This game is... somewhat of a mixed bag. I guess it's fun, but compared to Bethesda's other games it is completely inferior in every possible way.

• Combat feels very weak compared to the last games, despite it being improved with several new features such as a melee attack with a ranged weapon, a grenade button, and overall faster and more intense gunplay, but it just doesn't have the finesse that the other games had. It simply feels like another generic first-person shooter with no features that distinguish it from other FPS games, and because you no longer build your character's skill with weaponry by levelling up (because there aren't any skills) and because your character is always proficient with all weaponry, regardless of what it is, it just further reinforces this. Oh, and just because there's a "canonical reason for it", it doesn't make it a valid excuse.
  
• VATS has become a worthless feature. Because the combat is somewhat faster you'll probably need to be at least a bit lighter on your feet, and the VATS system puts you at a complete disadvantage. You aim at an enemy with it, time does notstop, your hit chance is lower than it would be if you weren't using VATS, and you leave yourself vulnurable to attack as the animation of you standing there and shooting plays out. However unlike in the last game, when you hit an enemy in VATS it charges a Critical hit meter (Critical hits don't seem to be random anymore, which I guess is fine), but it just feels like another worthless feature, as all it does is give you a single hit of double damage. Nothing more, nothing less. Absolutely no point to it at all. There is a perk that allows you to 'store' critical hits, but unless your going for a specialised playstyle (which is a pointless endeavour), there's still not a lot of point to doing so.
  
• The Perk system. Oh, good god, where do I begin? There are only 10 levels of perks in total, all of which have seperate ranks that need additional levels in order to progress in that perk further, and there are no skills. Because of this the freedom you have over building your character is EXTREMELY limited, but it also goes against the entire nature of the game. Remember in New Vegas where your strength and skill levels dictated what weaponry you could carry and use efficiently? It both made sense and encouraged players to refine and shape their character to suit whatever build or preference you desired. In F4 there are no such limitations, and that makes things boring. Any weapon you find you are automatically a master with, with no exceptions. Sure, you can choose perks which make you a bit stronger with certain weapons, but because you're automatically brilliant with all weapons there's truly no reason to do so, not even for damage bonuses; You're just forced to use whatever weapons the game throws at you. No longer are you the character you want to create; you are ALWAYS a character that the game has made for you and forced you to play. You don't get to shape your character or watch him/her grow in experience and become stronger, because that's not how the game works.
  
• Weapon modding is... egh. I've mixed feelings on it. It's certainly interesting, I'll give it that, but it can also be tedious as all hell. Rather than buying and installing distinct weapon modifications like you do in F:NV, you instead build the mods yourself using various types of junk from the wasteland by breaking said junk into raw materials. As a result you spend much less time adventuring around the world than in ALL other Bethesda games, as the amount of objects you can carry is compromised. In all other Bethesda games you adventure around the world killing enemies and taking their weaponry and possibly armor as loot to sell, and because crafting didn't take up too much inventory space it was not much of a hassle to be able to both carry loot and materials used for crafting. You can scour your way through several areas in older Bethesda and have fun with it, games Because your inventory space is compromised with junk you have to go back to your house, deposit the junk and/or sell your loot, and resume adventuring. While you can mark junk items that contain the specific resource that you need, there is, once again, no point to doing so, as there's no true way of knowing what weaponry you could acquire in the future and what materials it will need for modding, and unless your OCD enough to keep a document detailing what junk contains what amount of whatever resource and what weapons use what weapon mods that need whatever resources, it's generally best to just pick up anything that isn't only steel.
  
• Settlements. Just... Ugghhhhhh. It seems to me like the only point of this is for building up the area you start in for a tiny bit of quest XP and breaking down objects in the world such as destroyed cars and trees for resources. I have not once been compelled or given any reason to build a settlement in any other area in the entire world. There truly seems no reason to do so at all.
  
• I thought the pathfinding in Bethesda's other games was shoddy, but HOLY HELL IS IT FRUSTRATING NOW. You have no idea how many times I've had to follow someone only for them to just stand in a doorway doing NOTHING, or for my idiot companions to stand on a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ mine AND NOT GET OUT OF THE WAY WHEN I TELL THEM TO SO I CAN DISARM IT. Every single companion in the game, including that unbelievebly stupid dog, are nothing but a burden and an inconvinence. They get in the way all the time and are only useful for carrying your junk. Fortunately there is a perk that increases your damage and carry weight when you don't have a companion, which is all the more reason not to have them around. At least the terrible AI helped me kill a deathclaw because it got stuck behind a short wall, so there's that...
  
• The power armor... well, I guess the new system does makes sense and it sets it apart from other armors which I do like, but it just doesn't work in a game like this. Because F4 can throw super-strong enemies at you out of nowhere, you rarely know when or where you're going to need power armor unless you're following a guide, which is boring. And you can't wear power armor constantly because it runs on power cores which are rather limited and expensive, so unless you've got a lot of cores to spare you're going to spend a lot of time hulking around a suit of unpowered metal. Almost the only times I wear power armor is when I find one sitting around in the wasteland, which is rarer than the cores they run on.
  
• The dialogue. Oh, good lord, the dialogue. You'd be forgiven for thinking that this game is a comedy, because the dialogue in this thing IS ONE OF THE MOST PATHETIC THINGS I'VE EVER HAD THE MISFORTUNE OF OBSERVING WITH MY OWN TWO EYES. I can't accurately describe it. It's even worse than Fallout 3, for christs sake. It's like if Mass Effect was written by a toddler. It can get truly, truly cringeworthy at some points. On top of that, you DON'T EVEN KNOW WHAT YOUR CHARACTER IS GOING TO SAY. YOU DON'T GET TO CHOOSE YOUR CHARACTER'S DIALOGUE ANYMORE. You just get vague headers, such as "Sarcastic" or "Question", and therefore you have no idea what consequence your words are going to have until you've already said them. It's truly laughable. And not in a good way.
  
• There are no true unique weapons. At all. One of my Favorite things about Bethesda games was collecting all the unique items I could and displaying them around my house, and I'd talk about it more in-depth but I'm all out of space. Phooey.

Despite the myriad of flaws this game has, I'm still having fun with it, but that's probably because I'm the kind of person who shuts off their brain while playing games. All in all, if you're a fan of Bethesda games you might like this, but don't be expecting any kind of gold.

This game is... somewhat of a mixed bag. I [i]guess[/i] it's fun, but compared to Bethesda's other games it is completely inferior in every possible way. [list] [*]Combat feels very weak compared to the last games, despite it being improved with several new features such as a melee attack with a ranged weapon, a grenade button, and overall faster and more intense gunplay, but it just doesn't have the finesse that the other games had. It simply feels like another generic first-person shooter with no features that distinguish it from other FPS games, and because you no longer build your character's skill with weaponry by levelling up (because there aren't any skills) and because your character is [i]always[/i] proficient with all weaponry, regardless of what it is, it just further reinforces this. Oh, and just because there's a "canonical reason for it", it doesn't make it a valid excuse. [*]VATS has become a worthless feature. Because the combat is somewhat faster you'll probably need to be at least a bit lighter on your feet, and the VATS system puts you at a complete disadvantage. You aim at an enemy with it, time does [i]not[/i]stop, your hit chance is [i]lower[/i] than it would be if you weren't using VATS, and you leave yourself vulnurable to attack as the animation of you standing there and shooting plays out. However unlike in the last game, when you hit an enemy in VATS it charges a Critical hit meter (Critical hits don't seem to be random anymore, which I guess is fine), but it just feels like another worthless feature, as all it does is give you a single hit of double damage. Nothing more, nothing less. Absolutely no point to it at all. There is a perk that allows you to 'store' critical hits, but unless your going for a specialised playstyle (which is a pointless endeavour), there's still not a lot of point to doing so. [*]The Perk system. Oh, good god, where do I begin? There are only 10 levels of perks in total, all of which have seperate ranks that need additional levels in order to progress in that perk further, and there are [i]no[/i] skills. Because of this the freedom you have over building your character is EXTREMELY limited, but it also goes against the entire nature of the game. Remember in New Vegas where your strength and skill levels dictated what weaponry you could carry and use efficiently? It both made sense and encouraged players to refine and shape their character to suit whatever build or preference you desired. In F4 there are no such limitations, and that makes things boring. Any weapon you find you are automatically a master with, with no exceptions. Sure, you can choose perks which make you a bit stronger with certain weapons, but because you're automatically brilliant with all weapons there's truly no reason to do so, not even for damage bonuses; You're just forced to use whatever weapons the game throws at you. No longer are you the character you want to create; you are ALWAYS a character that the game has made for you and forced you to play. You don't get to shape your character or watch him/her grow in experience and become stronger, because that's not how the game works. [*]Weapon modding is... egh. I've mixed feelings on it. It's certainly interesting, I'll give it that, but it can also be tedious as all hell. Rather than buying and installing distinct weapon modifications like you do in F:NV, you instead build the mods yourself using various types of junk from the wasteland by breaking said junk into raw materials. As a result you spend much less time adventuring around the world than in ALL other Bethesda games, as the amount of objects you can carry is compromised. In all other Bethesda games you adventure around the world killing enemies and taking their weaponry and possibly armor as loot to sell, and because crafting didn't take up too much inventory space it was not much of a hassle to be able to both carry loot and materials used for crafting. You can scour your way through several areas in older Bethesda and have fun with it, games Because your inventory space is compromised with junk you have to go back to your house, deposit the junk and/or sell your loot, and resume adventuring. While you can mark junk items that contain the specific resource that you need, there is, once again, no point to doing so, as there's no true way of knowing what weaponry you could acquire in the future and what materials it will need for modding, and unless your OCD enough to keep a document detailing what junk contains what amount of whatever resource and what weapons use what weapon mods that need whatever resources, it's generally best to just pick up anything that isn't only steel. [*]Settlements. Just... Ugghhhhhh. It seems to me like the only point of this is for building up the area you start in for a tiny bit of quest XP and breaking down objects in the world such as destroyed cars and trees for resources. I have not once been compelled or given any reason to build a settlement in any other area in the entire world. There truly seems no reason to do so at all. [*]I thought the pathfinding in Bethesda's other games was shoddy, but HOLY HELL IS IT FRUSTRATING NOW. You have no idea how many times I've had to follow someone only for them to just stand in a doorway doing NOTHING, or for my idiot companions to stand on a goddamn mine AND NOT GET OUT OF THE WAY WHEN I TELL THEM TO SO I CAN DISARM IT. Every single companion in the game, including that unbelievebly stupid dog, are nothing but a burden and an inconvinence. They get in the way all the time and are only useful for carrying your junk. Fortunately there is a perk that increases your damage and carry weight when you don't have a companion, which is all the more reason not to have them around. At least the terrible AI helped me kill a deathclaw because it got stuck behind a short wall, so there's that... [*]The power armor... well, I guess the new system does makes sense and it sets it apart from other armors which I do like, but it just doesn't work in a game like this. Because F4 can throw super-strong enemies at you out of nowhere, you rarely know when or where you're going to need power armor unless you're following a guide, which is boring. And you can't wear power armor constantly because it runs on power cores which are rather limited and expensive, so unless you've got a lot of cores to spare you're going to spend a lot of time hulking around a suit of unpowered metal. Almost the only times I wear power armor is when I find one sitting around in the wasteland, which is rarer than the cores they run on. [*]The dialogue. Oh, good lord, the dialogue. You'd be forgiven for thinking that this game is a comedy, because the dialogue in this thing [b]IS ONE OF THE MOST PATHETIC THINGS I'VE EVER HAD THE MISFORTUNE OF OBSERVING WITH MY OWN TWO EYES.[/b] I can't accurately describe it. It's even worse than Fallout 3, for christs sake. It's like if Mass Effect was written by a toddler. It can get truly, truly cringeworthy at some points. On top of that, you [b]DON'T EVEN KNOW WHAT YOUR CHARACTER IS GOING TO SAY. YOU DON'T GET TO CHOOSE YOUR CHARACTER'S DIALOGUE ANYMORE.[/b] You just get vague headers, such as "Sarcastic" or "Question", and therefore you have no idea what consequence your words are going to have until you've already said them. It's truly laughable. And not in a good way. [*]There are no true unique weapons. [b]At all.[/b] One of my Favorite things about Bethesda games was collecting all the unique items I could and displaying them around my house, and I'd talk about it more in-depth but I'm all out of space. Phooey. [/list] Despite the myriad of flaws this game has, I'm still having fun with it, but that's probably because I'm the kind of person who shuts off their brain while playing games. All in all, if you're a fan of Bethesda games you might like this, but don't be expecting any kind of gold.