When I finished Fallout 3, the game left me with one desire: please let there be another installment soon.
Fallout New Vegas tried to fill the need, but opinions among Fallout fans were split. Some loved "West Coast Fallout," replete with motorcycle gangs, delusional wannabe Romans, and one super-depressed kid named Boxcars. Others hoped for something more evolutionary, something that didn't just add to the Fallout universe but deeply improved upon it. For that sort of game, fans had to wait for Fallout 4. So we waited... for more than half a decade. And the wait was indeed worth it.
We've already run our review of the new game, but I wanted to offer a slightly different perspective: how Fallout 4 feels to someone who is deeply invested in the Fallout universe. That is, how it feels to a Fallout fanboy—which I'm proud to be. As such, I will look at the game only as it relates to Fallout 3 and to New Vegas, with no regard for how it stacks up to other titles in the RPG genre.
Bottom line: if you did not like Fallout 3, you are not going to like Fallout 4. The two games are built around the Fallout pillars of random wasteland events, wild side quests, challenging character development, and a wide-open post-nuclear apocalyptic world. But if you're a Fallout series fan, it's time to clear some serious space on your calendar.
A winner
Fallout 4 looks and plays significantly better than Fallout 3, which is not a knock on Fallout 3 (now seven years old). Playing on the Xbox One, I tested Fallout 4 on both a 48-inch HD Samsung TV (five years old) and a 78-inch 4K Samsung TV (brand new).Performance is better than Fallout 3 was at its release, but Fallout 4 is not without its glitches, particularly in the clipping department. I was saved from being totally annihilated by a Sentry Bot simply because it got stuck on a rock and I ran away. Once, I got stuck in a pile of car parts while in Power Armor. I couldn't get out. Autosave to the rescue.
The overall environment looks terrific. Downtown Boston is more colorful than the Capitol Wasteland, and its outskirts have more foliage. The environment exhibits changing weather, from storms to fallout to fog. The visual glitches that pop up don't bother me much, in part because I expect they will be fixed quickly. As for what won't be changed, yes, some of the scenery is bland and some of it is repetitive. But I think that's an acceptable trade-off. I can't think of any game this packed with content that doesn't reuse textures and buildings to some degree, and I'd rather have 100+ hours of repeatable gameplay than a world constrained by new art.
The world of Fallout 4 is massive compared to Fallout 3, and Fallout 3 was breathtaking in its expanse. I've read reviews that say that the new graphics are unacceptable, but I can't agree. The graphics could be better, sure, but nothing about the game's visual design has diminished my enjoyment.
As for the story, I think it's great. It didn't take me long to get invested in my character and my quests—probably two hours. I certainly did find it difficult to stay on one course because I was constantly running off one direction or another to check out a weird playground, an abandoned house, a cave, a really loud explosion, or whatever other strange phenomenon the game would throw my way. But the overwhelming variety of subquests and distractions is simply part of the series' appeal.
As the game evolves, you will meet different factions, and those factions are frankly a little more interesting than those from Fallout 3 (with the possible exception of the vampires, which were awesome). The factions also load you up with things to do, so there's rarely a dull moment that Fast Travel can't solve by taking you someplace else.
There are a few enhancements worth noting. In Fallout, you are essentially a scavenger. You open lockers, boxes, and the pockets of dead people. In the past, searching would open a transfer UI; you'd select what you wanted and then hit "exit" (B on the Xbox) to back out. At minimum, you had two button presses to look and then exit, and then another set of presses if you wanted to take anything. In Fallout 4, you merely point your reticule over a dead body or a file cabinet and the UI reveals its contents. You can take it all quickly (push X) and move on, or you can pick through it (push A). This is a huge time saver, effectively eliminating two button presses on everything you look into. In Fallout, that should be nearly everything.
While the first-person action is better this time around, my scav-minded self was mostly in ammo-conservation mode, preferring to use V.A.T.S. Thankfully, V.A.T.S. no longer stops time. Instead, you enter slow-motion, something akin to "Bullet Time." This removes a real crutch (stopping time to shoot), while at the same time making V.A.T.S. more enjoyable to use. You can watch a shot develop (wait until the raider foolishly lifts his head), or you can watch a pack of feral ghouls bear down on you even in slow motion, thereby increasing the panic of the ghoul rush.
Where V.A.T.S. might have saved you in the past by giving you a ton of time to calculate your move, now it might not be enough. (It's worth noting that popping up your Pip-Boy does still stop time, but now boosters like eating, using stimpacks, etc., do not take instant effect. Their application will come after you exit the Pip-Boy.)
Another quick point about V.A.T.S.: luck is now useful to cultivate, as you can choose when to apply a critical hit while in V.A.T.S. It's a nice touch that can save your hide.
The D-Pad also sports a deeper favorite items system, allowing you to store multiple items in each direction. I found this extremely useful; I used "Right" for handguns, "Left" for rifles (with the sniper rifle far left), and "Up" for close-quarter weapons. I then stashed my aids in the "Down" menu and found that I simply didn't need to get into the Pip-Boy as often. These tweaks make the game that much more viable as a first-person shooter.
Then there's the soundtrack, something that's sacred to most Fallout fans. The soundtrack has gone in a direction that I really appreciate. While New Vegas took the soundtrack to a very Western/country/cowboy theme, with Fallout 4, we are back in a world filled with GNN, Billy Holiday, Danny Kane, and most of the classics from Fallout 3. There are plenty of new songs, too, but there's just something amazing about being in an irradiated cave jamming, "Bongo, bongo, bongo, I don't wanna leave the Congo..." Some of the songs created just for Fallout 4 are pretty funny.
Also humorous is the hilarious stuff raiders talk about when chatting with one another: substance abuse, significant others, fear of fire, and so on. The game is again replete with great writing, particularly when you're checking out the logs on various terminal screens. Holotape audio recordings are more interesting now, too.
The game isn't without issues. Much has been written online, including here at Ars, about poor facial animations and the like. These have never been a strong point of any Fallout title, and they are certainly a weaker point of this game. That said, it feels to me more like a minor issue than anything fans of the series will find off-putting.
Here's my take: if you are a fan of the Fallout series, particularly in its modern incarnations, you are going to be a fan of this game. The graphics are better, the user interface is smartly improved, combat feels tighter, crafting is both easier and more meaningful, and the quota of wacky side quests and events has definitely been increased.
This is the kind of game that you live with, that you make a part of your life for a very long time. It's a game in which you are totally free to jump between quests, to go off on bizarre expeditions that at first seem meaningless, or to spend some time just tightening up your settlement. In the week I've had my copy, it keeps calling to me, and I keep playing Fallout 4 over a host of other new games I have sitting around. And I suspect that isn't going to change for a while.
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