I feel completely betrayed by Bethesda, they should have known better than to release this game in its current state. I have over 3,000 hours into fallout new vegas, and over 1k hours into fallout 3. I thought that Fallout 4 was going to be every bit as good as the prequels, and more. However what I have is a steaming pile of garbage that has been thickly coated with paint, with some glitter and sparkles to entice.

I cannot even begin to describe what I feel is wrong about this game, so lets start out by saying that its Fallout for dummies. Throughout the entirety of the game I feel as though I am in a tutorial, and despite my trying to move forward and progress the game stays simplistic, easy, and redundant, with more boundaries than you can even fathom. After 10 hours of playing on survival difficulty with my first character, I had figured that I had discovered some overpowered build that hasn't been patched yet. As it turns out, throughout the entire game, regardless of what difficulty you play on, so long as you follow the standard main quest path, you will not be challenged in any way whatsoever even until the final mission.

So what about going on an adventure to some random, unknown area of the map away from the main quest? You could make your character, level up 1 or 2 times, and head out into the wasteland, right? No. You see, Bethesda had this idea for Fallout 4. The idea was to remove every possible sliver of fun that was leftover from the prequels. We could technically wander the wasteland, however you would not enjoy fighting enemies after venturing out further than 40% east or 60% south of vault 111. The reason is that Bethesda decided it would be a good idea to go the route of creating a level barrier on enemies. While you can fight enemies that are much higher level than you, your weapons will deal virtually no damage, and the enemies will gain a massive damage bonus based on their level. You may put points into related damage boosting perks, and find legendary weapons, but none of this will be of a great deal of use until your character level has caught up with theirs. Gone are the days of playing Fallout 3/NV for fun, and going off into some incredibly fortified, difficult area that is not meant to be traveled by a mere level 5, and coming out victorious through your sheer wit and skill. This is technically still a possibility, however the damage reduction to your weapon, and the enemy bonus damage removes any enjoyment that would come with fighting one of these high level characters.

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Now on to the most terrible, horrific thing that Bethesda has done to the beloved Fallout series.

-LEVELING.

Who knew that leveling up in a game titled "Fallout" could feel so terribly unsatisfying? Everything that we knew and loved about Fallout has been destroyed, including the enjoyment of leveling up, and fine-tuning your character to your own play style. Let me ask you a question, and I want you to think long and hard about this before you answer... -What is the point of a perk, if you are going to get every single one of them anyways?-. Can someone tell me why we even get to choose when we level up? If I have to be level 15 to get the rank 2 of whatever perk I want, I would be able to get ALL TEN of the rank 1 perks of an attribute before hand, and then 5 more of a different attribute before I would be able to repeat the process again to get a tier 2 perk. What in the hell Bethesda. I wanted to specialize my character into a particular field. I'm playing an RPG, if I want to be a pickpocket, I shoulding have to Fing wait until I'm level 30 to pick master locks, if I want to dedicate all of my points into lockpicking, and neglect combat, that should be my own decision, not yours.

Additionally, there are FAR less opportunities for you to negotiate with wastelanders through your adventure. In Fallout New Vegas you were bartering, lying, manipulating, and communicating with others from the very first few minutes of the game and onward. Fallout 4 doesn't even come remotely close, with the majority of areas having only a single direct mission to accomplish, and occasionally a speech check for extra caps when you complete it.

Fallout 4 is just another example of why video games today have become dry, terrible time-wasters that require no thought. What we have here is a below average FPS (Not an RPG) that has you running around killing massive amounts of raiders with no backstory or interactions.

Also your city building is broken. All my buildings are floating off the ground, and grass is shooting up through the floor.

1/10 Good job Bethesda, you actually made a terrible game for a change. I'm sorry to see this happen.

Oh yes, I will also add that the removal of skills was a step in the wrong direction. We want more gears to turn, and more ways to make our wanderer unique. Instead, I feel as though no matter what path I take, I will always be the same as the next person. Way to go Bethesda.

What one person hates another can love. FO4 got a 9/10 from me.

I give the game a 8.5/10. It's my GOTY and the only two things that bother me is the dialogue options and the lack of ammo crafting.

i'm really enjoying it, even though the key bindings are a pain for me on PC, still the best game i've played in a long time.

A lot of people love Fallout 4. A lot of people also loved Call of Duty Ghosts.

And? I don't play COD but I won't tell someone COD is a bad game(because I don't think it is). COD just isn't a game for me just like Fallout 4 isn't a game for you

"THEY DO NOT AGREE WITH ME! I WILL COMPARE THEM TO COD FANS! THAT WILL SHOW THEM!"

Word of advice: if you want to sound like a mature critic, don't bring in CoD. At this point, it just makes you sound like a critic-wanna-be.

I have to agree about leveling up. Character building was better before.

Nice a Metacritic review...

me too. the more I play it, the more I love it. came within a hair of getting mini-nuked by a super mutant last time I played. never say that in any FO game before. and when I first ventured into Boston, OMG, what an upgrade over the DC ruins. almost everything about this game is better. the graphics, combat, enemy AI.............almost everything. even the settlements. I thought I'd never touch it, but is a nice break from the combat. I typically do some missions, then play around in a new settlement, or work on my established ones. only thing I'm not crazy about is the dialogue. I'm starting to see what people meant when they said not being able to see what you would say (just a word or two) would be a problem.

I like the leveling system. Even though part of me feel like 21 points to put into specials isn't enough.

there's a place for games like that.

I agree with OP, game is terribly simplistic, dumbed-down and nowhere near the RPG its predecessors were. This game is now an arcade shoot-em-up with a few perks to add to your pre-made war hero daddy.

and I agree. It's not perfect, but it's also not the train wreck that people make it out to be.

And this is why you aren't a reviewer... Very few points of yours are actually valid.

Never played a Doom or Duke Nukem i take it?

yea, I really don't get where people say it's simplified. 3 and NV used your stale, level up gradually and unlock more as you level model. you really didn't have a whole lot of choice. at level one you could pick from what, 7 or 8 perks. then after a few levels you'd unlock another group? all the vaunted skills basically had 4 levels to them. 25, 50, 75, and 100. everything in between was just meaningless filler, or complexity for complexities sake. in 4 you can have any perk you want from jump street. if you really want to a dialogue/persuasion kind of guy, just max your charisma to 10 and get and raise those 10 perks before you even leave the vault. the ability to character build is far superior in 4.

I wasn't comparing it to Call of Duty. It is a well known fact that Call of Duty Ghosts was the pinnacle of bad Call of Duty games. The worst of the worst, if you will. I was comparing the blatantly terrible Gameplay of Fallout 4 when set side by side to Fallout 3/NV, to the terribleness of Call of Duty Ghosts when side by side to another Call of Duty game.

Fallout 4 is just a reminder that any game can be completely destroyed by the 2010 cell phone games movement. In today's standards, "The simpler, the better!"

really? I thought the perk chart easily surpassed the 1-100 skills while retaining the fun of picking a perk every level/other level in the previous games. What about it do you find dumbed down?

And what exactly was it about the gameplay in Fallout 3 was better?

Lol "Simpler" the only thing simpler in Fallout 4 than New Vegas is the storyline, but even that is a vast improvement from Fallout 4. But there's really no reasoning with you... You seem to be one of those Obsidian [censored].

Also special now mean something. In the older games it didn't matter if your character was a moron he could still be as smart as House, MIT and The Think Tanks if you put enough perks into science and medicine or if your character is low on charisma because you can still be a ladies man or convince the Legion to stand down.

Some things are worse than I expected and some are better. Bottom line, GOTY. Plus modders will move this game to the top of my list.

Absolutely not true at all, any of it.

For one, you are only allowed to put 1 point into a perk until you are at a specific level, in which case you are allowed to put another point into it. Fallout 3/NV allowed you to specialize your character by giving you the opportunity to have your lock picking at level 100 by level 4 and neglect other aspects of your character. In other words, customization.

Secondly, you didn't just get one set of perks, and upon leveling receive a new set of perks. There were perks related to your skills that you would only receive if the skill requirements have been met. Need I mention that the perks were far more in-depth and RPG worthy than what we have in Fallout 4, where each extra rank of a particular perk does the same thing as the previous rank, just with a little more effectiveness, which means you basically are only offered 70 perks, far less than previous games.

And lastly there are no traits, as there were in Fallout 2 and Fallout New Vegas, allowing for even less character customization for absolutely no reason.