Fallout 4

Platform: PC, PS4, Xbox One

Developer: Bethesda Game Studios

The names Fallout, Bethesda, or even Skyrim should not be new to die-hard fans of RPGs (role-playing games). And, Bethesda Game  Studios has left gamers waiting impatiently for one of the most anticipated titles of the year, Fallout 4. The game has gathered much hype, but does it have what it takes to make a great RPG? We will have to see.

An open world action RPG, Fallout 4 is set in a post-apocalyptic Boston. The world is dealing with the aftermath of nuclear devastation and the surviving population has resorted to finding any means available to help them survive.

Story

The game starts off as, any other Bethesda game does, with a character customisation screen. Here, you get to choose what your character will look like and yes, you can play as a female character as well. This might be one of the most interesting parts of the game as you are given full control of the facial features. You can create the character exactly the way you want, with seemingly infinite ways of shaping every inch of the face. The game then starts as you control your character in the peaceful environment of your home for a minute or two, having a light pleasant conversation with your spouse and looking at your baby, before a nuclear war breaks out.

Fortunately, you and your family are on the list of people who are ensured safety during a nuclear fallout and are escorted to vault 111 in a cryogenic chamber. When you wake up, you witness the murder of you wife and the kidnapping of your child by the security and then are set out in the world, 210 years into the future, as the sole survivor of vault 111, to find your lost child.

Regardless of the main storyline, Fallout 4 is all about exploring the world while having fun, and after a dozen hours or so, all you care about is upgrading you weapons and getting better armour. There is a lot to do in sub-missions and different factions where you are looking to establish order in this chaotic era; this makes the main plot secondary for gamers, which is not really a bad thing, not entirely.

Gameplay

It is Bethesda and it is Fallout—what else is there to talk about? The open world is vast and provides you multiple options on approaching your play style. You can spend a dozen hours on side quests hunting for resources to upgrade you inventory or just explore the map shooting and hacking anything that moves— it never gets dull.  

You will come across 13 different companions throughout the game, which is a nice touch as you do feel lonely during the missions. The crafting of the game has been improved with a number of options for customising your weapons, even allowing you to rename it repeatedly. The armour is modular, giving you the option of matching different pieces together, and the more time you spend on it, the better and more interesting it gets.

Similar to other Bethesda titles, the game also features dialogue choices, but they do not make any difference at all, to be honest. The game is supposed to give players free will; depending on the choices we make, the game then tailors the outcome. Yet, most of the things, if not all, are bound to go the scripted way. Also at times when you are between dialogues with a certain character, the game annoyingly switches in and out of conversation, and you have to manually engage in the conversation, which can be frustrating. Getting a game on PC on the month of its release is never a good idea and once again bugs and glitches plague this Bethesda title. If you thought getting your horse stuck in Skyrim was infuriating, you are in for a tough time with your companions in Fallout 4. They will ruin the missions time and again—until you learn to command them to stay put for a while. Fallout 4 has this new levelling-up system where you perk up certain aspects of your character like Intelligence, Charisma, Agility, and so on as you level-up. This in turn opens up new avenues on how you can approach the game but it is so messed up that eventually all that matters is not getting the Charisma maxed up as it limits the overall progression of the character.

Graphics

The game does not look bad but it certainly is not next-gen material. In fact, there only seems to be little improvement from the last game, if you can call it improvement at all. To think that after so much time and funds, Bethesda could not come up with better designs is disheartening.

Sound

The background score during the battles intensifies the experience. The sound is one of the only parts of the game which does not suffer criticism—although I can’t help but wonder if they could have done something better with the radio in it.

Verdict

Bethesda once again brings its best and its worst to the table. There are drawbacks, yes, but Fallout 4 is still a massively enjoyable adventure—a little heavy on the shooting side than overall role-playing. It is easy to overlook its shortcomings and get lost in it. With that being said, the game still seems like a last (and lazy) effort from Bethesda to capitalise on the popularity of the franchise that barely lives up to being called a sequel. Fallout 4 is good, a little shy of being ‘great’, but nothing to regret.

8.5 / 10