G2A Pick of the Week | Fallout 4
January 03 2016
Every week, Team Liquid will supply you with their pick for the G2A Game of the Week, which you can buy at an extremely discounted rate thanks to the G2A Weekly Sale.
If you haven't tried it already, or it was sold out the last time around: Fallout 4 is back on sale!
You can get the game right now at www.g2a.com/weeklysale for $41.25, a whopping 36% off its current price.
Fallout 4 is a highly customizable RPG in a world that's packed full of things to do. A lot of things to do.
If you've played a Bethesda RPG before, this will be nothing new. As Fallout 3 was to Oblivion, so Fallout 4 is to Skyrim—the post-apocalypse of a futuristic world trapped in a '50s aesthetic, now available in Bethesda's Creation Engine and boasting some interesting new features. But for all the improvements, the moment to moment experience is broadly the same. Journeying to one of the many undiscovered locations in your vicinity, you'll kill enemies, pick locks, hack terminals, collect loot and experience a standalone vignette that weaves into the larger story of Boston after the bombs.
As always, then, the campaign merely sets you up for the seemingly infinite amount of side quests, miscellaneous events, and unprompted acts of exploration you'll complete along the way. Bethesda's Fallout games are primarily about the atmosphere of the world at large, and Fallout 4 is no different. It's brutal and harrowing, but only up to a point. Fallout 4, like its predecessors, isn't a survival game—even though, initially at least, resources can be hard to come by.
That said, I do wish it was a bit stranger—or even more playful. I'm in dangerous territory here, because there are so many side quests that I haven't found or finished. For all I know, there's plenty of weird and unexpected encounters to discover. But I'm yet to find anything outside of the main quest that's as odd as Fallout 3's Vault full of Gary clones, or as dramatic as the decision to let a group of ghouls murder an apartment block full of rich jerks. I love the idea of the Vaults as weird social experiments, but of the three I've visited—my own character's included—none have delivered a compelling hook. One had a great idea behind it, but the delivery was underwhelming.
I'm yet to find anything as odd as Fallout 3's Vault full of Gary clones. But still, Fallout 4’s new features out-weight a lot of what is now gone from previous iterations.
Settlements are Fallout 4's major new feature. Gain ownership of a settlement and you can construct new items, from water pumps and gun turrets, to prefabricated structures. Each has a resource cost associated with it. A wall panel simply requires wood and steel, but something like a defensive turret is more complex—the more deadly ones needing aluminum, circuitry, gears, fiber optics, and a generator for power. Open the crafting workshop in a settlement and a green outline will show the area you're allowed to build in. Within this space, you can also scrap items for resources. That then ties in to collecting lots and lots of junk…
Every item in the game is made out of resources. Dump them into a settlement's workshop, and they can be turned into something useful. A typewriter becomes a useful source of gears, screws and springs—handy for building machinery that can defend your settlement from raiders.
Hell, even guns have a crafting system that let you create mods that alter their scopes, barrels, grips and attachments in a variety of ways. This, to me, felt like a much better use for my growing collection of minutia. Guns are the best thing about Fallout 4. Unlike its predecessors, it's an accomplished and enjoyable shooter. While my preference was for silenced weapons, the scarcity of ammo—at least for the first couple of dozen hours—forced me to experiment. I didn't mind. Getting into firefights is a joy, to the point that, by the end, I'd all but entirely abandoned the VATS system.
Early weapons picked off of raiders are relatively weak, but, as you journey through the Commonwealth you're guaranteed to find a collection of favorites. Early on, you get access to a laser musket—a powerful rifle that needs to be cranked between each shot. Using it feels tense and frantic, requiring you to dive into cover to hammer the R key, before popping out and taking your shot. With mods, you can imbue a musket with up to six charges. It's a deadly thing, if you've got the space to fully load it.
The best guns and armor are scavenged off of legendary enemies, identifiable by the star next to their name. When downed, they'll drop a legendary item with a special benefit. I've got a Tommy gun that fires exploding bullets, a dual-barrel shotgun that never needs reloading, a chest piece that turns me invisible when crouched and not moving, and, of course, an irradiated sword. I can't bear to part with any of these. I'd sooner throw away my precious telephones.
As a whole, though, it's a loving production. It's filled with care and attention to detail—like the expanded set of radio stations, or the way flash radiation storms bathe the world in a sickly, ominous green hue. It's a pleasure to pick through the world, to discover new sights, and to pick through the perks and customization option to conceive the perfect character build, however bizarre. In short, many of Fallout 4's problems, like every Bethesda RPG before it, are a consequence of what makes them unforgettable. In other words, there’s a lot to do, and you’ll have a lot of fun doing it.
If you haven't tried it already, or it was sold out the last time around: Fallout 4 is back on sale!
You can get the game right now at www.g2a.com/weeklysale for $41.25, a whopping 36% off its current price.
Review: Fallout 4
Fallout 4 is a highly customizable RPG in a world that's packed full of things to do. A lot of things to do.
If you've played a Bethesda RPG before, this will be nothing new. As Fallout 3 was to Oblivion, so Fallout 4 is to Skyrim—the post-apocalypse of a futuristic world trapped in a '50s aesthetic, now available in Bethesda's Creation Engine and boasting some interesting new features. But for all the improvements, the moment to moment experience is broadly the same. Journeying to one of the many undiscovered locations in your vicinity, you'll kill enemies, pick locks, hack terminals, collect loot and experience a standalone vignette that weaves into the larger story of Boston after the bombs.
As always, then, the campaign merely sets you up for the seemingly infinite amount of side quests, miscellaneous events, and unprompted acts of exploration you'll complete along the way. Bethesda's Fallout games are primarily about the atmosphere of the world at large, and Fallout 4 is no different. It's brutal and harrowing, but only up to a point. Fallout 4, like its predecessors, isn't a survival game—even though, initially at least, resources can be hard to come by.
That said, I do wish it was a bit stranger—or even more playful. I'm in dangerous territory here, because there are so many side quests that I haven't found or finished. For all I know, there's plenty of weird and unexpected encounters to discover. But I'm yet to find anything outside of the main quest that's as odd as Fallout 3's Vault full of Gary clones, or as dramatic as the decision to let a group of ghouls murder an apartment block full of rich jerks. I love the idea of the Vaults as weird social experiments, but of the three I've visited—my own character's included—none have delivered a compelling hook. One had a great idea behind it, but the delivery was underwhelming.
I'm yet to find anything as odd as Fallout 3's Vault full of Gary clones. But still, Fallout 4’s new features out-weight a lot of what is now gone from previous iterations.
Settlements are Fallout 4's major new feature. Gain ownership of a settlement and you can construct new items, from water pumps and gun turrets, to prefabricated structures. Each has a resource cost associated with it. A wall panel simply requires wood and steel, but something like a defensive turret is more complex—the more deadly ones needing aluminum, circuitry, gears, fiber optics, and a generator for power. Open the crafting workshop in a settlement and a green outline will show the area you're allowed to build in. Within this space, you can also scrap items for resources. That then ties in to collecting lots and lots of junk…
Every item in the game is made out of resources. Dump them into a settlement's workshop, and they can be turned into something useful. A typewriter becomes a useful source of gears, screws and springs—handy for building machinery that can defend your settlement from raiders.
Hell, even guns have a crafting system that let you create mods that alter their scopes, barrels, grips and attachments in a variety of ways. This, to me, felt like a much better use for my growing collection of minutia. Guns are the best thing about Fallout 4. Unlike its predecessors, it's an accomplished and enjoyable shooter. While my preference was for silenced weapons, the scarcity of ammo—at least for the first couple of dozen hours—forced me to experiment. I didn't mind. Getting into firefights is a joy, to the point that, by the end, I'd all but entirely abandoned the VATS system.
Early weapons picked off of raiders are relatively weak, but, as you journey through the Commonwealth you're guaranteed to find a collection of favorites. Early on, you get access to a laser musket—a powerful rifle that needs to be cranked between each shot. Using it feels tense and frantic, requiring you to dive into cover to hammer the R key, before popping out and taking your shot. With mods, you can imbue a musket with up to six charges. It's a deadly thing, if you've got the space to fully load it.
The best guns and armor are scavenged off of legendary enemies, identifiable by the star next to their name. When downed, they'll drop a legendary item with a special benefit. I've got a Tommy gun that fires exploding bullets, a dual-barrel shotgun that never needs reloading, a chest piece that turns me invisible when crouched and not moving, and, of course, an irradiated sword. I can't bear to part with any of these. I'd sooner throw away my precious telephones.
As a whole, though, it's a loving production. It's filled with care and attention to detail—like the expanded set of radio stations, or the way flash radiation storms bathe the world in a sickly, ominous green hue. It's a pleasure to pick through the world, to discover new sights, and to pick through the perks and customization option to conceive the perfect character build, however bizarre. In short, many of Fallout 4's problems, like every Bethesda RPG before it, are a consequence of what makes them unforgettable. In other words, there’s a lot to do, and you’ll have a lot of fun doing it.