Fallout 4 is a must for fans of huge, immersive role-playing games

YOU may have seen advertising for Fallout 4 plastered around your city. If you’re wondering if the game is worth your money, read this review.

WELCOME to the world of tomorrow.

It’s a world of laser guns, the marvels of Science, robots, and an irradiated nuclear wasteland filled with mutated wildlife, Mad Max-style raiders and struggling settlements trying to get by.

And it’s a lot of fun.

The premise behind the Fallout universe is that after World War II, technology developed with a heavy reliance on retro-1950s-style atomic power and pulp science fiction themes — and then in 2077 it all got blown up in an epic nuclear war between the US, China and everyone else after a prolonged struggle over the world’s few remaining finite resources.

Some people, however, managed to survive the war by heading for giant underground fallout shelters known as “Vaults”.

In Fallout 4’s case, one Vault’s occupants (including you) have been cryogenically frozen. 200 years later, after something goes terribly awry, you’ve been thawed out and are making your way out into what remains of the world in the area around Boston and the former US state of Massachusetts — known as The Commonwealth.

You’ll encounter ruins, thriving and struggling settlements, lost technology, desperate wastelanders who need help, and a lot of people and creatures that want to kill and/or eat you as well.

Just to be confusing, Fallout 4 isn’t actually the fourth game in the central Fallout series — it’s officially a sequel to 2008’s Fallout 3 rather than the more recent 2010 Fallout: New Vegas.

Like all RPGs from Bethesda, Fallout 4 is a huge game. There’s a vast number of places to go, things to do, people to help, discoveries to be made, items to acquire, and enemies to shoot in the face.

In a first for the series, your character actually speaks (previously you selected dialogue on the screen and the NPCs reacted, but you never heard your own voice). However, the familiar system of selecting the specific phrase your character would say has been replaced with a Mass Effect-style, console-friendly dialogue wheel, which can lead to some uncertain choices; the dialogue wheel is probably one of the few significant steps backwards for the game, removing some of the immersion for which the series is well known.

The skills and perks system has been overhauled and streamlined. On the face of it — especially to long-time fans of the series — it appears dumbed down, but the gameplay experience hasn’t actually changed much.

The crafting system, whereby various random items picked up during your travels can be combined to create newer and more interesting stuff, has been taken to an entirely new level. In fact, you can now quite literally build entire in-game settlements from salvage, encourage people to move to them and establish trading posts, and fight off raiders.

It’s rather SimPost-Apocalypse and the clunky interface makes it feel a bit tacked on and unrefined, but it has a lot of potential and adds further appeal to a game which is already packed beyond bursting point with things to do, explore, and experience.

The game feels more combat-heavy than previous entries in the series and while the basic mechanics are the same as Fallout 3 and New Vegas, the weapons generally sound and feel beefier, and the Vault-Tec Assisted Targeting System now creates a super-slow motion effect instead of stopping time completely.

Some of the early and midgame pacing in Fallout 4 seems a bit off, however. Barely 30 minutes after leaving your Vault with little more than a security baton and a Pip-Boy PDA, you’re wearing power armour, standing atop a building in a ruined town and mowing down raiders with a minigun.

Obviously this is very fun — and serves the additional purpose of introducing players to the game’s revamped and customisable armour system — but it is still a jarring experience which feels like it’s both slightly unearned and too early in the proceedings. In another change-not-necessarily-for-the better, power armour also now requires regular maintenance and (not always easy to obtain) depletable fusion cores to function properly.

Like armour, Fallout 4’s array of weapons also have a vast array of upgrades, ranging from better sights to bayonets, which allows for considerable customisation to suit your play style.

Throughout the game you’ll meet various companions who can accompany you, including a faithful dog, a film noir-esque private detective, and an intrepid newspaper journalist. They each have their own personalities and backstories and bring something different to the adventure — it’s quite entertaining hearing their thoughts you explore The Commonwealth.

The main quest itself — involving a kidnapping and a shadowy organisation known as The Institute — has some interesting turns, but there’s no sense of urgency behind it — which is just as well because it’s impossible to wander about The Commonwealth without falling over something to do or side quests to undertake.

Just to give an idea of how much is packed in here, the official strategy guide for the game weighs in at more than 530 pages — so you’re not likely to run out of things to do anytime soon.

Oddly, though, the predicament your character finds themselves in after emerging from the Vault and their expected reactions to the new world don’t really seem to be explored in much detail in-game; they seem to just metaphorically shrug and get on with things.

The graphics have been improved over Fallout 3 and New Vegas, and while not at the bleeding edge of current technology they are still very good, albeit with a few glitches — generally more amusing than game-breaking.

Fallout 4 is a massive and enjoyable game, and a most welcome return for the series. While it’s better than Fallout 3, it hasn’t surpassed Fallout: New Vegas’ more compelling story, but there are several downloadable content additions planned so it remains to be seen how these will improve and expand the game.

In summary: Fans of the series will enjoy it, while it’s stand-alone enough for newcomers to jump right in and join the ranks of seasoned wasteland-exploring Fallout veterans. Either way, it’s a must for fans of huge, immersive role-playing games and a worthy addition to a gaming library.

A word of warning for PC gamers buying the game on disc — there’s only 5Gb of data on the disc, with a 24Gb download via the Steam platform required. If your internet speed isn’t great — and since we live in Australia, it probably isn’t — you might want to consider leaving it to download overnight. But the wait is worth it.