About a month ago I bought the Game of the Year Edition of Fallout 4. I paid about thirty dollars on a Steam sale and I got a great value for my money. I am glad I waited for the Game of the Year Edition to come out. I really try to wait until a game goes "Gold" or comes out in a Game of the Year Edition. By that time most of the bugs have been worked out, all the additional paid content gets put in the game and the price is way lower. If I had bought the game and then paid for the downloaded content I could have easily bought a buggy game that could have cost over a hundred dollars. If I would have bought the game back then I probably would not have been happy. I also have played the previous Fallout games over the years. This is not your father's Fallout. If you accept the game the way it is you will be happy. If you are looking for an experience that you remember you may not be that happy. The game has changed in some ways that I did not initially like.
In the beginning of the Fallout game franchise it was a role playing game that had turn based combat from a top down tactical view. Fallout 3 and Fallout New Vegas changed in that they were part first person shooter and part role playing game. Fallout 4 is part first person shooter, role playing game, crafting game, settlement building game, and cinematic adventure game. Fallout 4 still leans heavily on the first person shooter and role playing game elements but if you ignore the rest you will struggle with this game.
The crafting, settlement and adventure game elements change the way you need to approach this game. I was expecting to wander aimlessly through the wasteland discovering interesting place and blowing them up. This game is more about talking to people, building and then blowing things up. I have created about four characters and restarted the game that many times and have finally built one that I am comfortable with.
Without this being a complete and detailed guide I will give just a few hints based on my build. I took the max stat allocation of ten in both Charisma and Agility. Like a lot of role playing games in Fallout 4 you start by building a character with certain attributes. I chose to max Charisma because it plays a vital role in talking to people and later in building settlements. I took the max in Agility because combat is heavily influence by a role playing mechanic called V.A.T.S. that is sort of like a turn based addition to the first person combat. The other thing I did was to do a lot of research on the web and on YouTube to figure out the game mechanics which are not explained very well. After some research and experience playing the game the last tip I would give is to really take your time. This game likes sneaking style combat, talking and building a lot. The pace of the game is really slow compared to many role playing games (like Fallout 3) and definitely slower than a first person shooter. If you accept Fallout 4's pace and quirks you will love it. If you want to rush to the end and beat the last boss you will hate this game. Now after adapting to the game, I am enjoying it more and more. I think you will too if you take your time and wait for it to go on sale. It is going to be the kind of game that will live on your hard drive for a long time. Partly because it will take a long time to play it and partly because you will keep coming back to it.
