Deathclaws and Power Armor, Already?
November 11th, 2015 on PlayStation 4:
A lot’s happened in a short amount of time. In the first couple of hours I’ve put into the game, introduction included, I’ve already got my first companion, racked up my first set of power armor and used it to take on my first Deathclaw. It seems as though Bethesda is coming up to me and going “you remember this stuff? Yeah? I bet you remember this stuff.” Can’t say that I’m entirely surprised but it’s nice. I’ve already experienced my first set of graphical glitches, mostly people falling and dying on platforms that don’t seem to exist and people sitting and standing on these said magical platforms. It’s to be expected and, if we’re being honest, quite amusing. The game feels and plays, very much, like an improved version of Fallout: New Vegas and you can certainly feel the Skyrim showing in this as the movement and environment certainly shows it.
It’s not exactly the prettiest game and it does have its fair share of visual and audio shortcomings – one of which is a personal pet peeve of mine: I sometimes have a hard time hearing things and I require subtitles and sometimes the subtitles I’ve set are either not appearing at all or they’re stuck – but it’s nothing that takes away from the fun the game has to offer, so far. I’ve done my fair share of wandering and getting into trouble and I gotta say the experience is not far removed from previous entries at all.
Story seems solid, so far. Voice acting has improved quite a bit, too, which is awesome. Music is mostly not present but during some of the story-based moments, it was nice.
My huge concern is this, so far: if I know Bethesda at all, they have this habit of fooling you into what to expect from the challenges out there. Greatest example in my memory is when you faced a Behemoth earlier on in the game in Fallout 3 and I thought to myself “holy hell, if it took myself and that many Brotherhood members to take this down, there can’t be much that’s more difficult in this game to take on alone” when I later found out that there are many other threats much worse than that Behemoth. Deathclaws are a great example of a threat that was incredible alone and in packs they were nigh unstoppable. Every time I even heard one my heartbeat skyrocketed. Within the first little bit of the game I played today I was already paired up with Dogmeat, plopped down into my first set of power armor, and then faced up against a Deathclaw. Now, that was, by no means an easy battle, tension was high and the adrenaline was pumping but the point remains that it only took one try to down the thing and I’ve already got a suit of power armor. Of course, it requires a power supply in order to get going and the suit you get comes to you damaged so you can’t exactly abuse it early on but… still… power armor! I remember not even being able to wear a suit of power armor until late into Fallout 3 due to not having the perk so I could wear it and, at that, I didn’t have a suit, period, until a little bit before I put a point into that perk. I’m just wondering how the difficulty will scale from here: are things going to get bigger, badder, and more dangerous from here, or are Deathclaws still going to be the prominent threat in Boston and are they being nerfed slightly? I guess only time will tell.
Aside from all that business, very typical Fallout business: things haven’t changed that much and, honestly, that’s a very good thing. I’m already glad I picked it up.
