Even More Hatred for 'Fallout 76'

Readers, I am quite depressed. I keep playing this game like I’m trying to Stockholm Syndrome myself into loving it. Currently, the servers are down for more maintenance only two days after the last 47GB and change update. I start a job in two days time, Bethesda. How am I supposed to pick apart your travesty of a game if you keep gluing it back together? I don't have time to wait for you to fix your mistakes! This isn't like you've forgotten to add the extra pickles to my burger, this is like you've replaced the burger with a fried cat turd!

I kind of feel like a teacher growing more disappointed in a once-favored pupil. They’ve gone from hard-working, diligent students to smoking meth with the burnouts, handing in piss-poor essays that make me weep with shame. I loved you, Bethesda, but I think you need medical help far beyond my expertise.

So, let’s discuss story. Honestly, it’s a bit dry—I don’t think I’ve even encountered a human NPC, just trade robots. This game is relying on Holotapes to tell the story of the Overseer, which just seems lazy to me. Elder Scrolls Online’s NPC had their own dialogue scenes which added to the immersion. I’ve currently gotten to the part with a raider robot sending me all over to get some passwords from different raider gangs. Themed raider gangs. Isn’t that just the Nuka World DLC from Fallout 4? I’m forever having trouble getting the scrap parts needed to repair my weapons and armor. It doesn’t matter if I’m using titanium-platinum alloy chest armor, it breaks like it’s made of toilet paper. I also just found out that ammo has weight amounts and yet I can’t sell them to vendors. The idea is that you sell your stuff to other players, becoming traveling merchants yourselves. I hate going up to checkout lines and drive thrus in real-life, game. What is this obsession of yours to communicate with other human beings? You’re assuming that Fallout fans actually have social lives.

Let’s talk about the leveling system, shall we. Why is it that I, at level 22, could easily rip apart a level 52 Rotting Ghoul, but keep getting ass-blasted by level 50 Scorched Beasts? Surely, you would be telling me the creature’s difficulty by their level? Am I to assume some class of creatures are flimsier than others? I took down a Glowing One easier than the Rotting Ghoul. I played Fallout 4 on Very Hard because its leveling system was also garbage, but not like this. I can’t go anywhere in the cities without getting plagued by level 1 Scorched, which is just annoying rather than challenging.

Let’s take a minute to talk about the quests. I touched on my last review, but I must reiterate it: Give us an option to turn off automatic quest markers. I despise continually running into Event cues on my way to an objective, because they repeat the same damn radio message every time and enroll you into the Event. I’m hunting for a missile silo, I don’t have time to look for 10 honeypots to help a robot teashop manager! Daily and Side missions also do this. Fuck no, I am not going to put on a goddamn clown costume and kill a Wendigo! You know why NPCs were a GOOD thing? Because they were the quest-givers, the optional quest-givers. Yes, Preston Garvey continually flung settlement missions at you, but at least you had a choice!

There's also some things that just make no damn sense. Why am I getting radiation from collecting water? Yes, there would be a bit of radiation, but it's not like I'm siphoning the water with a straw to the container. Explain to me how a fucking lead-pipe breaks after 10 uses like it's made of candy-canes. Why isn't it ludicrous for me to carry a Power-Armor Frame in my transdimensional asshole, but a missile launcher weighs 10 lbs more?! Also, weighted ammo. I would bet that 1,000 bullets wouldn't weigh more than a small child. None of us asked to be playing on Survival Mode and yet we are! If I wanted realism within a post-apocalypse scenario, I would drive to Area 51 and snort radioactive dirt! This is a universe where alien abductions are canonical, and I can heal drug addictions with an inhaler!

I don't want to fucking hear how this needs to be realistic.

Now, to discuss the multiplayer aspect. You know why Elder Scrolls Online was a good, or at least a tolerable MMO? Because it had towns, shops, and crafting stations at the ready. And If we so well choose, we can leave the town and go butcher some weird dinosaur creatures for leather. Fallout is not a world demanding a multiplayer experience. There is constant, ever-present danger lurking beyond the borders and not even our dinky C.A.M.P. systems are safe. Surely a world in which human life is being threatened and infrastructure is ruined, there’s not going to be millions of people populating it. You take away from the atmosphere of a toxic, lonely Wasteland by adding multiplayer. The game becomes nothing more than a spectacle, a medium for assholes to scream at each other. Suddenly, the lore becomes background noise and made meaningless, each place just a means to get experience and loot. This could have been done so much better. I wouldn’t have even minded if it had the ESO engine, but no. It’s Fallout 4 made multiplayer, only more broken at both its code and its fanbase.

I feel like this game was only made to fit in with the cool kids. "Hey, look guys! I’m cool now! I have a multiplayer game! Do I get to be respected enough to rape players wallets like Destiny, Battlefield, and every game made by Electronic Arts these days?" But I see you for what you are, Bethesda. You’re so desperate to fit in, you’d sell your soul for a penny to get rich off a botched copy-paste job. Well done, Bethesda. You’re finally sitting with the fat cats, but you’ve lost all respect from your fanbase. Was it worth it? Still waiting for you to apply band-aids to your servers. I’m so bored I’m thinking of cleaning my room to pass the time. See what you’ve done? You’re making me want to act like a responsible adult! Which means you’ve killed my inner child and my soul. Congratulations.