The series still offers a "VATS" system when toggled, the game slows time down so that players can precisely aim at which limb of a baddie they'd like to shoot at. This mostly impacts the game's active gunfights, in which you can aim and shoot in real time like in most modern gun games (and while third-person views are available, you'll want first-person for skirmishes). Though the quests pretty much operate the same way as before-find people, receive requests for missions, and have the game unfold differently whether you act nice or naughty- Fallout's major modern twist is that you run around in a first-person perspective. Instead of fighting dragons and wizards, characters explored a post-nuclear America and the radiation-singed people and ghouls who remained in it.įallout 3 and its semi-sequel, Fallout New Vegas, established the Bethesda formula for how the series would operate from here on out, and that's still the case in Fallout 4. The original versions required lots of mouse clicking to talk to non-player characters (NPCs), make decisions, get into turn-based battles (or avoid them with tactics such as stealth or diplomacy), and so on.
Platform: Xbox One, Playstation 4 (reviewed), Windowsįor the uninitiated, Fallout began life as a futuristic, nuclear-technology take on D&D-style adventure games (first as '80s game Wasteland before taking on the Fallout name in 1997).
Game Details Developer: Bethesda Game Studios But if you're one of gaming's giant-quest masochists, then you're in for one of the most surprising quest payoffs we've seen in recent memory. The gaming industry has grown up since Bethesda-produced open-world hits Fallout 3 and The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, and Fallout 4 doesn't offer enough consistent quality to top other modern fare in the genre. That's a big asterisk to attach to a game that has enjoyed so much anticipation-not to mention pre-launch secrecy. (And here I thought Final Fantasy XII's 12-hour tutorial was insane.) Honestly, I had to get to roughly the 30th hour with Fallout 4 before I thought the game presented a good enough experience to be worth its aimless enormity. Its opening sequence sputters instead of splashing its most obvious gameplay tweaks and changes take too long to pay off (and in some ways, never do) its storytelling drags thanks to too much ham-fisted dialogue and herky-jerky pacing and its visual presentation looks utterly pitiful compared to games two years older, let alone ones from 2015.Īnd yet, every time I was drowning in a cloud of repetition and boredom, a little radioactive glimmer would appear-some incredible quest, some hidden plot morsel, some revelatory new plot twist or expanse of land. This game is in no rush to acquit itself as a particularly impressive game. Once you have proven yourself worthy by investing in a game's mechanics, power-ups, abilities, lore, and so on, you can really start appreciating the giant world laid bare before you.įallout 4, the sixth major release in the beloved post-nuclear series, enjoys this "gotta earn it" distinction more than any release in the series thus far. Just a tease of one of my favorite locations in the game.įans of giant quest video games-MMOs, RPGs, and other open-world slogs-will sometimes point to the number of hours before the game "gets good" as a mark of quality.