If there's one thing you can unequivocally give Fallout 4, it's that its opening is fantastic. Beginning in your idyllic house as your character admires their newborn, you're suddenly whisked off to the nearby Vault the moment the bombs drop on Boston. Cryogenically frozen for centuries, you wake to find your partner murdered and your baby stolen, prompting you to burst out into the post-apocalyptic wasteland to search for him.
At least, in theory that's what happens. The problem with Fallout 4 is that it has a brilliant core idea for its story but then Bethesda remembered they wanted to make an open-world RPG and so once you're out of the Vault any impetus or narrative push goes out of the window and instead you're asked to believe that a grieving and angry parent in this situation would just blow off their quest to go play construction in the yard instead. As a narrative, Fallout 4 is surprisingly shaky.
It is at least an improvement as an FPS over Fallout 3, with far more robust gunplay and a solid customization and upgrade system that lets you make horrendously overpowered guns if you want to put the busywork in. Fallout 4 also pushes its creation aspect quite hard, with multiple points in the main quest expecting you to drop everything and help build towns. I'm sure this is great for some but I personally hated it; the interface is finicky and the constant poke to improve various ratings of your townships is tiring.
There are moments when Fallout 4 is good, I promise, but it all comes in the minute-to-minute gameplay. As a world to explore and plunder, the Commonwealth is gorgeous and fun but whenever you try to engage with it in any way other than that the experience starts to crumble.
At least, in theory that's what happens. The problem with Fallout 4 is that it has a brilliant core idea for its story but then Bethesda remembered they wanted to make an open-world RPG and so once you're out of the Vault any impetus or narrative push goes out of the window and instead you're asked to believe that a grieving and angry parent in this situation would just blow off their quest to go play construction in the yard instead. As a narrative, Fallout 4 is surprisingly shaky.
It is at least an improvement as an FPS over Fallout 3, with far more robust gunplay and a solid customization and upgrade system that lets you make horrendously overpowered guns if you want to put the busywork in. Fallout 4 also pushes its creation aspect quite hard, with multiple points in the main quest expecting you to drop everything and help build towns. I'm sure this is great for some but I personally hated it; the interface is finicky and the constant poke to improve various ratings of your townships is tiring.
There are moments when Fallout 4 is good, I promise, but it all comes in the minute-to-minute gameplay. As a world to explore and plunder, the Commonwealth is gorgeous and fun but whenever you try to engage with it in any way other than that the experience starts to crumble.