The latest Fallout game in the franchise ( what's a 76?) and by the time we get to see a Fallout 5 I will probably be 50 years old looking after my grandkids. A game I where I have spent countless hour playing endlessly over multiple playthroughs and yet, not once have I ever finished the main campaign of the game.
First things first the good stuff. This game is fun, I'll probably end up trashing this game later on but I just want to get this out of the way, this game is an absolute blast. The gunplay is the best it ever has been in any Fallout game (god bless ID Software for helping out), the crafting is 10x better than what it was in 3 and NV, and they actually made useless objects matter in the game now opening a toolbox and seeing duct tape is actually worth something instead of some useless clutter you'd just see, sigh and move on with your day. Exploration has taken a step up filled with so many places to explore Bethesda's motto of "you can go anywhere and be who you want" still holds true (for the most part) in this game although be warned, even though you can go anywhere it also means some places might just be death traps for you if you're not prepared with the right equipment.
Moving on, the companions who finally have another purpose than just shooting and carrying your stuff for the first time in a Bethesda game. You can actually talk with them about how stuff are between you two as well as, reacting positively or negatively depending on your actions. They also give you their own personal quests in some cases and even butt in during conversations to express their thoughts on the topic at hand. It's some good stuff and I'm glad this is a feature they carried over from New Vegas.
Now then, moving onto to my issues with the game.
First the first thing you'll probably realize that is wrong with this game. That being the limit on your characters backstory personality and pretty much everything is predetermined for you by Bethesda whose games have always been about creating your own characters, exploring the world with these characters and seeing how the character YOU have created would respond to the problems they are facing and Bethesda's job is to give you the options to accomplish that, but nope you are either an Nate or a Nora with your only real options being their appearance and name in-game accompanied by a limited amount of dialogue and choices that almost never actually matter since probably 50% of the NPC's you can hold a conversation with are essential meaning you can't kill no matter what sort of character you want to be or even forces you to engage in combat sometimes again not giving a damm about what you want to do. This game absolutely loves limiting your choices leaving you with one of 4 options: 1.Yes 2.Ask for information/Yes 3.Sarcastically saying Yes/No 4.No (there are of course exceptions but most of the time its just these options). Speaking of which, the dialogue has been completely butchered making for some of the most boring and uninteresting conversations in the entire franchise and the only redeeming thing about it is being a sarcastic asshole which is probably the only way to enjoy holding a conversation in this game.
While I praised the gameplay and said how fun it was there is one issue I had with the changes and that is removing skill points altogether and only leaving you with your S.P.E.C.I.A.L. stats. Who thought this was a good idea. I'm legit dumbfounded, this is such a dumb choice and my only response is the AVGN in me screaming what were they thinking? Simplifying a skill system that wasn't that hard to figure out in the first place? I doubt there exists someone who was so confused that didn't know what the difference between the meelee weapon and unarmed skill was but say that's the case say there is that one person out there who finds it to difficult. Catering to that one person has basically ended up with the developers shooting themselves in the foot cause now they have to shove all those skills into 5 different categories and the perk choices become filled with "Increase pistol damage by 25%" and other dumb stuff like that because that system simply does not allow you to increase your damage output with any other method so most perks have just ended up becoming an uninteresting mess filled with mostly buffs so they can solve a problem that NEVER EVEN EXISTED.
Finally, the story. As I mentioned at the start I haven't finished the main plot of this game and to be frank, I doubt I ever will. I replayed this game recently with the goal of finishing the main plot of this game, maybe even the DLC and then making this review but I just couldn't. The story of this game is just garbage, I did not enjoy anything about it. Sure it introduced me to some characters I found cool like Nick Valentine but other than that I will only follow the story up to the point where I meet Kellog so I can kill him and get his gear because I think they look cool, that is all I will stop giving a damn after that, I will carry on pretending it never happened because that's the only way you can truly enjoy this game, pretend the story never happened other wose you're just forced to follow Bethesda's vision of how THEY want you to play the game not really caring what you want to do and in a Bethesda game, the company that created games like Morrowind, Oblivion, Fallout 3 and Skyrim, 4 games that put one thing above everything else, "Be who you want to be and go where you like" that's all I expect from a Bethesda game and with this game they nailed one part while completely failing at the other.
My final thoughts on this game are as follow:
A pretty fun shooter with an amazing and addicting world to explore and a really good crafting system accompanied by one of the worst stories in a videogame I have ever seen.
Final rating:
3.5 /5
First things first the good stuff. This game is fun, I'll probably end up trashing this game later on but I just want to get this out of the way, this game is an absolute blast. The gunplay is the best it ever has been in any Fallout game (god bless ID Software for helping out), the crafting is 10x better than what it was in 3 and NV, and they actually made useless objects matter in the game now opening a toolbox and seeing duct tape is actually worth something instead of some useless clutter you'd just see, sigh and move on with your day. Exploration has taken a step up filled with so many places to explore Bethesda's motto of "you can go anywhere and be who you want" still holds true (for the most part) in this game although be warned, even though you can go anywhere it also means some places might just be death traps for you if you're not prepared with the right equipment.
Moving on, the companions who finally have another purpose than just shooting and carrying your stuff for the first time in a Bethesda game. You can actually talk with them about how stuff are between you two as well as, reacting positively or negatively depending on your actions. They also give you their own personal quests in some cases and even butt in during conversations to express their thoughts on the topic at hand. It's some good stuff and I'm glad this is a feature they carried over from New Vegas.
Now then, moving onto to my issues with the game.
First the first thing you'll probably realize that is wrong with this game. That being the limit on your characters backstory personality and pretty much everything is predetermined for you by Bethesda whose games have always been about creating your own characters, exploring the world with these characters and seeing how the character YOU have created would respond to the problems they are facing and Bethesda's job is to give you the options to accomplish that, but nope you are either an Nate or a Nora with your only real options being their appearance and name in-game accompanied by a limited amount of dialogue and choices that almost never actually matter since probably 50% of the NPC's you can hold a conversation with are essential meaning you can't kill no matter what sort of character you want to be or even forces you to engage in combat sometimes again not giving a damm about what you want to do. This game absolutely loves limiting your choices leaving you with one of 4 options: 1.Yes 2.Ask for information/Yes 3.Sarcastically saying Yes/No 4.No (there are of course exceptions but most of the time its just these options). Speaking of which, the dialogue has been completely butchered making for some of the most boring and uninteresting conversations in the entire franchise and the only redeeming thing about it is being a sarcastic asshole which is probably the only way to enjoy holding a conversation in this game.
While I praised the gameplay and said how fun it was there is one issue I had with the changes and that is removing skill points altogether and only leaving you with your S.P.E.C.I.A.L. stats. Who thought this was a good idea. I'm legit dumbfounded, this is such a dumb choice and my only response is the AVGN in me screaming what were they thinking? Simplifying a skill system that wasn't that hard to figure out in the first place? I doubt there exists someone who was so confused that didn't know what the difference between the meelee weapon and unarmed skill was but say that's the case say there is that one person out there who finds it to difficult. Catering to that one person has basically ended up with the developers shooting themselves in the foot cause now they have to shove all those skills into 5 different categories and the perk choices become filled with "Increase pistol damage by 25%" and other dumb stuff like that because that system simply does not allow you to increase your damage output with any other method so most perks have just ended up becoming an uninteresting mess filled with mostly buffs so they can solve a problem that NEVER EVEN EXISTED.
Finally, the story. As I mentioned at the start I haven't finished the main plot of this game and to be frank, I doubt I ever will. I replayed this game recently with the goal of finishing the main plot of this game, maybe even the DLC and then making this review but I just couldn't. The story of this game is just garbage, I did not enjoy anything about it. Sure it introduced me to some characters I found cool like Nick Valentine but other than that I will only follow the story up to the point where I meet Kellog so I can kill him and get his gear because I think they look cool, that is all I will stop giving a damn after that, I will carry on pretending it never happened because that's the only way you can truly enjoy this game, pretend the story never happened other wose you're just forced to follow Bethesda's vision of how THEY want you to play the game not really caring what you want to do and in a Bethesda game, the company that created games like Morrowind, Oblivion, Fallout 3 and Skyrim, 4 games that put one thing above everything else, "Be who you want to be and go where you like" that's all I expect from a Bethesda game and with this game they nailed one part while completely failing at the other.
My final thoughts on this game are as follow:
A pretty fun shooter with an amazing and addicting world to explore and a really good crafting system accompanied by one of the worst stories in a videogame I have ever seen.
Final rating:
3.5 /5