We could never imagine that the in 1997 released Fallout game will be still over the top with the latest release of this series after 18 years. After this long time players get still invited into the radioactively contaminated America in this great RPG. This strange ‘end of all’ is now a cult with his Vaults and Pip-Boys. But can this latest version of the game excite players as the previous games? Thanks to Bethesda we have the opportunity to find it out.

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At first we would like to say that Fallout has his own aesthetics of the apocalypse. On the one hand we are looking on a beautiful landscape of america’s east coast with the modern side of Boston and on the other hand we love the look of the landscape with all its ruins, the crashed planes, with the destroyed huge satellite dishes and the destroyed and rebuild cities. We specially love the futuristic looking 70s future, that is now completely wrecked. What we also like is that Bethesda included in this apocalyptic landscape landmarks that you can recognize the modern Boston. Bethesda realized this great open world with a huge number of attractions like the stormy coast with its ports and mansions, the hilly countryside with its forests and rivers up to all the small farms, settlements and suburbs. The city itself is a monster that steals your time, because behind every block you will find another multistorey building like for example the Trinity Palace with all his quests and treasures which are dangerous to get.

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A lot of people were not very happy with the game’s graphics before the game has been released. What we can say is that there are unfortunately some small problems which not infected the gameplay mechanics, but we think that the Bethesda-Team are masters of staging.

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They not only build a landscape with its scenery and objects that fix great together. They created an awesome looking world which creates a great atmosphere. The best thing is that every little object in this game can tell you its own story. For us it is the best gaming world in which we get the feeling to find something new on every corner. Each walkable building like the buildings in the city, the Barracks, the Witch Museum or even the brewery has a story that involves you deeper in this authentic and also sometimes crazy world.

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But what is the game about? This game tells you a story of revenge and answers the big question: WHY? Like in the previous games you have to create your character at the beginning of the game. You also have to define seven attributes like strange or happiness. The story begins very peaceful. It is the year  2077 in america. You enjoy in your own house a coffee made by the housekeeping robot and you also play with your baby before the world get destroyed by nuclear bombs. Just in time you can flee with your family in a fallout shelter and get frozen in cryogenic-stasis until your eventual rude awakening in the year 2277. There happens a huge emotional connection to the protagonist in this part of the game. But you know that we do not like spoilers. What we can say is, that it keeps you playing for hours. What we can say is that the main story is told grand, it offers interesting perspective changes and lures you into the center of Boston, where the Diamond City is waiting for you.

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Mama Murphy is not the only interesting character that you meet in the world of Fallout 4. The highlights are the companions that can help you out with their special abilities. At the beginning you can choose if would like to go with a dog or the robot called Codsworth for a walk. What we like is that it is not boring if you walk through the apocalyptic world with your companion. They give you feedback by spells or textual indications if they like or do not like what you do. You can also command the to commit crimes but at the end you get the bill for this. Who steals or open red marked private stuff somewhere  can expect a fight immediately. Who drives to the top and do it constantly can expect that the morality or ideology falls. You also have to accept the fact that his companions responds stubbornly and do not follow you anymore. What we also like is that you only have to look at the companion’s health. You do not have to give them stuff like meat to eat. What we also like is that if have reached the highest level of relationship to them, you for example get from Codsworth a special ability. This is not as hard to reach as it sound but it is a lot of fun to find out, what their preferences are. Unfortunately, you can not reach a great relationship with the dog. It remains at the same level. But this is not so bad, because we noticed very quickly that the dog has his own personality and he is very useful. He helps you to find stuff and also attacks enemies. There are a lot more compagnions with great abilities you can get in this game, but if we would tell you more about, we would spoiler here great things that happens. What we can say is that we had a lot of fun to get Synth Nicky Valentine as friend. He not only is a companion but also has a great story. We think that Bethesda created with him the best supporting character we have seen in a game ever.

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What we also love is the voiceover in this game. We love the chosen voices for the characters, not only because they fix great together, it also helps that characters seem alive. We must praise Bethesda at this point, because it get not boring after you heared the amount of spoken text.

We also have to say: Thank you Bethesda for the large number of different weapons. Players can use a lot of different arms, rocket launchers, flamethrowers, ice-throwers, percussion instruments and maces. We can confirm, that this is a Fallout tradition but the players have the opportunity to modify all weapons now. And here you get a ton of possibilities which also makes collecting very attractive. Any stuff you can find like for example cans, clocks and each tool can be transformed in for example copper, aluminum, screws or any other raw materials to use them to create a new scope, to imporve parts of the weapon or to use them for the gun turret of your settlement.

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We noticed that it is more efficient if we build our own stuff. Clothing or weapon that we build at the workbench significantly more efficient in protection, damage range as the usual stuff that we found.  What we also like is that you get a close connection to your own build armor and arms because you watch over them as they would be your children. It is also possible to give your weapons names. What we also like is that it is possible to increase S.P.E.C.I.A.L. attributes with cloth you find.

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Great is also that the collecting wins more charms on narrative level, too. It is possible to get better character statistics with the help of for example comic books. Eventually you will also find the comic book store, learn something about the owners, authors and you can even find props of these heroes. What we love about it is that the game’s world is not full of trash. All stuff you find has a story and belongs to other things. And this is not the end. This huge world includes quests on many places that luring you away from the main story. This happens because you notice somewhere a story, you find a Holoband or you take a look in a computer diary. You have to decide: Should you help to kill somebody or should you level up your attributes with a fake brawl? Should you help to open the city’s vault? You get clear goals, but the reality looks different. A typical exploration in Fallout 4 looks like this: I want to help a settlement because it is attacked. If you have not discovered until now you can not use the fast travel system to cross the map. So you have to walk there. On the way you discover a dilapidated mansion somewhere in the West. You want to get new items quickly. The door is open and there may be is some loot.After you have explored the floor, you could find a locked door in the basement. It could be possible that you can open the lock with a hair clip quickly. After that you could find behind a corpse a note that you read immediately. And that is how quick you have a new mission for example to detect a crime. And at the same time you have a new place to reach on the map. And this is not far away, so that it sounds interesting to check it out. So you start to go the new way to find the offender. As soon as you have reached a river, you hear a distress signal on the radio. This sounds very dramatic and important, so you try to follow the signal by watching its strength on your Pip-Boy. In addition we want to say that acrobatic has also a certain role in this game, because you have to swim, dive or jump skillfully to reach hidden areas or higher floors without the jetpack. As soon as you are on the place the signal comes from, you find a dead Paladin from the Brotherhood of Steel, who has left a message for you. Out of nowhere ghouls attacking you and you have to fight against them. So what is the result of all: You are staying next to a dead in the middle of nowhere, you wanted to find another murder and actually you wanted to deliver a settlement. Now you have to ask yourself, what you gonna do at first? If that is all is not enough, there are still waiting the main quests and and the four epic concerns of the fractions for you. And there is more. There are also other mission from the brewery or the Witch Museum. And if you are really lucky, you get to see one of the great highlights such as the amusement park which is full of crazy robots.

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All-in-all, Fallout 4 connects the player so strong to the quests that you do not want to leave the game. We think that the small village are not full with many living people but everyone of them has its own charm. We love it that players get involved in incidents on the road very early. This happens because you find on your way dealers or you get in the middle of a fight unexpectedly. We love how got the directors have implemented it to ask ourselves more and more interesting questions about the whole Fallout 4 world. We also love it that the story affects on the game’s world. After you completed the first act you’re the one that other hunt. You can also even feel that the world is changing, on the political side and optical.

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It is possible to win conflicts by using your charm in dialogues, but battles are traditionally very important in the Fallout franchise. There are also possibilities to creep to a terminal on which you can activate a robot that clears the way for you, but in most battles you have to get your hands dirty by using the tons of weapons you can get. What we love is that you have to opportunities to choose from, how you want to fight. At the one hand you can go into the battles like in every first person shooter. On the other hand you can you the V.A.T.S. System which is the Vault-Tec Assisted Targeting System. If you choose to get into the battle like in evry other ego-shooter we got some great news for you. Bethesda has improved significantly the targeting system. The sighting, which also includes holding breath system, the shooting from the hip in real time makes a lot of more fun than for example in Fallout: New Vegas.

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With the traditional V.A.T.S. System you can aim at special body parts in slow motion to disarm enemies or even to cause a fatal damage on them. It is a lot of fun because the brutal staging belongs to Fallout as the rest of the traditional features we already talked about. In addition to that, the high number of different weapons allows you to experiment with this V.A.T.S. System. It takes not a long time until you will burn, freeze, perforate or even throw a atomic bomb on the enemies. All in all, for all people who would like to ignite fireworks, you have a lot of possibilities in Fallout 4.

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If we had to complain about something, then that would be the enemy’s AI. Most of the time you will be attacked by classic creatures, brutes or monsters without a mind like ghouls, so that the you not always notice the bad AI. There are also situations in which you be attacked by a lot of humans that you just only have to flank them. The strangest events happens if you infiltrate for example a building. The enemies are not the smartest one in their way to protect their territory. They have their ways to control and different levels of alarm, but we noticed that after we kill one or more of them they get back to their routine of ‘I think I have seen something’ too quickly. We think that people who played Fallout before should choose a higher level of difficulty. This does not change anything on the enemies AI, but it is much harder to beat them and their attacks have more effects on your health.

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Everyone who choose to join the Brotherhood of Steel kan wear their military gear and fly their helicopter in the future. What you get very quickly is the battle suit. If you get in one of this suits you get lower damage, can wear more stuff with you and jump from high positions without getting damage. First we thought that this is much to early and you are very quickly overpowered. No, because every movement with this suit needs power. That means that you have to find as fusion cores as you can. If do not have anyone of them, you can not move in the suit further. You also have to repair parts of this suit. What we like is that the first suit just only give you the minimum on protection and has not a jatpack. That means that you can collect pats to get a much better suit.

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Great is, that you do not have to wear this suit all the time. It is also possible to play this game without it. For this you have to think accurate about the points you deploy in the games S.P.E.C.I.A.L.-System. For example, who spend all seven points for perception can get a boni like a much better accuracy with guns. But not everything starts with the investment in the first S.P.E.C.I.A.L.s. You need an appropriate level to unlock a skill. We love this free system because it helps players to reach much better the character the would like to have and gives them more freedom.

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We also like the new Build Menu that allows you to build your own small village. We think that real Fallout Fans always wanted to build their own settlements in the Badlands. So be a top-engineer and produce everything for your own home from rooms, generators up to some turrets. This feature sparked the architectural child in us, because you can reach cool buildings including electricity and buildings with several floors. Great moments for example are those in which the construction Editor becomes a part of exploration because you maybe have to remove barriers or other things that hide a tunnel! In addition to that you also can get revenue from traders and can connect your settlements with supply lines. Bethesda binds all the progressive development on your skills, too. That means that you have invest points for example in “local leaders” to develop certain things.

What we also like is that you have to keep an eye on your village. You have to get back from time to time to give orders because the dwellers do not build for example beds for them self by their own. All-in-all, we think that this build system includes in this game a fresh and great feature. The most great thing is, that if you do not want to do anything of this new stuff, just ignore it.

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Fallout 4 takes you into a world that you do not want to leave until you are so tired that you HAVE to go to bed. The effects this game with his huge world and tons of quests has on us is tremendous. Unfortunately, this game is not perfect: The stupid AI, some small bugs and the lifeless faces of the characters you met in this game. On the other hand, this great RPG kidnaped us in his beautiful apocalyptic world because players constantly get new quests, meet interesting characters and find new places. Bethesda created in this game the best looking and idyllic post-apocalyptic scenario we have ever seen. The destruction combines the story of New England from today and the future, you could say that you can find a dungeon hidden behind each block in Boston, so that you could play this game for weeks. You can follow the story and in addition to that join four different fractions. On the way from a settlement to the other you decide to leave the straight way, because these huge ruins looks very interesting, only to run into a bizarre dealer before being lured by a radio message to a satellite station. There is no other game that connects so great these direct and indirect exploratory trips. In addition to that you get great and very funny companions with different personalities, abilities and preference like Codsworth, Piper, Nick Valentine and other. We are not great fans of collecting, modding and fans of building our own barracks. But Bethesda have managed to make me an architect and inventor. We love the progress and the freedom that we have to manage and to skill our character. The game looks beautiful and the sounds and character voices are fantastic. We also used our Logitech G633 Artemis Spectrum 7.1 Surround Gaming-Headset that has played the sounds really great. For more about the Headset take a look at jadoRendr’s REVIEW or take a look at the official homepage HERE. But one of the greatest things is, in addition to that Fallout 4 is that this game tells you bizarre and tragic stories which stays so deep in mind, that you start to talk about with your friends or the community. This game gets never boring. We think that Fallout 4 should be on every PlayStation 4, Xbox One and PC of every Ego-Shooter or RPG fan.

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