Great graphics and humour but weak main story.
Wonderful graphics gives this game a unique feeling that true nerds should love. I want to give it a higher score, but the main story is just so weak. Play it though, it's still worth it if you like a action RPG where levels really count.
Graphics: 10/10.
There's absolutely nothing to whine about in this particular aspect of the game... or well, there is the FOV* problems but lets make that a gameplay issue. The graphics have a wonderful cartoon comic look and a wasteland theme that really captured my eye. The effects are nice, the precision of snipers and such is great and well everything is ace about the graphics!
Sound: 8.0/10.
What can I say, the music is solid and gives you a nice feel for the gameplay. The sound effects are also suiting and have a nice area feel. The only thing to nag about is the repetitive talk from the machines and the car outputs.
Game play: 8.5/10.
The flow of the game is awesome. There are so many cool weapons and fun quests. The controls are easy to learn and sweet to handle. You need to pick a good strategy to level your character and choose guns that fits for it - you do not always gain on picking the gun with the most fire power here, think about rate of fire, magazine size and other stuff to. The dark world of Pandora is interesting and will draw you into new quests all the time. The driving is ok, even if you steer with the mouse. The humour is also a great break from other games like this - and maybe the games STRONGEST point if comparing to other titles. The only gameplay related lacks would be the low variety of enemies and the not-so-interesting skills in certain character skill-trees. Also I HATE when the FOV changes when getting out from the car or when another player hosted a game and you need to fix the FOV all the time. Ohhh, I almost forgot. The level progression is really good because you level up frequently even when on higher levels. But the skill of a level 35 monster is next to none while you are at level 37, but at the same time a level 39 monster is very dangerous. This makes it really important to be on the exact same level when playing coop - and that is hard to manage when people have lives besides the computer to deal with.
Idea: 7.5/10.
You have seen the plots and the way to progress in levels and skills before. The apocalyptic style has been done before to. The only new idea in this game would be the graphics, and it's great. The execution of the ideas are done nicely, even if there weren't much unique stuff.
Story 5.0/10.
And here's the problem, the story is a total bummer. There is no real motivation in the main story. There could be some rescue because of love or other, but now it's just about greed and it feels thin even in the start. You are just set to kill and loot from start to finish. Yes, you help some random people in the progress, but it never feels personal or really motivating - especially since many of them just wind up dead in the end. It dosn't help that the game end is a disaster, a really easy fight and a very weak ending overall. But with this said, there still is some hardcore dark feel and humour that suits a old Fallout player like me. Take your time collecting Tannis journals in the right order, they are sweet. Also, I like to add that the smaller missions gives you a lot of choices of what to do when, which is nice. The score would been even lower if the whole gamestory would be linear.
*= Field of view