Recent reviews by Ryett

It's alright

Perhaps the most enjoyable experience I've had all year. A fantastic addition to the half-life universe.

Perfect amount of challenge, nice pacing and polished experience. A very polished and enjoyable experience.

E:D's technical achievements cannot be ignored, it's beatiful, well optimised and polished. However, the actual game aspect shows little improvement over the original 1984 title. The game just needs more player agency, whether that's the much anticipated 'space legs' or more refinement to multiplayer interaction. While I do recommend the game, I highly suggest you read up on what you're getting into and determine what you are going to get out of it. As other steam reviews have summarised so well, it's a mile wide but an inch deep.

Quite possibly the greatest game about an engine itself.

An excellent update to the classic formula. Just one more turn.

If you're reading this review then you probably know what a Bethesda-made Fallout game plays like. You most likely know what you're actually getting is a Fallout game built on top of Bethesda's engine that they have been using since 2006's Oblvion. If you've played one Bethesda game, you've pretty much played them all.

But Fallout 4 marks the first time Bethesda have managed to (mostly) nail the open-world RPG formula that the developer has been trying to achieve for nearly two decades now. Things have been stripped back and midly refined and what you get is an expansive open world game filled with dozens of hours of satisfying gameplay and narrative trees to go down.
Being a Bethesda game in this style, you always have the freedom of choice. You can sidetrack the main storyline if you want and focus on the myriad of sidequests, but if you're a fan of Fallout, you would probably be relieved to know that the main storyline is handled rather well this time round. As opposed to the abysmal main storyline of Bethesda's previous Fallout effort - Fallout 3 that was released in 2008.
You will meet interesting characters and take part in some fairly decently crafted main story missions this time around. New Vegas's faction system are expanded, and actually tie into the main story in a pretty serious way.

New gameplay aditions to the game such as base building are a nice touch to the game, if a little bit frivilous. Crafting has been expanded on, and factions can tie into your basebuilding efforts. Gone is the broken Karma system from previous games. No longer do you put points into a pen and paper looking stat sheet. While your stats improve behind the scene everytime you level up, it's mostly been delegated into the revamped perk system. Which let's you put your points into either boosting your SPECIAL stats, (charisma, strength, intelligence) or individual perks which can add passive abilities or stats just like previous games.

Presentation wise, this also marks the first time that a Bethesda game has launched on pc not completly ♥♥♥♥♥♥ up. Texture work is a little on the low quality side, But the game more than makes up for it with an impressive real time lighting system that has finally been implemented into the engine. Realtime Lighting/Shadows and Godray's make the game feel truly dynamic for the first time. Gone are the days of previous Fallout and Elder Scroll titles were nothing casts a shadow. What hasn't been fixed though, is the littany of bugs involving NPC's and their scripting. NPC's will sometime fall through walls, refuse to talk to you or they're scripting can just entirely break. It's frustrating and it happens often. It's a real mixed bag in terms of NPC's

Does it still run on Gamebryo/Creation and have annoying quirks? Yes
Has the Dialogue options been stripped down heavily to a condescending yes/no/what/sarcastic options? Yes
Have the RPG mechanics been stripped down to accomodate a more smooth gameplay and questing experience? Yes.

What is going to determine your outlook on Fallout 4 is how the problems above bother you. Yes, Fallout 4 still has all the trademarks of a Bethesda title of this nature. But what matters is that most of the important mechanics have been polished to a functional state. It's hard to say where Fallout 4 has sits reception wise compared to it's brothers. That's going to be up to you to decide.

Melted my already shriveled heart..

I pray to the bounce gods every night before I go to sleep

A welcomed return to a more serious and skillful rally racing game. Progress is being made quite well for an early access game.