izigame.me

Fallout 4 is a game that tries to be a lot of things at once; so whether you'll like it or not depends on what you want it to be, or what do you expect from it. I've heard people say stuff like "It's a good game, just not a good Fallout game", but what does that even mean? Even your reference of what Fallout is supposed to be is probably dependent on which game you started with.
I've come to this game expecting a solitary survival exploration game about walking the wasteland alone while looting abandoned places, shooting some beasties and baddies and maybe making the world a better place. In other words: I played on survival difficulty with no companions, I often went exploring by walking (not running) and my main goal was to finish the main quest. That was my Fallout 4. And did it deliver?

Wasteland Survival Guide

Mostly. The world seems great and treacherous at first, but eventually turns too urban and samey. Survival mechanics (eating, drinking, sleeping) don't really bring anything to the table; although there was this one time where I was desperate for water, but after that I learned to always carry empty bottles with me to refill at a pump. The combat was fun - I never use VATS, and playing this as a regular shooter was alright... but the enemy variety was somewhat lacking.
Most of my fighting was against raiders and super mutants. The mutants aren't these terrifying monstrosities from the old days, no - they're essentially orcs/trolls. A bit tougher, using heavier weapons, often preferring melee combat... but that's about it. I did get Fat Man'd once or twice, or shredded by minigun fire. And considering I played on survival, not only the damage I took was high, but also saving was limited - so I had to replay some content more than I'd like. My guess is that around half of all my deaths were caused by walking into a land mine, though.
The main complaint about my "shooter exploration survival" experience would be that in the end there's not much to find. Everything is made out of the same blocks, same pieces, same junk items, same weapons, same enemies. Occasionally you get a terminal with some story bits. Oh, and the game doesn't really treat itself as an immersive sim - many events are scripted to pop when you're around, with no distinction for whether you're detected or not. So often I'd have a mirelurk pop out from the ground and then wonder "why am I here?" since it couldn't see me, or a character shouting at me even though I was clearly hidden.
Then there's the writing and the story.

Dear Hearts and Gentle People

They're... alright, at best. The general plot is pretty predictable and just kind of happens. All factions are presented as human, with their own beliefs - misguided as they might be. I liked that the Brotherhood of Steel is actually portrayed as they originally were - supremacist, maybe a little fascist, with tech obsession being their primary driving force. Better than Fallout 3's depiction, that's for sure.
I said before that Fallout 4 tries do be a lot of things at once - but if you do that, then the depth of those things will suffer. That's why the dialogue system of choosing 4 options falls incredibly flat and the main character most definitely does not feel like an extension of you. Because of this, you simply cannot build meaningful relationships with people - everything is as shallow as a puddle.
This applies to a lot of things. The settlement system is unwieldy (designed for controller) and paper-thin. The weapon modding system has a lot of options, but in the end they boil down to "pick the numbers you like the most and minmax". The Power Armour tinkering is actually pretty cool because you get to maintain each piece separately. You know how they say that Skyrim is wide as an ocean, shallow as a puddle? This is more or less the same thing.

The Chinese Room

With all that said, the story actually manages to do one thing incredibly well. A major element of the story is the nature of the synths - artificial humans that have been sent by a certain shadowy organisation to replace individual people. Is your wife really your wife? Or has she been replaced by a synth? You can never know unless she dies. That's pretty terrifying.
Everybody believes that synths are just robots pretending to be people. But are they, really? If you talk to some of the escaped ones they seem like they're just as human as everyone else, and sick of being used by their masters. Is this an actual expression of free will, or merely a convincing emulation?
And here's the thing: the game never explicitly states which answer is correct. Because of that, the question of whether it's morally justified to use synths as slaves is a big topic in the Fallout community.
Sadly, we gamers aren't exactly the most sophisticated bunch, so a lot of us seem to miss out on the fact that this exact problem has a lot of philosophy behind it. The body-mind problem, the nature of qualia, the Chinese Room thought experiment, the concept of the Philosophical Zombie, and many others... it's a real shame that this doesn't seem to push more people to study these issues.

By the Dawn's Early Light

Another interesting thing is that Fallout series in general is seeped in Americana - but not just any Americana. A forgotten, bastardised version of itself that's not quite what you'd expect. For example, did you know that Baseball is all about beating the other team to death with the bats, and the mitts are there to catch bullets?
I feel like Fallout 4 contains even more Americana than the previous games. You have the Minutemen, you fight raiders in a museum while "Glory Glory Hallelujah" plays, many historical landmarks of Boston make direct appearances... and then there's the music, of course.
I feel like the 50s music that plays in the game provides a somewhat disturbing snapshot of what sort of country America was back then. Some pieces are even thematically segregated by race; "white" songs are often about small town mentality, Christianity, "family mindset", while "black" songs are about some good ol' lovin' (Would you like to ride my raaakit 69?). I can't explain why, but watching the world ruined by nukes while this kind of music plays on the radio made me uneasy. I loved that.

Conclusion

It might seem like I've mostly complained about the game. But overall, I had a lot of fun - walking the wastes was just a nice little adventure. Okay, not so little; almost 150 hours. But that's what I get for walking and playing without fast travel (no fast travel in survival).
As far as AAA experiences go, this one is pretty nice. Mostly because at the end of the day it's a huge theme park-y sandbox that has just enough stuff in it to make playing in the dirt fun.
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