Fallout 4 (Major Spoilers start about half-way)

[TheFeniX]

Let me start by saying: I enjoyed Fallout 4 and there's still a lot for me to do. The combat system is still fairly fun. The addition of a sprint makes melee builds (my new game setup) even more fun. Combining VATS and the FPS elements makes for a combat system that keeps me coming back. There's enough content in the game to keep me engaged. Shooting out fusion cores is so god damned satifying.

"No, not the Core!" :::BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM::: Free power armor frame!

I love Valentine and his voice-actor. If this character doesn't make you side with synths, I wonder if you're human. I like Piper. She's snarky, well voiced, and maintains chuckle-worthy dialog. She's fun to have around. Dance is... man, fuck the F4 Brotherhood.

NOTE: I didn't pound through the Main Quest as I said I would, but I also didn't exhaust all options. But, if there were more options, they were hard to find.

That said, there's mostly shallow engaging content. The player is pushed along a path and everything is at a stand-still until you get involved. So, you have agency, except you have no agency. The story is half-assed. Much of it makes no sense when thought about for 5 seconds when it isn't explained. When it is explained, it makes even less sense. Plot-lines that seem important just stop abruptly.

Let me give some non-Fallout 4 examples of blatant stupidity:
1. Remember how Delphine in Skyrim talks about how the Blades are there to protect the Dragonborn and it's great you helped rebuild them? Fuck you, kill Paarthunax (sp) or we won't talk to you anymore.
2. Help Karliah with everything and she just sits around a cave doing nothing?
3. Using the GECK for what it was used for in Fallout 3 when any other use would have been much better?
4. Having "your destiny" be to die turning on the purifier in F3?

Let me give you a Fallout 4 example side-quest that's a perfect example of Beth's horrible writing.

Kid in a Box: you stumble on a kid locked in a fridge. You let him out. He's a ghoul. He's been in the fridge since the bombs fell. He's not feral. You take him home. His parents, also ghouls, are like a 2 minute dead-sprint away in a house. You bring him back, and raiders show up and want the kid. You kill the raiders (or whatever), they give you some caps.

There are so many things fucking wrong with that quest. 200 years in a box? Still sane? Parents, raiders, caravans... no one in 200 fucking years heard this kid yelling for help? Raiders just show up 2 seconds after bringing the kid back? Why do they want three ghouls for slaves?

Fallout 4 continues Beth's inability to write engaging stories on anything but a superficial level. Those that go beyond their high-school DnD group bullshit fall apart when they try to explain anything (same boat Bioware is in). Remember all that cool inter-faction fighting in New Vegas, with you caught in the middle REALLY pushing the factions the way you want? Fallout 4 offers the most kid's gloves version which spits in the face of what Obsidian gave us for New Vegas.

MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD and also just me ranting. This shit is FUCKING SHORT. It's like 10 quests, most of which are shooty shooterton quests. The Kellog shit is mildly interesting, but raises tons of questions and is basically an info dump.

Here's the skinny: Shaun is actually 60 years old (not even surprising considering the build up) and is running the institute. I walked in with Power Armor and a plasma rifle because I figured he was in on it and would try to kill me. I was wrong in this regard. They took him because they wanted uncorrupted DNA to build synths off of..... They left you alive as a backup (you have his DNA). They murdered your husband/wife for no reason, except as a gut punch to the player. It's never explained even though he/she ALSO has Shauns DNA. Shaun released you 60 years later, gave you zero guidance, as an experiment. If you side with the insinuate, you have to brutally murder the Railroad and Brotherhood (Brotherhood fight was fucking fun as Hell though) because reasons. Negotiation is not an option, your son is now just a quest giver. He dies of super-cancer and names you head of the institute....

I can rant at length about just how fucking bad the story is. Kelog is still alive and "young" after 60 years. Super-science made him long-lived. At one point, when Shaun is 10: he owns a home in Megato.... er, Diamond City. 50 years later, he's still well enough known to have his identity suspected on a verbal description. He still owns that same home but only recently left. His trail is still warm enough to get found by dogmeat. Am I crazy to think this deserves some explanation? With so much synth bullshit going on, how has no one shot Kelogg?

That's just one part of the main quest. There is so little redeeming about the story because it's just nothing but shock value, poor exposition, and fetch/murder quests. The only good part is that fighting the Brotherhood offers at least some sort of challenge. They dump you off at the airport, hope you brought Power Armor and a Fat Man. I know I did and I was still out of stims by the end. Still, I went from looking for my son to nuking the entire Brotherhood.

After all this, I'm now head asshole at du istutoot. Valentine and Piper chewed me out for very good reasons. Then went right back to being all super-cool with me because my relationship was maxed. Nothing else mentioned. Annoying. But, Piper and I had lesbian sex right after, so game is definitely 9/10.

[White Haven]

Bethesda continues their tragic inability to get their art department and their writers on the same page with regards to how long ago the world exploded. This is at least partially a product of the fact that quite a few of their little micronarratives are told exclusively through the art department. I'm still progressing through the story, so I can't speak to the ending(s) yet. I've definitely seen some splintering here and there where the overall narrative starts to come apart, but...well, who knows, I'm on a different branch of the endgame than you took, so maybe things won't be as fucked.

I can dream.

[Darmalus]

Sounds like the same as Fallout 3. They can't decide if the world blew up 200 days, weeks, months or years ago. Honestly going by the art I'd guess the nukes dropped less than 20 years ago, probably closer to 10.

[PREDATOR490]

Have not finished the game yet, I spent way too much time doing the settlement thing since that is the major new thing of the game. Rather disappointed how it turns out because being the leader of settlements seems to have no real bearing on the game when it should.

Setting disconnect - Always been a major problem with this franchise. Trying to sell the idea that everything is stuck in the 1950s while 200 years have passed after a nuclear apocalypse is just stupid. Everything from finding bottlecaps in pre-war vaults or things continuing to look like unpowered bombed out shit even when you can buy portable nuclear bombs from weapon dealers. I rolled my eyes when you can literally find a cargo train loaded with a complete power armor set sitting for anyone to grab if they can break a computer.

If a freshly released guy can literally build a settlement with little more than the clothes on their back, it gets beyond silly that in 200 years the population of the planet is having serious difficulty even moving out of the bombed re purposed dumps compared to building their own mega cities.

[Thanas]

I tried to get into Fallout 3 and 4 but I just couldn't. The world and the NPCs seemed so lifeless when compared to, say, the witcher series. And the graphics engine needs a serious overhaul.

Dunno, maybe the series is just not for me.

[Jub]

Has anybody else found the follower romances to be shallow and not at all rewarding? I just finished romancing Curie, my choice for the most interesting of the female characters, and the whole thing felt flat. From repeating the minute men quests to get her affection up, to the short conversations and stilted flirting, to the near emotionless tones used to profess our love to each other nothing grabbed me.

At least in a game like Dragon Age: Inquisition the characters have enough depth not to feel hollow; even if landing your mate basically boils down to some affection grinding and a few dialogue options. Plus you have to pick a character for your run making the choice have some weight. Shallow characters, lazy romance mechanics, and no consequences for dating everybody at once makes for yet another flat spot in a game full of missed chances.

Still, stomping around the wasteland in power armor is fun, and finding the little mysteries and jokes hidden in corners is fun. I just wish as much care had gone into the story and characters as was put into leaving easter eggs around the map.

[The Vortex Empire]

Having completed Fallout 4, I give it a 6/10 for short, boring story, uninteresting characters with the exception of Nick Valentine, clunky base building, poor optimization and bad UI, and massive dumbing down of all the RPG elements. Unlike FO3 and NV, none of your character's abilities except Charisma ever affect the dialogue or story, and the dialogue wheel limits the variety and personality of what you can say. I dont feel like I'm making a character, I feel like I'm being railroaded into playing Bethesda's character. Where New Vegas had such a well crafted world that you were allowed to kill literally anyone and it would reflect that change, many characters in FO4 are marked essential and immortal in FO4. It is a massive step back as an RPG and I can only hope they let Obsidian make the next one. Maybe if we're lucky Obsidian will suddenly acquire the capital to buy the rights to Fallout and it'll be back in the hands of the former Interplay/Black Isle crew who made FO1 and 2. Back to New Vegas for me.

I tried to get into Fallout 3 and 4 but I just couldn't. The world and the NPCs seemed so lifeless when compared to, say, the witcher series. And the graphics engine needs a serious overhaul.

Dunno, maybe the series is just not for me.

That's Bethesda's usual terrible writing for you. I'd give New Vegas a shot if I were you, it was made by Obsidian who are miles better writers, and made up of much of the Interplay/Black Isle crew who made Fallout 1 and 2..

[TheFeniX]

I tried to get into Fallout 3 and 4 but I just couldn't. The world and the NPCs seemed so lifeless when compared to, say, the witcher series. And the graphics engine needs a serious overhaul.

The Bethesda Fallouts are probably the worst story-telling around. They come up with cool ideas, then shoe-horn them into gameplay. "Making Sense" does not factor in.

"Hey, we found an unexploded bomb, let's build a city around it while fanatics worship it. Some random vault dweller wants to take a look at it, no problems here." This is all because Beth wanted a nuke explosion to showcase in trailers.

For a fun drinking game, every time you run across something you know was thought up while high on paint fumes because "Dude, DUDE, this would be TOTALLY COOL!": take a drink. But really, I think they just dump cliffs notes on coders desks that say shit like

"Red-headed Irish extremely-violent character with a substance abuse problem and who was also the victim of domestic violence."
"Won't the Irish find that offense?"
"Nah, they're all too drunk to care."

Seriously, I like Cait. But what the fuck? Really, the only thing that doesn't make sense about that is her having an Irish accent at all. So... yea.

Dunno, maybe the series is just not for me.

You might like New Vegas. Obsidian can actually tie a story together and make characters more than just blank slates with some cliche background. Just compare the quest lists from New Vegas to Fallout 3. Dialog options were infinitely better as well and characters had motivations outside "Vault guy looks cool, let's follow him into certain death." Unfortunately, it's unlikely we will see Obsidian working with Beth anymore.

Has anybody else found the follower romances to be shallow and not at all rewarding? I just finished romancing Curie, my choice for the most interesting of the female characters, and the whole thing felt flat. From repeating the minute men quests to get her affection up, to the short conversations and stilted flirting, to the near emotionless tones used to profess our love to each other nothing grabbed me.

Mmmm. Cold dry robosexuality. God damn I love Laura Bailey.

Seriously, though: no. Piper gushes all over you after some flirt options. Haven't maxed out Cait yet, since she's fucking evil. Luckily, I am short-cutting it by walking around the wasteland with no shirt on (she likes that) and picking locks while murdering Raiders. That said, of course it's shallow: it's Beth. Enjoy your Lover's Embrace XP bonus.

At least in a game like Dragon Age: Inquisition the characters have enough depth not to feel hollow; even if landing your mate basically boils down to some affection grinding and a few dialogue options. Plus you have to pick a character for your run making the choice have some weight. Shallow characters, lazy romance mechanics, and no consequences for dating everybody at once makes for yet another flat spot in a game full of missed chances.

Well, Bioware did build up the romance deal of DA:I a lot. Beth really just said "We're making another Fallout, please dump your money in the hole over there."

[TheFeniX]

I should also mention something that annoys me: don't give me a sob story if you're going to kids glove it.

See, it turns out Cait's parents were abusive, then sold her into slavery... when she turned 18. She laments they got "a few caps" for her and the slavers did "bad things" to her. Now, I don't care to deal with the horrible reality of what life would be like, especially for young women, in a place like the Fallout verse. Mad Max hits on it pretty well, A Boy and His Dog a whole lot more: slavery and rape would be a big thing.

But moronic explanations of PG-13 slavery that make no sense cheapen the message and make me click-through dialog as fast as the engine will allow. Why raise a child to 18 before selling her into slavery? Raising kids is fucking expensive. Food in the wasteland is at a premium. Clean water: a valuable resource. Why waste time and energy even raising a kid to make enough caps to maybe but a single stimpack? Hell, just surviving to 18 in THAT good health would be a major accomplishment.

Not to mention Fallout (and Elder Scrolls) are like an equal opportunity wet dream. Beth does not care about gender or race (aside from actual races in later Elder Scrolls games, but not skin color). Men and Women and skin color are just a variable to be randomly assigned.

I don't even recall how much they got for her because I had immediately zoned out when Beth dropped the "age 18" line, which smells to high hell of executive meddling. If you don't have the stones to deal with horrific situations: just fucking ignore them. Don't give us the PG version.

[Thanas]

Seriously? They went more tame than Bioware of the early 2000s?

[Lord Revan]

it would seem so.

There's really no logical reason why parents would wait until their child was 18 before selling him/her to slavery. Anyone who has survived to be in their late teens in the wasteland is problably a net gain to the group he/she is in for resources and manpower, children would use more of the groups resources then they'd contribute but if the group is so decedant or resource starved that a few caps would make difference they wouldn't wait until the child matures.

[Joun_Lord]

it would seem so.

There's really no logical reason why parents would wait until their child was 18 before selling him/her to slavery. Anyone who has survived to be in their late teens in the wasteland is problably a net gain to the group he/she is in for resources and manpower, children would use more of the groups resources then they'd contribute but if the group is so decedant or resource starved that a few caps would make difference they wouldn't wait until the child matures.

Well she is Irish so maybe she is actually from Ireland and its a possibility that other countries have a form of government, or atleast from an area in the Wasteland with a government like the NCR. It might be alot harder to get rid of a kid compared to an adult in where ever she came from. Her parents could just say she left home at 18 and any authority ain't going to put up alot of effort to look for an adult. Saying a kid ran away or disappeared would probably get alot more heat.

On topic, I like the game. Its not perfect, no Beth game is, but damn if I don't enjoy it.

It fixes alot of the problem with earlier games like one weather, one type of environment, lack of base building, lack of modification for weapons and armor, and power armor feeling like just another suit of armor. They also have things like companion quests, more sensible wait function, and better combat AI (dudes actually use cover and grenades to flush you out of cover).

For fans of the older Fallout games they might get a kick out of some of the references if they keep an open mind. The NCR is mentioned, San Franscio is shown, the Vault suit looks more like the older suits, 2mm EC ammo is in the game, and the Fallout 2 style Enclave Advanced Powa Armor MK1 I think Bethesda is trying to extend an olive branch to the older Interplay fans. Not that it will work.

Another positive is its been pretty stable so far. I can only run it on medium but haven't had any crashes or major bugs, the only problem is a freeze-up after launch occasionally.

There are some bad bits. The lack of different ammo types. The story so far has been a bit meh. Like others have said the environment can't decide if the bombs feel 10 years ago or what. and while weapons can be modified heavily there seems to be a highly limited selection.

One semi-negative is unlike alot of reviews the game isn't dumbed down. They don't tell you how to do dick which means for alot of shit like base building its all trial and error or more likely googling how to do shit. For people new to the series it might be a bit of a chore figuring out all the functions of the Pip-Boy, lock picking, and more.

Overall its alot like an improved Fallout 3. If you enjoyed that game you will enjoy this one. I feel I got my moneys worth and look forward to the DLC and the mods (so long as they aren't paid).

[Enigma]

I too agree that the game is too short but the ending clip sucked big time. Unlike all the previous FO games, this one does not tell you what happens to all the towns.

[Jub]

Mmmm. Cold dry robosexuality. God damn I love Laura Bailey.

Seriously, though: no. Piper gushes all over you after some flirt options. Haven't maxed out Cait yet, since she's fucking evil. Luckily, I am short-cutting it by walking around the wasteland with no shirt on (she likes that) and picking locks while murdering Raiders. That said, of course it's shallow: it's Beth. Enjoy your Lover's Embrace XP bonus.

I was more concerned with the fact that the Sole Survivor's romantic lines sound forced. Added to this the dialogue clips are short, choppy, and often sound like certain lines were recorded months apart with a different director. I like Curie, I'm not upset that she was my first romance target, but if she's the best option for me and I still feel this way...

Well, Bioware did build up the romance deal of DA:I a lot. Beth really just said "We're making another Fallout, please dump your money in the hole over there."

That's my problem, the game hasn't innovated at all. It's Fallout 3 with more voiced lines, some minor crafting, and a lazy base building mod.

There are some bad bits. The lack of different ammo types.

There seems to be a major lack of weapons that use each ammo type as well. Sure the mods add some depth, but once you've gathered a few of the basics there's really no excitement to be had in finding anything other than a legendary version of the gun you like. If you're like me and b-lined the crafting perks alongside scrapper and the adhesive recipe, it makes looting seem kind of hollow pretty quickly. The fact that unlike New Vegas there aren't any real guns is a kick in the teeth as well. How hard would it have been to license a couple of real pistols, an AR-15, an AK and the like to go along side weapons that are straight out of the wasteland? This isn't even mentioning that you can't build weapons from scratch or craft ammo. How cool would it be to find blueprints, maybe alongside a small quest chain for finding parts, for unique weapons?

Armor is also another thing you can max out very early on. Your options as full suits, a complete trap option, leather, raider gear, metal, synth parts, and combat armor. Even counting certain variants of these armors, it's disappointing to know that once you've got a full set of heavy combat armor, two if you care about your companion, you no longer even need to loot from most raiders unless you're wanting more caps.

At least in the other games you had power armor to look forward to, but this game throws it at you like it's going out of style. Of course even with power armor there's still a percent damage reduction cap which makes things even more pointless. Then you get to power armor HP which means that even if you've reached the point where fusion cores aren't an issue, you're still running back to base every few fights because a lucky hit took out your legs or your follower has been enough of a sponge to have totaled their entire set.

This could have been fixed if the power armor just took all the shots on its own HP pool, with the armor rating reducing damage to that piece, and only transferred damage to you after an armor section was destroyed. Then you fix the repair issue by allowing you to make field repairs with the armorer perk with max repaired HP being set at 10%/20%/30%/50% based on your perk level. Suddenly you really want to be in power armor and you actually care about having the scrap on you to fix it.

Also on the subject of followers. They're all worthless. They waste any ammo you give them by spraying at things they have no chance of hitting; as an example Curie went through over 3k 5mm rounds in the space of a half hour. That means she then went back to trying to punch things while blocking my line of sight because in her synth form she has no default follower weapon. Their lack of trigger discipline in combat means that at best they're a bullet soak, and even then they take most of those bullets by starting fights while you're still unspotted trying to find the best angle for an ambush. This means that giving them power armor is a waste as they end up running around in just a frame in no time at all.

TLDR; deeply flawed game that manages to be fun in spite of itself.

[Oscar Wilde]

I too agree that the game is too short but the ending clip sucked big time. Unlike all the previous FO games, this one does not tell you what happens to all the towns.

Well, 3 didn't really. With 4, does the game actually end at the end of the story, or can you play on to do side content?

[Enigma]

I too agree that the game is too short but the ending clip sucked big time. Unlike all the previous FO games, this one does not tell you what happens to all the towns.

Well, 3 didn't really. With 4, does the game actually end at the end of the story, or can you play on to do side content?

You can keep going.

[TheFeniX]

That's my problem, the game hasn't innovated at all. It's Fallout 3 with more voiced lines, some minor crafting, and a lazy base building mod.

Nothing I read/saw about Fallout 4 made me feel we were ever going to get anything more. Fallout 3 with a Blade Runner vibe. They can't even be bothered to hit on the themes of the original source material, when there is so much to explore. But considering A Boy and His Dog would likely be NC-17 if released today, horrific violence (to the point of being comical) is ok for a Mature rating because parents still but those games up for their kids: there's no reason to compromise sales pushing themes like in The Witcher series. Not when people throw their money at Fallout.

The only benefit is that Beth isn't crapping out Fallout games on a yearly schedule, so at least it feels fresh. That and F4 does have a different, albeit much more shallow, feel and look to New Vegas. Also, they haven't just shit all over an aging IP like EA Games loves to do.

TLDR; deeply flawed game that manages to be fun in spite of itself.

That's the magic of Beth games. They throw and bunch half-implemented cool ideas at the wall and it sticks. They have no reason to develop a game to 100% completion, deliver multi-branching plots, and make the player think hard about their choices other than a "I'll lose access to X" way.

I've been messing around with the Shaun conversation, though I messed up and quicksaved after the "not joining you" so I could see what killing him did. I don't know if I've exhausted all options, but there's not even a "I'll never believe you, I want proof" option. The Insitute pulled a lot of shit and I just jump at the chance to believe some old man? Dumb. It's just Beth wanting to push the story along. Bethesda just cannot tell a compelling story, not since Morrowind. And to be fair, much of the love for Morrowind comes from the "dumped off in a world, do whatever, craft whatever, wear whatever, hit things to get better at hitting things, etc," not the story in of itself.

[TheFeniX]

The entirety of the "Cait Questline" is a pretty good example of Beth half-assing in the storytelling department. Not to mention, more than a few example of just lazy/bad scripting.

So, the first time walking into the Combat Zone, I see this fight going on. None of the raiders are hostile. Cool, I'll hang out. Walk up to the bar to get a better look. Bartender says "Huh? You're not supposed to be here." Epic gunfight time as every raider goes hostile at the same time. It's like this switch got flipped.

It reminds me of this one mission in the original AssCreed. I'm infiltrating some party. Playing it slow and cool. Then one of those asshole crazies pushes me into someone carrying a vase. He drops the vase, it breaks. The entire room all turns at once to look at me. Beat. Klaxons, everyone draws swords.

Anyways, I kill them all (both games). Cait's Ghoul handler (can't be bothered to remember his name) talks about rebuilding the Combat Zone. Then he just walks around and sleeps on the bed. He does nothing else, never rebuilds it, nothing. I even went back to check.

Cait's story tries to tug at heart-strings and fails due to unintentional comedy. You help her kick her Psycho habit by taking her to a vault that has a super-addiction-kicker. You murder your way to it, and she straps it. Her grunting and sounds of distress might mean something if her arms weren't constantly clipping through the restraints and if she were making any facial animations at all. Her mouth isn't even moving. Just a default "blank stare" as she kind of "shivers" in this chair. Afterward, walk around naked, pick a few more locks, and you get your own Irish fuck-buddy.

This also means there isn't a single vault in F4 that isn't tied to either the player character or a companion quest.

Oh and Dunwich Borers was a piss poor substitute for the Dunwich Building from Fallout 3.

[Enigma]

<snip>
Oh and Dunwich Borers was a piss poor substitute for the Dunwich Building from Fallout 3.

I found it stupid how the Dunwich Borers descended from one guy needing the player to fix the pump to it being infested with raiders. The terminal even has log entries in which the raider leader said that HE got the pump to work. SMH

[TheFeniX]

Wasn't that Thicket Excavation? I can't be bothered to remember fully. But yea, you help some random asshole out, he kicks you to the curb, then you get a radiant quest to kill Raiders. Quality.

Rocking two new Power Armors. Finally dug up a set of X-01 from a random building in town. Decided now was the time to rock out the Atom Cats..... except their paint job only works on T-60. Whatever, looks cool.

[TheFeniX]

Curie is another throw-back to pre-war, but she's pretty cute about it. Talking about alerting authorities and "Someone is nearby. Maybe they are friendly?" Daw, she thinks there's people around we aren't going to brutally slay. That said, the vault quest to get her is dumb. The "hidden" vault has it's exit door right at the entrance, with NPCs standing around it constantly. In 200 years, when you've had multiple generations of people and resources are a thing, no one has ever thought about cutting through that locked door? Not to mention there's a hidden door in the reactor room infested with mole rats and no one has tried to clean it out?

I don't know about you, but knowing everything about my living location is pretty important. And rabid animals being one door latch away from chewing my face off is not cool. I don't even like birds nesting in my attic.

But whatever, Curie has a sexy Frence accent: let's cram her into a standard synth body because we can do shit like that with explanations in the vein of "like filling a balloon with too much air" so I can romance the shit out of her. Remembering to breath is an issue for you? Here's a Plasma Rifle: go shoot things and play the exact same human animations everyone else does.

Seriously? They went more tame than Bioware of the early 2000s?

I've been thinking about this, but I wanted a bit more playtime before making a post about it. With the exception of murder-fuel powered gore effects and violence: Fallout 4 has no Mature themes that don't belong more in a after-school special than a game about surviving in a post-war apocalypse. The Cait slavery issue is the only issue really grating because of the "18 years-old" bit. The rest is just explained so poorly or ignored.

Even the walking simulator of SOMA at least hit on the theme of what it means to actually be human. And most of the post-human humans were either programs or horrific aberrations. The Brotherhood talks big about synths not being human, but the point of the game was that the Institute was able to make synths indistinguishable from humans. Only one doctor was making a verbal test (ripping off Bladerunner) and it's success rate was stupidly limited. Hell, even Bladerunner didn't make much sense because if you weigh what Daryl Hannah did and you can knock people around like a body builder: you can't be built like a regular human.

So I have to assume Synths can form all the emotional connections humans can. And they'd have to be able to breed. Maybe they are sterile?, but their junk has to work. They have to be able to connect with their spouse, family, and friends without messing up. Sorry, that pretty much makes them human. Do they age? Do they bleed? (The models do). But the game doesn't hit on this at all. Everyone's mind is made up either way. There was potential for some very adult and confusing themes here and Beth just skipped them. Why they handled their own canon so bad is just... well, Beth. I don't even recall Synths in the other Fallout games besides 3 (Harkness).

Fallout 4 is a fucking kid's cartoon, wrapped in a Mature gore-fest. If they cut out the gibs, there's no reason this game wouldn't be rated Teen. But since parents buy M games for their kids all the time, as long as there's no overt hanky-panky (SEX IS BAD!), it obviously didn't affect their sales.

[Vendetta]

<snip>
Oh and Dunwich Borers was a piss poor substitute for the Dunwich Building from Fallout 3.

I found it stupid how the Dunwich Borers descended from one guy needing the player to fix the pump to it being infested with raiders. The terminal even has log entries in which the raider leader said that HE got the pump to work. SMH

The raider leader is the same guy who gives you the quest, he did get the pump to work, he just got some gullible nerd to swim down and fix the pipes for him.

Dunwich Borers is the one with the ghouls (and unique named Machete) at the bottom where the raiders are mining for the Forged.

[Enigma]

I mixed up the names, oops.

I got the impression they were two different guys?

As for the Forged, Slag's slagged. lol

[streetad]

There's something very familiar about the Brotherhood of Steel in this game, and it's not the Arthurian stuff.

You've got this guy Arthur Maxson, who is basically a human supremacist. He wants to purge the wasteland of all the filthy non-humans, supermutants, ghouls, synths etc.

He leads a bunch of pseudo religious, power armoured warrior monk supersoldiers who spout gratuitous Latin at each other and have started to worship him as a God (even though he has expressly forbidden this as a heresy).

Meanwhile Games Workshop are willing to trash their second most popular product line in a fit of pique over their inability to copyright the concept of an 'Elf'...

[Ziggy Stardust]

I tried to get into Fallout 3 and 4 but I just couldn't. The world and the NPCs seemed so lifeless when compared to, say, the witcher series. And the graphics engine needs a serious overhaul.

Dunno, maybe the series is just not for me.

I'm the same way. Fallout is one of those franchises whose enduring popularity has always puzzled me. Then, I felt the same about Half-Life. For whatever reason, I found both series to be utterly uninteresting despite the fervor that they arouse among a certain sect of gamers.