I want to preface by saying, there's not much I can praise about this game but here's a few things that I like greatly...
- We are allowed to customise our characters with minor sculpting capabilities which is an improvement from the sliders we was given in previous titles but lacks the RBG for the colour of your hair, you're given certain presets instead for that which in my opinion reduces the options that's available to you. Additionally you can add minor features too, like scars, body mass etc.
- Gunplay feels more impactful & overall polished in terms of animations.
- Power armour feels great in this since its reflective of fallout 2 on how its handled in that game - being a tank. Hell charging into characters is funny as well.

There's too many negatives for me to list so I'll pick out key factors...
1) I'll start with the SPECIAL/Skill stats, e.g if you have high/low charisma the salesman says nothing, in Fallout New Vegas Doc Mitchell actually comments on your stats. Which adds to the feel you picked a choice which ultimately affects conversations with characters in New Vegas if you had low intelligence, Arcade will take pity on the player, to doc Usanagi giving discounts to the player etc the special stats can also affect conversations but you have to be careful when your building a character since you cant pick everything which results in a richer experience for your current play-through. Fallout 4s stats and "skills" doesn't matter overall since you can pick everything and does "nothing" throughout this is pretty much not building a character to fit the character you want to play as.

2) Main quests & side quests ultimately mean nothing, its all a straight line so to speak.
- Fallout 4s main story you can "pick" which faction you want to side with but still they all function the same all the way to the end point resulting in 1 cut-scene that's same for each faction so you cant reflect what you've done right or wrong. So whats the point? Same goes for side quests they mean nothing too since they're either radiant quests or a 5 minute quest which holds no value/content which results in less gameplay.
- Fallout New Vegas on the other hand is like a tree branch with multiple paths to do things, you can pick 1 out of the 4 factions to take hoover dam but they all do things differently and with certain points being met can alter it further. Starting side quests in New Vegas had so much depth to them too which resulted in them having their own endings as well. reflecting what you've done and how its affected the world.

3) Companions are dull.
- Fallout 4s companions its nice to see they have a bit more of a personality its a step in the right direction that's for sure, like Cait's troubled past I wouldn't say it was the best writing/execution but it was "alright" to some extent even though that's pushing it. The quests on the other hand related to our companions was "go here, do that" and to obtain said quest, is through no meaningful actions or any interesting dialogue to the point you don't want to listen instead you have to lockpick, take drugs etc to gain their approval which leads to the same outcome of them becoming "better" with one choice being the same regardless of ending.
- Fallout New Vegas companions as an example they all had more points of interest the character Boone in this example you would get unmarked "companion points" by killing a certain faction characters or certain events and each stage you learn more about him and he thinks one of his issues come from his past at Bitter springs, depending on the outcome you can tell him to toughen up or tell him to learn with his regret each granting him an outfit. This also feeds into the chosen ending you want too resulting him to have like 8 endings, yes 8 ENDINGS. Other New Vegas companions gain extra stuff for doing their quests. Unlike fallout 4s companions.

4) Weapons.
- They're all procedurally generated. So you might get a scope on a gun or just an explosive round generally, which to me there's no "uniqueness" to them since every weapon you get as that feature of it.
- New Vegas as static unique weapons and to me that's unique since you can go to a location and find only one copy of it. e.g PewPew.


There's so much more to list like dialogue, settlement building, lore and countless other things that make this game so shallow or just plain wrong and unfun. There's no proper gameplay to be had so to speak. So here's my ending line...
There's no proper player choice or freedom in this game. Lets call it for what it is, a shooter with an open world.

Bethesda really hates fallout that's already established from past games before they got the IP. Look at this game & TV show they're retconning / rewriting fallout. Even the big heads like Pete Hines even said he doesn't care for the lore over the years to the point of it being mean spirited. So my question is this to current bethesda fallout fans, why should you invest/care in Bethesdas fallout anymore, knowing they can at any moment change something they don't like?

In my opinion the Fallouts you should ever play (that's canon to proper fallout fans) is Fallout 1, 2 & New Vegas and end there. Since I highly doubt we'll ever get a fallout game that's worthy of gameplay, writing etc from bethesda since I don't expect quality from them. Also bethesdas fallout doesn't have nuanced humour like the original games does.

[h1] Mediocre - 4/10 [/h1] [h2] The Good [/h2] I want to preface by saying, there's not much I can praise about this game but here's a few things that I like greatly... - We are allowed to customise our characters with minor sculpting capabilities which is an improvement from the sliders we was given in previous titles but lacks the RBG for the colour of your hair, you're given certain presets instead for that which in my opinion reduces the options that's available to you. Additionally you can add minor features too, like scars, body mass etc. - Gunplay feels more impactful & overall polished in terms of animations. - Power armour feels great in this since its reflective of fallout 2 on how its handled in that game - being a tank. Hell charging into characters is funny as well. [h2] The Bad [/h2] There's too many negatives for me to list so I'll pick out key factors... [h3] Don't delude yourself & say this is an RPG. Its NOT. [/h3] 1) I'll start with the SPECIAL/Skill stats, e.g if you have high/low charisma the salesman says nothing, in Fallout New Vegas Doc Mitchell actually comments on your stats. Which adds to the feel you picked a choice which ultimately affects conversations with characters in New Vegas if you had low intelligence, Arcade will take pity on the player, to doc Usanagi giving discounts to the player etc the special stats can also affect conversations but you have to be careful when your building a character since you cant pick everything which results in a richer experience for your current play-through. Fallout 4s stats and "skills" doesn't matter overall since you can pick everything and does "nothing" throughout this is pretty much not building a character to fit the character you want to play as. 2) Main quests & side quests ultimately mean nothing, its all a straight line so to speak. - Fallout 4s main story you can "pick" which faction you want to side with but still they all function the same all the way to the end point resulting in 1 cut-scene that's same for each faction so you cant reflect what you've done right or wrong. So whats the point? Same goes for side quests they mean nothing too since they're either radiant quests or a 5 minute quest which holds no value/content which results in less gameplay. - Fallout New Vegas on the other hand is like a tree branch with multiple paths to do things, you can pick 1 out of the 4 factions to take hoover dam but they all do things differently and with certain points being met can alter it further. Starting side quests in New Vegas had so much depth to them too which resulted in them having their own endings as well. reflecting what you've done and how its affected the world. 3) Companions are dull. - Fallout 4s companions its nice to see they have a bit more of a personality its a step in the right direction that's for sure, like Cait's troubled past I wouldn't say it was the best writing/execution but it was "alright" to some extent even though that's pushing it. The quests on the other hand related to our companions was "go here, do that" and to obtain said quest, is through no meaningful actions or any interesting dialogue to the point you don't want to listen instead you have to lockpick, take drugs etc to gain their approval which leads to the same outcome of them becoming "better" with one choice being the same regardless of ending. - Fallout New Vegas companions as an example they all had more points of interest the character Boone in this example you would get unmarked "companion points" by killing a certain faction characters or certain events and each stage you learn more about him and he thinks one of his issues come from his past at Bitter springs, depending on the outcome you can tell him to toughen up or tell him to learn with his regret each granting him an outfit. This also feeds into the chosen ending you want too resulting him to have like 8 endings, yes 8 ENDINGS. Other New Vegas companions gain extra stuff for doing their quests. Unlike fallout 4s companions. 4) Weapons. - They're all procedurally generated. So you might get a scope on a gun or just an explosive round generally, which to me there's no "uniqueness" to them since every weapon you get as that feature of it. - New Vegas as static unique weapons and to me that's unique since you can go to a location and find only one copy of it. e.g PewPew. [h1] Conclusion [/h1] There's so much more to list like dialogue, settlement building, lore and countless other things that make this game so shallow or just plain wrong and unfun. There's no proper gameplay to be had so to speak. So here's my ending line... There's no proper player choice or freedom in this game. Lets call it for what it is, a shooter with an open world. [h1] EDIT [/h1] Bethesda really hates fallout that's already established from past games before they got the IP. Look at this game & TV show they're retconning / rewriting fallout. Even the big heads like Pete Hines even said he doesn't care for the lore over the years to the point of it being mean spirited. So my question is this to current bethesda fallout fans, why should you invest/care in Bethesdas fallout anymore, knowing they can at any moment change something they don't like? In my opinion the Fallouts you should ever play (that's canon to proper fallout fans) is Fallout 1, 2 & New Vegas and end there. Since I highly doubt we'll ever get a fallout game that's worthy of gameplay, writing etc from bethesda since I don't expect quality from them. Also bethesdas fallout doesn't have nuanced humour like the original games does.