Fallout 4

Fuck the one hit kill weapons. I've been struggling to finish the game (boredom vs difficulty) and now because I quicksaved when a mini nuke was in the air I have to use an old save. Just not feeling this fallout ;\

So, I scoured the map on my first play and went railroad. Revealed all accessible locations on that path. Did not do the community leader thing, but had towns everywhere anyhow mostly for scrap and adhesive production. Ended the game at L66 with a rifle stealth setup. Call me an asshole, but one shotting shit with the EC Riffle never got old to me, nor did whipping out the plasma/shotgun for in close oh shit moments.

Some observations:
Tying in the tradeskill desks to Community Leader was bullshit and actively locked me out of most of the game mechanics they were trying to push this go around. I totally get tying the upper end trading posts to that, but if they were going to tie EVERYTHING to that perk, it should have been the CHA1 perk. More ideally, the various stations should have been tied to their related perks (i.e. must know armor x to build this station) instead of putting in the CHA 6 cock block.

That said, the base building OCD is so massive that I just built one super base on top of the first Red Rocket for my second run and am letting unwanted named fuckers die in the dark. Being able to construct bases how you want is fun, though its a bit immersion breaking to have leveled to ten without a single fight by building my fully furnished Borg Cube on top of the Red Rocket. If you are looking to do CHA based play with minimal combat, then playing Minecraft is the best path for leveling though, especially on Survival. And I do like having that option.

Main Quest was nonsensical in how you arrived at certain endings (getting the Railroad ending required some Batman leaps of logic), but the core idea of the dystopia and Logan's Run aspect of the Institute was pretty decent. They definitely needed to flesh out each faction path with some actual story and less repeaters, though. I was also bothered by how there is basically no option to gank Preston and his pathetic gang (they are flagged perma unkillable and non hostile) and you are more or less forced to let them move to Sanctuary if you want the Perception Bobblehead, no matter how big of a sarcastic dick you are to them. Simply avoiding Concord results in numerous references to the MM happening as you take over towns, as well. I really could do with an option to not take over a place when its quest is completed. I wonder what will happen to Preston's gang when happiness hits zero in Sanctuary, as I scrubbed that place of all resources for my giant Rocket Top base.

In any case, the ending was still better than the pre-DLC ending of FO3, but I do agree that they are basically recycling too many ideas from Skyrim. One of the notes that FO3 did hit perfectly (aside from the option to be a murdering bastard) is the feeling of insignificance and being lost early in the game. This game really railroaded you into the main plot way too quickly. Making Diamond city a real pain in the ass to reach and putting the MM introduction further off the early main path would have helped the pacing a shitload. I never like feeling like I have to go out of my way to avoid the main story in a game, but this one had a lot of that, mostly due to how accessible Diamond City was to starting out. One of the major thing NV got right was how much work it was to even get to Vegas and get the main quest hub going. This game pretty much lets you burn through 80% of the main quest right out of the gate, if you want to.

New perk system was fine, if somewhat bland. While Lockpicking and Hacking were mandatory for my first main crawl, I do not miss having them on my second play as much as I thought I might. It is absurd how certain builds virtually require certain things, however. Mele, for example, basically requires you to start with 9 AGI to unlock blitz and/or have some sneak ranks or you will be getting your ass handed to you constantly. Heavy Weapons requires the ammo scrounger perk or you will (on Survival) be completely out after one or two major fights. END and CHA (outside Community Leader stuff) are completely crap junk stats, as well. The progression was good, but the layout of the perk chart was dumb in places. Too many dead Perks deep in certain stats (Action Girl, Nerd Rage, Roboticist, the powered armor charge thing) to ever consider taking them unless you are fucking around and power leveling to 100.

Bugs were fairly non existent for the PS4, though I did manage to have Preston never become an option for a follower and quest items for completed quests being stuck in my inventory was irritating. And despite what the PC Snobs have to say, this game was visually good for the PS4 and hit all the right notes. Despite all my prior nitpicks, this is the most engrossing game I have played in the last couple of years. I feel safe in saying this game belongs with Last of Us as possible best of the decade choices. For all of its little flaws, the game is engrossing, entertaining, and fun. It also captured the feel perfectly.

On the plus side, the raw content for exploration in this game is immense and there are shitloads of little details that you can miss. Even after scouring the map the first time around, I am hitting quests and finding shit I completely missed the first time through. My wife is having fun taking screenshots of all the weird shit the Devs have the teddy bears doing all over the place, as well. While NV was sparse on the sandbox and long on the quests, this game is the other way around. Creeping the ruins is more entertaining here than it was in FO3, by a large margin.