The main story's twists and turns, while my friend claims to have saw coming a mile away, I did not and found it both surprising and entertaining. This game, I felt, was very good at having these factions and characters that you could see value in their goals but also see there were flaws present in all of them. There's plenty of ideological grey area where everyone sets up camp. Toward the end of the game, these opposing viewpoints force you to make some tough decisions, as one cannot fully back one faction without running counter to the goals of another.
In this game, I had been helping out the Brotherhood of Steel, among others. From the get go, I would have never thought I'd turn on them to help the "evil" Institute. Fuck those people stealing, murderrobot-making assholes, right? Well...situations change. New information enters the picture, and a decision needs to be made eventually that cannot be undone. Helping the Institute brought me into direct conflict with the Brotherhood, and I ultimately couldn't side with the Brotherhood because overall they were kind of dicks, and I don't want to say Nazi-ish...but yeah, they were Nazi-ish.
But I didn't really want to side with the Institute whole hog either. They do steal people and replace them with robots. #therumorsaretrue It's all in the name of science, of course. They do a lot of questionable things in the name of science...and I'm not okay with aaaalllll that. *waves hand*
So the Railroad then? These guys are all about freeing synths. They think them sentient beings that are being kept as slaves. I wasn't totally convinced at first. The ones I ran into first are metal faced hostiles that do nothing but shoot lasers at my face for getting within earshot. Later models, however, are more advanced, and some of them don't even know they're robots. (It's very Battlestar Galactica.)
I had actually intended to ignore all three of those bickering jerks and ally with the Minutemen, but I didn't trigger whatever was necessary to get them involved, and not being involved seemed like that would be their M.O. anyway. I decided to continue on with the Railroad as they seemed the least morally intolerable. There was one fairly epic battle where I showed up with the Institute, but had warned the Railroad of the Institute attack, and the Brotherhood was also there to pick on the Railroad. Everyone on the battlefield was green to me because they were technically allies with me and didn't know I was with any other faction but them. But I was with the Railroad, and it felt super icky to shoot Brotherhood guys in the back. I didn't feel so bad about betraying the synths, as the ones I was with were toaster style, 1st Gen models. Killing Brotherhood guys with names that I recognized, people that I had helped earlier...that felt icky. And destroying the Institute later wasn't without its icky feels.
With Fallout, it never seems like there's ever an everything is peachy, life is great ending. It's generally about having several semi-shitty options and choosing the one your character could live with and/or accept.
Overall, I thought Fallout 4 was a great game. They added a lot of great new things in this iteration that I felt were very successful. The settlement building, scrapping mechanic was amazing. I felt like the NPC companions were more realized and actually added something to the game. The story was a believable motivator for your character, and the world was pretty damn big and full of pretty interesting side quests to be discovered. After beating it, I've still been listening to a Diamond City Radio playlist on Spotify on my way to work. I beat you Fallout, but I can't quit you.
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