Seneste anmeldelser af SubReaper

What determines if a game is good or bad?
Is it the enjoyment you have while playing it? Or is it how the game is structured (interesting world, deep characters, excellent story etc.)

If you feel it's the former, like me, you may find yourself lost in many hours of exploration and fun while within fallout 4.
If the latter, then, well, this probably will not be the game for you.

Okay, so lets start with the bad:

The story is arguably the laziest main-line fallout story to date. You are given minimal time with your character's family, who you are immediately expected to care for, despite just meeting them 10 minutes prior to the campaign starting in the Vault. You are sent on a quest to meet all of the Commonwealth's major factions and reunite with your son. This is comprised of fetch quests and clear-out quests for a good 95% of the story until you are let out into the post-game to explore the open-world more and level your character up further. Or not, as you may be too drained from the god-awful slog that you just had to sit through.
Maybe that's a tad dramatic. You do meet (while it is only a few) interesting, likeable and flawed characters from the story, that, you know, should really be a given in an open-world RPG, but hey we get what we're given.
This alongside some cool areas like the Glowing Sea and Diamond City give the story some redeeming qualities, but not enough to call fallout 4 even remotely good in plot terms.

Next up is the graphics. The graphics are, put simply, quite horrendous. I hate consistently comparing games from 2015 to the Witcher 3, but I feel its just the best example. Fallout 4 came out after the Witcher 3, and yet it looks about 10 years older. This, without a doubt, is due to Bethesda's Creation Engine (which is so old I can't tell if it's hilarious or deeply depressing). Their reluctance to upgrade their engine is why fallout 4 is only a fraction of the graphics quality it could have been, and one of the major factors to why fallout 76 barely functioned at launch.
Long story short; UPGRADE YOUR ENGINE BETHESDA!

I would also like to quickly mention the 'RPG' elements in this RPG. Choices, for the most part, do not affect the story in a huge way. The only thing a choice in quest will determine is the reward you will receive after completion. You may get a piece of armour instead of a weapon Mod, trivial things like that.
Choices that properly change the world around you are few and far between.
Speech checks also deserve a mention. The charisma trait is as prominent as ever in this game, with the player being constantly met with red, orange or yellow text indicating the recommended level of charisma to successfully persuade an NPC. This is, by far, the most shallow the speech system has been in fallout. Its totally indicative from your charisma level, which can be upgraded with every level you earn. This means that as soon as the game begins, in theory, the player will have a hard time failing any speech checks from the right build.
Or completely ignore raising charisma to a high-tier, because simply by quicksaving mid-dialogue before a check and then reloading over, and over again if you fail means that there is no way to actually miss a speech check.
Features like this have been present in past titles, yes, but in fallout 4 there is no level cap (but more on this later).


But, graphics and story (while important) aren't everything, so on to the better/good:


The game is absolutely 100% at its best when you free-roam around the world, exploring every new location for new weapons/armour etc.
You can find a really vast catalogue of weapons, from melee to pistols and automatic rifles, all balanced and viable with the correct perk selection from the start. Honestly most the replayability I have found in fallout 4 has been from the different weapon-class character builds you can pick.
Melee aggressor, stealthy assassin or full-on John Wick badass with automatic rifles.
This is far more deep and varied than playing the story while allied to a different faction, as 3/4 times the ending is exactly the same, with extremely little consequence
This aforementioned weapon system is made even deeper by the gun-modding. Acquiring certain perks throughout the game allows you to add better and better upgrades to your guns and armour. This encourages collecting rare/useful scrap whilst on your adventures to use at home-base to boost your arsenal for the next fight. It allows you to turn even your very first 10MM pistol into a viable post-story gun with the correct perk selection.
This applies to the various suits of Power Armour in the game as well, and for me, this is one of the game's strongest features. Power Armour has never been better. Some argue it is introduced to early on, but I disagree as the use of fusion cores and Power Armour durability prevent an early-game player striding across the map with almost no danger. Power Armour modding adds interesting upgrades (such as boosts to your character's S.P.E.C.I.A.L attributes) that make Power Armour a no-brainer for some builds.
Also it's not just equipped like normal armour through the Pip-Boy and how it was in previous games. It is fitted to a frame your character has to manually enter, creating this sense of clunkiness but extreme raw-power, just how I think Power Armour should be.

The gameplay ties into why the open-world is successful, so I should mention it too. I hear people describe fallout 4 as 'the best FPS Bethesda ever made, but the worst RPG'. I think that summary is pretty spot on.

The open-world is very fun to hunt around in, filled with cool enemies and pre-war locations. The map is comprised of the inner-Boston city, bustling with super-mutants and raiders, while the surrounding lands are more sparsely spread, incorporating some open plains, taking the best of both worlds: The vast empty wasteland from New Vegas and the chaotic War-zone similar to the Capital wasteland from fallout 3. This is where I have spent the majority of my in-game hours and still enjoy to this day.

The game also comes with a Minecraft-esque settlement building feature. You can build bases for NPCs to live and carry out tasks for you. I've always thought this feature was pretty cool, but it's never been something I've really sunk my teeth into. More content is more content, though. Right?

I also want to briefly mention the quality-of life upgrades. The Pip-Boy menu is the most streamlined and clear it has ever been, in my opinion. It has obvious categories for everything and works better than the Pip-Boy's in the previous games.

And now, we move to the part of the experience I am most divided on: The level/perk system.
Fallout 4 has no level cap. This means you can create a character with every-single perk in the game. By the end, there will be nowhere you can't go, and nothing your character isn't extremely proficient in. Every single weapon type, all the VATS perks, just everything will be maxed. I'm divided on this though because of how there is no need to strive for this godhood. By level 100, your character will likely face no true threat from any of the wasteland's opponents any longer, so the lack of level cap doesn't really matter. The only problem is, there is no need to take time to think which perks are the smartest to take. If you make a bad decision, who cares! You can simply take the right perk from the next level up. This means that every single S.P.E.C.I.A.L attribute can end up at 10+. I feel that's simply too powerful.

Well, to conclude I find it extremely hard to rate this game negatively. After all, I continue to have fun with it to this day, despite all its shortcomings with the story. I still love the open world, and I still love the different character builds. In my opinion fallout 4 may not be the best game, or even a good one (objectively speaking), but just from a gameplay-standpoint, it sure is a fun one.