Backlog Busting: Fallout 4

War...War never changes

Queue the applause, I beat Fallout 4, but what did I think of it? what do I think of the never-changing state of war itself? Stay a while and listen, for I shall tell a tale as old as time, a tale of monsters and loot, a tale of crafting and questing, A tale of Fallout!

As far as Fallout titles go, I can say I've beat two of them, New Vegas being the other. As far as post-apocalyptic shooters go, I've recently beat Farcry New Dawn, but sadly none in the likes of Metro franchise or the very cheeki Breeki Stalker series. If I were to guess I would say the Fallout franchise fits snugly between some of these other titles and less so with the Doom or Shadow Warriors, granted, these games are apocalyptic too. War...war never changes

Bethesdas Fallout 4 begins with character customization and gets us right into the story, kind of like Skyrim, but I didnt see any options to play as an Orc. After thoroughly picking my nose I'm treated to a brief moment of peace in my characters urban, mostly non-mutant abode. Wife, baby, and robot butler, the American dream. Just as fate would send a dragon to save the Dovahkiin from capitol punishment, fate would bring a Vault Tech salesman to my doorstep to make the salespitch of a lifetime! Seriously, the mushroom cloud behind him really sold me on fallout bunkers. 

Wife and baby in tow I run to the nearby bunker. But to my surprise, we wouldn't be locked inside a lead painted tomb for decades slowly going insane, counting rations and pondering the inevitable Uno game that decides first cannibalized, no we were to be given a treatment fit for America's finest produce and soon to expire meats, yes we were to be frozen like the dinner entrees so many hard working single men must sustain themselves on in pursuit of their gaming success. Situated across from my significant other and adorable spawn, I find myself in a deep cryogenic sleep, likely dreaming of said frozen entrees, war..war never changes.

Wanted to play as this guy, but no luck. 

Now let me touch on the trope of 'rude awakenings' being slapped in the face or doused with cold water is rude, interrupting a someones sleep to ask the paradoxical question 'are you asleep?' is rude and stupid, but shooting a man's wife and stealing his baby quite possible takes the cake...err, baby. So unceremoniously re-frozen and left for an indiscriminate amount of time I once again awaken and shamble about looking for pants that have surely been eaten by rad-roaches, keys to a house that's been flattened, and my penis that surely must have fallen off due to extensive freezer burn. War...war never changes. 

After escaping my would be tomb I'm greeted to the sight that, the once beautiful suburbs in shambles, trees sickly and leafless, soda flat and undrinkable, truly the world has been ravaged by nuclear war. I found my old homestead and asked my robot butler if this is what Skynet had in mind for the future, he feigned madness due to the eons of loneliness, clearly violating one of Asimov's laws of robotics. The future is clearly not friendly.

Now I do have a minor niggle about the graphical style of Fallout 4, its ugly, sure the apocalypse is ugly, but look to Farcry New Dawn or real life Chernobyl zone, green leafy foliage and somewhat normal looking animals populate these other games and bring the game to life. Sure the hulks of wrecked buildings and cars decorate the landscape, but nature has returned and thrived among the ruins of humanity. Perhaps it varies based on the ammount of nuclear fallout and the number of years passed.Either way, get used to looking at bombed-out buildings a dead grey landscape. Other than that, there's the 1950's atom-punk art style that keeps the apocalypse feeling somewhat classy.

Taking a stroll down memory lane, though I didn't spend much time outside my house pre-apocalyps, was truly disheartening. It seems that during the time it took cockroaches to evolve to trashcan sized thugs, no one thought to clean up the absolute disaster that my neighborhood had become. No time to lament the lack of work ethic in todays youth, I could hear gunshots in the background. War...war never changes. 

Coming to find a firefight between some thugs and a group of boyscouts called the Minute Men. Lending a hand and murdering a group looters, I'm rewarded with my first suit of power armor and slay my first Deathclaw. I'm cheered on by the Minute Men, kiss my new love interest, and my long lost son emerges from the crowd. Queue credit and blooper reel.  Okay, so the game doesn't conclude that early, though it would have been the ultimate troll-job if it did. 

Hancock, clearly the best character in the game

The whole setup to the games main plot really fits a faster moving game better, like a 8 or 10 hour campaign that allows a busy schedule of crying and diarrhea, but alas, I must brave the legions of feral gouls while quaffing stale Nuka Cola. Fallout 4 really does have a lot of loot to collect, not just for the sake of selling or using, but to scrap and collect raw materials. Wow, this is really giving me some deja vu.

Fallout 4 tries hard to implement it's new building mechanic, though I only used when required by the

main story, I'm told that there is a settlement management mode that adds likely 10's of hours to the game with a boatload of micromanagement and item sorting. I opted to do the bare minimum building only when the story called for it. My reasoning here is that the control scheme and added distraction would bury Fallout 4 so deep in my backlog that I may never finish it. Gotta prioritize, besides, I did some other crafting in the game.

Aside from the massive building system there are now two other crafting benches, one for weapons and the other for armor crafting, I can finally live my fantasy of being a 1950's seamstress. The weapon crafting bench really added some fun to the game, though upgrades are locked by tier instead of item rarity, so it really comes down to collecting materials to build a better 'gat' as they say.

You can't find your son without rebuilding America, and you can't rebuild America without a cracking a few eggs, eggs in the form of skulls. Fallout 4 turns the nuclear wastes into a veritable shooting gallery. Every at-risk mutant and feral ghoul becomes the target of pent up rage. Arms, legs, and torsos are strewn about loot filled caverns and slums, it really does get more visceral than a 50's themed rpg would have me assume, but turning mobs into goo is like the Flex-Tape of the gaming industry, it can fix nearly any bug or plot-hole.

With my uncanny killing skills on display, I attract the attention of all the needy victims of the nuclear apocalypse and economic down-turn. It seems that aside from the oddly amicable Minute Men, every faction in bombed out Boston wants a slice of my defrosted pie. From the Brotherhood, to the Freedom Trail, everyone was vying for my 1950's army skills and offering loot, status, and suggested sexual favors. War...war never changes. 

From the single path I trudged during my playthrough, all paths assumedly converged on the mysterious Institute and their robotic 'Synths'. Both the Institute and Brotherhood of Steel are key players in the main plot. From what I could gather, there are multiple endings depending what path I would happen to choose. But asking a busy gamer such as I to replay such a campaign would be in vain, afterall, I'm a very busy man (insert Comic Book guy voice).

There has been a great deal of controversy regarding the quality and future of Fallout games, 76 comes to mind here. All that I can say is that while Fallout 4 had it's bugs and crashes, it was an okayish looter/rpg, though I have a feeling there's better apocalypse simulators in my Steam library. Either way, theres more backlog to bust, so stay tuned, and remember; war never changes.