What if, one day, everything you ever knew changed forever. What if, far from being safe, you found yourself at the centre of a nuclear war - dashing to the relative safety of a fallout shelter when the bombs dropped. It's a terrifying idea - and one, even more spookily,the government actually had a contingency plan for - but this is the concept behind Fallout 4, a post-apocalyptic role-playing game from Bethesda, the studio behind similarly massive adventures, The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim and Oblivion, that puts you in a situation all of us hope will never happen - trying to survive a nuclear armageddon.
Be careful, if you stare into the mirror too long - you don't know what might look back at you
The game begins with a good old character customization section, allowing you to choose whether to dive in to the Wasteland as a male or female, and choose what you want to look like, with an eerily powerful facial editor letting you set everything, from their hair and eye colour, to the size and length of their nose, and even tiny modifications such as scars and blemishes, letting you create as accurate a representation of yourself (or otherwise) as you want.
Unlike other Fallout games, the story here actually begins before the bombs drop, in a gorgeous fusion world that takes 50s style America, and mixes it with technology and science. After making your character, you'll be able to get used to the controls and explore your house, meet your husband (or wife) and introduce yourself to your trusty robotic companion Codsworth. With their usual attention to detail, Bethesda have done a fine job of adding personal touches, as Codsworth has been built to recognise hundreds of names, so that if you choose one of the names he can recognise, he'll refer to you by name in game. That said, it would be nice if we knew which names Codsworth recognised before starting our game, just for the added cool-factor!
Here's Codsworth - your handy helper-bot, after the armageddon
Of course, this being a Fallout game and all, the blissful suburban atmosphere doesn't last too long. Just as you stop to admire the daisies in your front garden, the "three minute warning" sirens go off, prompting you and your family to flee and find safety in Vault 111. Without spoiling anything, "some decades later", you eventually manage to leave the vault, and are forced to find your way in a post-apocalyptic nuclear war ridden world - one very different and a hell of a lot more dangerous than the one you previously knew, as you set out on a quest to find your son, Shaun, and get to the bottom of what happened.
As you'd likely expect, the world you explore is less a world of cities and bustling metropolises, and more an arid wasteland. Desolate buildings, abandoned towns, and ramshackle sheds line every corner, along with all sorts of mutated creatures that are steeling for a fight. You have to watch your every movement and be on your guard at all times, as you never know what type of creature is lurking nearby, ready to pounce on you without a moment's notice.
Luckily, you aren't totally alone out there. Your character has a Pipboy on their arm at all times - a kind of arm-mounted computer which basically links them to the vault and acts as an inventory. The Pipboy will be your best friend and comes with a handy light if you ever find yourself in a dank and dark environment. More than just a torch, your Pipboy can also be used to view your quests, map, weapons, apparel, medicines and chems, as well as linking up to nearby radio stations if the eeriness of the Wasteland is too much for you.
It's pretty barren out there.
Even though your main purpose is to find your son, there's so much more than that to do in Fallout 4. As you begin to explore, you'll find yourself drowning in side quests as more or less each person you speak to has some sort of task they need help with. And this isn't a bad thing - with so much to do, and with so many great side quests on offer, you'll often end up having more fun doing these than you will on the main story itself. Your moral choices will be put to the test, too, and you'll be made to make tough decisions, often with no easy answer. You'll also find yourself crossing paths with many different groups of people fighting for control of regions and settlements - who you decide to be allies with is up to you, but is everyone you meet really as nice or evil as they seem?
With so much choice, it can be tempting to jump in to the game and go ahead with whichever quests you pick up first, and while that's not a bad thing, there's something to be wary of that we wish we knew first! Quests do not have a suggested level - meaning that you could potentially be heading off to a quest fit for a level 25 character when you're only a paltry level 7 - and that's a recipe for disaster. It's not much fun heading out on a quest at level 10, only to run into a level 27 Deathclaw like we did… *gulp*. It's safe to say it didn't end well… We found that the left side of the map tends to be the lower levelled monsters, ranging to the higher levels towards the right and bottom parts of the map. Just a tip for all you future Vault Dwellers!
This Deathclaw wasn't the nicest of things to run in to!
By completing the quests, you'll start to gain access to settlements, which are essentially homes, or safe-houses you can customise however your heart desires. Building requires materials though, and that material can be gained through scrapping anything in your inventory. One thing to bear in mind is that the materials you store, and anything you build cannot be transferred from between settlements, which we found irritating. That said, this building side of the game is nice, and you can spend hours building a settlement with multiple defences once you get stuck in - but it did feel a bit tricky to get the hang of, and no doubt there were a few swear words muttered when things got complicated (oops). Settlements will act as a safe place for you and fellow companions that you find on your travels - who can also be brought out on quests with you if you don't feel like venturing out alone. Companions are great to have with you, as they can help aid you in battle, and each offers something unique, such as the ability to heal you. Of course, the companions also have a big downside, too - especially if you want to be stealthy. With traditionally "fantastic" AI, if you don't want to get caught, your companion can majorly mess this up for you and blow your cover by moving too quickly and making noise, or coming out of the shadows at the worst possible moment. Choose your companions wisely and use the 'stay' command on them if needed!
As you defeat enemies, complete quests and otherwise do important things in the Fallout world, you'll gain experience and level up, netting you some handy skill points to spend. And much like every action has a consequence in Fallout 4, so to does how you distribute and spend your skill points, with several categories and branches you can choose to invest in, depending on how you want your character to turn out. If you want to resolve conflicts by talking, you'd do well to invest in charisma, so you can talk your way out of situations - or, if you prefer to go in all guns blazing, you might want to spend all your points on strength. Each branch has certain perks you can unlock (essentially special abilities), and whether you can unlock a perk or not depends on what level that main skill is. For example, you may need level 4 in strength before being able to unlock the perk for extra inventory space. You'll want to spend your points wisely, as you only gain one every time you level up. On the plus side, if you do mess up, the companion you choose to take with you on quests may make up for your shortcomings, with all the perks you're missing - and you can even use them to carry your extra stuff for you if your inventory becomes too full!
A small snippet of the many different skills and perks available.
That said, with a game that offers so many possibilities, you'd expect the developers would spend a fair amount of time helping people find their footings - but unfortunately, Fallout 4 does the exact opposite. Dropping you into the game with very little in the way of tutorials or an introduction, you kind of feel like you have to find your way for yourself, which may add to the whole "survivor" feeling- but also can be incredibly frustrating.
Firstly, from a very early stage in the game, you're thrown into battle and made to fight off a bunch of raiders in a small museum, before going one on one with the game's iconic Deathclaw we mentioned earlier. This can prove to be more than a little tricky if you still haven't fully grasped how the game works. Secondly, you're also given a Power Armour suit, which offers greater protection, but also comes already damaged (what good is that?!) and a heavy weapon mini gun to aid in your fight. Sounds great, right? Well, it would have been, had we known that the Power Armour's, er, power runs out fairly quickly, leaving it powerless and slow moving - which understandably made us in to a chew toy for the Deathclaw.
Essentially, Fallout 4 lacks any sort of instructions or tutorial and leaves you in a completely open world to discover everything for yourself. We aren't saying this is bad for everyone, but for novices, it makes it about as welcoming as a real nuclear war. And it could all have been fixed with a simple option to enable/disable tutorials, but there's no such luck here. Even crucial parts of the game are left totally unexplained or even referenced - we ran out of ammo pretty quickly from blindly shooting, as we had absolutely no idea we could use the game's handy Vault-Tech-Assisted Targeting System (V.A.T.S), which is essentially a button that slows time and allows you to focus on the enemy's body to pin point a part you want to fire bullets at, letting you disable huge foes with only a few shots. It's an incredibly useful tool - and one you basically need to survive - but the game doesn't tell you how to use it at all. In fact, we only found it in the first place out of sheer desperation and panic pressing buttons in a moment where we thought we were finished (the same goes for finding out that there's a first person view as well as a third person view!). It's great for people who love to discovering everything on their own, but if you're one who prefers a bit of help then there are plenty of strategy guides and help online if you don't want to go it alone. A solid piece of advice is to stick at it and try not to fall out (ha…) with the game like we did - because it really is worth the effort.
Although the game had a few downsides and got under our skin a fair few times, it doesn't take away the game's absolute beauty. The level of depth and detail in Fallout 4 is amazing, and with so much time and thought having been put in to each area, character and enemy, there's always something to do, whether you're exploring for materials to improve your settlement, finishing a load of side quests or adventuring to fine loot and hunt enemies. The possibilities seem endless, and there are no boundaries or limits - we just wish it was a bit easier to get in to.
Format Reviewed: Xbox One
