To be honest, after Skyrim and the fact it took upwards of 10 mods to make it worth playing, I had reached the conclusion that all Bethesda games were flawed gems that, while glorious in terms of freedom and gameplay, will always need extensive modding before they are enjoyable. So I am very surprised to find that Fallout 4 is actually enjoyable right out of the box. It doesn't have me rushing to nexus mods for anything. So good job there. Not saying there aren't things that I'll look for mods for later. But this is the first time since Morrowind I've played a vanillia, unmodded Bethesda game and enjoyed it.

I love everything about Fallout 4! I am pretty new to the series. I avoided 3 because I wasn't into the aesthetic. But with fallout 4 you've managed to balance the look of a post apocalyptic wasteland with adding enough color to actually make it worth spending time in the universe.

I adore the perks system. I love it because it does the exact same job as putting 100 skillpoints into a skill, but does in a way that feels more natural to the end user, and this has also resulted in a vastly more interesting level up screen. Instead of being confronted with a bunch of numbers and a boring list of perks, there's now a graphical chart which is infinitely more interesting and varied.

I think most of the people who hate the game, from what I've read of their reviews, have taken arbitrary umbrage at the new perk system but without really thinking about what the perk system does. Putting a star in lockpicks for example is functionally identical to manually assigning a multiple of 25 skillpoints under the old system except that the new system is more streamlined. I just don't see what the big deal is.

I did go back and play fallout 3 in the month before release. Mostly so that I could see for myself if Fallout 4 was a step forward or not. And I feel like fallout 4 is definitely a step forward in every possible way. It takes everything that's in fallout 3 and refines it to where everything is smoother, slicker, and more fun.

My only complaint is that the inventory interface is awkward as always, it needs more advanced sorting, and it badly needs searching, but then this is something I'm used to in Bethesda games, and it's not as bad as in previous bethesda games in that it doesn't feel unbearably bad, just more of a minor annoyance that I'll find a mod to fix later.

don't know if I'd give it 10/10, but so far it's pretty damned good

You might be right. I was just going on the fact that I would give skyrim 9/10 and it took me 10 mods to fix that damn thing to where it was playable. First I had to install Sky UI becuase skyrims Interface made me want to stab a kitten. Then I had to install a hair colour mod because my Breton Mage couldn't have pink hair because apparently the laws of colour in Skyrim are different to the laws of colour in Cyrodill. Then I had to install a mod to fix the green screen underwater issue. And so forth.

Fallout 4 has surprised me since I was expecting to encounter much the same thing and didn't So now I'm 60 hours in and enjoying the hell out of it.

I suppose one area it could do with improving is the lack of random encounters in the overworld.

Agreed.

I am avoiding the main story line so far, but over all this game is great.

Yup, I like the feel of the game so much, and that you can modify everything without caring about money. Actually making money is moderately restricted because you don't want to sell anything The levelling system I also like and the one one indicator Rad/Health, and Fatigue/Action Points. I never use VATS so all of the perks associated with it, or that increased APs, were useless to me.

So far I would give it an 8.5, which is amazing for a vanilla game from Beth or Creative Assembly.

I have a lot of hours in the Fallout 3D games and over 800 in Skyrim.

It's OK. I won't be playing it for a while. The UI is awful, movement is bad, they took a page from Rage and put little invisible walls all over the place. That log I could hop over in most other games, now is a problem. I could go on.

One big point I will make is that the movement in ESO, an MMO is far better than F4. I cut figure eights in dropped damage in ESO just for fun. I would not even attempt that in a game where it's almost hard to hit the door.

My save file says 2 days and 5 hours.

This is EASILY better than Fallout 3, and is contesting Oblivion for my number 1 favorite game of all time.

I would say most people who like it are playing it, and the forums are full of the salty few.

7/10 in my book with most of my problems being with the dialogue wheel and writing department. If only Obsidian and Bethesda could team up then we'd truly have a perfect game.

Oh come on... 10/10? That is just as bad as 1/10. I am a modder myself since the old days of Morrowind but a game needs to be graded on its own merit, not on modders. If you look at most reviews of this game, they all state that they are playing a FPS... they are right. In fact, go into your game, start a new game, and do not assign any perk points while playing. You will find they make little to no difference in the game. I have played FPS's with more RPG elements than this game lol.

Granted some reviews are silly. 1 or 0 out of 10 is ridiculous. The game is polished (as was Skyrim out of box... dont know why you had problems), and has very few bugs in relation to its size. And the addition of city building is nice albeit not implemented well at all at this point. Crafting is not improvement to me since it is still a limited form of enchanting and not as good as their own older games. If 5 is the mean, then this is at least a 6 and if you check metacritic which has a ton of reviews, it is indeed in that range albeit on the low end of the range which seems exactly right when considering the player base of this game. I wish metacritic showed deviation, it would be interesting. This one probably has a deviation of 2 or so points (which is huge).