Game 72 - Fallout 4: Far Harbor - Week 133 - July 22

allout 4 Far Harbor

Fallout 4 was a disappointment to say the least. Everything that made prior entries great was thrown to the wayside in favour of streamlined mechanics. I likened it closer to a post-apocalyptic Far Cry, rather than a Fallout RPG. Go there, clear the settlement, loot, repeat. Stripped down RPG mechanics, dialogue, a lack of builds and perks. Characters are forgettable bar a few. All the things that New Vegas did better ignored. But even then, what Fallout 3 did best is sorely missed as well. Gone is the sense of wonder and exploration; turning over every corner to find some wacky wasteland settlement or pocket of goofyness. No mole rat races, Republic of Dave, ghoul stuck in a tree worshipped by savages, no town at war because they read a comic book where a hero and villain fight it out. None of it. The story was better than 3, but fell short of the branching factions and their charismatic characters in New Vegas. It had two redeeming features in my eyes; the verticality of Boston was awesome and The Glowing Sea was terrifying. Additionally the shooting was improved (which makes sense, mainstream appeal) but more so the Power Armour was fucking incredible. Turning it into a modable tank that you tinker in a workshop was a great feeling; especially that first scene (which should have been later) and when you get the jump pack and can bounce around Boston is a great climax. Still, the lack of RPG mechanics left it feeling hollow, and it kept me from coming back to play this DLC even though I heard high praises.

Rail rifle is still a banger of a weapon.

Not too long ago I got the itch and bought Far Harbor on special. Right off the bat I was reminded how terrible the voice acting. The problem with combining a voice actor and an extensive character creator is the voice has to be generic to fit all character builds. In this instance he just ends up sounding like a moron. “M....o....t...h....e...........r?”. “Could that be the password erhhh?”. Like what is that; he’s always asking some stupid questions when your enquire further. I hate it. The dialogue wheel of “good, bad, neutral and enquire further”. Mass Effect had it sure, but at least the dialogue was !@#$ing good as Shepard was an established character with some umph behind him. That’s a good comparison actually, both are pre-established soldiers, both a man on a mission; yet one is more convincing then the others. Stick to your strength Bethesda (I’m glad it looks like they are as the protagonist of StarField won’t have a voice).

Formula is outdated at this point. Go there, save them. At least in New Vegas there was somewhat of a sense that no one trusted you and you had to prove yourself. Here you’re not kept at arms length until you eartn Caesar’s respect. Not to mention he feels like a charismatic leader, convincing you that his goals and methods of debauchery are the right way; and the ends justify the means as a true tyrant would in real life, making him feel even more real. None of that is here. The native’s say they don’t trust you, but then instantly talk themselves into trusting you to save them because you shoot a few mud crabs. Like what? And that can lead to their downfall in several ways. Is everyone in this world stupid? Where is the paranoia?

More characters like my mutant dog breeder Erickson please. Wish he had more involvement.,,

So after receiving an SOS call my investigations to track Kasumi, a missing person that leads me to Far Harbor and DIMA, an ancient synth leading his people of Arcadia; where the person in question is staying. She asks me to help. On my path I meet the Children of Atom – interesting fellows with their submarine cult, I like it, but currently at war with the fishermen of Far Harbor. I liked it at first and decided to do the story. This lead me to revealing that the mayor of Far Harbor was a synth, replaced by DIMA after the original was abducted and killed. Dark, I like it. So I convinced DIMA to turn himself in, the right thing to do. To my shock, this resulted in Far Harbour destroying Arcadia. I mean what? Despite all my successful speech checks I had no influence to prevent the attack. Okay, you can’t talk your way out of everything, actions have consequences. Well having done a Railroad playthrough and Curie, I wanted to side with Arcadia. I tried to defend them and kill the fishermen; but they’re invincible. They just go sleepy sleep bye bye and then wake up. Arcadia is destroyed. So let me get this straight, not only can I not prevent the attack from happening I can’t pick a side mid-fight? That is utter garbage. I’m not sure why people said it was a return to form. They make baby steps not strides towards an RPG – does Bethesda even make them anymore? Is this Call of Duty or Fallout? So it turns out you need to do all the side-quests to prevent them from killing DIMA. How on God’s brown blighted Earth was I meant to know that? So I save scummed and 180’d to do the story last.

I have to mention that section. The one with the cubes where you repair DIMA’s memory. All I have to say is FUCK that section. TCL is blocked so you can’t move through walks. It’s easily the worst part of any Fallout game I’ve experience and drops the DLC at least 1 point.

Beyond that they attempt to add some skills because into the dialogue and quests where you can use them to repair, blow things up, or heal injured fishermen. But it doesn’t go very far beyond Far Harbor and feels pretty token. The island is pretty cool; its essentially Point Lookout but not as good (I miss my redneck mutants). Add it to the list of Boston and the Glowing Sea as a semi-interesting area to explore. The embedded narrtivie saw some improvements here; one highlight was restoring power to a family farm and uncovering notes of what happened to them after the Great War; before revealing a final cache of loot. The other course being the vault of robots beneath a hotle that hire you to investigate a murder. Full of eccentric brain robots and Mister Handys, this was probably the best part of the game – feeling like a nod to Old World Blues. More of that please; Fallout is at its best when it has goofy and dark embedded story telling of Fallout 3 mixed with amazing characters and faction politics of New Vegas. Oh, and it’s actually an RPG. Far Harbor takes baby steps but I’m still waiting for that perfect wasteland cocktail.

Fallout: New Vegas (again)

While Far Harbor scratched the itch, it didn’t quell it. So I decided to go back and do a modded playthrough. To my surprise, the amount of mods that make this game replayable is nuts. I’m not talking about quality of life but complete overhauls that change the game entirely. DUST for example turns it into a horror survival experience, one that I need to go back to.

Deathclaws. Actually terrifying in this game.

My third major playthrough this time I decided to do a Mr. House dumb big gun playthrough. In short the Courier got shot in the head, lost 100 IQ points. But he made a miraculous recovery of course and traded all those points for luck! In Goodsprings he shoots Jacob right away (derp); feels bad and helps defend the town. Then he hears from someone that the guy who shot him went to the big shiny city in the middle of the desert. So off he went, right through Deathclaw Valley. He runs into niles, and so does the Deathclaws following him. Leaving those two to sort it out he keeps walking. Eventually he gets to freeside and the lucky man he is, has the 2000 caps to walse right into the Strip. Mr House beckons him and tells him about Benny and off he goes, gets his revenge and returns to Mr House. The big man in the TV tells him to do stuff, and why shouldn’t he? But not before he rolls all the casino. He sorts out Caesar and upgrades the robots for Mr House and then on his way to Boom town he finds the freeside clinic. Naturally, the doctor recommends the intelligent implant; but he don’t need no crinkles on his perfectly smooth brain, so he gets every implant BUT intelligence. He makes the boom town friends of the House and the rest of dumb dumb’s story is yet to be told!

I decided to end it at the point that Arcade Gannon (still the GOAT companion) gets involved with the Enclave. As I want to go back and play Fallout 1 and 2, then play through all the Enclave and NCR quests so I get that extra flavour of references such as Shady Sands and the Boneyard.

But even in my short time I realise just how much better a game New Vegas is. New Vegas itself is a character, from the denizens to the layout and how it ties to the old world in substantive ways like The Kings and the hotels essentially being tribes from the wasteland. It’s so nuanced in clever. Every level up is an enjoyable dopamine hit. Because the perks aren’t just stat boosts, they have major changes to your build both in combat and tying your character to that world. Even the skill points are infinitely more enjoyable, having a dozen or more to distribute among several skills makes progression an endless joy. It makes the game infinitely more re-playable. Also I just have to mention the fact that it was only developed in a year!?!? Just imagine what Obsidian can do with a full dev cycle – I hope to god the rumours are true about them doing a “New Vegas 2”. It just goes to show that when I play Fallout 4, all it does is make me want to go back and play the better Fallout game.

Mods are a must.