I finished the game (I think), so it's time to give my thoughts on the game itself. I say that I think I finished the game because I never actually saw the credits roll. However, I'm pretty sure that I finished the main story of the game. After doing some research it turns out the credits are only shown if you choose for them to be seen from the main menu. I did see the final cutscene from what I've read, so I will count that as finishing the game. It's a bit of a boring intro, but I'll explain the confusion in a bit. I spent Part 1 setting up and explaining the environment, so now it is on to the game itself.
The game starts with a short prologue that shows "normal" life before the bombs drop. As the bombs drop, you and your family rush to your Vault. You are placed in a chamber where you fall asleep, and awake just in time to see your infant son being kidnapped and your wife being shot and killed. After escaping the vault, you reenter the town you first experienced in the prologue, except everything is now in ruins. Having no idea why your son was kidnapped or why your wife was shot, having no idea how long you'd been in the vault, and having no idea what exactly is going on, you set out to find answers and look for your son. The game simultaneously launches several objectives and you have very little in terms of ammunition or supplies.
Let's stop there and discuss. As someone new to the series, it was a bit unclear which objective to focus on. Main quests vs side quests were not clearly labeled, hence the confusion on if I actually finished the game. The ammo situation was a bit frustrating as well, because I would often find myself in larger than expected battles without proper ammo. The easiest way to get ammo is to loot if from someone you've killed, which is difficult to do when you don't have enough ammo in the first place. You can also buy ammo, but it is quite expensive and would require spending time farming supplies. In full transparency, I used a supply mod to eliminate this situation.
Despite the initial confusion, you quickly run into the Minutemen, a group of people trying to eliminate threats in the Commonwealth. Turns out they need a lot of help, and you spend a good portion of the beginning of the game helping out random settlers in turn for their support of the Minutemen. These tasks seem to never end, however. Even after viewing the final cutscene, there continued to be settlements that needed the support of the Minutemen. After a while you learn about this person named Nick Valentine, who may have information about your son. After tracking down Nick, you discover that he is a Synth created by the Institute. Synths are artificial humans, a type of human-robot hybrid. They are created by the Institute. You spend a large portion of the game infiltrating the Institute in order to find your son. Along the way, you encounter the Brotherhood of Steel, a type of military trying to preserve pre-war technology and military tech, as well as the Railroad, a group of people trying to rescue synths from the Institute. Without going into the details of the story, it is really quite intriguing trying to navigate between these groups of people as you never really know who the good guys or bad guys are (except for Ghouls - they're bad). Figuring out this mystery is really quite fun, and the game actually lets you choose which group of people you align with, so theoretically you could have different endings and experiences depending on who you align with. I decided to align with the Minutemen, since I met them first and they seemed to have a good mission in terms of protecting the Commonwealth without much other secondary gain.
As far as the first person shooter aspect of this game goes, you can actually switch the camera to be 3rd person. However, the game felt much more natural in firs person view, so I just got used to it after awhile. The shooting is greatly improved using the VATS system which is actually pretty badass. The other aspect of this game I want to mention is the music. The radio station is catchy, and the game probably has the second best radio soundtrack I can remember, behind the Grand Theft Auto series.
After accepting the first person shooter aspect of the game and apocalyptic environment, I really enjoyed Fallout 4. The Bostonian environment, both socially and visually, was really interesting. The gameplay was fun, the music was enjoyable, the story was intriguing. I really enjoyed playing this game. I look forward to season 2 of the show and possibly playing other games in the series at some point in the future.
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