This is a really fun game. It's basically Fallout 3 + Skyrim + Minecraft. I can't stop playing. Just don't expect it to look any better than Skyrim or FO3 and you won't be disappointed. The gameplay is great. I'm almost 60 hours in, and I feel like I've barely scratched the surface of what this game has to offer.
Does this game feel really, really massive to anyone else? It seems like there's far more to see and do than in Skyrim even. The size of the map is deceptive. It's absolutely packed with stuff to do.
I'm not sure if the size is bigger but there is more stuff. I'm always passing buildings wondering whats in them but I don't have the time to see it all. Here is my new chateau. Stores are on the bottom level. My man cave with magazines and bobble heads are in the upper level. Laser turrets are are up top in case anyone starts trouble.
Have you chosen a faction or factions? It seems like you can play all of them for awhile, but eventually you have to make a choice. The Brotherhood and The Institute are both extremists with an evil side, but there are tangible benefits to joining. The Brotherhood in this aren't the good guys they were in the capital wasteland in FO3. This is a splinter group that felt the group in the capital wasteland was too altruistic and wanted to return to their fascist roots. Their leader is kind of a douchebag. The Railroad have the most sane stance of things (advanced synths and other non-human sentients are people too and need protection), but other than the armored clothing perk, there doesn't seem to be any benefit to siding with them. I think you can get the armored clothing anyway if you do things in the right order and don't wipe them out right away. I'm kind of leaning towards the Railroad because I think the other two sides are kind of evil, but I will miss not being able to call in vertiberds or warp in synths to help. I've heard one benefit of siding against the Brotherhood is that you can steal fusion cores from knights and paladins in power armor, which are pretty rare otherwise. I now have a full suit of X-01 which I wear almost all the time now, so I am in constant need of fusion cores. It seems like the minutemen stay on your side regardless of which of the other three factions you pick. So not only is this game really, really enormous, but you'll have to play it at least three times to see the end game with each faction.
I haven't joined any factions as they didn't seem appealing to me but I'll probably do one just for the story. Right now I'm trying to finish the companion stories. Well at least two any way. I think only 4 of them have a story. I haven't come across any X-01 armor yet but I found a T-60a on a dead BOS fighter and leveled it to the T-60e model which is like a X-01 MKIII. It's not as durable but I added the explosive shielding which seems to help a lot with those damn accurate grenade tosses the AI does.
It seems a bit like the civil war questline in Skyrim where all the factions are douchebags in some way.
The ending is shit. Mass effect levels of shit. The game is better than the ps3 games in terms of bugs but I've still had stuck subtitles as well as being stuck in [blank] going down an [blank] which left me stuck outside the [blank] with only [blank] being the [blank]
Pretty hard to believe it could be as bad as the original ending to ME3. FO3 didn't have a great main quest either, and the original ending was kind of dumb. Same thing with Skyrim or Oblivion. You don't play these games for the main quest or the ending. It's all about exploration, finding random stuff and doing random sidequests, upgrading weapons and armor, etc. The main quest is always secondary. You sound like you don't really like Bethesda games and just came in here to bitch.
I was expecting at least different endings depending on the faction you chose. The "romance" options for companions when your partner has been murdered and you're looking for your son send like it's just pandering to desperate neckbeard PC players. I've enjoyed the game but duck the minutemen and Preston's constant repetitive missions to save some outpost from raiders who are attacking from the other side of the map are tedious The brotherhood are assholes and the railroad are basically sjws trying to get synths brainwashed and murdered in the commonwealth.
The romance aspect does seemed tacked on and a bit cringeworthy. I think they threw that in there because it was a big thing with Mass Effect. And yeah, it seems really out of place in a story where your spouse has just been murdered and you're searching for your kidnapped kid. The dog is actually my favorite companion. I haven't even bothered much with the romance stuff, and I've played most of the game with a low charisma level. Neckbeards will probably love the romance stuff though. The dating stuff was really popular in Mass Effect. All of the factions are assholes in one way or another. It's the same as the civil war questline in Skyrim where both sides had a dark side, and either way you went, you would come out feeling like maybe you had made a mistake and your actions didn't make things any better. Even the railroad, who are the least evil of the factions, seem like a bunch of hopeless idealist sjws the more I'm playing into their faction questline. They don't seem to have the resources or any real plan to rebuild the commonwealth. My biggest complaint isn't with any of that though. The interface is clunky and the base/settlement building aspect is poorly explained and needs a better tutorial. Bugs haven't been a big problem for me. I haven't had any crashes or encountered any quest breaking bugs. Sometimes there are funny bugs like people talking to me with their backs turned or talking to me through walls or something, but nothing gamebreaking like when FO3 and Skyrim first came out. The game is undeniably really fun to play though. The amount of stuff to see and do is enormous. The sandboxy-ness of it all is really fun. It has a great soundtrack. Armor and weapon crafting is fun like in Skyrim, even if the interface is clunky. Some of the stuff you can add to guns and power armor gets really elaborate. And I started enjoying the settlement building once I figured out what I was doing. So yeah overall a fun game with a great world to explore, hilarious bugs, a clunky interface, and an unsatisfying story, that somehow still manages to be charming despite flaws. Your typical Bethesda game basically.
Oh, don't get me started on that piece of shit excuse for a UI that is the pipboy. I was 20 hours in before I realised you could zoom into it so it wasn't so fucking tiny on the screen. And so much fucking scrolling with no way to quickly go from the top to the bottom. I just brought cait along so I didn't have to put any points into lock picking and then halfway through the game she starts calling me "darling" and "love" in that shitty excuse for an Irish accent. Everyone else is pretty much useless. They're also fucking impossible to find. I lost that bloody dog at the Rocket stop for an hour once. They should have had map markers. The building aspect, I haven't really gone into. I've just put some beds and turrets in sanctuary. As for soundtrack, I can't say I've noticed any.
I haven't gotten far with any of the romance stuff yet but I think if I get Strong his milk he'll start to see things my way. Minute men stuff has gotten tedious. I've done many and I'm starting to re-clear the same places. The experience and loot is always good though. My biggest complaint would be the inventory management interface. I'm probably spending 50% of time time with it so I know it could be smoother. I went the other way and bring Nick so I don't need to put any points into hacking. He's actually pretty good to travel with. I want to freaking kill Strong. I don't know if it's a bug or what but when he's waiting at the Rocket he complains non-stop. I literally have to turn my sound off when I'm there. Companion markers seems like an obvious thing they need. I lost the dog too. I guess you can build him a dog house and he'll stay in that.
That Preston guy is so bland. I didn't think anyone could act more like a block of wood than the writer in the film version of life of pi. Guess I was wrong.
Preston Garvey is the blandest bland that ever blanded. He's so dry and boring. I'm wondering if I'm going to find out at some point that he's actually a robot, since people getting replaced by robots is a big part of the plot and he acts like a robot. Can I side against the Minutemen and kill him? That would be more exciting than any of the boring quests he gives you. Also what's up with the woman who has you set up the artillery at the fort? She sounds like a school cafeteria lunch lady who smokes 6 packs a day. Funniest shit since that talking dog in Skyrim who sounds like an old man from Brooklyn.
I have a Legendary Institute Riffle that ignores 30% of damage and energy resistance. I'm thinking that's not very impressive. Lets say a limb has 15% damage and I hit it for 50. The limb would normally take (50- 7.5) 42.5. But with this riffle it'd be (50 - (7.5 -30%)) = 44.75. Seems worthless unless I'm doing the resistance wrong.
My best weapon is a legendary hunting rifle that does +50% damage against super mutants. With a 50 cal upgrade it one shot kills super mutants. It works well against deathclaws too. Takes them out in two or three hits.
I love collecting the legendary gear even though some of it's pretty bad. My favorite might be a legendary 10mm knee caper. Damage is only around 37 but it's good crowd control as it eventually cripples anything with legs.