Competent in establishing a ghostly east coast Americana (as one would hope), but falls apart when attempting to zoom in on any stronger narrative strand. Bethesda comes off as apathetic towards truly establishing a macroscale narrative to grasp on to in regard to empowering the self-insert protagonist's autonomy and motivation to reshape the Capitol Wasteland. Heritability looms over the main story with much of what drives the player's exploration being hints towards answers as to the nature of your existence--where you were actually born, how much you truly are in the shadow of another, why you were kept miles away from the truth, etc.--but you never walk away as a character that grew up with a father who cared for you over decades, with James's dialogue being largely restricted to small passages over his technological goals for the Capitol Wasteland and grief for a love whose face is left a mystery (at least up until New Vegas).
So much of the main story being apathetically built on heritability is perhaps what dooms it: the past, where James heavily looms over as a parental figure motivating much of your decision-making, is collapsed into three sections built solely of character creation and tutorials to their name while being broken up by title cards as the only gesture towards a longer temporal span with little of who you were or are now to be gleaned from these elliptical interludes. Meanwhile, the future denies your narrative footprints to be truly weightful enough in comparison to your father's shadow that you continue to live under. The ending cards more clearly outline the flaws of the "future" here: those who walk the Capitol Wasteland cannot express their future in their own words, and their faces can only be deployed as the stinger to the list of good deeds or sins, respectively, honoring or tainting your family tree that the narrator speaks from. You don't truly "influence" the Wasteland; your legacy is built off of how much you truly respected the forces who helped bring you into the Wasteland.
Much more can be said about the heavily flawed DLC, especially when weighed in comparison to New Vegas. Operation Anchorage displays Bethesda's worst instincts in comedy with none of post-apocalyptic America to act as the contrast to jingoistic military propaganda, while Mothership Zeta only desires to make a mockery out of sci-fi with little punchlines to draw from outside of alien gibberish. The Pitt and Point Lookout fare better in emphasizing the Capitol's relative optimism in comparison to what's outside of its boundaries for those unluckier, but finding anything to establish the political structures that led to the outcomes within these add-on cities is a stretch (the latter being somewhat more successful here). Broken Steel is a half-written apology for those disappointed by the base game preventing them from seeing their footprints in their brought upon Wasteland, with its goal only serving to act as a rushed drive towards final domination via energy weaponry. None of what's found here, even in the best case of Point Lookout, can match up to New Vegas's engaging explorations of the wider west coast, whether in Dead Money with its paranormal holograms haunting the skeletons of the Sierra Madre or in Honest Hearts drawing the persistent threat of colonization into a post-apocalyptic America.
I can't fully bring myself to work against what exists here. Fallout, as a concept, rarely fails to allure the player into exploring the gestures towards another America that lived full lives in your footsteps before disappearing in a flash, whether in the emptied out diners or dormant Metro robots waiting to be awoken from their mechanical slumber again. However, it would be hard to deny the disappointment brought upon by Bethesda's narrative failures, with Obsidian's future work in the series existing at the edges as the force that only truly realizes what could compose a 3D Fallout. Before that, though, is work left unfinished and only a sandbox for you to click on heads in V.A.T.S with.
So much of the main story being apathetically built on heritability is perhaps what dooms it: the past, where James heavily looms over as a parental figure motivating much of your decision-making, is collapsed into three sections built solely of character creation and tutorials to their name while being broken up by title cards as the only gesture towards a longer temporal span with little of who you were or are now to be gleaned from these elliptical interludes. Meanwhile, the future denies your narrative footprints to be truly weightful enough in comparison to your father's shadow that you continue to live under. The ending cards more clearly outline the flaws of the "future" here: those who walk the Capitol Wasteland cannot express their future in their own words, and their faces can only be deployed as the stinger to the list of good deeds or sins, respectively, honoring or tainting your family tree that the narrator speaks from. You don't truly "influence" the Wasteland; your legacy is built off of how much you truly respected the forces who helped bring you into the Wasteland.
Much more can be said about the heavily flawed DLC, especially when weighed in comparison to New Vegas. Operation Anchorage displays Bethesda's worst instincts in comedy with none of post-apocalyptic America to act as the contrast to jingoistic military propaganda, while Mothership Zeta only desires to make a mockery out of sci-fi with little punchlines to draw from outside of alien gibberish. The Pitt and Point Lookout fare better in emphasizing the Capitol's relative optimism in comparison to what's outside of its boundaries for those unluckier, but finding anything to establish the political structures that led to the outcomes within these add-on cities is a stretch (the latter being somewhat more successful here). Broken Steel is a half-written apology for those disappointed by the base game preventing them from seeing their footprints in their brought upon Wasteland, with its goal only serving to act as a rushed drive towards final domination via energy weaponry. None of what's found here, even in the best case of Point Lookout, can match up to New Vegas's engaging explorations of the wider west coast, whether in Dead Money with its paranormal holograms haunting the skeletons of the Sierra Madre or in Honest Hearts drawing the persistent threat of colonization into a post-apocalyptic America.
I can't fully bring myself to work against what exists here. Fallout, as a concept, rarely fails to allure the player into exploring the gestures towards another America that lived full lives in your footsteps before disappearing in a flash, whether in the emptied out diners or dormant Metro robots waiting to be awoken from their mechanical slumber again. However, it would be hard to deny the disappointment brought upon by Bethesda's narrative failures, with Obsidian's future work in the series existing at the edges as the force that only truly realizes what could compose a 3D Fallout. Before that, though, is work left unfinished and only a sandbox for you to click on heads in V.A.T.S with.