Today: Mar 28, 2024

“Fallout 4” game review: interesting story with action and survival

Max Bickley – General Assignment Reporter

The world is destroyed, and nothing remains except for the charred ruins of humanity. On the upside, there are British robots, powerful mech-suits, a friendly canine companion and enough murderous raiders to go around. This is what players have to look forward to in the latest video game release: “Fallout 4.”

Coming as the fourth installment in Bethesda Studios’, the company behind “The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim,” and the long running “Fallout” series, “Fallout 4” brings the player back before the games, then throws them into a post-nuclear-apocalypse Boston.

The game begins with the protagonist living before the nuclear war begins, and life before then is shown with the player’s wife and newborn baby. As the nuclear bombs go off and the war begins, the family is rushed into a fallout vault and is surprisingly cryogenically frozen. Sometime in the future, the newborn baby is stolen and it comes to the task of the player to hunt down their baby in the bleak radioactive wasteland of 2278 Boston.

What the game brings to the series are a series of simplifications, and a semblance of the prior games. The skill point allocation is easy to follow, each point adding to a stat (strength, perception, endurance, charisma, intelligence, agility and luck) and further allowing the purchase of a “perk” or skill depending on how high your level is in each stat (maximum of 10). Another change is now the perception skill directly affects your accuracy in the V.A.T.S which allows for slow-motion targeting.

Besides the skills, other minor changes include the return of your friendly dog companion, Dogmeat, who is now invincible and can’t be killed unlike in prior games. The biggest change though is now the player can create a base of operations by breaking down buildings and cars for materials, and then making a safe haven for settlers of the wasteland or a massive fortress for defense.

The mechanics of the game keep well in touch with the previous games in the series. The weapons range from crude bats and tire irons, to pipe guns (makeshift weapons found in the wasteland) and laser rifles. As well, a stable of the games, Power Armor comes back with a few differences than before. Now the Power Armor (image seen on the cover of the games) acts more like a personal defensive vehicle. The armor also has time limit in the form of a “battery” which it uses, so it can only be used for certain stints of time.

What the game does best though is have a competent A.I. In many games, especially open world RPGs, the A.I can be goofy and predictable. However, the wasteland shows no mercy as its A.I is not only competent but tricky. The game will not allow the player to jump into a situation guns blazing. It will punish a careless player who does not prepare for a fight or does not think tactically.

The story of the game is interesting enough, the curiosity about who kidnap your child and where they might be in the wasteland hooks the player, but with all the side quests and explorations is does get a little lost.  However, the world makes sure there is never boredom time as there is a plethora of locations and events taking place at any point on the map.

The only real issues with the game comes firstly in its PC platform. There have been reports of glitches which impact gameplay, but on the console versions there have been little to no instances of bugs. As well, it plays similarly to “Skyrim” which to some may be a detraction, but only impacts the aesthetic of lockpicking and some other mechanics.

Overall, the game is an exciting mix of survival and action with an interesting story and impressing gameplay, and worth a buy for anyone with the time and money for it.

Photo Credit: Midhras

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