As I sit here waiting in the airport, wishing I was playing Fallout instead, I think it's time for an update on how that whole thing's going.
At 50 hours in, according to my quest stats, I had completed 1 Main Story Quest mission. Dicking Around: Level Expert. It was about at this time that I decided I needed to get it together and do that whole finding my son thing, so I headed to Diamond City. Once I got on that storyline, my play-style definitely started to shift. I was far more interested in seeing where that story took me and solving that mystery than bebopping from settlement to settlement being the Oprah of turrets.
It was interesting talking to others about their playthroughs and realizing how different each of us were playing. Some of them got super wrapped up in the story and "beat" the game quicker than I imagined possible. Others took my route and kind of played Minecraft: Post-Apocalyptic Edition. (I don't "get" Minecraft, by the way, so it was kind of a shock at how much I took to the settlement building mechanic.) Others got actively angry at all that "crafting shit". They just wanted to shoot stuff in the face, and they thought the game was making them do things they had no interest in. Chill, dude. They make you do like 3 tasks to make sure you understand the mechanic. You can never do it again if you so choose. Go forth and put holes in faces.
Another element that varied greatly was their relationship with the radio. Someone sent me a link to the song "Personality" and commented that this was the worst thing about Fallout. Another chimed in, agreeing that the only sound he wants his enemies to hear was the sound of his footsteps right before they got a brain bullet. We'll just have to agree to disagree, chief. Like I mentioned previously, I LOVE listening to the radio while wandering the Wastes. I didn't realize how much until I had turned it off for a while to hear some dialogue and forgot about it. I was walking through a kind of empty area to my next quest marker, and I had this thought of, "Why am I not having fun right now?" Then I realized the background music when your radio isn't on is kind of stress inducing by nature, and I apparently need a jaunty tune to murderface raiders to. As soon as I turned Diamond City Radio back on, I immediately enjoyed myself more. To each their own.
As I get further into the story, I've decided to leave Dogmeat at home and try to socialize with the companion characters more. They each have personal quests that will unlock once you've sufficiently bro'd out with them for a while. I'm really enjoying the characters I've met thus far. And it's interesting because your friendship with many of these characters will, at times, conflict with the agendas of the various factions you're working on aligning yourself with. It brings an interesting moral element and kind of makes you think about how prejudice is pretty bullshit in the real world and in fictitious post-apocalyptic ones.
For example, Super Mutants are generally thought of as big, dumb, lumbering idiots that want to rip your arms off for kicks. And a lot of them are. I shot em without question at one time, but then you meet Strong, a Super Mutant that protected a human and got locked up for it by his mutant brethren. After hanging out with him for a while, I paused a bit when the Brotherhood of Steel wanted me to eradicate an island full of Super Mutants. I still did it...because fuckers threw grenades at me, BUT I thought about it for a minute longer than I would have otherwise. Even Synths, which are kind of like Cylons, looking and acting like humans as they do, aren't so easy to vilify when you meet Nick Valentine, an older model Synth that has the personality of a likable detective, just wants to find a place where he fits in, and genuinely wants to help you find your son.
I'm not sure how many more hours I'll sink into Fallout 4, but one thing's for certain, I'll be doing it while listening to Bing Crosby.
