Fallout 76 (2018)

Played free trial on Steam. I had already seen a lot of content showing how much of a dumpster fire the game is, but my time with it was ok. Not ok enough to buy it, especially at the insultingly high price it is now. I could maybe see spending a few $ on it but I fundamental dislike these online live service games. Maybe the mod community will make a singleplayer 76 mod for 4.

The beginning of the game makes no sense to me. So the whole purpose of the vault is to repopulate America and to accomplish that they shut down the vault and kick everyone out, except you who suddenly wakes up months later. Oh and the 1000s of other players who also wake up later. This is wrong on so many levels. Why give up the strategic asset of a vault? Would have made far more sense for the vault to be the homebase where players socialize, trade and get quests from the npcs which work in the vault. Kind of like Fallout Shelter only all players are the ones that go outside into the wasteland. Then it would be up to players to secure territory and build farms and settlements outside. I just designed a better game than Bethesda.

So I put my first points into endurance because I did not want to die. Totally unnecessary because the game is easy. I am used to playing Fallout and Elder Scrolls games on the highest difficulty without companions. I figured I would conserve ammo and mostly use melee. Upgraded the machete to serrated and used sneak to ambush enemies, or just run straight at them screaming. The highlight of my 1st session was being level 4 and finding a level 9 feral ghoul. I had no idea how hard it would be but I one shotted it with a sneak attack headshot with a hunting rifle. Then I cleared out the other ghouls with machete without taking any damage due to sneak. I went south to the 1st town and cleared out the agricultural center. Then went north to the racetrack, amusement park and mill. Places off the beaten path were fun, but that mill only had 2 raiders in it. I was expecting a tough fight. That is MMOs with other players though. I wandered to some farm and found a bunch of stuff on the ground in a manner that I think were dropper by a player. Mostly junk but there was a level 50 flamethrower. Not too far away I found some level 30 power armor. No fusion cores though. Went east for a while and found part of a nuke code, then went back south and found the overseer. Ended off at level 12 with something like 4 str (gladiator level 3, some weight reduction perk or something), 5 perception (rifleman 3 and lockpicking 1), 3 agility (moving target, action boy and something else), 3 endurance (Lead belly, better drinking and eating) and the other stats left at 1. My gear was: serrated machete, barbed walking cane, pump shotgun, 308 sniper rifle with medium scope, 38 pipe rifle with short scope, junk melee weapon to use up on weak enemies and a mix of metal, sturdy leather and welded raider armor. I was wearing a campaign hat, patrolman sunglasses and paramedic uniform until I found a park ranger uniform. Then I decided it all looked dumb and I wanted to see armor. Armor looks dumb too with the belly and groin not even protected. And no head armor? I was going to set up a vendor by the amusement park and sell some garbage; see if anyone would actually buy anything if I ever play the game again, but player vending is disabled. I do question whether a free account vendor would even be allow to exist outside a free trial though.

I had no problem with the gunplay. Melee was rough due to lag. Survival meters were annoying. I did not like having to go into inventory every several minutes to eat and drink. Especially annoying to try and figure out what to consume to avoid stuff spoiling. Inventory really needs sorting or sub menus or better yet click a button to automatically fill the meters using the items that will go bad soonest. I was looting everything not nailed down and scrapping everything except 1 gun for each ammo type and melee weapons. Inventory management in general is a pain in the ass. And building with the camp is even more obnoxious than settlements in 4.

I played the last version a few months ago and it was a buggy mess but playable. Now I have spent some time with the latest version and it is a MORE playable buggy mess. It is fine though. All the core parts that are broken still are but the game is fine.

They said it is at Fallout 3 level now with NPCs... and yeah, it is certainly at least as good as the multiplayer version of a buggy 12-year-old game. And for the most part, it is enough.

The Wastelanders update for Fallout 76 has finally gotten the game out of Beta.

Genuinely though, it has improved quite a bit since launch. Does it excuse Bethesda's anti-consumer practices or absolute dogshit bungled launch? No... Not really. But does the game finally feel somewhat alive? Yeah... Yeah it does. I wouldn't say this is a Hello Games turnaround or A Realm Reborn, or hell even Bethesda's own Tamriel Unlimited just yet, but after 18 months, I think there's finally a light at the end of the tunnel and I think, from my 3 or so hours enjoying the new storyline with a new character, that this might actually be a Fallout game. Performance is better, lighting is better and dialogue skill checks are back.

Ever since this game came out, people have been hating on it big time, and while the hate is sometimes justified, I think this is a pretty OK game.

Its not even close to any of the fallout games in terms of enjoy-ability, but its just good enough that I didn't immediately return it to the library I rented it from. The open world seems bigger than fallout 4s, but seems to have alot less locations, making for treks from location to location quiet and lonely, and while quiet and lonely would normally make for a bad video game, it seems to work for this game. The tense atmosphere while traveling from location to location mimics what it would be like if you really walked from town to town, you never know whats gonna come out, could be just a bird, could be a giant deathclaw (OK maybe that's not realistic, but you get my drift), could be literally nothing, you have no idea.

Now the main complaint most people have, and its a complaint that I also have, is that this game is online only, now a fallout game with online capability is what I always wanted, but having only online was not a smart idea in my opinion. The lag can easily get you killed by fighting something that you could normally wreck, you can waste hundreds of precious rounds of ammo and not even hit your target because the system thinks that your enemy is moving when its showing you that they are standing right in front of you, and the servers crash on the regular. The lack of NPCs bothers me, but I love that there's a reason for that.

The leveling system actually works for me because the levels actually seem more like a suggested thing rather than a necessity, like if your enemy is level 25 and your level 15 you can still easily overcome them, as opposed to AC Odyssey where 1 level above you means your gonna get wrecked.

Overall the ambiance and the unique gameplay makes this game playable and somewhat enjoyable, just don't play this game expecting it to be as good as the other fallout games.