War never changes. But they never said anything about V.A.T.S.
Bethesda Softworks
The Story
Andrew: Over the course of the last week, I set out primarily to beat the main story. I succeeded, but only at finishing one version of it. I wouldn't even be able to tell you how many different paths there are to be taken considering I spent a good portion of it plagued by indecision — there were more than a few in-game choices that I actually had to sleep on. My takeaway: Fallout 4 has a pretty damn amazing central narrative, and the intro alone will give you chills. I believe it's the best story told in this universe yet. I look forward to my second play-through so I can see the consequences of decisions I didn't make the first time around.
Jean-Luc: From what I've seen of the story thus far, it's been very entertaining and delightfully malleable. My biggest kudos is how Fallout 4 uses the setting of the Boston metropolitan area, and how important the space, its landmarks, and its history are to so many missions and moments in the game. I'm admittedly biased, since I grew up in the Boston area, but being able to walk alongside the very same highway I took into the city as a kid, with the added bonus of feral ghouls, gave me goosebumps.
Bethesda Softworks
The Combat
Andrew: Much improved! Everything from better sneaking to improved shooting mechanics make Fallout 4 worlds better than its predecessors. As someone who's comfortable with first-person shooters, I prefer to just aim down the barrel and fire. For those who aren't, V.A.T.S. mode is back with some minor improvements. And a wide variety of weapons, mods, and companions ensure that you're able to approach a battle just about any way imaginable.
Jean-Luc: I'm a V.A.T.S. addict, and I really enjoy what they've done to improve it in Fallout 4. Activating V.A.T.S. no longer freezes time, but merely slows it down, so if you're slow at decision-making there's (rightfully) a consequence. This is battle, and the stakes should be high. And I'm hard-pressed to name anything cooler than a slow-mo Deathclaw running past slow-mo bullets.
The other combat feature I've come to love is the added bonus of melee attacks with weapons. You can now use a certain amount of Action Points to strike an enemy with the butt of your pistol, the side of your rifle, or whatever it is you have on hand. Surprisingly useful, since so many of the game's creatures get up close and personal.
Ahmed: I basically put down Fallout 3 on the PS3 because I didn’t enjoy the combat at all. This game is definitely more enjoyable. The overall experience is streamlined, V.A.T.S. is slightly less janky, and the weapon customization options are pretty great.
Bethesda Softworks
The Dialogue
Jean-Luc: My biggest qualms with this game stem from issues of dialogue. Dialogue is a fundamental aspect of the Fallout series, necessary to complete missions, acquire goods, move through spaces, understand your character's personality, etc. But unfortunately, dialogue unnecessarily becomes more of a chore than anything in Fallout 4, muddied rather than aided by the addition of the protagonist's voice, clunky animation, and truncated speech options. The new dialogue mechanics, which on paper seem an improvement over the text-heavy, classic-RPG style of Fallout 3 and New Vegas, are often boring and sometimes cyclical to the point of confusing. Worse for me is that Fallout 4's protagonist (the player) speaks out your dialogue, with no control over the type of voice for your character versus simply male or female. Whereas previous Fallout games allowed you to see exactly what your character was going to say before, now you must choose single words or short phrases and watch along with the other characters to see if the full dialogue is close to what you imagined. All this serves to take you out of the driver's seat of your character and makes you play audience to a protagonist you cannot fully embody.
Andrew: The dialogue in Fallout 4 is indeed a bit of a step back. Initially, I was excited about the addition of a speaking protagonist. However, having watched three different people create three totally different characters (not to mention creating a unique character of my own), all with variously distributed stats ranging from highly intelligent to not intelligent at all, it was somewhat of a let down seeing them act and speak identically in social scenarios; the addition of a voiced character has been surprisingly restrictive.
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