A Vast Wasteland to Explore

Don’t drink and drive.

Fallout 4 takes place in the Boston Commonwealth, the remnants of what was once Massachusetts. Right off the bat, I couldn't wait to see what dystopian Boston looked like. What became of the Bunker Hill Monument? The statue of Paul Revere? The Boston Public Library? There are so many landmarks to discover. Some are half caved ruins, faded and weathered and filled with monsters. Others have been repurposed, their skeletons turned into settlements. One of the biggest settlements in the game, Diamond City, has been built nicely into Fenway Park. Even now it still bears a baseball aesthetic, as the guards patroling the streets are geared up in armored catcher uniforms.  

The graphics are by no means perfect, but the environment is beautiful. As I explored, I became caught up in the gray, bleak beauty of sunlight filtering through barren trees and cracked walls of crumbling buildings. The sky is a clear blue when there isn't a radiation storm (where yellow lightning flashes across the sky). And some green can even be seen in a few places, such as a prosperous farming settlement.

The world will suck you in and scare you. I came across all kinds of bone chilling sights. Feral ghoul infested highways, where monsters gurgle and crawl out from under decaying cars. A massive tower fortified with a small super mutant army. An irradiated landscape housing monstrous abominations. Interiors filled with ravaged furniture, decayed skeletons, low lighting, and harsh flames. Some places bear macabre trademarks of raiders and super mutants: heads on spikes, strung up corpses, and gory, ruby-red blood bags.

A Bit of a Fixer Upper

All in all, the graphics, models, animation, and character faces have been vastly improved from Fallout 3. But boy oh boy are there still problems. Lip syncing is flappy and mismatches with the dialogue. Character animations are still painfully stiff and awkward.
 
The game is full of bugs. NPCs get stuck or shuffle around confusedly. Sometimes bad pathfinding can break a quest. During a Brotherhood of Steel quest, I had to tail a suspect. Halfway to his destination, he got stuck in a patch of brambles. At first I thought he was waiting for something, but he just heel turned for a full five minutes. I gave up and reloaded. He got stuck again. It took three reloads until he figured out how to get to point B. Lesson learned: Save often.