So I'm hearing Fallout is amazing. Worth it to wait for a black Friday deal or is it a must have ASAP?
Excellent. Played till 7am, and only quit because I couldn't keep my eyes open any longer. I didn't get particularly far, only because I was hoarding everything I found and storing it in my house until I can find a vendor to barter with. The combat has been great, I think it's been an improvement on the previous titles, and I enjoyed that combat. The dialogue changes have been very smooth, and I like the fact you can take items from containers without having to actually cut away to a "container window," you can loot the items just like they were sitting on a counter.
Some things have been changed from previous installments. They've removed having to put points into skills when you level up. You still have all your skills, but they've been rolled into their respective "S.P.E.C.I.A.L." stats and you get a perk point every level instead of every other level. You can use that perk point to either increase a stat, or take a perk. There doesn't appear to be a level requirement to put the first point in a perk (So you could take a Tier 10 perk at level 2 if you had the required S.P.E.C.I.A.L. stats for it, but you would give up a lot of points at character creation to do that, almost half the points they start you with). The perk system reminds me a bit like Skyrim, just without the skill points. To unlock higher tier locks and computers you have to put a perk point in the respective skill to unlock the ability to pick/hack that item. I prefer having skill points to spend at level up, to be honest, but it hasn't negatively affected the game in any way. Much like the way they added Fallout perks to Skyrim, they changed Fallout perks to make them a little more fun and to use a tree system like Skyrim implemented. In some ways it does make more sense though. I never really understood splitting guns into 3 different categories (Small guns, Energy Weapons, Big Guns). At most I think they should have been divided into two sizes for Small and Large, but now they're all basically lumped into Perception.
Haven't found any Easter Eggs yet, nothing outside the Fallout universe anyway. There was a nice little surprise under the baby's crib after exiting the Vault. I will say there's an "Oh shit!" moment very early on in the game, I won't spoil anything. Power Armor is a hell of a lot of fun to run around in, but it looks like it's limited because it can take damage and it requires power. If it gets damaged you can take it to a workshop and repair it. If it runs out of power I guess it just sits wherever you ran out of power until you find more. I was able to run around and do part of the main quest in it and do some exploring, and then I dropped it off to save the power. It's not essential outside of the first fight, it's more like a bonus right now, which is cool. [EDIT] From what others are saying, you can still use your Power Armor when it runs out of juice, it just doesn't let you run anymore and you can't use VATs. It still can get damaged though, so I plan on using it sparingly until I build up spare parts and resources for repairs.
So far I've been playing a low Intelligence build, basically a Hulk character with 10 Strength, 10 Endurance, and 4 Agility for Sneak Attacks. I haven't fired a gun outside of the big Power Armor fight that they've teased in videos, it's been all melee and I've been dominating. I haven't encountered any low Intelligence dialogues yet (Damn you, greyhammer!), but it did open up some Tier 10 perks for me right away in the Strength and Endurance trees. Still, if there's no low Intelligence dialogue then I'll probably start building Intelligence and Charisma because I'm going to want Perks that are tied into those trees. For most players I would suggest a balanced build when it comes to character creation, because certain stats will be required to unlock the good perks.
The crafting system is insane. I've barely got into the workshop and there's just a lot of stuff you can do with guns, armor, and crafting for your settlement. You can break down piles of garbage, like tires, in your vicinity and then use them to build other items. You can even break down an entire collapsed home for materials. I play on messing around with the crafting side more tonight, I was too exhausted to really dive into it this morning.
Overall it's been a lot of fun. I've got about 6 hours into it and I've barely touched the storyline, I've just been exploring a bit and hoarding every piece of junk I find in case I need it later. I have 4 mops, don't know why, they're basically worthless. I'm a hoarder and I need help.
