Games Inbox: What is the best Fallout video game?

The Wednesday letters page enjoys a renaissance of interest in all things Fallout, as one reader welcomes Keanu Reeves’ latest game role.

To join in with the discussions yourself email gamecentral@metro.co.uk

Falling out of favour
For anyone interested in giving Fallout 76 a go, especially as it’s so easy to get it free, I’d advise saving your time and just playing Fallout 4 instead. Fallout 76 definitely plays better in a technical sense now, and there are things like non-player characters that weren’t at launch, but the whole thing is still just a giant under-designed mess.

It feels more like a fan mod, that they abandoned halfway through, than a professionally made game and is so obviously just something bodged together from the single-player games that I still can’t believe they had the nerve to release it. If you want to play a co-op Fallout, then it’s your only option but I still wouldn’t come close to recommending it.

Fallout 4, on the other hand, still stands up as far as I’m concerned. I was fooling around with some mods just a few months ago and am now really looking forward to the next gen upgrade.

The story is the worst party, as it usually is with Bethesda games (which is I think why the TV show has been so welcomed), but that hardly comes into it most of the time, especially if you’re just messing about with mods. For my money it’s the best Fallout game, even more so than New Vegas.
Benson

Sensible parameters
Interesting article on Stellar Blade and I liked that you didn’t try to come to any conclusion about whether it’s sexist or not, as I feel that, unless it does something really over the top, that’s going to be in the eye of the beholder.

I don’t think anyone can pretend that they haven’t gone a bit overboard with the sexualisation though and the absolutely ridiculous clothes and hair she has for her role as… a super soldier or something?

I didn’t actually realise there was a demo (nice marketing Sony!) but I will give that a go now and see what I think. If it’s a well-made game that’s all I care well about. Well, within certain sensible parameters. If it’s spouting hate about women or whatever then obviously that’s a no go. If the worst it does is have scantily clad character, then I’ll just assume the developers need to get out more, but beyond that it’s not a problem.
Ollie

Late to the party
With the rumours of Microsoft planning a hybrid next gen Xbox that works like the Switch doesn’t that mean that Sony almost has to make one of their own? It’d be pretty weird if they were the only ones that didn’t have a portable when, next to Nintendo, they’re the ones with the most experience of handhelds.

I don’t really understand why they haven’t done it already, given it would likely be super popular in Japan, where they’ve become kind of irrelevant recently. It certainly seems like it would’ve been far better to put R&D into that rather than PlayStation VR2 or even PS5 Pro, really.

Now they’re going to get beat at the post by Xbox. It really doe seem like PlayStation is a ship without a captain nowadays.
Lobsterum

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Coming soon
I haven’t seen much mention of it here so I just want to say I’m really looking forward to Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes when it comes out next week. For those that don’t know it’s by the original creators of the early (i.e. good) Suikoden games. It seems to be somewhere between a remake and a sequel (without any of the actual characters, because obviously Konami owns them) and to me it looks like a perfect retro style game.

Unfortunately director Yoshitaka Murayama died just a few weeks ago but I’m hoping the game will be a suitable tribute to his work, and hopefully even the start of a brand new franchise. Has GC got a revie copy in yet, I wonder?
Dalton

GC: We’re playing through it at the moment.

Woah at the casting
I don’t know who would’ve been the best person to play a ridiculous edgelord character like Shadow the Hedgehog but Keanu Reeves certainly wouldn’t have been my first suggestion.

It could work if it’s a parody of him being cool, and his nice guy persona, although maybe that’s asking too much for the script of Sonic The Hedgehog 3. I hope Keanu researches the character properly though and realises that it’s all one big joke. Unless you’re a Sonic fan, I guess.
SantaFoe

Interest renewed
Finished the Fallout series last night; took four days, wanted to savour it a little. It was good, wasn’t it? Very good in fact, the attention to detail was beyond expectation. I particularly liked when Lucy kept wearing her vault jumpsuit with added leather pauldrons and the like. I do that, ha!

And when a raider got shot with a doll’s arm! My favourite weapon is the junk launcher (I pick up everything that isn’t nailed down) so seeing heads getting exploded by a stack of dollar bills or a super mutant getting launched by a teddy bear was a common occurrence in my playthroughs.

I didn’t beat Fallout 4 entirely, got to a decision near the end where you had to side with the jocks, the nerds or the outcasts and couldn’t decide, so ended up moving on to something else and never returned. However, I did play Fallout 76 a little bit and just loved Fallout Shelter, so still kept an interest.

Now though, with Fallout 4 getting an update on current gen I will deffo be going back to finish it off. I’ve got a whole assortment of power armour with flame decals to take for a spin.
big boy bent

Hollywood synergy
At the time of writing, I’ve watched four episodes of the Fallout TV show on Amazon Prime. It is excellent and really nails the games. It does make me yearn for a new game in the series and it seems like that’s many years away, even if Obsidian make another spin-off they’re currently making Avowed, scheduled to release towards the end of this year and The Outer Worlds 2 whenever that comes out.

So, a potential Fallout game from them would be several years away as well. Hopefully the Fallout London mod comes to consoles, as that does look impressive and would scratch the itch until we get a full new game.

Thanks to PC in the comments, mentioning Fallout 76 is free if you have Amazon Prime. Go to gaming.amazon.com and you can claim codes for the game on Xbox and PC. I’ve sent mine with this letter as I already own it. Fallout Tactics on PC is also free for Prime members too.
Big Angry Dad82

GC: That’s generous of you, we’ll pass it on to whoever asks for it and sends us a useable Inbox letter.

Wait for the next one
As a few readers mentioned on the Inbox, I was also wondering if Fallout 76 was worth playing now. I had played it on Game Pass about six months after release, but the graphics and frame rate seemed somewhat shoddy.

I scoured the internet and apparently the resolution is better and also the frame rate, but not exactly sure what it was to begin with. I said I’m out at the start of its release, knowing it was an online only experience and that they’d thrown the usual single-player scenario out of the window.

I read somewhere, think it was a conversation on Reddit, that we now have non-player characters in the game that was initially missing. There’s a bunch of updates on the official Microsoft game page, a full series of them. It’s not downloadable content though as you still need a subscription to Xbox Live to play the game. The always online connection thing has put me off once again.

I’ll wait for Fallout 4’s update on the 25th of April and see what they did with that to get my Fallout fix again. By the way, I’ve already binge watched the TV series and enjoyed it.
Nick The Greek

Inbox also-rans
Really enjoying the Fallout TV series on Amazon Prime. I always wondered if Bethesda were inspired to use the song I Don’t Want to Set the World on Fire in Fallout 3, part of which is used as an intro to the song Set the World Afire by Megadeth on their album So Far, So Good… So What!
Johnny Alpha SD
Currently playing: Forza Motorsport and also Gran Turismo Sport and WipEout on PS4 VR

Not really video game related, unless you want to see what Alien Isolation was based on, but just a note that Alien is going to be shown in cinemas again on Alien Day, which is April 26 (as in LV-426 in American date format). Nice.
TonyT.

GC: Well, we know what we’re doing that day. Thanks for that.

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