So I liked a lot of things in Fallout 4 but ultimately the whole thing comes off kind of meh. I think that's down to how there are so many great things but it's let down by a weak plot and the usual Bethesda shenanigans.
I cleared Skyrim completely and really enjoyed that game. It has taken me three complete playthroughs to get every achievement in Fallout 4, only the third and current run was intended to get all the achievements. My first playthrough as Eoghan I documented here, a sort of sneaky/charisma/guns/settlement-building run of just the main game where I sided with the Institute. My second playthrough as Ada was a melee build which I enjoyed a lot, she was so much stronger and easy to use compared to Eoghan's build. She also did all the DLCs.
My third playthrough has me as Derek, overweight former US soldier who specialised in computers and power armour. I originally imagined him as more of a neckbeard but he evolved into a Greg Grunberg style character. Eoghan was nice, Ada was evil or 'sarcastic' in 4 but Derek is a bit nuts, after his namesake, Derek in Bad Taste.
SPECIAL was interesting: I kept Strength, Agility and Luck low, all stuff Ada had maxed out, and pumped everything into Endurance and Perception. This was intentionally to make things more difficult for me and to challenge me to try different perks and it partly worked. Charisma and Intelligence were low to mid but I increased them later. I needed enough for Hacker so I could get the achievement for hacking 50 computers, while Charisma I sank loads of levels into later to get the Wasteland Whisperer for the Docile achievement, shown below,with 5 Deathclawsand other animals.
Also another thing - I banned myself from using guns with Ada, but in both Eoghan and Ada playthroughs I had zero interest in power armor. After watching a few 'can you beat' videos on YouTube where they figure prominently I tried it out and I ended up loving it. The massive strength boost and protection made most fights almost trivial on top of my already extremely high Endurance, which neither Eoghan or Ada had. They relied on END 1 and the Toughness perk being maxed. Derek only had 1 or 2 ranks in Toughness.
I had Perception at 9 but wasn't using any of the high level perks to do with VATS. I wasn't using it much at all so late in the run I used the console to reduce it to 6 and pumped it into INT and CHA instead.
And that's the bottom line.
I really like the first rank of the Aquaboy perk in END, it makes all the water in the wasteland stop irradiating you. Ada/Eoghan had END 1 so all the water would irradiate them and reduce their health (already low) significantly. Derek had max 10 END, so radiation didn't bother him that much anyway but with Aquaboy it ends the random irradiation you get from sprinting through puddles all over the Commonwealth. Seriously. I also liked Ghoulish for when radiation does get at you and Solar Powered added to my considerable STR from power armour.
Power Armour: I used the suit you get at the start but then I set it aside in Sanctuary Hills when I found a random suit in the wastes and wore that all game. I was worried Fusion Cores would be a problem but they were grand. I sprint a lot so they wore out a bit quicker and they are extremely expensive initially when my CHA was lower but things improved later. I didn't really bother all that much with weapon or armour mods but did loads of modding on my Power Armour. Initially I had it all painted hot rod red for the AGI bonus but changed later to a more customised suit. I even gave the Jet Pack a spin at the very end of the game but ditched it.
The Brotherhood of Steel were the only faction I hadn't sided with yet. I never really liked them in any Fallout setting, so yeah. Derek identifies with them as a science-loving, power armour-wearing nut though. Ada sided with the Railroad and Eoghan with the Institute. As expected, it was obnoxious and unoriginal - as I said in the previous review with Eoghan, they could have done something different rather than digging up Liberty Prime again. I will admit the MASSIVE changes in the East Coast Brotherhood were interesting. My perception of them as water drinking wimps from Fallout 3 were blown away as they all seemed to be enjoying alcohol, drugs and pre-war irradiated food. Good for them.
My second last achievement I needed to get was getting 50 Misc Objectives. Somehow I hadn't gotten that in my previous two runs. I looked up how to find how many you had done and was pleasantly surprised to see I had almost got it,with 40+ done. I just Mama Murphy some drugs and the achievement popped!
All that is left now is the Nuka Cola 20 recipes one, which will require me to return to Nuka World.
Update:
It's over. The last one was plenty tedious but doable in a few hours. I killed Gage and got all the raiders to turn on me but it didn't matter.
I'll return to Fallout 4... maybe... one day but will move onto bigger and better things. The biggest but not necessarily best one is Final Fantasy 13 in March to celebrate its 10 year anniversary, or that one time I bought a game at release and it was terrible.
