Fallout 3 is one of my favorite games and I’ve played through
both New Vegas and Fallout 4. Fallout 4 is really where things went off the
rails for Bethesda, as they neglected to include the things that made Fallout 3
special, like interesting dialogue and story choices. Nevertheless, I played through
the game because the world was so fun to explore and the game mechanics—namely
the combat and crafting—were upgraded enough to keep you hooked. I had fun with
the different locales and film noir vibe that I wanted to play through the game
at least once.
Fallout 76 is Fallout 4 without non-player characters
(NPCs) and the odd real player wandering around. There are a few things I expect in
each Fallout title, and they’re all here in the newest one: a truly open world,
a wonky combat system, a big map to explore, a variety of strange enemies that
you can run into anywhere, and a great atmosphere. I’ve heard a lot of complaining
online about this game, but I refuse to complain when I’m playing something so
similar to the old ones that I really like. Overall, the locations are
beautiful, and I haven’t even wandered past the first few sets of buildings. Photomode
is neat (I've populated the blog with a few of the screenshots I've taken from roaming around Appalachia) and I
love just walking around and observing, taking in a fully-crafted world that’s very
surreal and vibrant. The buildings, inside and out, are designed so well that I’m
never disappointed when exploring, even if I don’t find any useful junk. It’s
also nice to play in a world where you can roam anywhere, regardless of whatever
level you’re at, fully aware that you will probably get killed and wanting to visit
the farthest reaches of the map even more because of it (I realize that other open world games are like this, but I still find many of them hard to navigate properly, limiting their true open worldiness).
The game mechanics are still wonky, with a little bit of
extra urgency since you can no longer pause the game whenever you look at your
Pip-boy. It makes choosing the right weapon more crucial to survival and
necessitates more hiding and running away when things aren’t going great, so
you can heal or pick the right gun. I liked that aspect a lot because the Pip-boy
was almost like a cheat code in all other Fallout games, stopping time and
letting you fix yourself before going back into battle. The combat would be fun
if this weren’t an online game, because the big problem with the system is
aiming. VATS doesn’t work like it did in other Fallout games. To be fair, I’m
still not sure how it works in this one. I use it mostly to sense any enemies
around me, but every time I track them with it, I fail to figure out how to aim
while I’m in VATS mode. Instead, I just aim naturally by holding L2. This has
its own problems, as I miss so much more often that I should. Enemies that
attack close up, like mole rats, are impossible to hit with a gun since the aim
has to be exactly on target. Even then, I’ve still missed a bunch of times,
probably because of lag. For bigger targets, like Super Mutants, this doesn’t
pose much of a problem, but I’m not looking forward to how this plays out when
I get to bigger and more dangerous foes.
The most glaring thing that’s distressing about Fallout 76 is the complete
lack of NPCs for storytelling purposes. There was considerable backlash against
Bethesda because of how their approach to storytelling in Fallout 4, where the
only real choice you could make was in which faction you wanted to be part of.
Besides that, there was very little in the way of decision-making, and you
couldn’t even complete quests without killing everyone in the room. The writing
was lazy and boring, and that’s been replaced by quests that come from
terminals, as if Bethesda just wasn’t even pretending anymore that it cared
about story and dialogue. It’s okay to keep running around and doing what the
computer tells me to for only so long, until you just figure that you’re better
off exploring the map once over and calling it a day. I just recently started playing Life is Strange, and I'm beginning to debate whether I'd rather play a game like that, with limited actual gameplay yet an interesting and affecting story, versus wandering somewhat aimlessly around an infinitely larger and more complex world. With a game as big as Fallout 76, the decision should be an easy one, and I can't blame anyone but Bethesda for making me debate how much time I want to spend on their game.
I’m hoping that my friends buy this game too—COME ON YOU LAZY
SONS OF BITCHES, PONY UP—so I can at least run around, build bases, and shoot
things with them while having conversations about how work was and how the kids
are. With no other humans around because the map is so big that it’s hard to
find other players to interact with, it’s a lonely
world in Appalachia. When my character sleeps in a bed, it does seem like there’s
no one else there, and I’m just looking at the ceiling waiting to regenerate health
for a good 30 seconds. Maybe that was what Bethesda was working towards, an
atmospheric touch of loneliness that makes you feel something different compared
with their older games. The trouble is that, like all Fallout games, everything
else—from the menus to the crafting system—need so much brainpower that it’s
not even like a pared down, isolated gaming experience. You’re always busy, just
by yourself, wondering how you’ll finish the next quest or what perks you’ll
get once you level up. Therein lies the problem with having such a huge game
and very little story to tell. I’ve got such an intricate world around me, I just
wish it all meant a little more.
As a side note, for anyone interested in the blog, don't be shy to post comments! The blog is in its infancy, so any movie or video game recommendations you'd like to see or any input towards making the blog better would be amazing.
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