Another long neglected big name game that I finally got around to

This is a now 5 year old game that I wanted to play when it first came out, but as usual, it was sidetracked by other things. But I get to them all eventually and now it's the turn of Fallout.

There was a lot of hype surrounding this one having been told by many who had played it how awesome it is as well as knowing that it had won many game of the year awards from multiple sources as well as plenty of other awards so expectations were fairly high. Also, Liam Neeson is in it and that's always a good thing.

As many know, it's your basic kind of action RPG deal where you pick a class and some skills and then level up by killing lots of things and pour your experience points into the areas you want to specialise in. So you can be a murderer or a smooth talker or a hacker or a stealthy assassin. I poured all mine into assault rifles and health so I could take beatings and shoot things in the face. Theres also a cool targeting system where you can freeze time and pick an enemy and a piece of their body to hit which makes the combat easier to control.

The basic story is that you live in a underground vault because the world was destroyed in a nuclear war and everyone now lives in vaults and never leaves because the outside world is destroyed and irradiated. For some reason, all the in-vault propaganda and equipment and such has a very 1950' vibe to it, so right up until I started the game I was under the impression that it took place in an alternative 1950s timeline but apparently not. It is set in the future.... So people are born in the vault, live in the vault and die in the vault. But this turns out to not entirely true because your dad, Liam Neeson, leaves the vault suddenly and without explanation and it's up to you to chase him and find out what's going down.

Naturally you visit many places along the way and meet many people and there are multiple outcomes and methods to accomplish almost any goal depending on what kind of skills you have. You can talk your way into or out of situations, you can pick locks, you can kill people in your way, you can pay them and on and on. I tended to lean towards trying to talk my way into places because it can save a lot of ammo and supplies. But when that didn't work, I would go with all out murder. It's another game that it seems like you could play a dozen times and do it differently every time and I do enjoy having that kind of freedom and choice. But even with all the options, it feels like you rarely get stuck in a no win situation where you simply don't have the means to proceed and have to retreat. I feel this did happen a lot in earlier games like this such as the first 2 Deus Ex games and the first Hitman.

There is an enormous amount of equipment and weapons and items in the game and you will regularly get newer and better stuff so you'll have to be constantly checking inventory to see if you're using the best you have. Equipment and weapons also wear down and eventually break, but can be repaired with spare duplicates. But remarkably none of this feels like busy work and it was enjoyable to keep my inventory clean.

I also greatly enjoyed the story because it felt very personal at first, but then it does pan out revealing greater consequences and more parties but because it was all started by your dad (still the awesome Liam Neeson) it still feels personal and you want to carry on his work. And the endgame is totally epic.

I'm sure pretty much everyone has already played this, but I would strongly recommend it to anyone who has yet to do so because it's just lots of fun from start to finish wandering the irradiated wastelands in search of Liam Neeson dealing with waste-landers and shooting mutant jerks in the face. Unfortunately, I have been told from sources, that I missed out on finding a dog companion called "Dogmeat". He sounds like he would have been cool.

I did enjoy this a lot and I got the game of the year edition on Steam so I will be going back to play the DLC (of which there seems to be a lot) at a later date for sure. My only minor complaints are that there is a huge amount of walking before you can do much fast travel so it would have been nice to have a vehicle or if your dude could move a bit quicker.... Also, Liam Neeson kind of sounded like he was phoning in his part. But he's still cool. Also, you make what seems like should be a game long nemesis right at the start who I was expecting to be the end boss, but no. After the first 10 minutes you never see him again. Missed opportunity.