Fallout is a commercial success like every game made solely by Bethesda is, some people who never heard about it (if that's even possible) wonders if the game is worth playing when they see the logo and quite a lot of them instinctively knows what the theme and setting is. I just don't know how can they reach so many people including the casuals, their advertising must be using tricks from the school of Illusion magic. But there's also the counter-propaganda which I have this theory that it is also made by Bethesda geniuses from behind some desk. Every Fallout veteran I know out here criticized the game because some of their favorite features where thrown away or maybe exchanged for some other new feature that they didn't liked much... But the advertising is still great, even the new mash-up-ed Perk System is making you think/remember about Fallout Shelter. So the comic side of this game is even present, the fourth wall is constantly being destroyed by the vault boy but on a awfully comic way that only Fallout can provide. Okay I'm nothing but just an occasional Fallout-er hearing all this, I didn't liked New Vegas (awful animations, too much bugs and boring plot - people hate when I say that - specially the Alteration spells victims) but I really liked Fallout 3, I loved it, so maybe I could try to hit the fourth game just to see what the fuss was all about. By what I remember from Fallout 3, I was expecting a very bad game full of missing things. I was wrong. Counter-propaganda? Did my friends just invented that?
Then the game started and after the first hour I was just thinking, with my mouth wide open, "Sweet Kynareth the impossible just happened." They made some crazy mix between lots of content with some really nice final art. My first impression was actually my best one; the facial and body language gives everyone a personality and they can culminate into some pretty realistic looking dialog, a comfortable dialog not just some face-to-face blab, something that games like Skyrim truly missed. Talking to soldiers after helping them truly makes you feel amongst them. Gun battles feels, smells and hurts like gun battles. Walking on the land feels like walking on the land, and having acid storms also feels intoxicating. Hearing fires being shot looks and sounds like it would look and sound, not just erratic NPC movements. The music so present and fantastic on ALL Bethesda games seems to have got even more complex somehow, the devs tried to reinvent what action music means and what a main theme is so important, and what a music finale means in-game. It's never boring and always impressive. But it wasn't always like this...
When playing Skyrim, my first dialog with the Jarl of Whiterun was interesting but the animations and their standing settings were ridiculously dull. It also happened a lot to me on New Vegas. An NPC pushed me at my side and I ended up on the other side of this royal room, I was painfully forced to listen to the rest of the dialog while I was staring at the wall, the NPC were moving like polygonal robots and my immersion got totally ruined. Pushing still happening on F4 it isn't that easy anymore, the walking animations are finally closer to the real world (yes Euphoria would do it better, but...) and even closer to smaller 3rd person games such say, Max Payne or Tomb Raider animations. First person finally has every detail I ever wanted, the camera shaking doesn't feel like you're just zooming on the map anymore, you're truly walking and reloading guns on that view now. Fallout 4 doesn't look like an MMO-ish game running on a virtual landscape without deeper details anymore, even if it still trying to be. The game was heavily criticized like those things were nothing, or just badly done which is an insane thing to state. I play games since 1994 and not, the graphics are just fine. The developers had priorities during the creation, but it is balanced, believe me. It's true that it's different but it was obviously made like that on purpose. I'm a die hard fan of TES series as you can see, but they sure lacked some better polishing like F4 has so abundantly.
I'm leaving already, this is the first Bethesda game I ever played which I have no intentions to fill with mods. Intentions? What I'm saying... Necessity is more like it. Beths games always needed mods so badly simply because they were rushed or/and lacking hundreds of features or just too buggy. Just look at Nexus. Finishing and final art. If you can take my meaning, just buy the game and wait, for Beths games future are even greater than that one. So far, for the first time on ANY Bethesda game, I really want my character to find her final closure, unlike past games, F4 is inspiring me to pursue it because she feels very human to me. Female character this time, the lone wanderer I did on F3 was just trying to portray myself - he didn't had his own voice... because his voice was my voice. The developers changed the direction and I say, it worked just fine.
If you miss features like visible holster guns and new hard earned perks, you will get easily distracted by a whole lot of new features and a higher level of immersion - a human touch on your voiced character, so yes, those newer things I missed so much on past games are suddenly showing themselves for my joy on this new game. It's like a dream becoming reality. I've learned to accept the missing cool things I remember from F3 because of those I mentioned so I always wanted on the past for Fallout and TES games. So for the veterans who didn't liked it, it seems like its my turn to have fun with Fallout now. Fine, if holstering your guns comes to be a mod, maybe I'll take it, mods are a trademark of PC gaming culture even if a game is already looking good. But I really don't need to, due to its new direction on standing and walking, your weapon can simply rest at hand, looking cool.
Because every time I criticized New Vegas and Skyrim, you guys made a lot of excuses to convince me that the game was actually good. Too many codes running at the same time and a way too big game, these things are often said to be the reasons of so many bugs and a unfinished looking design. Well, it looks like I've won all the ranting and life threating commentaries from the angry mob through Internet. This new game is big and even filled with codes running at the same time and Fallout 4 is just damn perfect.
Missing features, who cares if there are new stars shining the horizon? So what will they use to complain about my complain, now that I have none to make!?