Hello all! I hope everyone is doing well today. I am jumping in a bit late to this party, but I wanted to give my review of Fallout 76. I have my reasons for being so late with this as I will explain later. Fallout 76 is an open world “action” game from Bethesda Game Studios. I put action in parenthesis because, action is a very, very loose definition of what I experienced while playing. I also must note I am playing a newer version of the game. I intentionally waited for a reasonably priced used version was available. I was not going to pay full price for this and my reasons will be below.
Before I go into my experience with the game, I think I need to put in a little background about the game just in case you do not know the cluster-fuck history of this title. The game released in November 2018 to a fan base that was excited about having a new Fallout, but quickly because frustrated and angry when it was announced that the game would be online only and no solo campaign. Traditionally, the Fallout series, focuses on an individual campaign where you interact with NPCs (Non-player Characters) and follow a detailed and fun storyline. The scenario is this is post nuclear war America. This particular game takes place before the other games in the series. The world has been devastated by war. It is a mish-mash of a future technology world, mixed with mid-50’s America culture wise. It is an individual experience that the player can immersive themselves into. That is all taken away when you are forced to play online with other players. Now this in itself, really isn’t the end all of the game itself. Online play is popular with a lot of gamers. It can be fun and a way for friends to get together and share an experience online. Primarily however, these are done with shooters such as Overwatch. The question is why? Why take a traditionally offline game and make it a multiplayer online game? Well the answer is simple. Money. Online games can me monetized easily and it requires the player to spend so much time in their world and that time can be monetized with shops and such that the player can spend real world money to buy in-game money to buy in game items.
There are so many other incidences with Bethesda in this game. I would actually recommend going on line and checking out’s Jim Sterling’s comprehensive “post-mortem” as he call it. It really hits the nail on the head with what is wrong with the game and how bad Bethesda has screwed the pooch with this release. Please check him out on YouTube.
Now on to my personal experience. I played the XBOX ONE version. I found a used copy and finally decided that it was time for me to check it out after so much bad press and reviews this game has received. I wanted to see for myself just how bad this game is. I downloaded and first booted up the game about 3 weeks ago. I played 5 separate times over the weeks and played a few hours on each outing. I needed to really see what would happen and I wanted to give the game a fair shake. My very first game play experience was not good. I was kicked off the servers about 5 times in about 3 hours. I was lucky and I did not lose my advancements. That has been the exception and not the rule with other players based of video reviews I have seen. The game is lacking in a lot of ways. As of now, there are no NPCs. The only interaction is with other players online. There are quests, but they are lackluster at best. The combat is horrible. Traditionally there is a VATS system that allows you to focuses on certain areas on enemies to be able to maim or kill them. In other versions of the game, this was handled by pausing the game and you set up your VATS attached. Since this game is online only, there is no pause so they revamped it so that it tells you the percentage chance of you getting a hit on an enemy. Well that’s all well and good, but the enemies dart sideways very fast. Your percentage to hit can go from 95% to almost zero in a matter of seconds. It makes the combat very frustrating. The game has an unfinished feel to it. According to Bethesda there is a timetable of future releases and updates that will allow actual interactive game play. I think it might be too little too late. Overall, I can’t say I had fun. I was working the quest and leveling up my character, but I honestly cannot say it was a fun time. I will revisit this in the fall once the new update is released and we will see if it has anything to actually offer.
Take care!
Mid-Life Crisis Task Force 