Ralph “The Big Cheese” Limburger

This is a review of the Fallout 76 experience prior to Wastelanders. I do not intend on updating my review as the disappointment with the "base game" will always leave a lasting feeling in my heart. The developers were obviously quite talented, as in, the people doing the art-assets and general level design because it actually is quite good, but Bethesda rushed a product that was unfinished out...TWO YEARS before it was truly ready for a public release, and the network programmers seemed to be on some sort of depressant when creating the netcode, so...anyway... This game isn't THAT bad of a game. Its a terrible Fallout game but its definitely a playable shoot-and-loot game in its own right. I play STALKER so I am used to barren wastes devoid of people, but this is just boring. The leveling system is also a chore; you level up to use marginally-better weapons and armor, because said weapons and armor are locked from use until reaching a required level. It reminds me of a grindy JRPG in that way, almost Dragon Quest-like in its grind. I can see appeal in this game if you find grinding comfy. I play classic games, mostly, and the last time I saw gear that was locked until you leveled was in an NES game. Soooo...I guess we should be happy that classic game conventions are coming back??? Seems to me that those conventions should've stayed in the past. Anyway, Its technical issues cause it to be borderline-unplayable, or just-plain-unplayable, for many people. For me, I get stutter every 30 secs or so. The stutter stops me in my tracks and allows enemies to attack me while I am stuck, unable to do anything for around 5-10 secs. I have noticed that its not my hardware, its the server: every time the game stutters its trying to update the enemies' locations on the server itself. It seems as though the computation/server-load is messed up ATM and it causes stuttering. My brother installed the game on an SSD and had the same issues with stutter. We both have over 15gb of ram and other mid-tier specs and I ended up having to run the game on all-low. However, don't turn your shadows to low or the game will look extremely broken, with shadows that smear as if you were out-of-bounds. In the end, I see that I'm not the only one with this issue, but I'm also part of a minority as many people don't get stutters at all when playing. It must be a mixture of hardware and software at fault. Also, this is my dad's favorite game. I swear to god, you will never find a person who likes Fallout 76 more than my dad. After analyzing this fact, I can say that this game appeals to certain types of gamers and those types are usually older and like to grind and not think about what they are playing, they just want a big sandbox to walk around and shoot things in endlessly with very little skill involved. Simple is better for older gamers such as my dad. That is not to say that my dad hates games with depth, its just that he hates having to "get into a game" and would rather play a game that is simple. And, I have to say, I love ya dad. You make this game truly special for me. Bethesda had nothing to do with my experience of bonding with my dad so I won't credit my experience to them. That sort of feeling transcends video games as a medium, mainly because Bethesda is quite corrupt at this point in time, creating glorified cash-shops and mobile games. For them, they don't care, as long as they got our money. They don't care that its just me and my good ol' dad playing for fun: they want our money. Its different from, say, an indie game company with actual integrity like the one I worked for.