Fallout 4: 6/10. Pretty good, but not great.
As someone who played Fallout 3 and New Vegas, 4 just didn't live up to their legacies. I know there was a ton of hype around the game, and that was what probably ruined a lot of its appeal after it got released.
It just felt more like an FPS rather than an RPG, contrary to what Howard said at E3 (RPG with FPS elements). The combat has been improved, I like that they made VATS in slow motion rather than stop time as in previous games. It just feels smoother. But that's to be expected.
I'm not sure about the voiced protagonists. There's a lot of immersion lost. The dialogue wheel was a huge minus. You're limited to four and only four choices, and you can't be sure of what you're going to say next. The dialogue trees end up becoming limited and the conversations more artificial. Bethesda really is relying more on the modders this go-around.
There's a lot less quests, and if it weren't for the settlements, I would probably be spending time on another game. There's little replay value and you can't play as a purely evil character, and the consequences of your actions are much less. Hell, no one really reacts to the Institute message. In Vegas, I was still discovering new factions hundreds of hours in. 4, I was pretty much done with the vast majority of the wasteland within 100.
The ending was also underwhelming, considering that it's pretty similar for any route you choose. Since I first chose the Institute ending, it was really sad why Bethesda didn't go further with this faction, which is the first major faction introduced since Fallout 2. Influencing them as director to change their moral ways, to do real science instead of dedicating half the scientists on synths, was a real bummer, especially since you have experienced both the surface and underground worlds.
Bethesda put in 2k textures, which many lower end PCs can't run (they're also not that great quality to begin with). Optimization for the PC is in general just terrible. It feels like a console game hastily ported onto the PC.
It's a pretty good game for what it is, exciting and fun of course, but I'm definitely waiting for the mods to come out for new content. |