

Fallout 4:  The story of a man trapped in a busted game engine with the world’s most retarded dog.

Imagine that you have the most adorably awesome puppy. This puppy is great and you know that it’s going to be a great dog. The puppy is a little older now. It’s doing the same adorable things but you can tell it’s growing up and getting smarter. Good boy. After some time, your puppy is now a grown dog. It’s still a smart animal, but no longer adorable. This dog is a good looking son of a bitch that is not only your best friend, but is a tough motherfucker too. This dog can now get your back and can now watch the house for you. Some years go by and your dog learns some new tricks. Some of the new tricks aren’t that great. Some are pretty awesome. Your dog is starting to show its age. All things considered, you still have a great dog. Some years go by and your best bud gets hit by a truck. Your dog can still do all the things it used to but everything seems…off. You dog can run twice as fast but tends to lick its asshole twice as long. For every time it plays dead for your friends, it takes a meaty shit in your shoes. You still love this dog. Hello Fallout 4.

VATS is back. Annnnnddddd so are molerats. Yay.

After years of bated breath, Fallout 4 is here. It tells the story of a new vault dweller emerging from his bunker in the aftermath of nuclear war in the Boston area. During suspended animation, his son is kidnapped and wife murdered. He emerges, released from his cryogenic sleep on the hunt for his son amongst the weird and dangerous wasteland. With this iteration of the series we see a much-needed update in graphics and animation, an overhauled inventory system, an improved version of the VATS system, and an almost welcomed introduction to voiced dialog. The problem is that every two steps forward, its trips, falls, and forgets to walk like a normal person.

You get to build your first settlement with this guy. Settlements are where you can take all the worthless shit in your pockets to make worthless buildings.

For the PC, it’s about a 25GB install that I assume is mostly audio. It’s nice. I wouldn’t necessarily say it’s a welcome addition, but it’s nice. Boston does look nice and extremely colorful compared to the brown and greys that we are used to. The game provides enough variation in the environment to keep you interested in exploration. There really is a ton of cool shit to find if you want to dig around places (hint: head North East). They also say they did do some overhauls on their traditional style of animation, and it is a bit better than their previous titles. There have, however, been some strong improvements with combat as entering VATS slows time instead of pausing. It’s a subtle change that somehow makes the fights more frantic even if you still have access to quick items. Power Armor is available within the first few hours of the game but doesn’t necessarily mean it’s as over-powered as you might think. It’s requires fusion cores which are scarce to find. Damage to parts of the armor may require replacements, which are also rare. I view the armor as my quick ticket to visit dangerous areas easier.

Stare into the abyss of stupid.

And here we come to the glorious problems, which Bethesda is known for. AI will forever be stupid and Dogmeat stands as a strong contender for the dumbest/glitchiest companion. He’s supposed to tie up enemies and find items, but ends up disappearing and getting in the way at the worst possible time. Bodies of enemies will have seizures on the ground from time to time. Sometimes the audio cut out and tried to play catch up in awkward ways. My game only crashed once in the middle of a firefight, which I am happy it was only once. I must stress that this review is based on the PC version of the game as it’s reported that console owners are having a much rougher time.

The Fatman is also back and is fucking awesome. Awesome until your AI companion picks it up and fires the mini-nuke into a fucking hallway.

It seems harsh to lash out on the faults of an otherwise good game, but it seems that these problems are inherently par for course for any Bethesda RPG fan. Every single Bethesda game has had a bucket full of technical issues and half assed implementation of features. We now accept it while we wait for some patch or unofficial mod to do the necessary tweaks because the gameplay is that much fun. It wasn’t until I reached the National Guard Armory in the game where I made my decision. Creeping slowly to the entrance, frag mines were littered everywhere. As soon as I tried to disarm my second, the world’s most retarded companion decides to reappear out of nowhere after three hours of playtime, sit and block the mine with its asshole, and stares at me like it wants a fucking treat. After I exploded, I pushed away from the computer. I know all of these problems will eventually get fixed, if not by Bethesda, then through some sort of community mod. A few years down the road, this might be a game worth playing after the bug storm clears. I just don’t have the patience for it anymore. Fuck you Bethesda. I’m fucking done.