Ok.. so 200 hours or so later i have decided on my feelings about fallout 4.
This is a game a really looked forward to even preorderd it and that's not something i ever do.
I fought the waves of people who attacked its graphics after E3.
I debated the Leaked map size...
I have had a picture edited by a friend depicting me and tod howard taking a selfie together because we are so in love. (my poor wife was not happy to see her face replaced by his)
And the continuous barrage of Good humoured though scathing attacks on a game that i was certain i would love was met with stern defense by myself..
So Was i right to defend it?
Graphics:
Graphically.. I honestly don't see an issue with it. It looks "fine" its acceptable. the lighting is vastly improved and some parts of it like the glowing sea really made me feel as though a nuclear catastrophe had happened. This is all good and immersive.
Performance at the Graphical level however is not really that impressive. And optimizing of the textures is something Bethesda seems to have decided that the modders can take care of.
So Its OK but they could have tried SLIGHTLY harder during development. i find it hard to believe that modders can optimize a reasonable % of textures in such a short time IF it would have broken the bank or ruined the game for bethesda to have done it during development.
The world map and general questing:
I don't really have an issue at all with the actual world map. its large enough to explore for a long period of time. and after 200 hours im pretty darn sure i have plenty more area's to find. It is also large enough to leave space for additional DLC's to exploit. Unfortunately bethesda yet again went with the notion of, you don't need to enter every building, and again took it on to the point of "you don't even need to enter most buildings"
During exploring Initially this did not really bother me as i was certain i would have a great time exploring vast cave complexes and elaborate vaults with complicated networks of tunnels.
But Turns out i was wrong. Vaults, cave systems, and the metro system are comparatively small many of them are a few rooms with some corridors connecting. gone are the intricate labyrinthian complexes of new vegas or skyrim. even morrowind had hours more interior space.
And this is something that has hugely disappointed me, It is difficult to be the wanderer when there is no where to wander too/in/around (whatever).
The main story line..
I was unable to bring my self to care about it at all, if you ever played tell tale game's living dead, that story line had me enthralled all the way through with me finding my self ever more emotionally involved in the set story line. I just did not have any emotional attachment to the story line in fallout 4, i could not have been more removed from it if they had deliberately tried to have me feeling like that.
But side quests is where fallout is at any way, so i set off to do that.
I found my self helping a group of people called the minuet men, I didn't really want to but they told me if i helped them then others would join and every one would help each other. Many hours later after doing the same basic 2-3 quests over and over sometimes for the same people and usually at the same places.
i had amassed a small army of settlers who had settlements defended to the teeth with trade routs supplying each and every one of them.
This was when i was told to go take over an old castle. so i did after a fight that was probably the highlight of the game so far for me. I was told to power up a radio tower and figured that i had done my bit. and the minuet men could now fend for them self..
Time to head off on the main quest. I headed off for the biggest city to look for information. On the way there Guess what happens.. the minuet men are in need of help and any minuet men in the area need to go and help..
Guess who that means?? That would be me. And that was the foundation for the rest of the game laid out. Start a mission.. get 1/2 way through.. Minuet men need help.
Go on a salvage run. Minuet men need help.. It did not take long for my "rescue the hostage" runs to turn in to "here is the money pay the ransom, leave me alone" runs.
I eventually turned off the radio mast at the castle and that was the last i heard from the minuet men.
By the end having done the missions for the rail road, minuet men, BoS, and the institute. The ONLY surprise i had in the end was a choice at the end of the Rail road run, the choice left me uncertain who i would actually fight for. But turns out the choice didn't have the leading implications that i had hoped for of changing things from the inside out to fit my will.
settlements:
These are at set points with a set build limit. there have been times i came across an area and thought I could really do something with this. But It had no work station and so could not become a settlement.
The defending of settlements is almost pointless, no matter how many guns you give them or how many turrets and walls you build. if you dont turn up to personally over see the defense they will lose.. Even if you usually only just show up in time to watch the 12 mk2 turrets you built annihilate the attackers, the second you decide they can fend for them self they get soundly trounced.
they become more of a chore than they are worth.
GUNS and armour:
probably the thing i was looking forward to the most was to make a 10mm mid ranged high powered rifle.
The promise of hugely customisable weapons and so on and so forth left me in little doubt i would be able to do this.
To make a long story short.. You cant make a 10mm rifle not an option. cant be done.
Thats pretty much all i have to say about that.
Guns in general (i played on survival mode) were only used as shop food or scrap salvage. after you get 2-3 legendary weapons upgraded then thats it really, you just buy ammo for them. legendary armour is quite pointless as 1st thing you put the power armour on all the effects are disabled. So thats just shop fodder too..
Power armour:
This is a bit of a kick to the teeth for fans of the lore really.
They finally have it so you pilot it rather than wear it, and that it needs power.. And they go ahead and set it up so any old idiot can just jump in and go.
not training needed not even you need to read a book 1st ( i wouldn't have been happy with reading a book either)
but its totally taken the alure of power armor away. no longer is it only the specially trained elite that can use it, you can jump out of it to go do some crafting. and next thing you know a settler who saw an angry cat has jumped in it to wage ware on the feline menace.
What they did get right however was the weight. in previous games power armour's usefulness was negated by its weight. which is like saying you can carry more when walking than you could in a lorry because the lorry weighs so much.
power armour and its plates "when worn" do not weigh anything, which is correct for once.
Its just a shame that they decided it did not need any training..
End of the day:
So, after all that.. do i regret my pre order?
200 hours of game play prety much speaks for its self. it is still a very good game, it could have just been so much more dont think there is any real replay value in it now though. the quests are just the same things at the same places. And im sure they could have at the very least sent you some place else.
Having to go to the same place 2 possibly 3 times isn't that bad but every other quest being in the same place is just tiring.
I dont think i can possibly give this a numbered score out of 10.
I cant score it low because it is a good game.
I cant score it high because it should have been better.
and i cant score it in the middle because that would just be my jaded view on how it should be that gave it that score..
Any way i know this is TL;DR fodder. But i wanted to get it down in writing in case Bethesda one day find it.