Fallout 3

A blast from the past review

FBT falls-in with Fallout again.

The Past

It’s odd to do a Blast from the Past on a game that’s only a few years old. Sorry? Released 2008? TEN YEARS AGO?! It can’t be, Fallout 3 can’t be a decade old. Have I been frozen in a vault for all that time? I hope not, that would make a terrible basis for a Fallout game. Ten years…

For the longest time F3 was one of my fave games, easily in the top five, but over time it slipped away as I just couldn’t face repeating that huge slog through the wasteland, the impossible scale of it. Until Bethesda took free-roam indulgence to 100 with Skyrim, I couldn’t imagine a bigger game (other than their Morrowind). But although I call it a masterpiece, I just recall endless rubble, raiders and botflies, have flashbacks to never managing to reach my destination without being distracted. I remember having a crush on the off-kilter girl writing the Survival handbook, wearing a ghoul’s face for a mask and everyone chatting to me like it was normal to be walking about like Hannibal Lector. Wasn’t there a giant robot at the end? I know it was all to do with water and my Dad but the more I think about it, all I remember is that rubble, those raiders and damn botflies. I played it multiple times but I think I only finished it once; once all the DLC was added it never ended. It’s time to go be Liam Neeson’s sonaughter again. Ten Years!

Still a Blast?

Oh wow I remembered my own birth. As I go through the classes and appearances it’s a nice character build sequence. Bethesda always did those well, from Morrowind’s immigration questions to this glimpse into who I’ll be as we go from cute toddler to a bratty teen taking their aptitude test. It’s a nice way to get to know myself without being a preachy tutorial. I don’t get to know Mum, who dies in childbirth. Least I still have Dad though.

Dad’s gone! And somehow it’s triggered a riot. I escape the vault, my home for the last two decades, and it’s an oddly bitter-sweet moment. On my first playthrough TEN YEARS AGO I blazed through this sequence itching to get going but this time I’m a bit more relaxed about it. Vault life isn’t so bad. I even try sticking around after the riot but eventually everyone just tells me to leave. The party’s over. Wearing my Fonzie leather jacket and a birthday hat I got for my tenth birthday, I’m well prepared.

Following the original games’ overall story-arc, in 2077 a short-lived nuclear war broke out, with predicable results. Playing off paranoia and threat, “Vault-Tec” had begun building shelters all over the country (in this case, Washington DC) and now they had a captive audience. Vault-Tec added additional tests, events and scenarios to better understand human nature or something probably more insidious. Those in the vaults created their own societies for two hundred years, while outside, survivors and Vault-escapees did the same.

Stepping out into the wasteland still packs a punch. For a decade old F3 still looks great; games might have more pixels now but it’s all about belief and for all its sci-fi, F3 feels real. This is the aftermath of a nuclear war. In this reality though Apple never got out of Jobs’ garage; their style over substance approach is nowhere to be seen (maybe somewhere there’s a Vault that looks like an Apple Store). F3 is one of those fifties ‘the world of tomorrow’ films come to life. An over-designed, art deco, Vic-20 meets Nostromo world buried under an apocalypse. Ten years on and I’m still marvelling; Bethesda know how to build a world. Fallout 4 might have watered down the memory with its retread but this feels more gritty, more real; the immediate danger has passed but there’s no real hope of rebuilding. Instead, folks are eking out a living the best way they can; I just came from a vault which while restrictive, was safe and had water that wasn’t eradiated.

It turns out that’s what Dad was after all along. He was a huge fan of bottled water and his project, Purity, was a way to cleanse the area’s water and the first step towards rebuilding civilisation. But it’s taken a huge amount of steps to reach this point. Like all good RPGs, you follow the mission marker less ‘how the crow flies’ and more like ‘pissed bumble bee’. It’s impossible to walk in a straight line. There’s hundreds of things to go look at and those things have things in them that you spend hours ferreting through or send you off looking for other things that you don’t reach because other things. I’d forgotten how hard it is to get anywhere without being pulled somewhere else. What’s that?

The main mission is brilliantly done; our character has questions, there’s a nice tension between me and Pa, and Dad realises his kid doesn’t need him anymore. You can play the character as pissed off, indifferent or desperate but no matter how you react, nothing will be the same again. As you attempt to finish Dad’s Purity Project, you draw the attention of the Enclave, a remnant of the previous government who realise controlling the water is a means to reasserting power – coincidentally that’s the plot to Tank Girl and both antagonists are played by Malcom McDowell. I’m also dressed like Tank Girl.

It’s fun to dig into your inventory and work out what items you can cannibalise, although it’s not as detailed as I remembered, especially with the weapons. Similar items can be folded into others to raise their stats, but you never really alter or jury-rig stuff the way you should, leaving you to carry multiples of everything, weighing you down. Mostly you’ll be carrying junk, digging through everything like Steptoe in the hopes of uncovering something valuable – or a bobbypin so you can unlock items to find more junk. Although this does feel a bit endless and slows everything down, I’m still enjoying wandering eerie old schools and decrepit Nukacola factories hoping to find something. Usually bloody radroaches. Usually.

There’s a whole host of beasties to battle, and to help there’s the VATS system, which stands for something. You can pause and pick where you want to aim and you’re given a percentage of how likely the hit is. It’s a bit like an intellectual’s Bullet-time but fun watching the shootout in slow-mo. It’s also fun using VATS to fatboy a botfly. Swatted the bastard.

But, the botflies and radroaches soon give way to speedy giant scorpions and Guai; I’d forgotten about those werebear things; but I hadn’t forgotten about the bloody Deathclaws, apparently a war-time super-weapon gone awry. Also very awry are those Super-Mutants and their side-kicks, those nightmarish Centaurs. There’s also the ghouls, folks who survived the nuclear fallout but lost their sanity (and looks, but not their clothes. Even zombie America is concerned with modesty), and giant ants referencing the infamous fifties movie Them! but mostly we’re fighting raiders who figure the best course of action is swing a lead pipe at the gal in power-armour. When Fallout was adopted by Bethesda, there were grumblings from the original series’ fans that it would become The Elder Scrolls, and to be fair, it has. This is Oblivion without spell casting, but it’s a lot more focused and you do more digging around, and the setting is much more relatable. Plus, no Oblivion gates popping up every ten feet. It is its own game and ten years on I’m still finding new areas, new experiences and loving the post apocalypse.

The good thing is, unlike more recent RPGs (like Fallout 4), the main story is nicely non-urgent. Almost from the outset Dad says the water purification project won’t save the world and it’s freeing to not be that heroic, to not have pangs of guilt when I return to Megaton again to offload junk then go do something for folks who need this, want that, send you there. We’re getting a priest to realise he’s in love, putting a stop to cannibals (or not), and researching lovely Moira’s Wasteland Survival Guide. We’re looking for old civilisation artefacts, rescuing folks from Super Mutants and Slavers – unlike Fallout 4 and Skyrim’s disheartening ‘radiant missions’ this feels more realistic than endlessly visiting a smug Jarl who’s yet again bitching about a Dragon that’s outstayed it’s welcome. Instead, there’s just enough to lone wanderer into. Unless your lone wanderer prefers company.

Unlike Oblivion, followers are more than bullet-catching NCPs. The best is Dogmeat. A mutt we rescue, he becomes a doggo liability, running off to attack something ten times his size, falls off cliffs and constantly get in the way. After a short while I leave him at my digs in Megaton, terrified I’ll lose him. There’s various mercs, thrill-seekers and more than a few quest-related folks who make life interesting by following then disappearing, getting stuck or dying and leaving the mission unfinished forever. Followers haven’t been quite perfected in F3 and they kind of undermine the ‘Lone Wanderer’ shtick our character is rocking, but at least they can carry stuff for you. Just don’t give them anything valuable.

Another Oblivion nod is the Karma system. This was much better utilised in New Vegas, here it means getting pestered by do-gooders and having marginally better dialogue choices, but also draws the attention of mercenaries who don’t like nice people. If you decide to be a mercenary yourself, the ‘Regulators’ come after you instead, and being a dick doesn’t block you from mission opportunities, just more evil options once you’re mean enough (bye, Megaton hovel, hello penthouse in Tenpenny Tower).

I’d like to say a lots happened since F3 was released, but … has it? Playing this now, I realise RPG hasn’t moved on, it’s just repeated itself. F3, along with Oblivion, got it perfect and as I play and remember moments, events and set-pieces I realise how much Fallout 3 informed my expectations of RPG. It’s good. When’s the last time you had a hundred-foot-tall robot as a follower? F3’s scenery does become samey but there’s so much layered into the game that it becomes more than endlessly clambering over a tip. The loose societies and clans that have sprung up, the communities like Megaton or Rivet City and heavy-handed groups like Enclave and Brotherhood of Steel – this is how its going to go when someone finally presses the button.

When you add in a compelling but unpressured main story, tons of side-missions and events, and some stellar characterisations and observations, you’ve got a decade old game that’s timeless. Graphics might continue to impress and advance, and one day Fallout 3 might seem creaky and basic, but it’s spirit will still be indomitable and that’s missing from modern RPG; Fallout 4 and Skyrim included.

Like lovely Moira’s Wasteland Survivor’s Guide, Fallout 3 should be required gaming for anyone planning on taking up RPG so they understand how it’s done; and it should be a tutorial for anyone planning on developing one – and that includes Bethesda. Fallout 3 is back in my top games list. Play Fallout 3; make Liam Neeson proud.

2008! Developer; Bethesda Softworks | Publisher; Bethesda Publishing

Platforms Win, X360/One, PS3

Fallout 4 – Pt1

a second wind special review

In this special edition playthrough, FBT relives Fallout 3 *spoilers (FBT hates it)*

I loved Fallout 3. There was nothing like it. Okay, there were loads like it; Stalker, Metro and … others but this was from the makers of Oblivion. It was Oblivion after the bombs dropped. That’s got to be good. And it was. I lived in FO3 for an age, explored every irradiated pixel. The world was horrible but the experience was unforgettable. When FO New Vegas came out I explored the wasteland again, loving being back in the world from a different perspective. Sure, it was a little juvenile, a bit repetitive with huge areas of nothing but a radscorpion for company and its story was daft (Romans? Yeah, they’re a good role model) but it had some really good stuff in it especially with the factions, reputation and robot sex. And then it was five long years in the vault until I could strap on my Pipboy again.

Fallout 4 opening with a pre-war scene was interesting, clearly that was supposed to make me feel emotionally connected to the wasteland later but it hadn’t ever occurred to me during FO3 to picture the world pre-war. I didn’t really care then and I don’t care now cos the game is making me go through annoying mundane tasks to build suspense, as if what’s about to happen will come as a surprise during this perfect suburban domesticity.

Cracking wise with my clearly ill-fated other half, rocking a cradle with my sprog in it, watching TV, all I can think about is the scene in Saints Row 4 where The Boss is trapped in a 50s sitcom and you’re forced to ‘play’ eating breakfast and get the morning paper, itself a parody of games like Heavy Rain. How meta. Eventually I’ve interacted enough and we’re running for the vault. I don’t get much time to look around but I do pause briefly to see the bomb land which is amazing, but I’m quickly hurried inside before I can really take it in. Safely vaulted, getting a real sense of the panic and drama, I’m looking forward to starting a life in a vault. I wonder if this will be the first Fallout game to explore the Commonwealth before it started, adventure in a world where the bombs are still smouldering, but no; we’re tricked into being turned into an ice-vault-icle and the years pass. I helplessly watch as my other half is indeed ill-fated and the kiddiewink snatched. Another unknown period passes and eventually I melt and claw my way outside to catch my first glimpse of the world I’ve seen before.

One of FO3’s greatest moments is when you escape the vault and are awed by the world for the first time. FO4’s attempt at awe is seeing my perfect neighbourhood reduced to ruins. But this isn’t as affecting as Bethesda may have intended; I never made a connection to the neighbourhood, I saw it pass by as I was running for my life so seeing it now has zero impact on me. I’ve seen this before – It’s just another Fallout ruin. I go inside my house and because I assume the game wants me to and stare at the empty cot. Sads. I have no emotional connection to the place or what happened or even the kid, because it all happened too fast. To really have given this impact, the game could have done with a few more hours in the pre-nuclear environment the way you spend time in the Vault in FO3. You think you know the world, then step outside and gasp. It could have worked quite well with the right quests. It’s like FO4 forgot about FO3 and thinks I’ll be shocked by what happened to my home.

A short chat with my still operating Mr Handy then occurs and I uncover something startling; The voice is Jack in Mass Effect! This game had better allow tattoos. I adore Jack; Courtenay Taylor did a stellar job grinding out Jack-the-killing-machine’s dialogue with barely contained rage then slowly softening to reveal a fragile and hurting human underneath but in FO4 my voice stays largely the same; indifferent. I’m playing a mother who just saw her hubby shot, her baby taken and the world destroyed and I’m talking and acting like it’s no biggie. The Handy gives Jack a waypoint to begin the search and so, filled with despair, determined to find my son and planning on playing ME2 next, I head Jack off in the opposite direction.

Before I’ve even met my first bloatfly, I’m already a little worried about where this game will take me. It’s forced onto me a very strong reason to drive forward and I don’t want one, I want to wander and discover. FO3 wasn’t about saving the world it was about taking the first steps towards a better one and until I did it, everyone just got on with life. In NV it was revenge and the key to that is preparation. Alongside it you got embroiled in a larger power-struggle, but one that didn’t need a resolution quick-sharp. In FO4 I am looking for my helpless baby lost somewhere in this nightmare world. How can that not overwhelm every other consideration? Why would I explore, roam, build some granny an armchair when my kid could be on a slab somewhere? It’s impossible to wander the wasteland and care about the main storyline at the same time. This is a Schrodinger’s cat of a main mission; the kid is alive and dead until I action it. So I’ll make a player decision not a character one, and ignore a kidnapped baby. Other open-world games have reconciled a dramatic main plot with freedom in far better ways. Far Cry 3 got the recovery of his friends out of the way quickly and focused on sacrificing your humanity in favour of revenge. Perfect for side-questing. Mass Effect 3 had arguably the biggest story driver of all time – a trifling mission to save the earth and then the galaxy – but it encouraged side-missioning because most if not all your actions added to your readiness; You were side-questing to prepare for the main quest. Another open-worlder that stumbled its main mission was Tomb Raider – why am I looking for Dream Catchers when my friends are being held hostage? In FO4 it’s worse; maternal instinct or material instinct?

Ignoring the baby and taking on what FO4 is, it’s interesting and brave that I’m a vault dweller with no knowledge of the war’s repercussions. I have no training, no survival instinct, no idea what’s out there. I’m a fifties housewife. Amazing. Everything my character sees should cause her to breakdown, every item should be a mystery, every challenge an impossible feat and every creature a lethal encounter – but we just merrily crack on, knowing how to read a Pipboy, pick locks, fire guns. I should have screamed the place down the first time I saw a ghoul. But no, I’ve gone full Rambo in one cut-scene and it’s a huge mistake because playing someone completely unprepared and incapable would have been more realistic, more frightening. Why create a character so woefully unprepared and conflicted, then have them handle everything like they’ve been doing this for years? It would have been compelling to find trainers, get experience, learn, barely survive. But no, we hit the ground running and gunning.

After a few hours of barrelling about lost in the world I so loved in FO3, I stop and look around. It does look amazing. It’s exactly how I remembered the post-apocalyptic world looking. Just how FO3 looked. Just how NV looked, when it wasn’t crashing. Exactly the same. Same landscape. Same items. Same everything… Everything the same… Maybe a little more pixel-sharp, but yeah … there it is then, the wasteland. Eight years I’ve been waiting for this. Just how I left it eight years ago. And within the next few hours, the worst thing that can happen in an open world game happens. I get bored. The problem is I’ve seen it all before. The thrill of discovery, of getting into and out of trouble, of finding deserted houses with skeletal bodies, venturing into buildings, we went through that in FO3; it’s just more of the same and the impact is lost. I’m deathly, depressingly nonplussed in a huge apocalyptic world.

Oh look, a factory. I wonder if it’s a nuka cola factory? Yes, it is. I wonder if it’ll be full of raiders. Yes, it is. Water, bring on the Mirelurks. A bog? I can’t even be bothered with the bloatflies. I’ll go around. It’s the same disarray, the same crap on the floor, the same super mutants. Even the Megaton replacement Diamond City just reminds you of Megaton. Bigger but not better, not different enough to get the wanderer juices flowing. Each Elder Scroll fundamentally changed the environment, the experiences, why did Bethesda keep going back to the irradiated well? Surely there could have been other ways to explore nuclear Armageddon; New Vegas was set in a location spared direct hits so NV explored how humanity would survive in an isolated world, not an obliterated one. FO4 could have gone somewhere else entirely but instead it feels like more of FO3. When you compare it to rival Sandbox games it comes across as lazy; Far Cry distinguished itself by never repeating itself, every Assassin’s Creed is unique while each Mass Effect subtly updated, changed and refreshed without becoming too distant from its predecessor; all the GTA’s stay safely within a city, but with new ways to explore it and Saints Row 4 rebuilt Steelport but gave you new ways to abuse it. In those you know which game you’re looking at; I couldn’t pick a FO4 screenshot out of a FO3 line-up.

The only part of FO4 that’s remotely fascinating is the Glowing Sea, a deadly ground-zero for the bomb we saw at the beginning. It’s a horrible place and ironically, given its deadly nature the only place FO4 comes alive. A sick and blighted place, full of seeping decay and absolute death, The Glowing Sea is thrilling, not just in the experience but because it’s new. Had FO4 been set here entirely, it could have been something incredible. We’re constantly injecting radaway and the like, surely we’ve built up a resistance by now? Come on; in FO3 we purified water, no one’s built on that since? Setting FO4 in the Glowing Sea would have been stunning; it could have played like Bioshock – folks safe but rotting away inside great buildings with their own society and laws, surrounded by a lethal environment that only the brave (i.e Jack) will brave and bring the different houses together to fight some larger force or maybe eradicate radiation so everyone can leave. Having the Lone Hero find a city trapped by air would have set a new bar. Anything but just visit the place before returning to the rinse and repeat of FO3.

Worse, if not unforgivable, there’s so much reskinning and recycling going on I’m surprised CoD’s legal team didn’t sue. Who reskins a game nearly a decade old?! If you played FO3, NV or Skyrim then you’ve played in the world of FO4. This is more than just lazy art design on Bethesda’s part. This is wilfully cheating gamers who plonked down a TON of Nuka caps on a new fallout world and got something built in Skyrim’s Construction Set. In years to come, people will discuss FO3 and 4 interchangeably – that’s not good enough. And it’s not just evident in the art design. We’re still lock-picking the same way (and let’s not forget that was reskinned in Skyrim too); Sure, the locks wouldn’t have changed but the mini-game? Come on. Who in the fallout world is still manufacturing bobbypins?! I’m not talking about realism (I have a mini nuke, that should get a drawer open), just give us something new; anything but this again, I’ve been breaking locks the same way for at least four Bethesda games. Each Mass Effect had a different approach to hacking, why am I still playing Boggle in FO4 too? It’s all the same like a place-holder, a mega DLC.

Some creatures though do move in new and frightening ways – the same creatures but you can’t have everything. Deathclaws leaping over fencing and through buildings is pants-wettingly good/bad as is trying to sneak around them, and the ghouls are faster too. And then there’s the Legendary enemies. Random encounters with extra-tough opponents that weld unique and powerful weapons. They’re actually more of a frustration and a distraction than anything exciting. Sure there’s going to be ornery old coots out there that know how to take a hit, and they’re likely to be carrying good loot but they’re barely even an event moment, just ammo-sucking annoyances mixed in with regular bullet-catchers carrying rarely exciting but always heavy goods. Borderlands often battered the crap out of you then dropped something even bigger and nastier on you, but you knew BL was as trustworthy as it was insane. That creature will drop something sexy. You may spend a hundred mill on a reclone, but goddamn that loot will be worth it. So you suck it up and Jack Burton it; Gimme your best shot, pal. I can take it. In FO4 it’s not worth all the Buffout and ammo and they appear at frustrating times when you’re just trying to get some place.

And at first, it seems the place you want to get is home. Largely an improved version of Skyrim’s Hearthfire extension, you can stake a claim on multiple locations, rebuild and attract settlers. Sounds fantastic, and judging by some of the settlements gamers have created, the possibilities are endless. They’re also mind-numbingly boring. Setting up power actually requires you to do the wiring. Well, I’m kinda searching for my son but yeah okay, lemme just rewire a plug. And when I do get settlers in, do they get involved? Yes, if I force them to but only in support roles while I’m out trying to find more logs for their fricking roof. Had the building work been played through a mini-game where you could properly plan, like a Sim City or the way Black & White allowed you to train a foreman to direct the rest of the followers, it could have been amazing. Set plans in motion then return to see how everyone was doing, how your little fiefdom was coming along. It could encourage you to talk to NCPs, finding scavengers to find materials, track down a builder, a planner to design it, artists to decorate it, build a militia, become raiders and attract criminals or a peaceful settlement for families. It could have been incredible. Go from a ruin to a functioning town, become a force in the wasteland! No. And thanks to a build system that’s more infuriating and confusing than picking something up in Trespasser, just trying to put a rug on the floor becomes rage-inducing; my house looks like an art student’s Cubism project. I have to do this for the entire settlement?! I eventually lost it and walked off never to return. And I have to do this for every place I’ve secured?! I’m a slumlord and I’m okay with that. The Fallout society can rebuild itself for all I care. The tenants constantly ask for things to be built; how did they all survive this long without me?! I just woke up, how come I’m a DIY God as well as a survivalist expert? I just give up and let the settlers live in squalor. Get out of my bed.

We’ll leave FBT to his impression of Reg Prescott. Maybe he’ll cheer up when he discovers the romance sub-plot, so check out pt2 to see if FBT forgets his other-half who died a day ago and finds love in the wasteland. Oh yeah, and finds his kid. Keep forgetting about that.

Fallout 4 – Pt2

A SECOND WIND REVIEW

Part two of FBT’s special edition Wasteland wander through Fallout 3. I mean 4.

*Spoilers. Not that it matters, it’s fricking obvious*

So, having been thawed out of a Vault, my suburban housewife character has not even remotely bothered to look for her son, the main plot of Fallout 4. Instead the domestic goddess blazed through the wasteland like a grizzled survivalist. Likely because she’d played Fallout 3.

While most of Fallout 4 is Fallout 3 Redux, one new addition is the ability to create a settlement; amazingly this isn’t a Bethesda money-grubbing DLC element like Skyrim’s Hearthfire, it’s part of the main game and a key element, the idea of carving out a place to call your own, of rebuilding the home you glimpsed pre-war, or building somewhere new, away from the memories of our recently lost other-half – it’s great; well, a great idea but impossibly frustrating and boring. Speaking of our beloved, the tragic parent of our child, the man I shared domesticity with only moments ago, I should look for someone new to share it with. Well, that was a long mourning period, sixty years as an ice-cube; a girl’s got needs. Companions are back and largely the same as FO3 in that they can carry stuff for you and get killed easily. I don’t need to find my kid when I’m spending so much time saving, finding, reviving and shouting at my companion. There’s a relationship angle added that’s somewhere between Mass Effect’s romance process and CJ’s girl in every city. Each companion has a selection of actions they find Hot or Not. Take Piper the spunky journalist; she’ll have the hots for you quick-sharp as she gets turned on every time you pull out a bobby pin.

It seems like a good idea and a way for you to find your true love – a companion who matches your character’s personality. In reality, it’s a real pain because many actions are necessary within the game – for example Cait hates it if you’re generous and likes you being selfish (She loves you walking around naked too, that girl’s got issues) so it becomes a question of do you alter your style to please them because you like them, or will your actions tear the two of you apart? I might be giving Bethesda too much credit for this concept, I’m not convinced that’s their intention but it’s an interesting dynamic. And oddly I had to sleep with a woman at one point to get info out of her, and my fully-confirmed partner was with me. I’m not sure what happened that night but we’re still together, yet she gets well pissy if I flirt off-script with someone. Plus, the whole idea is undermined by the perk system; each companion provides a bump in some form or other, so you just keep around whoever has a perk most useful at the time and put up with their grumbles when you do something they don’t like. The majority of the companions are quite interesting with different takes on the wasteland, and the perfect partner angle (if that’s what Bethesda were actually going for) is interesting – but the perk system removes who they are and turns them into a power-up.

Of course, the wasteland isn’t completely empty. Aside from the faction missions and the main storyline, there’s tons of mini-missions, events and radiant quests to keep you schlepping back and forth. Most are standard clear this out, find that, uncover what that is, kill that, rescue this. It can’t really go any other way, but after games like Mass Effect 3, which for all it’s faults made sure every mini-mission counted, you kinda want to see more impact. It would tie in nicely with the opening scenes of blissful suburbia if every side mission or encounter added to your settlement, either by more refugees helping or providing services; it would have been nice to return on a whim and see how it’s flourishing, and encourage you to go out and adventure more so by the end, you’ve provided and created a community, a nod to the past. But, missions are all standard and you do it for the xp. Eventually I get badass enough that a Deathclaw doesn’t terrify me, and give up questing, bored. Plus the settlement looks like a dump and everyone in it moans. Washed out of the wasteland, I might as well get this done. Why am I here again? Oh yeah, the kid.

So I follow fairly typical plotlines that lead me eventually to the dreaded Institute. Throughout, I heard stories of those guys, that they were creating androids to replace people in preparation for invading and forcing everyone out of the area. ‘Cos it’s just prime real-estate n’all. I kept thinking, why would they waste such resource and effort? I don’t know. And that’s not my infamous lack of patience, that’s the game’s muddled and unfocused plotting. The Institute itself is spotless and futuristic, why’d they want to move above-ground at all? The institute, for all their brilliance – not to mention the fact that they invented a transporter – doesn’t seem to have a clear mission statement and they have more than a passing similarity to FO4’s Steel Brotherhood; there’s a slightly distasteful fascism to both factions yet they hate each other. Still, turns out the wasteland tales are true. They are building ‘synths’ which are roaming about insinuating themselves into the colonies and townships of the wasteland. Still don’t really know why. But anyway, turns out my bundle of joy was taken for his DNA to help build human-androids for … reasons. And here he is!

My boy is all growed up and become the Father of the Institute (‘Father’ – Wow. Mom meet Son called Father. That’s deep, right? I shall call him Fatson) I feel nothing when we meet; this should be a huge moment finally finding him only to discover my boy is old, indifferent to me and has a very different world view to the one I’ve formed while out in the wilderness, but it doesn’t gel because I’ve not shared any of my pain or feelings during my trip. The game doesn’t seem to know what to do with us once we’re together. After some wooden dialogue that doesn’t explore anything, the game shuffles me off on quests with a neat little ‘We’ll talk later’. And we never do, not really, not in a way that’s rewarding given this has been Jack’s focus. All conversations are carefully manipulated to avoid any plot-spoiling or emotion; he’s in his sixties and not had a parent so his feelings towards me should be curious at best whereas I should be staggered but their scenes together are little more than standard dialogue found elsewhere in the game. My chat with the Mr Handy was more emotive than this. When a machine is happier to see me than my own son you’ve got problems.

Reuniting with Fatson is a complete let down but not an unexpected one; I don’t feel cheated because it could only ever have gone this way; I never thought the game would have the guts to kill the kid; he could have died, that would be interesting – a mid-game emotional wallop that leaves me wondering my place in this world without the focus; we could have found our descendants, imagine grandma Jack and the kids rebuilding a settlement or me eventually sacrificing myself, too far removed from this world to settle but providing something to ensure Jack Junior’s kids had a chance – Nope, standard plotting only please. Hell, it didn’t even go wide of the mark and say he’s gone but everyone in the institute is a clone of him intended to repopulate the earth and I was a clonemother. What would I do then, kill potentially hundreds of cloned grandkids I could spoil at Christmas? It just doesn’t do anything brave with what it has and I think that inevitability played a part in my reluctance to go looking for him. I didn’t want to be disappointed by a FO game. But it did it anyway, then compounded it; just before meeting Fatson, FO4 grins like it pulled a Keyser Soze-sized rug by revealing my son is the antagonist. Of course he is. You’re expecting this to create an emotional struggle, a difficult choice? Nope. Worse, that reveal is the second rug-pull in a row. In a scene ripped from a Spanish telenovela, I’d been led to believe my kid was a child still and sure enough, in the Institute, I find the child! *Cries in Spanish* But as we talk something weird happens; he … shuts down. It was a robot! *Cries in frustration* Cue Fatson briefly pretending not to be the boy before we ‘realise’. Piss off. I wasn’t shocked I was disappointed and filled with suspicion this wouldn’t be the last I’d see of the robokid. Don’t you do it FO4 …

Anyway, having been sent packing by Fatson, I wander the institute. Every scientist I meet is a bit of a prick and they’re misinformed about the surface – if only the Institute had someone available with an intimate knowledge of life in the wasteland. But they don’t just dismiss me, they don’t even have the option to ask (It’s like Bethesda realised ‘oh crap, if she tells them it’s not that bad out there, our main storyline is shot / Just don’t have the dialogue option? / Great save! Lunch?’). Their attitude towards Jack also rankles me. I’m a badass wilderness survivor, they should at least be a little nervous having someone this dangerous leaving dirt everywhere. I have a nuclear weapon strapped to my back and they’re rude? Fine that they have an ingrained dislike of surface-dwellers but I can’t change their mind and I’m really not convinced those are the guys to side with. But I go off doing the side missions to see where this takes me. And I’m surprised; it takes me right into Fatson’s chair!

More ridiculous than the whole Fatson reveal episode, within 3 or 4 missions I’m offered the big chair; that’s just unbelievable. Plus, I’ve not learnt anything new, been swayed towards their world-view or even offered a view. An entire institution of scientists capable of building robots – including robot gorillas I noticed, why? – and a transporter beam and various other brilliant technologies and the person best suited to taking over Apple is the mud-covered luddite who’s been here a day? Okay so two scientists rebel against the notion, and do so by brilliantly locking themselves in the room with the gorillas. But everyone else just comes around to the idea, especially after that whole gorilla incident. Okay so if I’m in charge now I get to change their views toward the surface – Oh, no I can’t. More ‘don’t break the storyline’ control. I can’t influence the Institute at all. FO4 has jumped the gorilla. Even if I accepted that, and I can’t, this whole event should have come early on, to give me time to warm to their ideas and ideals, but now I’ve done most of the other factions’ missions and get where they’re coming from, I don’t care about the Institute.

It also turns out my little man is the one who let me out of the vault. Why? I dunno really, he mumbles some plot-papering about knowing I’d find my way to him. How, why, what? You’ve expressed nothing but contempt for the wasteland and had the power to let me out decades ago, but you think the best idea is let your Mother wander with no direction or inkling about your status and just figured I’d rock up? And then when I do, I’d automatically side with you and – oh forget it I’m disowning you, I’ve had enough, I’m gonna go hang out with those fifties throwbacks with the shark decals on their power armour.

Like happens in the real world, this family reunion has been a disaster. Fatson and the Institute should have been introduced from the outset, especially after the revelation he let me out – It would have been a wicked game-changer to find a grown man at the house, explaining he released me and he’s about to unleash synth Armageddon on the commonwealth and wanted to rescue me first, revealing his identity. But something prevents us from returning so instead we go exploring for a way back to the Institute and along the way we both learn something; based on my actions, he sees hope or despair in the wastes, compassion or brutality – my actions are his reactions; it informs his plan once back at the Institute. Maybe he becomes compassionate and I become hardened and it’s up to him to change me. Anything but this. So much potential squandered, the generic nothingness of it makes me so angry I launch a mini-nuke and murder-suicide the two of us. This game drove me to infanticide. Or patricide I’m not sure. Had the two of us wandered together I would really have the fate of the wasteland in my hands, side missions would benefit the main quest by swaying his opinion and I’d be able to shape it as I see fit. But no, I’m caught between the usual factions and go with whichever ones I personally prefer/finished the missions for. Just like FO3, just like NV, just like most of Bethesda’s games nowadays; they’re not just reskinning the world, they’re copy/pasting the plots and missions.

This time around factions include the Steel Brotherhood, who somehow – despite the presumed world-wide shortage of everything – manage to maintain a huge airship dreadnaught (admittedly that thing arriving in the sky was a high point as was blowing it up later), or the Railway who are dedicated to freeing sentient synths (The Railway? Seriously? Let’s leave alone the grade-school level commentary on slavery). Oh and those Minutemen. I forgot about them. Literally forgot them; someone in the Steel Bros mentioned the Minutemen and I was like ‘oh yeah!’ And then there’s the Institute with their plan to do make everyone upgrade their iPhone or something. They all hate each other. I can’t unite them. Why not?! We don’t even explore the hatred which in some cases, particularly the Steel Bros vs Minutemen, doesn’t make sense.

On top of it all, Jack is the worst kind of hero – a passive one. She’s happiest wiring plugs. I play her as an absolute badass and the game makes the character a complete meh.

Another option could have been to build your own faction. FO4 would have had the capability to do that. Your settlements could have become a force in the wasteland, a new power rising with your actions dictating how it’s perceived, become the major power battling the others; Nation of Jack. That would make me more inclined to build more than a rickety shed for my settlers. Anything! Damnit!

So I go through the motions and the missions, none of which stand out and eventually I destroy the institute. It’s telling that I forget to go see my son after all that. Had I followed his storyline, more would be revealed about the Institute and it’s intent and that’s annoying; to be cheated out of a resolution because I don’t follow his ideals despite being made the Father is a further insult and eventually I forgot him as if he was a Minuteman. I guess I assumed he’d appear at the last second begging me not to do whatever I’d done, but instead, little robo-son rocks up. Now believing Jack is its Mother, robo-kid asks to be taken with. I agree, although I’d rather take a Gorilla. It would be cool if robo-kid actually turned out to be a homicidal mini-me terminator but no, it’s just that kid from A.I and a hackneyed way to give Jack her son after everything.

Once we’d escaped the explosion of the institute – which took out most of the buildings folks were living in – I wonder was there really no way to take it over and move in? That’s the only way to resolve this? In the middle of an irradiated wasteland, atomically blowing up the only safe haven for miles? And what about the poor robo-gorillas?! The Institute has exploded (helpful), the Commonwealth’s scientists are dead (helpful) and all their technology is gone (helpful), and my replacement son was nowhere to be found (helpful). I think he might have fallen off the roof we watched the explosion from. Finally, a Bethesda bug I can get behind. I’m certainly not going to look for him, one missing kid was enough and I was already aggravated the game would try to tie everything up so simply by giving me an iBoy. A happy ending? That’s not what the wasteland is, and it was never what Fallout was about. The best you could hope for was a better wasteland.

For some, the familiarity of FO4’s retread is more than enough. If you loved FO3, FO4 is just more of it and the settlement element allows you to bring some civility to the wasteland. It is beautifully detailed, involving and does what it says on the tin. For me though, FO4 was tame, safe and bland – I wanted to make more of a mark than a blast radius. As I prepare to fast-travel to the exit menu, I take a look at the landscape one last time. It’s an incredibly compelling world Bethesda created and it’s a testament to their dedication that we eventually call the wasteland home and want to better it. From up here that is. Down there in the ruins, we’ve seen it all before.

War. War never changes. Neither does Fallout it seems.

2015 | Developer Bethesda Game Studios | Publisher Bethesda Softworks

platforms; Win | PS4 | X0