Review: Fallout 4

I played this game so much, it was The Game for 2023. I took a lot of screenshots and shared stories with my friends. Too bad I didn't keep any.

Alright, so Fallout. I played Fallout 3 before, but I skipped New Vegas. It's more of the same. 

Visuals are very similar, and a bit dated by this point in time. That is, grimdark. Perfectly at home in any Warhammer fan's world. Colourful characters, horrible bloody super mutant camps, and tongue-in-cheek humor. Check and double check.

Alright, let's see what's different. Linearity is out the window. Sure, you can do the main quest line, in which case I don't see how you will succeed, given the kind of opponents you will soon be finding yourself. Instead, you can roam the map any way you want. Alright, so more of the same.

The big novelty are settlement building and crafting. I went into it with all my heart, and I started to hate it soon after. You can spend literal hours building up and perfecting your settlements. Make sure every settler has a nice bed and a closed dwelling. And worst is that you can manage each of their inventories separately. For the longest time, I collected every armor and gun I found to take back to my precious settlers.

If this is your thing, then by all means go ahead. Word of advice: don't. The settlers are immortal. You can give them guns if you want actual support when fighting for settlements, but that's the extent I would be willing to go for, if I went for another playthrough.

At least crafting was nice. By the end I sported a modded assault rifle that outgunned my minigun, and a modded epic shotgun that took down a Deathclaw in short order.

There are also companions that can be romanced, which I did, but then I discovered that this gives you a perk, which means I didn't keep my love interest around, instead letting her go as soon as I got my perk, in order to obtain another perk. Well, at least I tried to give Piper the best possible life I could offer, letting her rest in my largest and safest settlement.

As for the story... it had some surprising twists and turns, which I'm not going to spoil here. I took some choices which meant something else than I thought, but in the end I took the atomic route. I just hope the wasteland will be a better place afterwards.