Review in Progress
Fallout has always been a series I have fondly followed and played ever since getting recommended Fallout New Vegas as a teenager. I wish I had more exact memories of the games, but as it stands I have at least 40 hours in Fallout 3 and almost 90 in Fallout New Vegas (I have tried the older games and they are the best games I haven’t been able to fully get into, maybe one day the switch will click). I recall the sights and sounds of the decayed cities and scouring deserts, ringing with gunfire as the oldies serenade the vacant buildings with songs of hope, songs of despair, and sometimes songs of silliness. Fallout dares to be quirky in a sea of serious role-playing games. The narratives can be bleak, filled with cannibals and raiders destroying communities and the last traces of humanity, but the outcomes can be humorous as often as they are cathartic or rewarding. One quest that comes to mind is the White Glove Society in New Vegas; a wealthy realm of socialites that is revealed to be a den of depravity as the rich Mortimer is not content just exploiting the poor, he must consume them. The Courier can help the worried rancher find his son by storming the place with weapons drawn, but what is the fun of doing what the typical game would do? You can instead save the boy and expose the plan by several creative means like drugging their drinks or creating a fake human meat. You could also help Mortimer embrace his cannibalistic desires by letting Ted cook. Or maybe you save Ted but let someone else cook? Perhaps a stranger, or perhaps a friend? A relatively simple quest to save the damsel (or whatever the male equivalent would be) becomes a complex puzzle of morality, and this is just one small quest which a player can completely miss while patrolling the Mojave. For the strength of the Fallout series isn’t just its combat, it is its ability to avoid gunplay to complete most storylines. Speech can be as dangerous as a laser pistol when used correctly, and few games centralize their presence in the medium with this motif. That was, however, until that fateful E3 that first showcased the soon to be released nuclear funhouse named Fallout 4.
Fallout 4 came out November, 2015, and I first played the game while on winter break from college. I loved my experience in the commonwealth; the game looked great, the world was engaging, and there was enough content between exploration, settlement building, and story crafting to occupy my entire break. That break, I assume a mere 2 weeks as I got the game for Christmas and returned to school a little after the new year, I placed over 100 hours into the game. I saw the ruins of an area not far from where I lived at the time, of cities which I had previously visited, and bathed in the radiated waters of lore and world building. I completed most of the quests and finished the game as a liberator of synth slavery through the railroad, an ending which involved storming other factions and engaging in an intense gunfight. Which brings across one major idea of this game: the focus on guns and the way they feel.
Bethesda’s developers knew a complaint of the games they created was the sometimes lackluster shooting mechanics, so this time around they got their first-person shooter friends at id Software to spice up the fire fights and they marketed the game with its gun play as a major triumph. Finally a game which contains gripping stories and the firm grip of a shotgun that felt… better? While a significant change for a Bethesda game, Fallout 4’s gun play was not revolutionary and many critiques can be made on the way guns were handled. I am not a marksman, so I will leave the game feel to those with more knowledge on the topic, but I can say that it was fun enough to not be boring. However, the emphasis on gun play did draw out a major critique of the game; previous games let you shoot second, this game wanted you to shoot first most of the time.
Another marketed feature of Fallout 4 was the new voiced main character. Your hero, the sole survivor, is now a fleshed out character with their own mission to find their kidnapped son. This exploration of parenthood and the complexities which come from the main narrative was a fine story suitable for the game, the decision to have a voiced character meant that every story needed to have an actor provide lines that advanced the plot. This is not necessarily novel, many triple A games have fully voiced quests, but it was an important part of Fallout 4’s structure. In previous games you had numerous methods to complete the majority of tasks, but in this game player options are much more limited. Often you are limited to only four voiced lines to reply to an NPC, usually formatted as some variation of a neutral answer, a nice answer, and a mean answer for those who want to play the hardest ass they can. This system works well for, say Mass Effect, but Fallout feels like it is missing something with this lack of speech options. I recall near the time of the game’s release someone tried doing a pacifist run of the game. None of the Fallout games really allow true pacifism, raiders are not very kind to strangers, but a highlight of the series was the ability to complete stories without slaughter. This game, however, ends most conflicts with a spectacle of gore. The writer of the article had to invest in skills which made bullets bounce off the player in order to complete quests without themselves firing a pistol, as the art of diplomacy fails in comparison to the luck of the ricochet. Other players found that the focus on finding the son limited their role-playing, as they were not as blank a slate as previous vault dwellers. At the time I did not have much of a problem with this system, and it would be fictitious to say there aren’t elements of horror, comedy, tragedy, and heroism seen throughout the limited speech system. However, this lack of option does hinder a key part of the series' appeal; replayability.
Recently, I decided to start a new game of Fallout 4. Almost a decade after its release, I wanted to try out some of the content released after I hit the credits from both official sources (dlc and expansions) and fan-made mods. I downloaded mods which gave me more options in appearance, more freedom in settlements, and even a skip for the game’s rather long introduction. What I did not change was basic gun play, other than a cosmetic mod which made guns look more realistic, nor any which changed how narratives play out. I am writing this review partially from memory as well as from recent experience. So far I have become queen of the Minutemen and was offered a position in the Brotherhood of Steel. I’ve fought mainly mutated dogs and crazed lunatics rather than partaken in detailed story lines. Still, I feel it is worth writing about my previous opinions on the game and consider the cultural impact of the game against my current playthrough. As I continue to explore the wasteland I will update this review with insight on new findings. How does the narrative keep up with other games in the series? How does the game play feel years after other shooters examined their mechanics and innovated on the art of the gun? After I get deeper into my playthrough I will add more about my experiences. Until then, Fallout 4 remains in my eyes a fun but flawed game which missed some of the heart previous games had.
Fallout has always been a series I have fondly followed and played ever since getting recommended Fallout New Vegas as a teenager. I wish I had more exact memories of the games, but as it stands I have at least 40 hours in Fallout 3 and almost 90 in Fallout New Vegas (I have tried the older games and they are the best games I haven’t been able to fully get into, maybe one day the switch will click). I recall the sights and sounds of the decayed cities and scouring deserts, ringing with gunfire as the oldies serenade the vacant buildings with songs of hope, songs of despair, and sometimes songs of silliness. Fallout dares to be quirky in a sea of serious role-playing games. The narratives can be bleak, filled with cannibals and raiders destroying communities and the last traces of humanity, but the outcomes can be humorous as often as they are cathartic or rewarding. One quest that comes to mind is the White Glove Society in New Vegas; a wealthy realm of socialites that is revealed to be a den of depravity as the rich Mortimer is not content just exploiting the poor, he must consume them. The Courier can help the worried rancher find his son by storming the place with weapons drawn, but what is the fun of doing what the typical game would do? You can instead save the boy and expose the plan by several creative means like drugging their drinks or creating a fake human meat. You could also help Mortimer embrace his cannibalistic desires by letting Ted cook. Or maybe you save Ted but let someone else cook? Perhaps a stranger, or perhaps a friend? A relatively simple quest to save the damsel (or whatever the male equivalent would be) becomes a complex puzzle of morality, and this is just one small quest which a player can completely miss while patrolling the Mojave. For the strength of the Fallout series isn’t just its combat, it is its ability to avoid gunplay to complete most storylines. Speech can be as dangerous as a laser pistol when used correctly, and few games centralize their presence in the medium with this motif. That was, however, until that fateful E3 that first showcased the soon to be released nuclear funhouse named Fallout 4.
Fallout 4 came out November, 2015, and I first played the game while on winter break from college. I loved my experience in the commonwealth; the game looked great, the world was engaging, and there was enough content between exploration, settlement building, and story crafting to occupy my entire break. That break, I assume a mere 2 weeks as I got the game for Christmas and returned to school a little after the new year, I placed over 100 hours into the game. I saw the ruins of an area not far from where I lived at the time, of cities which I had previously visited, and bathed in the radiated waters of lore and world building. I completed most of the quests and finished the game as a liberator of synth slavery through the railroad, an ending which involved storming other factions and engaging in an intense gunfight. Which brings across one major idea of this game: the focus on guns and the way they feel.
Bethesda’s developers knew a complaint of the games they created was the sometimes lackluster shooting mechanics, so this time around they got their first-person shooter friends at id Software to spice up the fire fights and they marketed the game with its gun play as a major triumph. Finally a game which contains gripping stories and the firm grip of a shotgun that felt… better? While a significant change for a Bethesda game, Fallout 4’s gun play was not revolutionary and many critiques can be made on the way guns were handled. I am not a marksman, so I will leave the game feel to those with more knowledge on the topic, but I can say that it was fun enough to not be boring. However, the emphasis on gun play did draw out a major critique of the game; previous games let you shoot second, this game wanted you to shoot first most of the time.
Another marketed feature of Fallout 4 was the new voiced main character. Your hero, the sole survivor, is now a fleshed out character with their own mission to find their kidnapped son. This exploration of parenthood and the complexities which come from the main narrative was a fine story suitable for the game, the decision to have a voiced character meant that every story needed to have an actor provide lines that advanced the plot. This is not necessarily novel, many triple A games have fully voiced quests, but it was an important part of Fallout 4’s structure. In previous games you had numerous methods to complete the majority of tasks, but in this game player options are much more limited. Often you are limited to only four voiced lines to reply to an NPC, usually formatted as some variation of a neutral answer, a nice answer, and a mean answer for those who want to play the hardest ass they can. This system works well for, say Mass Effect, but Fallout feels like it is missing something with this lack of speech options. I recall near the time of the game’s release someone tried doing a pacifist run of the game. None of the Fallout games really allow true pacifism, raiders are not very kind to strangers, but a highlight of the series was the ability to complete stories without slaughter. This game, however, ends most conflicts with a spectacle of gore. The writer of the article had to invest in skills which made bullets bounce off the player in order to complete quests without themselves firing a pistol, as the art of diplomacy fails in comparison to the luck of the ricochet. Other players found that the focus on finding the son limited their role-playing, as they were not as blank a slate as previous vault dwellers. At the time I did not have much of a problem with this system, and it would be fictitious to say there aren’t elements of horror, comedy, tragedy, and heroism seen throughout the limited speech system. However, this lack of option does hinder a key part of the series' appeal; replayability.
Recently, I decided to start a new game of Fallout 4. Almost a decade after its release, I wanted to try out some of the content released after I hit the credits from both official sources (dlc and expansions) and fan-made mods. I downloaded mods which gave me more options in appearance, more freedom in settlements, and even a skip for the game’s rather long introduction. What I did not change was basic gun play, other than a cosmetic mod which made guns look more realistic, nor any which changed how narratives play out. I am writing this review partially from memory as well as from recent experience. So far I have become queen of the Minutemen and was offered a position in the Brotherhood of Steel. I’ve fought mainly mutated dogs and crazed lunatics rather than partaken in detailed story lines. Still, I feel it is worth writing about my previous opinions on the game and consider the cultural impact of the game against my current playthrough. As I continue to explore the wasteland I will update this review with insight on new findings. How does the narrative keep up with other games in the series? How does the game play feel years after other shooters examined their mechanics and innovated on the art of the gun? After I get deeper into my playthrough I will add more about my experiences. Until then, Fallout 4 remains in my eyes a fun but flawed game which missed some of the heart previous games had.