Recent reviews by Firearm Encyclopedia

I bought this game years ago, and it still holds well now even though come November 19th it will have been released on Steam a decade ago. I used to play Bloons back when it was just a free-to-play Flash game online, like on Newgrounds or... what was that site, Albino Black Sheep?

Whatever the case, it was a lot of fun then, and it's a lot of fun now. Highly recommend, and the way I have often played this game is by listening to a Podcast or YouTube vid or something in the background while playing this game either with music disabled (though it is quite good music) or perhaps also the popping/explosion noises disabled too. A passive way to have fun but keep informed both at the same time. Or if it's a comedy podcast then you double-up the fun-factor! :)

Keep on poppin', ya damn dirty apes! Er, monkeys...

I realize I've only played VR Chat on STEAM for about 15 minutes, but on my Oculus Quest 2 I've played for many hours. There's a meme I had seen, a spin on the 'red pill/blue pill' concept, but totally not political whatsoever. Blue pill, you play that $60 VR game you bought. Red pill, you play VR Chat which is free. You see a hand reaching into a sea of red pills. Yeah, that's kinda been my experience, though to be fair it might be due to the fact that the only really playable VR game I have that I paid for is Resident Evil 4 VR which I bought in the Oculus store. I HAVE bought over $60 worth of VR games on Steam... but it turns out my computer is way too much of a potato to be able to play almost any of them without either being laggy and/or looking terrible. SERIOUSLY looking forward to when I can finally play FallOut 4 VR, which I will of course mod because I hear the vanilla version kinda sucks, but I digress.

VRChat isn't perfect but I find it to be extremely fun, and I've met several very cool people, though also some really cancerous trolls and LOTS of squeakers. On many occasions I've gone into chat rooms and feel like the average age of the other people there is half of my age. Like, seriously, 13-16 years old is bog-standard. VRChat REALLY needs to find a way to segregate the populous by age, and the reason should be obvious. Less to do with how annoying the squeakers can be, more to do with the personal safety of these naive individuals who could be victimized by adults with nefarious intent. I won't go into it, but it IS a worrying thought, and I certainly would not want my underaged kids playing VRChat unless I could somehow ensure that they will only be able to interact with other individuals of a similar age.

Now, that aside. for my fellow adults, here is what you can expect in VRChat. LOTS of different avatars to choose from, including a broad variety in terms of quality. Some look great, and some are ugly as Hell, while others are purely meant to troll. Like for example, a simple 2D image of a gay threesome featuring at least two forms of oral, with absolutely EVERYTHING visible, zero censorship on the naughty bits. Honestly VRChat has been described as being sort of a 'wild west' as it were, and I think that's true, although it does appear as though they are deleting/removing some avatars that are deemed offensive. This includes avatars of people in triple-K robes, and probably some of the MANY avatars of the small-moustache-man from the second world war. I am not referring to Charlie Chaplin.

I also met someone who unironically refers to himself as a Neo-not-see which includes the conspiracy that the world is being controlled by people with big noses. It is not a view I share, but I REALLY enjoy having deep conversations on taboo topics with people who possess opposing views to myself. Not an argument, and I wouldn't even say that we had a debate, it was just an honest conversation where he expressed his views and I shared my own views, which tended to differ from his own but in a polite way. Ultimately, we ended the conversation with a 'virtual handshake,' very amicable! So far he's the only such Neo-not-see I have met, though I'd be happy to meet and chat with more provided they are as friendly as he was. I have also had conversations about religion with people, including atheists, and it has almost always been quite pleasant chats. I personally am a religious Christian. I don't seek to convert people, only to discuss deep topics in a genuine conversation in which there is mutual respect, in which we can 'agree to disagree' and accept 'to each their own.' It's a beautiful thing when two people with differing views can hold a civilized conversation.

There's also games you can play, like 'cards against humanity,' there's a 'tower defense' game, a cool game where you throw discs at your enemy and try to hit them, and I'm sure there's many more that I simply haven't experienced yet because in VRChat I seek to talk to people rather than to play games. The games are fun though. There's also where a group of people answer the same question but one person is a 'spy' and cannot see the question itself thus can only select one of the answers. The question is then given after the answer has been submitted and the spy must then try to play it cool and not get caught as the spy. So the spy must try to get the other players to vote on the wrong person to get them removed from the round until only one person is left with the spy and thus the spy wins. I guess it's a bit like Among Us, speaking of which, you can literally play Among Us in VRChat. There's also a 'Murder' game in which there's a murderer or two and there's a detective. Like I said, I'm sure there's lots more games, it's just that I mostly go for chat rooms.

So there's all this, AND it's free. Sure there's way too many furries, there's sometimes teenagers running around with totally unclothed avatars complete with 'reproductive organs,' there's obnoxious trolls who will go into chatrooms and somehow make several people crash by doing things with their avatars (like avatars built to crash rooms), there's lame people who just 'cuddle' in front of a mirror and seem to pretty much do nothing, apparently there's also people who simulate intercourse in VR though I haven't personally witnessed or engaged in that, and there's also people who roleplay. Sometimes the roleplaying is cringe or just bad, other times it can be downright hilarious. I myself have dawned a Hank Hill voice along with a Hank Hill avatar and have made SEVERAL people laugh with my pretty darn decent impression. Making people laugh warms my heart and probably gives my brain a nice injection of serotonin.

I drink WAY more than I ought to, so I'm hoping to find some chatrooms that are meant for fellow boozers to go so that we depraved alcoholics can have somewhere to congregate and enjoy our drinks together. We'll see if I manage to find that or not.

So yeah, be prepared for some of the insanity that I just shared with you. If you're underaged, probably best to stick with people your own age, and try not to be obnoxious. If you're an adult like my 30-odd year old self (and I have met VERY few people my age or older, perhaps five or less, but thankfully I've found several 20-somethings and a few chill 18-19 year olds), try and find fellow adults to hang around with and leave the youngsters alone. I really hope VRChat implements age segregation at some point, but until they do, conduct yourself respectfully and enjoy meeting strangers from around the world in virtual chatrooms. Don't share personal information, remember that the internet can be a dangerous place, so do have safety in mind. Hopefully your adventures in VRChat prove interesting and fun, I've certainly had a lot of good times on it and I look forward to having more good times! Cheers!

Pretty sure this game is free to play so it's hard to down-vote it unless it were a steam pile of excrement. As it turns out, it seems to be a perfectly functional first-person shooter albeit one with extremely basic graphics. There's something of a story involved, lots of different quests, and an 'open world' location where even when you finish the game you can continue to play though it will take quite some time for you to complete all the different primary (non-repeating) quests.

I've got 61 hours clocked for this game at the time of me writing this review and I still have at least one more actual location to unlock which will have more than a dozen more quests for me to complete and hopefully lots more references. It can be said that there's quite a bit of grinding, but I don't think the grinding is strictly necessary. Also, if you find yourself getting low on ammo, something you can do is to play one of those endlessly-repeating quests in which you go and mount an M2 Browning machine gun and mow down hordes of zombies who come to your fixed position. With every zombie in the game that you kill, there's a chance that they'll drop loot of some sort which includes ammo, so it's a great mission to do if you find yourself getting low on ammo.

I'm not entirely certain if I have spent money on this game before today, if I have then I imagine it wasn't much, but today I spent about $4 Canadian for more space in my trunk which is the location where you can store equipment that is only accessible in towns and is not accessible when out-and-about.

This game is ultimately based off a smartphone app to my understanding, VERY basic. Don't think I ever played the app version, but I can say that I have played the console version extensively and I enjoy it in spite of how it is in many ways very simple. I have very much enjoyed many of the references, the humorous moments like when the protagonist becomes drunk or gets drugged, and I may well end up partaking in a second play-through when I eventually finish all the main quests.

In terms of negative criticism, if you don't save up in-game money and invest in better firearms, you'll find yourself mag-dumping into basic zombies that become bullet sponges as you level up. I'm also inclined to think that the developers of this game are not in the Anglosphere since the grammar is at times rather lacking, especially a message from a recent quest I did where I pretty much outright didn't know what a character was trying to say in a moment that was trying to portray itself as dramatic.

I mean, the game is free... don't take it too seriously and you'll probably enjoy spending a bit of time here and there playing it. I particularly liked the mayor of Springfield, a shame that the quests eventually run out but it is what it is. I VERY much enjoyed working for that character lol Big fan, 'yuge.'

I'm happy to say that the firearms are quite customizeable, and even the more 'exclusive' currency that is gold coins can be amassed pretty quickly. Silver coins are the common currency that you will get by the thousands simply from playing the game. Gold coins, you can either buy it with real money or you can collect 10 at a time every 12 hours, so about twice a day. If you want to change the sights (or optics) of a firearm, it costs 90, to put it in perspective. So in less than a week you can collect enough to alter the sights of a particularly enjoyed firearm. I think it's 30 gold coins for a paint job so yeah, one week and you can really pimp out a favourite firearm, but do keep in mind that as you level up you will eventually probably have to replace it.

So yeah, it's free, best not to have your expectations particularly high. If you keep your expectations in check, I think there's a good chance that this game will exceed them. I do enjoy free to play games from time to time but once I've enjoyed a free to play game enough, I feel compelled to spend SOME money on it, and so I have. Perhaps if you find that you've eventually spent a few dozen hours on the game and still enjoy it, you'll consider tossing a few dollars to the developers too if you can spare it (I personally know what it's like to question if I can afford to give even just $4). Cheers!

If memory serves, this game is free to play. If not, then it's at least cheap. The game isn't terrible so giving this recommendation isn't hard, but it's not my type of game. Unique style I suppose, and has some uniqueness to it in general, it doesn't feel like an outright rip-off of any game I've played.

It reminds me of Minecraft insofar as the fact there are enemies at night. Unlike Minecraft though, it seems like they will spawn no matter what. In my experience, you WILL be fighting at night and there is no way to avoid that. I'm not particularly a fan of that, because in Minecraft I very much enjoyed establishing a location that is well-lit and won't spawn enemies so that I can take my time working on things safely and at peace. With Muck, you will only get peace during the day at best.

I had some fun with it, but the difficulty is too much for my liking. In two playthroughs I managed to get to one week, and a major enemy spawns at that point it seems. Equipped with steel armour and with a steel sword along with over a dozen power-ups, maybe even two-dozen, I was still unable to survive. Best I got was bringing the boss's life down to almost half before I got killed.

So yeah, play it if you like, with low expectations you'll probably have at least some fun, but I don't enjoy dying and restarting over and over and over in one sitting. This game seems to be a serious challenge, unless there's something very important that I'm missing that helps you, but whatever the case, gonna uninstall it now. Probably playing with friends is the best way to play, ought to increase chances of survival a fair bit I imagine. Playing solo like I've been, it might be a bit like playing Nazi Zombies alone instead of with two or three allies, which improves your chances of getting further dramatically in my experience years ago.

Hope ya have fun! I technically did for a while, but I can't really enjoy a game like this much since I prefer things that are more long-term.

It says on the store page that it's $1.19 Canadian which means probably less than $1 USD. Do I recommend this game? I mean, not really, but I DID play it a little and I tried being the Naruto ninja guy, a Kyle, and a rock-throwing guy (A Chad maybe? I dunno). I remember the memes during that whole 'Area 51 Raid' thing, glad nobody got hurt and it was just a moment in which the internet got weird in the real world. At the low price it's at, I won't go so far as to down-vote the game. It really is not a good game, and I am soon to uninstall it and will probably never play it again. Had it on my wishlist a long time, finally decided to try it.

So the graphics are pretty damn terrible, the controls are awful, but something I didn't expect was a variety of weapons. Seems like the Naruto guy and the Kyle BASICALLY handle the same, meanwhile the rock guy can throw rocks. I assume the rock guy can also pick up and use weapons though I'm not certain. In the game, of which there seems to be only the one map, you find glowing chests all over the place and inside each seems to be different weapons. Different types of grenades (and you have infinity once you find one), different melee weapons (katana, light saber, M8 Bayonet, more), and many different ranged weapons including the rail gun, laser Gatling, Elon Flamer, lots of weird and cooky things. So that was a rather happy surprise, and I did enjoy going checking them out and for the most part enjoyed using them even though it's quite difficult.

Fixed camera is not good for looking around, the surface of the world is basically ice since you slide a lot, and you also tend to move pretty fast. Moving too fast is dangerous since if you hit a ramp you can launch up in the air a small ways, but in doing so you will rapidly decelerate and also slowly fall leaving you a hanging target for a moment.

I only played single player, haven't tried multiplayer, don't even know if anyone plays multiplayer.

Interesting art style for the main menu, the music is interesting I suppose though not my cup of tea (I'm a classic rock kinda guy), and I had fun playing this stupid little $1 game for a little while. I even beat the game eventually. Basically what you do is you storm Area 51, ideally go find a chest to nab a weapon first if you're a Naruto guy or a Kyle, and once armed you can then go about attacking containers that are holding dancing aliens. Once the container has suffered enough damage it disappears in a puff of smoke and the aliens make funny noises as they run free with UFOs showing up to air lift them out it seems using tractor beams.

So uh... yeah... don't have high expectations. It's a low-quality and foolish game made around the Storm Area 51 meme/event. Put down the coins to pick it up and give it a try if you're interested, or don't. I mean, it's probably better than whatever my first-ever videogame would turn out to be if I were to try to attempt making a videogame. Go in with expectations like that and you might not walk away totally disappointed, who knows, you might even find it kinda fun, though don't hold me to that. If you try this game with any expectations at all, chances are it's not going to meet them... if it was more than $2 I'd probably feel a bit ripped-off and would regret buying the game. At this meager price, meh, it's low-quality but I do think that some effort was put into it to some degree. The flailing ninjas are fairly funny. There's Naruto running and aliens and Area 51 and it costs less than a cup of coffee.

Ah, Far Harbor, I REALLY enjoyed playing this DLC! It feels like a proper expansion to FO4, meaning The Island. With Nuka World... meh. Other than the theme parks and Bradberton Town, what is there? Not a whole lot. A junk yard, that friendly guy down south... really the theme parks and Nuka World USA make up the lion's share of the DLC. With Far Harbor though, there's quite a lot out there, including at least two suits of power armor though I suspect there's more, plus an AWESOME set of non-power armor is available in the DLC that might just be better armor than anything else in the game you can find.

Pretty awesome to have the ability to join the Children of Atom, not that I ever seriously would. The idea of a Synth enclave is solid, I'd given consideration to that concept even before getting I stepped foot into Far Harbor. They aren't humans, but maybe they can be 'people?' I dunno, but I'm fine with them leaving human society in search of existing with their own kind.

DiMA is an interesting character, seems noble, though his backstory proves to be quite dark. I don't defend what he did to that person, but I did what I could to get Far Harbor's trust, and convinced them to not wage war with Acadia where the Synths are taking refuge.

The Children of Atom... ironic, the fate you can bring about for them. Don't know if I will or not. Maybe if it turns out that doing so can stop the fog, or make it less radioactive? I dunno. Sure there's allegations that the Children of Atom are making the fog worse, and they themselves claim that they are... but through 'faith?' I don't buy that. I need to see a real way in which they're making the fog worse if I'm going to go about obliterating them.

You can get several settlements in Far Harbor, and I do love me some settlements, even if I find it quite annoying when they get attacked. I should do research to see if there's some sort of ratio I can aim for that will make settlements impervious to losing to attacks, even if I can't stop the attacks themselves. Anyways, yeah, there's settlements.

Cassie Dalton is pretty cool I think, I enjoyed helping her, though the last mission left me a bit confused. The Vim! Factory is cool. Definitely enjoy the inclusion of the .45-70 lever-action in the DLC even though the reloading animation could have done with some more work. Love the story of the Nuka-Cola and Vim! rivalry, and the shady things going on in relation to it.

About my personal bias for this DLC though... I'm from Newfoundland, which is an island on the east coast of Canada, not far northeast of Maine where the DLC is set. We also call people 'mainlanders,' though we don't tend to be as off-putting as those in Far Harbor. The general maritime atmosphere is very welcoming to me, and I like the extra fish/amphibian based enemies.

Oh, some unfortunate negative criticism; the vault. The vault itself is pretty neat in my opinion. FAR from the best vault I ever dealt with, but an interesting little story. The big issue is the elevator. It's bugged. My game crashed a few times trying to ride back up to the surface, and in my research online it seems to be a known bug. The best fix, from what I could tell, is to hit the elevator button a few times even if the elevator already appears to be at the bottom and available. I also close/open the elevator doors for good measure. If I do that, then my game won't crash and I won't get trapped. I have both experienced a crash and getting trapped in the elevator, but not when I perform the aforementioned procedures.

Ah yes, and Old Longfellow, I find him to be an interesting character. When you pick up some objects, he'll mention how "That thing is three times as old as I am, and that's saying something." So is he being precise and he's 70 years old? I suspect he's more like late-60s and is saying it in a bit of a general way, so he was probably born around 2220. Or, if he's indeed 70, then 2217. This puts him likely in his 20s during the time of FO2, albeit being on the other side of the country lol He was born around 60 years after the events of the first Fallout, which means that he technically may have been born while some humans in the first Fallout was still alive. Anyhow, he gives a good perk at maximum affinity, though I don't think I'll be taking him outside of Far Harbor anymore. About time he retired. My next playthrough, I'll be taking Nick Valentine, which you'll understand why once you play this DLC.

Oh and that bowling alley... lovely story there. I doubt there's any weapon in FO4 or any of its DLC that has such a touching backstory as 'The Striker,' if I have the name correct.

So yeah, though my opinion is biased since the culture of Far Harbor is in line with some of my own personal culture, I suspect that even if it weren't the case, I'd still regard this as the best DLC of FO4. The shovel AK is ALMOST enough to put Nuka World at 2nd place, but I really enjoy Vault 88, both clearing out the cave system and building the vault itself. So Nuka World is a close 3rd place for me, and I guess Automaton is an easy last place. I think this will do for FO4 DLC reviews for now. Maybe if I actually experiment with the sorting thing, I'll review the DLC that I can't even currently recall the name of. Also, when I upgrade from the potato computer I'm using now, I'll use the high-quality DLC to see how pretty it makes FallOut 4 look, but that won't be for many months or possibly even a couple years. Even if I play through FO4 again, this time with mods, completing all DLC (maybe other than Automatron) again, I'll probably give it yet another playthrough once I have an actually decent computer on which to do it.

Though, hopefully, FO5 will be keeping me too busy for that by then... though I've not actually read anything that indicates that they've begun work on that yet. I'd also be PERFECTLY happy if they hired on Obsidian again and gave them more than 1 year to work on their own installment to the FallOut series. They've more than earned it with how awesome New Vegas was, I wonder if Bethesda is salty at them for having so capably bested FO3 in spite of only having a year lol Might be afraid that they'll make a game that makes FO4 look weak in comparison.

This one was pretty fun I suppose. The lack of slavery in FO4 is, to me, rather disappointing. It's a post-nuclear, post-apocalyptic wasteland. Lawless. Slavery seems to be established in ALL previous major FallOut installments, including New Vegas which I'm not sure if it's technically canon. Then we get to Boston, which legitimately had slavery in its history before the US Civil War, but people 200 years after the city was nuked ended up seemingly abolishing it while it is apparently prevalent in all other parts of the country? No explanation? You can sell the 'refrigerator' person, which is like slavery, that seems to be the closest thing I can find. Synths aren't people, therefore I do not regard them as being able to be 'enslaved,' though that said I'm quite fine helping Synths be 'free' if they'd prefer to be. Kinda don't regard them as property, but also definitely don't regard them as being fully human, but I digress.

Still, the slave collars are not explosive like in previous games, they're 'shock collars,' and the slaves are written in a way that makes them 'voluntarily' living as slaves as opposed to being thrown out without any weapons or armor to be quickly killed in the area around Nuka World. Sad, how Bethesda seems to be writing the FallOut universe in a less dark direction, less grim. Bring on the tragedy, the injustice, the suffering. IT MAKES SENSE! To soften that, you're diminishing what Fallout IS, and that's in and of itself a tragedy.

Okay, the slavery aspect aside for a moment... Nuka World raiders are pretty cool. Definitely dig the Operator's class, sadists and perhaps also anarchists would likely fall in love with the Disciples, and well... the Pack... I find them repulsive but I can't deny that they have 'style' of some sort. VERY strange, easily my least favourite raider gang, but they're kinda cool in a way.

Maybe they try to soften the slavery to make it more palatable for gamers to opt to work with the raiders. Just ruins it both ways in my opinion; it's still slavery, and therefore it must end, thus I cannot allow the raiders to remain in Nuka World. Only one real answer, unless I'm playing some sort of 'evil' playthrough. But since the slavery 'wasn't all that bad,' I think it diminishes the impact of freeing the slaves. Also, since the slavery is 'softened,' for those who like the realistic darkness of the Fallout universe like myself, it's disappointing as-is, regardless of outcome.

Anyhow, okay, no more mention of the slavery aspect going forward, because it's only a VERY small part of the DLC after all. Porter Gage is a decent companion I think, a bit of interesting backstory with him, and well, he has some logic.

OH! Red-Eye, the raider radio host, LOVE HIM! What a silly character, so foolish, and even though the singing/guitar-playing is realistically of somewhat low quality, I can't help but enjoy the music! Especially 'Quit Raidin' my Heart,' pretty sure that's my favourite song. Seems like Red-Eye is the first Fallout radio host to actually sing their own music! Also, sadly, he might also be the first radio host that you don't get to meet. I was REALLY hoping to get to meet him, and I found out that he even has an NPC but it's only in the code, can't encounter him in the game itself. He's so full of it, I definitely think he's a big liar, yet I can't help but like him anyhow. A shame that he leaves when you kill off all the raiders... someday I'll have to play the Nuka World DLC but actually let the raiders survive. Pack will get the least settlements, maybe none, and I'll probably only leave the Disciples with one if any. See what Red-Eye has to say when Nuka World locations are actually given to the raider gangs, but I'll do what I can to keep the Nuka World raiders from expanding to the Commonwealth.

I've yet to try the rides after having brought about the power, not even 100% sure if any rides are made operational after power is established. Missed opportunity by the developers if not. The Nuka-Cade is alright, though I get bored pretty quickly there. The prizes seem to be largely pretty boring.

Ah, the Nuka World power armor seems solid, the Nuka Cola Quantum armor is probably the best in the game. If not, must be damn close, and based on what I found online, it's the highest-level X01 armor you can find. What was it, Mk.IV(4) or Mk.V(5), out of VI(6)? Still, gotta do a lot of stuff to get there.

There's issues though; after turning on the power, I couldn't actually manage to make that elevator work. Found out online that some of the Star Cores respawn, including at the Junk Yard, so I went there and re-grabbed that one so that I had enough. Oh, and a rather odd issue, though thankfully one that fixed itself over time... the slaves mention that they'll find a way to remove their collars. Well, when they did, they were all naked. Just their underwear. It took a while, but eventually they put their clothes back on. Like, days later.

The story of that 'Magnificent' ghoul guy in Kiddie Kingdom is pretty neat, I gotta say. I feel like he could have done with a BIT more work, but how can you take it seriously that a ghoul hopes that feral ghouls can be brought back to who they were? Also, it apparently tries to establish that ghouls will turn feral inevitably, or that at least some apparently can. In my mind, either a human becomes a feral ghoul, or they become a ghoul, end of. A ghoul turning into a feral ghoul? I mean, they're already immune to radiation... weird stuff. Anyhow, I got that 'magnificent' guy's sword and it's my go-to melee weapon now.

The galactic place was pretty fun, the Vault-Tec 'ride' inside there was also neat in its own way, interesting how they make everything an experiment. LOVE the bloodworms insofar as they seem to basically be a reference to the Tremors series of films. Oh yeah, and Cito, pretty interesting character in my opinion. Then there's the Nuka Cola Quantum river, enjoyable challenge.

Oh, and the place that is basically based on the Winchester House, what with stairs and doors going to nowhere. Found out online that spookier stuff happens there than I knew, gonna have to be more observant on my next play-through! Hah, oh yeah, and the Hubologists... still haven't tried the 'thing' that they do with the brain, but I enjoyed helping them. Maybe next time I'll actually go through with 'unlocking' the mind or whatever.

I'm a gun nut, and I LOVE the inclusion of the AK... but what I think I love even more, is that the shovel AK has been put into a game! That shovel AK is a REAL thing, I've been aware of it for years, perhaps even before FO4 was released! Some guy got a '♥♥♥♥ shovel' as he called it, meaning the slang term for feces, and apparently while drinking vodka, put his metalworking and gunsmithing abilities to use by converting the spade into an AK receiver and used the shovel handle as the stock! Absolute madlad!

On a functional level, it's unfortunate that the 'handmade rifle' is so damn heavy, and even when it's given its best 'Advanced' receiver it still has a rather low firing rate, slower than the 'Assault Rifle' with the advanced receiver. Does more damage at least, from what I recall, but 7.62 ammo suffers just like the .45-70 in Far Harbor. Can't find it outside the DLC, not even sure if ammo venders sell it. In my experience, they don't. So you're pretty much best-off only using 7.62 firearms in Nuka World and .45-70 firearms in Far Harbor. A shame, because they're pretty sweet.

So yeah, I enjoyed Nuka World, but personally I enjoyed Far Harbor more. That's for another review, however. Though one last point of Far Harbor, I have my own biases as to why I enjoy it, so some will definitely enjoy Nuka World more I imagine.

Preferred Nuka World and Far Harbor. Surprised that this DLC has 'very positive' and 'mostly positive' overall reviews!

- Takes place in the Commonwealth, doesn't add any sizeable locations besides The Mechanist's Lair
- Besides the Assaultron Head Gun thing, doesn't seem to add any interesting firearms
- Mechanist character is boring. Spoiler alert, she seems to be an anti-social Latina girl who didn't know that her robots were 'killing people in order to help them,' and with charisma checks, will stand down wholeheartedly and apologize profusely for not knowing that she was causing the deaths of many innocent lives.
- The Mechanist's Lair is pretty long, I couldn't find any beds on the way at which to save/heal in survival mode (the only mode I play) and VERY nearly got killed in the last fight. Thankfully I didn't die, because then I'd have to do the entire lair all over again, which would suck.
- Jezebel is a ♥♥♥♥♥.
- Either I'm missing something, but it seems like Ada doesn't have any reaction to any of your actions, therefore there doesn't seem to be any perk with her in terms of gaining maximum affinity. In fact I just checked online, there is no perk with her.
- DLC can be completed in one sitting, even in Survival mode which doesn't allow fast traveling. Given this is my least favourite or one of my least favourite FO4 DLCs, which is also technically a positive... which is sad...

Okay, how about some positive things about the DLC?

- The Rust Devil location is pretty neat, I particularly like the infusion of human remains with robotic stuff, including putting skulls on functioning robots. That's pretty damn cool.
- Using robot parts as armour, which is exactly what the Rust Devils do, looks pretty rad. I also like the concept of a group of people sort of worshiping robots. I mean, the Children of Atom worship radiation, the Pack in Nuka World basically worship animals, so... why not?
- Making robots is pretty neat
- Can now customize Codsworth to make him a more efficient companion
- Learning about the lore, like how the Robobrains were made and how the brains were obtained, has some neat elements to it. Not the most interesting or hardest-hitting lore, but could be worse. A lot of what I read on the terminals were pretty boring though, and I find the Mechanist girl so uninteresting (should have killed her, really, considering how many deaths she had so STUPIDLY and NAIVELY caused) that I couldn't even be arsed to activate the dialogue with her to learn more about her. If the full darkness of the evil that could occur in the post-apocalyptic wasteland could be realized, I'd probably construct a cell or prison of some sort in which to store the stupid girl and make her a sex slave. No more building robots or tinkering, remind her every day how many lives she had inadvertently taken (nearly including my character's in the process), and resign herself to her new lowly position as the Sole Survivor's play thing. I'm really surprised I didn't end the damn brat... speaking of which, ought to see to putting down Jezebel too... so annoying how condescending she is.

I wanted to play all the DLC in vanilla first, rather than having my first playthrough of the DLCs being modded. I have succeeded in this, and I anticipate that I will leave 'Automatron' disabled. Maybe it's just a bit of bad luck, but I have experienced crashes on several occasions shortly after encountering Ada for the first time thus technically beginning the Automatron DLC. Only adds to the bad taste that this DLC has left in my mouth. Guess I could install it if I ever feel like checking out that Rust Devils location again, or if I actually want to learn about that Cruz girl's (The Mechanist's) backstory, or if I feel like killing her to see how that might change things (would Ada appear saddened that she was a naive girl who didn't know about the innocents being killed?), but then afterwards probably just load an earlier save and disable the DLC again.

So yeah, I perceive limited utility in this DLC unless you REALLY like robots. Sure, give it a go if you got the season pass, but don't have high hopes unless you're a robo-nerd. As for buying this DLC, hah, yeah, nah. I wouldn't say it's worth $10. Maybe $5 at best, but then again I'm not into robots so your mileage may vary.

Well then, 1056 hours clocked, and if I'm not mistaken I've completed all the DLC. I think it's safe to say that I enjoy Fallout 4. It ain't perfect, but in my opinion it has a lot of things going for it. I love the settlement system, even conceptually; the ability to establish places where people have a better chance of safely living out their lives is an idea that pleases me. Food, clean water, a roof to sleep under and a bed to sleep on? There's so much more than that in FO4 though.

The gunplay is an upgrade compared to previous installments, and it has some of the best firearm customization I've ever seen. Not necessarily realistic, but well... Fallout perhaps isn't exactly the best game to go for if you're looking for realism, which as it turns out is something that I often look for in videogames. Fallout is different, it's special, but I digress.

Power armour has been completely overhauled compared to previous games it seems, and I love it. Initially I never touched the stuff, it seemed strange, and fusion cores seemed to rare to be able to rely on, plus they deplete so quickly, ESPECIALLY when sprinting. Given you can't fast-travel in survival mode, which is the only mode I play in, it just didn't seem like a good option. Then I discovered that you can ride vertibirds... LOTS of fun, and something of a necessity if you both like to play in survival mode AND you tend to use power armor. Personally I typically don't step foot outside of a settlement without it. In previous games, power armour was just a suit, one that if memory serves, tended to give you good defense but slowed you down. In FO4, it provides an array of benefits, even without customizing the pieces which only further makes it compliment your play style. Once I got used to it, it was the only way to play, especially given how easily you can die in survival mode.

I can still criticize FO4 though; it's not as dark as previous games. Outside of DLC, slavery seems to border on non-existence. Even WITH DLC, those slave collars that could explode in previous games are referred to as 'shock collars.' Seems like Bethesda is getting soft, pulling the series a bit away from how relatively R-rated it had been in previous games, perhaps to make it more palatable given how they've grown the Fallout fanbase from whatever it had been in the early-mid 2000s and ballooned it to, what, surely the number of Fallout fans are in the millions. Sure not all of 'em like FO4, MANY prefer New Vegas and there are good reasons for that, but either way, whether they hold more love for FO4 or FO3 or New Vegas or the classics, they are Fallout fans regardless. I digress again.

Pretty vast area to explore, LOTS of potential settlements to manage, the settlement attacks are pretty annoying (even had a settlement get attacked in Nuka World while I was busy in Far Harbor) so I'm probably gonna look into implementing a mod that stops settlement attacks or something like that in my next playthrough but will still take security measures seriously.

I do rather like the 'legendary' stuff, both the enemies and the weapons/armor. Speaking of which, 6 different armor placements on the body? Plus you can technically put on glasses as well as something over your nose/mouth. Pretty awesome.

Different factions, moral decisions, interesting plot twists, yeah I think it can be said that your dialogue decisions hold less sway now but I still like the story of FO4. My biggest gripe, though, and there's end-game spoilers ahead, if the Sole Survivor can become leader of the Institute, WHY NOT CHANGE THE INSTITUTE?! Stop the production of Synths, stop the attempts at reclaiming escaped Synths, stop replacing people on the surface, let any Synths leave the Institute who don't want to remain there, and use the Institute's advanced technology to try and help people on the surface! Nah, none of that, apparently the Institute will remain a force of what I would call 'evil,' or you destroy them. So annoying... which leaves me with the option of siding with the Railroad (even though I don't regard Synths to actually be human) since I don't agree with the Brotherhood in that all Synths should be wiped out. Non-feral ghouls are also fine by me, but they'd probably see to killing any of them that they can too.

Anyhow, as can be seen, yeah, there are flaws. In my opinion, those flaws do not ruin the game. The story could be improved upon, I'll definitely say that, but I think it's still a worthwhile story as-is. I think the inclusion of Synths into the Fallout universe will aid in the storytelling of whatever FO5 is gonna be. Someone can appear to be a young man or woman, seemingly human, but could in fact be someone born... what... I think in the early 2200s? I think gen 3 synths had been in production for around 60 years or so as of FO4 in 2087, no? FO3 was 2277, FO4 is 2287, perhaps FO5 will have the nice round number of the year 2300, potentially over 70 years of gen 3 Synths existing.

Ah yes, and in the main story with Kellogg, there's some throwbacks to at least FO2, possibly even the first.

Anyhow, I think this review is already a disorganized hot mess, but that's fine. FO4 is kind of a mess too, but it's a mess I enjoy, and I look forward to partaking in another playthrough sometime. Now that I've played and basically completed all the DLC in vanilla, I can go full-bore into FO4 with mods. Didn't feel right playing the DLC for the first time with mods, but that's out of the way now. Based on what I've seen in videos on YouTube, the mods of FO4 can make it seem like a whole new game. I've given it a wee try before tinkered with mods, but gonna see what they're capable of... though I think I'll leave the 'Automotron' DLC disabled. I did that one last, with 'The Mechanist' and all that. Took me less time to complete than Nuka World or Far Harbor or whatever the Vault 88 DLC is, and is easily the least interesting in my opinion, but that'll come in other reviews. Making custom robots seems neat I suppose, but I can happily live without it.

I found it pretty fun initially. The whole concept of being in the middle of the Vietnam War, in enemy Vietcong territory, and doing various things to help the war effort for the South Vietnamese, it's pretty sweet! Who doesn't like lighting up militant Commies? After a bit of playing, though, it got repetitive quite quickly.

Firearms
The Vietnam War had a lovely array of firearms to utilize. From the earlier conflicts of the Vietnamese and the French you've got SMGs and rifles left over from that. You've got the supplies sent from the USSR and China, all that awesome Soviet Russian stuff (hey, you don't need to like communism/communists to appreciate fine Russian craftsmanship, just ask Brandon Herrera. There's beauty in simplicity). Then of course there's America's involvement, and the Aussies were present in the war too so there were FN FALs, Owen guns, perhaps some Sterlings, Hi Power pistols, perhaps even some .303 Lee Enfield scoped rifles for designated marksmen or snipers though I am not certain about that aspect.

So what is there to find in this DLC? Loads of AKs (understandable), plenty of M1911s (A bit odd for the Vietcong to have so many), lots of SVD-63 Dragunovs (What?... I doubt Russia would have given many of those out to the Vietcong), and some MP40s (true, they were used in Vietnam, but there were other SMGs that were far more prevalent). That makes up the lion's share, really. No PPSh-41s, PPS-43, TT-33 pistols, Makarov PMs, Mosins (even though one is shown in the opening cutscene, and yeah the only scoped rifle the Vietcong seem to use are SVDs, no PU scoped M91/30 Mosin Nagants which should have been more common), there was one M14 that I could find though the icon still showed that shortened carbine-length M14 from the vanilla game, and there were a few M16s that you could find here and there. No French firearms, no WWII era American firearms (save for the M1911s) even though to my understanding the US gave lots of their old stuff to the South Vietnamese who wanted to fight, and no SKS rifles either. I was very disappointed. I also apparently completed the vast majority of the DLC in one sitting, everything except I think one Zippo lighter than I hadn't yet found.

Oh yeah, and there's that scoped bolt-action that America used during the Vietnam War, can't remember the name, M70-something I think. Why couldn't they take that, re-skin it for a Mosin, and add clip-feed for unscoped ones and single-round loading for scoped ones? Tsk... the same could have been done with the M14, just lower the damage and change the reload. Anyhow, what's done is done, time to move on.

Appearance
Having played a lot of Rising Storm 2: Vietnam, I did find some things very familiar. The pilots seem to be wearing period-correct uniforms. The landscape is quite pleasant I find. The VC look alright, though I think they should have adjusted the frequency of the genders. Seems like there's as many female VC as there are male, which I don't for a minute thing was accurate to the actual war. Yes, to my understanding, there were female Vietcong soldier, but maybe the ratio should be more like 90-95% men and 5-10% women, Seems like in the game it's 50/50 or possibly even a higher percentage of women. That's not realistic. Adherents to leftist identity politics might like it, but that doesn't mean it's accurate to the actual war. They had some lovely political incorrectness in the vanilla game, too! Why would they get woke for this DLC? Disappointing... even if politics had nothing to do with it and they just shrugged and set it to 50% chance that a spawned VC NPC would be male or female, it's disappointing.

Character development
Not a whole lot, but yeah you do have some Military buddies you can rescue and have them help you out. Can't really interact with them personally, they seem little different than the civilian guns for hire in the vanilla game except it takes more effort to rescue them. I don't regard them as particularly memorable. A religious Black guy, a young guy named Joker who doesn't seem to deride much from the FMJ character with the same nickname, and the other one is apparently more wild and gung-ho who chose the Military instead of prison.

So yeah, I'd say I recommend Hours of Darkness if you'd like a sort of 'Airbourne dropped in the middle of Nazi occupied France on D-Day' vibe in a Vietnam War themed DLC, but keep your expectations in check, and probably get it only while it's on sale especially if you're hoping to find a nice variety of realistic firearms while playing. I didn't... oh yeah, also, I didn't buy this game for myself, a close friend bought it for me. She's from the UK, she's a writer, and she loves America. Bandi Crawford, check her out if you enjoy reading.