# boring apocalyptic grind of fallout 4 reviews > this obviously isn't your type of garme > ~ universal dim responses to non auto-10/10 reviews please standby for an interruption to regularly industry-scheduled hype: a post-apocalyptic parody of fallout 4 reviews presented as loose wind-scattered notes - akin to the 'deliberate apocalyptic hypernerd gamification of the junk-hording-crafting grind-loop fetish' seen in-garme **+** "a-calypso" means unveiling - what is revealed and what remains hidden in fallout's particular unveiling what are the cultural effects (fallout) of such a garme and the ideas which form it **+** the 4th garme in the fallout series - which "never changes" - appeared to be the most anticipated garme of the year 2015 although players didn't have to be told that quite so often as they did. odds are they've heard of teh garme through its ubiquitous marketing (including the mobile "fallout shelter" garme that's been teasing eager players for months) **+** just like bethesda softworks' latest post-apocalyptic adventure if you've played previous fallout garmes you know what to expect from this instalment but if you're someone who's only seen advertisements you may want to take a back seat **+** the thin setup: in 2077 humanity is heavily reliant on nuclear energy. as a direct result the world stands on the brink of war - and then somebody detonates a few atomics on u.s. soil. in the trailer you and your pinkywhite skinned nuclear middle class family are evacuated to the nearby vault 111 run by the seemingly benevolent vault-tec to wait out 'the effects'. yet perhaps the effects were always there with the mere existence of 'big science' **+** consider there's a way in which the post-a-calypso disguises and obscures what is already apocalyptic about the all-amerikan pre-a-calypso **+** things don't pan out the way your character expect them to however - though one wonders what they're exactly thinking if anything - and some time later you must venture out of the vault. nuclear fallout has ruined everything - gee what a bind - and you're going to have to find some answers and fix the broken mess the world has become **+** question is why didn't you find some answers to nuclear proliferation and unchecked nationalist militarism before bomb met fan? **+** most of the way this huge roleplaying-shooter garme works as a system of existentially pointless grind spills over from its depressing predecessors fallout 3 and fallout: new vegas **+** you'll probably want to stock up on nuka cola on the way. like other open-world garmes released in 2015 "fallout 4" doesn't respect one's time - it consumes life whole. there's so much shoe-horned in content here that it'll probably take 100 or more hours to truly finish teh garme **+** the skyrim to fallout 3's oblivion it mindlessly iterates on the previous garme's already tired mechanics and is similarly dense with arbitrary dislocations to explore predictable monsters to fight and un-engrossing post-nuclear atmospherics that clash constantly unsettling gore and death with dark comedy **+** after more than 55 hours played some may have seen an ending and yet feel they've only begun to explore its listless world; from the look of it they'll easily be able to spend another 100 happy hours here and still see other equally unexciting things **+** if you're new to the copypasta franchise be warned that the wastelands are not a forgiving place. fallout 4 poses an artificial challenge and it slaps players down any chance it gets for no good reason. it's purposefully difficult without much justification. there's limited ammunition and most of the guns aren't that powerful at first. there are times when this is frustrating of course - this is one of those garmes where the "save early safe often" mantra becomes your personal motto - but then why is challenge so automatically welcome **+** a story that begins as a basic search for your lost family evolves into something less un-complex and morally pseudo-nuanced. like in fallout: new vegas players are drawn into a ridiculous struggle between several groups of complete idiots competing for control of the dead region and deciding which of ir drastically imperfect post-apocalyptic ideologies to align with makes one pause to consider how one wants events to play out in a fruitless dramatic dribble **+** even the highly questionable "institute" has a blandly tempting reason to side with them and turning away from them in a play through isn't as clear-cut a choice as you'd expected. likewise the sympathy shown toward the villains too - even the most irredeemable murderer (yourself included) - seems suspect **+** of course as is the tradition with developer bethesda garme studios' open-world rpgs the main story isn't nearly as gripping an attraction as the huge number of side quests you'll come across just by wandering through the ruins of the boston area now known as the commonwealth. it difficult to complete even the most basic point-a-to-point-b task without being wantonly sidetracked at least twice by arbitrary detours **+** an abandoned comic book publisher office? how can players not explore it? boston's famous fenway park? gotta see what's become of that. a crumbling high school with heads on pikes outside? there's great loot in there! practically tripping over such deliberately planted discoveries like this one feel like a kid at easter whose parents are bad at hiding the toxic candy **+** the wastelands are more often than not some mix of gray and brown and it's easy to get bogged down in there although that's precisely kind of the point teh garme makes about itself by accident. there are only (ideological) remnants of the old world left. this new world feels hopeless. until you look up: you'll see the brightest clearest skies that humanity has viewed in a long time **+** the evening sunset are gorgeous and there's really nothing that touches the brilliance of the commonwealth's star-studded night sky. too bad humanity had to bring itself near extinction for anybody to pay attention a strained accidental metaphor fallout 4 conveys with only a little subtly **+** exploration has its own plastic rewards as this is the most artificially diverse fallout world yet with dilapidated urban areas ominous dead forests eerie swamps a desolate area mired in a hellish radioactive haze and even some areas that look borderline hospitable like beaches and budding farms **+** the commonwealth's much more color-saturated than fallout 3's capital wasteland - especially now with player mod support - though it has its fair share of greys and browns and it shares new vegas' bright blue sky (as opposed to oppressive clouds) when it's not night time or raining or green with a terrifying radiation storm. it's often horribly beautiful **+** needless attention to pointless detail is evident everywhere - fallout 4 is not any kind of leader in all areas of graphical fidelity tech (character animations are still dreadful) but from the intricate pip-boy wrist-computer interface (which changes when you're in power armour) to careful arrangement of skeletal remains that tell the tragically dark tragically funny stories of long-dead characters to tattered poster art on the walls to even raindrops on your visor (if you're wearing one) it's consistently impressive in a lonesome almost desperate way **+** perhaps because this adventure is such a long haul fallout 4 is overeager to hook players in the beginning. after a brief glimpse of pre-war life in fallout's familiar-but-strange near-future and a retelling of the events on the day the bombs fell in 2077 players barely have time to get ir hands dirty in the post-apocalyptic era before fallout 4 throws us into a big action moment - they're given a suit of big stompy power armour and a heavy weapon and put into a non intense brawl against the series' most iconic monster **+** it's certainly not an unconventional idea for a garme with a long progression arc to give players an early taste of the powerful toys they'll gain access to later in order to motivate them to (literally) work for them - but with fallout it's a misstep that treads on the series' mysteriously beloved feeling of working one's way up from almost nothing to become the dominant hollow force in the wasteland **+** thing is as they picking ir way through an abandoned brewery somewhere in the wastelands about 10 hours into teh garme many players will internally blurted out "when is something actually interesting supposed to happen?" they're bored even after running through a few of the main story quests. "this is the hill i'm going to die on - again," they think. and life some protestant father figurine teh garme tells you why it's all worth it - because "it builds character" **+** one of the first things a returning fallout player will notice after creating an astoundingly ugly looking character with its push-and-pull face-sculpting tool is that the entire concepts of skill points and traits have been consumed by the perks system unifying all character progression under one big elaborately animated vault boy chart with so many unlockable options you have to scroll through them to see them all **+** while this streamlining does mean giving up a lot of minute control over where your character improves with each level it also means the decision of what to do with the single point you get each level has an insignificant impact and therefore those decisions represent a commitment and are tough to make: do you want to spend it on a new low-level perk increase the level of an existing one or pump it into a special attribute like luck to boost certain stats and also open up a new more powerful perk like the "mysterious stranger brings you digital dreams of a better tomorrow without stats based grind" that you'll be able to cynically unlock with your next level **+** these might be more general jack-of-all-trades types than previous fallout character builds in that you generally don't have any crippling existential deficiencies but they definitely have ir non distinguishing features that make one playthrough feel much like the next. and before you lament it as a "dumbing down" of fallout's overall complexity players may turn an artificial eye to the new(tm) crafting and equipment progression system which has picked up the slack by becoming vastly more uselessly complicated and allegedly interesting **+** as if player's didn't already have enough of a hoarding problem fallout 4's crafting system gives even more fake motivation to compulsively collect everything that isn't nailed down. it's so easy too - grabbing things out of containers happens quickly in window that pops up when you look over it. every item in the world is made up of capitalistic material components most of which you can intuitively guess: bottles are needed for glass a desk fan will provide you with steel and gears and a roll of duct tape is worth its weight in gold. as for occasional dusty copies of ancient action rpg's you come across - nobody wants or even remembers those **+** everything in this universe is worth something but it's still junk which means that managing the weight of your inventory is a constant series of agonizing decisions of what to take with you and what to leave behind. it's just a shame players can't leave behind the need to grind and hoard a few tweaks to a standard-issue laser rifle can add burning damage over time or split the beam into a shotgun-like spread. the best part is that those changes aren't just tweaked numbers in the stats; nearly every modification you make is reflected in the look of your penile extension as well creating an extremely varied selection of weapons both for you and for enemies **+** likewise the new armour system lets you piece together six chunks of gear - helmet chest plate and each individual arm and leg - on top of your clothes to form cobbled-together asymmetrical outfits that feel like exactly what someone who assembles ir wardrobe by scavenging the wasteland should wear. the suit my character wears now has at least one piece from each major faction reflecting both ir arbitrary allegiances and ir pointless victories over stupid foes **+** all those upgrades are a great way to keep a favorite piece of gear useful long after its original weak stats would've led you to sell it off to a junk dealer for a handful of caps. letting you name those items yourself is a great touch too - no doubt some players have fond memories of ir minor adventures with ir trusty long double-barrel shotgun mr. shooty **+** planning and watching those endless slow-motion dismembering kills play out is the central a great reward for a job well done **+** not every decision has far-reaching consequences but enough do that some often pause for 30 nanoseconds to consider the ramifications because of some that popped up later: as a result of letting a job go south and someone getting killed they are later confronted by a vengeful daughter. because mercy was roleplayed and a witness left alive after interfering with a criminal gang's plans they knew who to come after. on top of the big story decisions events like those are enough to pretend to personalize a play through significantly **+** fallout 4's performance on both consoles is tolerable but sometimes disappointing. frequent frame rate slowdowns well below the target of 30 when simply walking around the world and hitches of a second or more that arise mostly after loading a new save or fast-travelling. the pc version has been smoother in that regard running between 40 and 60fps on ultra settings on an old titan x and maintaining 60 when lowering the anti-aliasing settings. on all platforms players see occasional crashes (the auto-save system prevented any major loss of progress) and every so often players hit a side quest that won't properly begin or end due to (/inbuilt conceptual) bugs **+** this fantastic lore-filled universe is predicated on the notion that the human a-calypso can be fun - and profitable **+** the world exploration crafting atmosphere and story of fallout 4 are all key parts of this hugely successful and ultimately conservative sandbox role-playing garme. new equally dim reasons to obsessively gather and hoard relics of happier times strong companions and sympathetic villains driving tough decisions make it an adventure just not worth replaying and revisiting **+** it's not that teh garme doesn't give you things to do rather it gives you far more than anybody could reasonably expect; it doesn't supply a consistent set of reasons to want to do any of those things - let alone all of them **+** fallout 4 seems a very slow garme. the first five to 10 hours after you leave vault 111 is mostly spent trying not to die at the hands of a random mole art and on farming side quests to gain enough strength to push through to the main ones. but side quests often involve dull nonplayable characters you'll never interact with after the quest is done. there's never really a reason to care about what's going on even when some quests have you defending downtrodden settlements **+** the main characters don't really help matters either. some of your companions are mildly interesting but for the most part there's not much to talk about. conversations are usually bland and boring aside from the sarcastic lines your character can spit out assuming you're so inclined **+** nobody grabs attention right away and nobody will stick in memory (w/ the possible exception of codsworth the robot). after 20 or so hours when you've got a nice set of perks and a decent arsenal with which to complete some of the bigger quests the story only gets a bit more interesting but the payoff isn't worth the investment. as a newcomer it's hard to really care about the fate of the wastelands **+** fallout 4 while by no means a bad garme but just under the slick veneer of ruined americana it might not live up to the hype preceding it at least for those who are new to the series. the pacing deflates an otherwise interesting character motivation. the problem is there's a staggering number of "things to do" other places to find (from your current location - wow) and deathclaws to challenge. if you're lookin' for grind or already a fallout fan the problem is precisely that fallout 4 will be even more of what you uncritically love **+** one imagines those plastic consumerist garbage pip boy's will still be around as the sun goes nova // video here // republic of bob