The Division 2 review

    The Division 2 has been out since 2019, so this review is a bit late but it’s an interesting time to take stock of a game at the end of its game life rather than the beginning. Ubisoft have been keeping The Division 2 steadily updated after a meager opening and the final results are very different from the beginning ones. With the announced multiplayer free-to-play sequel, The Division: Heartland, in the works, it also feels like a good time to go back and review what worked as well as didn’t for this installment of the franchise.

    The premise for The Division universe is that a genetically engineered smallpox variant called the Dollar Flu was released in New York before spreading across the globe. It has killed most of humanity off and left the survivors forced to fight over resources as well as territory. One government agency, the Strategic Homeland Division, is still a active and was given authority to do whatever it took to rebuild society.

    The Division 2 picks up several months after the events of the first game. You may or may not be playing the original Division agent but it’s not a character driven game so there’s not really a problem with this. Basically, after an attack on New York City facilities by mysterious forces from Washington DC, your character heads down to the former nation’s capital to contact the former federal government’s remnants in the Joint Task Force (or JTF). They are a pathetic shell of their former self with most of the city controlled by three gangs: the Outcasts, Hyenas, and True Sons. Go kill them, retake city. You know the drill. There’s also the occasional hints toward a larger more advanced force that has been feeding the chaos post-Dollar Flu.

    At the risk of spoiling a five-year-old game, The Division 2 retcons away the premise of the original The Division. One of the cheekier twists of the lore was that it turns out there was no major scary conspiracy behind it all. No, the Dollar Flu was created in a personal lab by a crazy Malthusian scientist who wanted to save the environment by killing off 98% of humanity. He did it with some basic university equipment and stuff you’d buy online. This goes out the window in The Division 2 and now there’s a massive Russian-owned PMC, treacherous Vice Presidents, and dark money trying to rule the ashes.

    Honestly, this was probably a smart play on the part of Ubisoft because the original twist works fine in the works of Tom Clancy (that is this ostensibly based on) but he wrote novels rather than ongoing video game franchises. Indeed, in Rainbow Six, the novel by Tom Clancy that the Division universe actually takes a lot of its premise from (with the villain succeeding), there was a corporate conspiracy that had much of the same motive. Indeed, I dare say that Tom Clancy would appreciate once more making the Russians the bad guys of a techno-thriller involving taking over the world with bioweapons.

    But enough of the plot and lore business. How does the game play? It’s a lot better than the first The Division. I am extremely biased in this because The Division was perfectly designed as the team-based game that it was originally designed as. However, if you are like me and are an antisocial nerd who prefers to solo his multiplayer experiences then The Division 2 is far better balanced. It also has endgame content with plenty of missions after the original and an eternal “gang war” going on where areas you’d previously liberated fall back into enemy hands.

    As a cover-based looter-shooter, there’s not much attempt to reinvent the wheel. You shoot a bunch of bad guys, level up your loot, and attempt to get enough collectibles to craft what you don’t have. Some of the systems are better than others with mods being something I flat out didn’t bother with and feel like the game didn’t care if I did or not. There’s taking outposts, bounties, liberating prisoners, destroying propaganda, and other side activities that are fun. You can get killed but that just knocks you out temporarily. Your goal is to finish the story missions and upgrade the various survivor settlements, so they go from being tent cities to thriving post-apocalypse communities full of children.

    Washington DC is an excellent setting for doing post-apocalypse adventuring and has the same general appeal as Fallout 3, except instead of the place being a radioactive desert, it’s overgrown and graffiti covered. Having shoot outs in the Lincoln Memorial, Washington Monument, and Congress will never not be fun. The nature of the highly visible landmarks and recognizable architecture gives it a lot more entertainment value as a setting versus NYC. Can you believe there was no Statue of Liberty mission in The Division? I can’t. There’s one in The Division 2‘s WARLORDS OF NEW YORK, though.

    Ubisoft was criticized for denying the game had a political message and, honestly, I’m kind of with the developer on this. As difficult as it is to parse, “Government flubbed a pandemic response and as a result bad Russian-aligned people are trying to take over in order to end democracy” not being political, I’m pretty sure that was an accident rather than intentional. One of the groups is even a bunch of conspiracy theorist cultists but they have about as much personality as orcs.

    In conclusion, The Division 2 is a solid game that gives you a definite “meat and potatoes” shooter experience. It’s an improvement on The Division in terms of solo play as well as having a lot more to do perpetually. You can go on missions post the “final” one like attacking Camp David, going to a zoo, and other enjoyable experiences. If you also manage to beat the game (technically before but I wouldn’t recommend it), there’s Warlords of New York. The game includes several seasonal events, but these are one that you’ve probably missed the majority of.

Review - Fallout: 76 - Six Years Later

 
    FALLOUT 76 is a game that both frustrates me as well as invites me in. Six years ago, I was one of the early adopters of the video game and it was one of the worst experiences of my gaming career. The world was lifeless, empty, lacking in any real stakes, and most of all felt unfinished. Fallout 76 was set in my home state of West Virginia where I lived fifteen years and yet somehow managed to not only fail to capture any of the places' uniqueness but didn't really have any of the kind of hilarious dark humor that it's just begging to have applied.

    Part of the problem was the idea that Fallout 76 would be a playground for players rather than a single player campaign. The idea was that they would interact with one another, be vendors, and create their own fun. Never has a video company more misread what fans wanted from their games since the introduction of Diablo to cellphones in lieu of announcing a new game. Basically, the fans of Fallout wanted to shoot guns and do quests. The wildly divergent leveling and equipment also meant PVP was terrible too.

    It didn't help the excuse for a single player campaign wasn't exactly inspired either. Basically, some genetic experiments have turned bats into dragons. Yes, they're called Scorchbeasts but they're dragons and even incorporate the programming from Skyrim. These dragons are also necromancers spreading a Resident Evil-style plague that turns people into zombies. The "Scorched" are basically feral ghouls who can use guns and want to kill all other life in the Virginia Commonwealth. Then the world. It's a painfully generic plot that somehow makes dragonslaying boring.

    But how does the game stand up six years later? The game has been patched, patched, and patched again with sixteen seasons having been released. A new season is released roughly every three months and they've added NPCs, new regions, hundreds of quests, new equipment, as well as personalized Vault dwellings that the player character can customize to their heart's content. 

    The changes to Fallout 76 can't be understated but can be summarized in a very simple statement: the game is fun to play now. The addition of NPCs is just the beginning of the reforms but adds a personal touch to the setting that was previously lacking. You actually have people to protect in the Foundation Settlers, Crater Raiders, Whitespring Refuge, and the actual living Brotherhood of Steel. The Appalachian Wasteland is no longer so empty and you have reasons to carry out the various quests you're given other than boredom.

    There's also some good new locations added to the setting with Nuka World providing some fun local color to the otherwise dingy coal mine areas. We finally get to meet the Overseer in person and she provides some extra places to craft weapons, armor, and materials while encouraging you to seek out inoculations for the new residents of Appalachia. That's not even getting into the Expeditions system that allows you to visit The Pitt (from Fallout 3) and a New Vegas inspired Atlantic City.

    The game has improved in some ways but not in others. The existence of the Vault dwellings (acquired during a quest) provides a nice solution to the hobo-like camps that most players are stuck with. I'd much rather exist in a nice, cool and enjoyable Vault room to store all of my crafting stations and decorations. However, most of the material is locked behind either the Atomic Shop or acquired in-universe plans that limit what you can build. The VATS system still is essentially nonexistent and best ignored.

    The introduction of NPCs to talk to also allows your character to voicelessly respond with snark, psychopathic glee, or unexpected characterization like a fanatical loyalty to Vault-Tec. There's even skill checks like the fact I managed to persuade a Raider to take the vaccine against Scorchdom by pointing out various science facts that convince her I know what I'm talking about. These are all welcome and I hope Bethesda will keep adding these things.

    The game has an unlimited leveling system where you cap your existing SPECIAL stats at 15 but get new perk cards every five levels. This allows you to experiment with more builds and also gradually build up your character into exactly what you want them to be. The fact you can't do this instantly is also something that's designed to keep you playing. Leveling enough is fast enough, though, especially if you are part of the multiplayer events.

    Do I have any complaints? Well, yes, the game is still a live service slot machine designed to take as much money from the player as possible. You have to belong to Xbox Live to play, which is a monthly subscription, and yet there's an additional subscription you can subscribe to in order to get in-game bonuses like the NCR Ranger Armor. The main quest is also the most boring one of them all. My biggest annoyance is you can't acquire repair kits save in the Atomic Shop, which is again designed to take your money but you can earn the points in-game, at least.

    In conclusion, Fallout 76 is now a game that's worth picking up if you're on Steam or Console. If you have Amazon Prime, you can acquire a copy of the game for free because they're being given away as part of the Fallout: The Series promotion. It's available on Playstation but I note that Bethesda is very much on Team X.

Available here

Horizon: Zero Dawn Complete Edition review

    HORIZON: ZERO DAWN is a game that has already been talked about extensively and has deservedly received many accolades. It's a video game with an inherently fun premise: what if you were a cute redheaded bow-wielding girl who fought robot dinosaurs? Turok: Dinosaur Hunter plus Brave. It's a pretty hard to screw up formula and one that seems like would be a can't miss. It wasn't either, I finished the game as well as its DLC after all, but it did have some flaws.

    The premise is Aloy (Ashly Burch) is an outcast of the Nora tribe due to mysterious circumstances. Raised by a fellow outcast named Rost. Aloy grows up disdainful and angry at the Nora for their treatment of her while Rost attempts to teach her to be respectful of the All-Mother as well as their traditions. Also, to fight robot dinosaurs. What is revealed fairly early is this is a post-apocalypse setting where robotic machines have taken over a vastly-changed Earth. Like the Last of Us with robots instead of mold.

 
    Aloy manages to find a loophole around her outcasting by competing in the games to join the Nora's warriors. Things proceed to go catastrophically wrong and our heroine soon finds herself on a quest to find out her origin, save the world, and avenge an attack made on her tribe. Well, as much as Aloy can really be called a Nora since she utterly despises them and finds the entirety of their traditions to be ridiculous. It's a coming of age story with lots more arrows and huge monsters to kill across a massive open-world map.

    If you want to know what Horizon: Zero Dawn is like, it's basically an Ubisoft game despite being published by Sony. There's a wide open map filled with stuff to collect, explore, and kill. The game feels a bit like a 3rd person Far Cry as you're always crafting new arrows or pouches from the things you hunt. Instead of going up radio towers, though, you find yourself climbing the top of giant long-necked robot dinosaurs and that does improve the experience. There's also only one type of gun and it is vastly less fun to use than your various kinds of arrows.

    Gameplay wise, I'd best describe Horizon: Zero Dawn as serviceable. I never disliked being Aloy, though the easiest modes are "too" easy and this is a rare game I'd say to play on normal for casuals like myself. I also feel like the game's inventory system is flawed as the barter economy means that while most things can be bought with metal shards, you also need to have the specific kind of robot part you need to get anything good. 

    Story-wise, I have to give Horizon: Zero Dawn some props for an interesting world. Ironically, I didn't actually care that much for the post-apocalypse element. Aloy must solve the "mystery" of Project: Zero Dawn and how she relates to the mysterious Doctor Elizabeth Sobek. Truth be told, I was much more interested in the setting in the present-day. I liked learning about the Nora, Carja, and Banuk peoples over finding out exactly how a bunch of idiots in our time killed everyone.

    There's some great world-building in establishing the post-apocalypse setting with its tribalistic Nora, Aztec-like Carja, and Inuit-like Banuk. Those are the cultures I enjoyed learning about and their politics was actually fascinating. Unfortunately, I do feel like Aloy herself feels a bit dissonant from these elements. She acts more like a 21st century woman rather than someone raised in a tribal environment (or at least its edge). She's a little too snarky, irreverent, and materialist to be believable.

    In conclusion, Horizon: Zero Dawn is an entertaining and enjoyable game but it doesn't feel like an awesome elevation of the genre either. The graphics are beautiful, the characters likable, and the worldbuilding is good. However, the game seems like we should be more interested in how the world was destroyed than we are. The big "revelation" about it isn't really that interesting either. It's worth a play but I'd say it's also not an amazing game either.

7.5/10

Available here

Fallout 76 review

"War...war is constantly getting dumber."

    I am a huge Fallout fan. I was brought into the series by Fallout 3 and mesmerized by its dark as well as haunting vision of a post-apocalypse Washington D.C. This led me to check out the original isometric games, which I also loved. Later, I would enjoy Fallout: New Vegas and it would become my 3rd favorite video game of all time after Skyrim and Vampire: The Masquerade: Bloodlines. Unfortunately, my opinion of Fallout 4 was more mixed. I felt like the game was dumbed down with large story holes, too much focus on settlements, and a change to gunplay over a mix of it with skill use.

Fallout 76 is a very pretty game.

    Despite this, I still enjoyed Fallout 4 and was looking forward to Fallout 76. I'm a resident of West Virginia and could recognize some of the locations which were in the game's trailer. I also liked the idea of reversing the timeline from 200 years after the war to 25 years after the war. Much of the complaining on No Mutants Allowed boils down to, "They should have rebuilt the United States after that time and everything from the Pre-War Era should have turned to dust." I don't necessarily agree with this but I don't disagree with it either.

    So, how is the game? Well, it's terrible. It's extremely difficult to screw up a game that is already a tried and tested formula but they somehow managed to do it. I'm actually going to include some positives about the game because everyone else has gone into the negatives of the game. However, it needs to be spelled out this game is BROKEN. It is worse than Skyrim and Fallout 4 by far and I have encountered more bugs playing it (after 3 massive patches) than I have in the entirety of my gaming experience combined.

Here's a short list of the ones I've had through my first six hours of gaming:

* Quests not starting until reloads.
* Frozen indestructible enemies.
* Invisible enemies.
* Restarting in different places than I where I left the character in the game.
* The game not saving itself where I left it.
* Free-floating characters.
* Lag.
* Clipping.
* Characters not uploading as they should (sometimes missing beards before they pop on).
* Characters not having any clothes or equipment.
* The highlight option for the main menu not working for half of the commands.

    It's ironic that this isn't the worst mess of a game I've played this week because at least Fallout 76 plays. My Assassins Creed: Odyssey DLC was purchased, uploaded, and bought but doesn't ever show the option to play it. I'm disgusted with the gaming industry whenever they turn out something that hasn't been properly playtested or (in this game's case) I dare say not even finished. I mean Skyrim and Vampire: The Masquerade: Bloodlines were both buggy but this is a whole new level.

The West Virginia landmarks are often places I know.

    The game also has other major flaws in the fact there's nothing really to do in the game but kill and do a LITTLE exploring. They've wholesale imported the settlement system from Fallout 4, despite most people hating it, but that doesn't work for a multiplayer game. You can't permanently keep your settlements and other players can dismantle them.

    So, really an entire portion of this game is completely pointless and hard as hell to do. PVP is also not well-designed since you have to challenge them to a duel by shooting them and have them shoot you back (with minimal damage) like you're slapping gloves. So all PVP is one-on-one duels and have no option for ambushes or battles. That doesn't even get into the biggest flaws of the game which are the lack of NPCs and the combat.

    The lack of NPCs is the craziest element of this game and I wonder who drank the Rad-infested water to come up with this idea. For whatever reason, there's only robot and terminal quest-givers in the game. It massively cuts down on the enjoyment of the game since I'm not sure who I'm supposed to be rebuilding the United States FOR given there's no people inhabiting this Wasteland. Quests lose whatever urgency they might have had without people depending on you even in a fictional context.

I'm annoyed Vault 76 isn't a hub.

    The game is also weirdly depressing as it has all the world-building of previous Fallout games with a Brotherhood of Steel faction, the Responders faction, a new branch of the Enclave, and the Order of Mysteries. However, all of these orders have been wiped out by the Scorched weeks beforehand. It's depressing that not only do you not get to interact with any of these interesting factions but the mostly-empty world is full of endless tragedy with no triumph.

    Combat is iffy as due to being a multiplayer always online game, you can't pause it for V.A.T.S that more or less means that shooting is completely different for people like myself. It's more like auto-aiming now and not nearly as effective. This has led me to do something I've never done before and pursue a melee build. My Resident has been moving across the Wasteland, slaughtering Scorched with a multi-purpose ax like Jason Voorhees rather than using guns. I'm not sure if that's a feature or not given it's because I didn't trust the gunplay.

    The enemy variety is a mixed bag. On one hand, there's too many Scorched in the game and they're a poor substitute for Raiders. Scorched are basically Feral Ghouls who use guns and melee weapons so they're not anything new to the franchise. The fact they're zombies created by radiation dragons (due to reusing Skyrim assets) gives them a awesome origin, though. The fact is I'd much prefer actual Raider clans to the group. Zombies are the most overused enemy in fiction and giving them guns doesn't make them less overused since we already had the undead in Fallout. On the plus side, we do have a lot more animals that included things like giant toads as well as the Molemen. The thing is, when there's no other humans alive, I'm confused why I'm shooting at the industrial miners.

Molemen!

    There's some of the old Fallout magic in the game that is still fun as hell when you're wandering around West Virginia, listening to old tunes, and exploring ruins of the Pre-War World. One of the best moments of the game for me was, ironically, just traveling across the New River Gorge Bridge. The crumbling massive creation was an environmental puzzle that I loved soaking up. Poking around the ruins of the Old World and figuring out what went on reminded me of Fallout 3 at times, which remains my favorite of the games. West Virginia is absolutely beautiful and feels more "realistic" (authentic?) at 25 years after the apocalypse versus 200+. Chernobyl is overgrown with forests and there's more than a few nods in that direction.

    The main quest is decent, if underdeveloped, and the fact I wanted to complete it and devote the hours to it means that they must have been doing something right. The radiation dragons and their zombie plague have to be wiped out. Fine, that makes sense. The fact the Overseer is directing you to do it is also a decent-enough quest even if you never meet with her directly. I like the dramatic irony of the Overseer, who never gets a name, being fanatically devoted to Vault-Tec while being
fundamentally a good person (as well as blind to how evil they are).

Boom.

    The biggest positives I can say about the game is the long-popular modded-in survival elements work really well with the game. Caps are extremely rare in the game (even more so with Fast Travel eating them up), food spoils if left in your backpack, you need to regularly eat and drink, plus there's a shortage of ammunition as well. It really is important to boil your water, cook your food, and have recipes to survive. You have to work for your gear in this game and I find that to be a very interesting way of playing even if it is something PC gamers have been experimenting with for years.

    I'm kind of iffy about the fact you can launch nuclear weapons in this game. Much of the Fallout series is about the horrors of nuclear war even if it's in a silly coating. The fact you can and are encouraged to use nuclear weapons against the Scorched feels like it's missing the point. On the other hand, Liberty Prime uses nukes and I had this same objection with blowing up the Institute. War, I suppose, never changes.

    In conclusion, I am torn about my rating for this game because I keep wanting to play it and have a lot of fun with it but feel like it has removed so very much about what I do love about the game. The game is doubly frustrating because if they had just put NPCs in the game and copied the elements of other mutliplayer games then it'd probably be one of my favorites this year. As such, it doesn't feel like a good Fallout hame or a good Destiny clone (which it was clearly trying to be). This game is salvageable, though, and I hope Bethesda doesn't just abandon it. Give it The Taken King treatment and make it the game it deserves to be.

4.5/10

The Moral Ambiguity of Fallout 4: Nuka World

    I've mentioned my absolute love for Nuka World before and that remains to be the case. It's an absolutely beautiful spectacle and blows the main game out of the water but it's also something which has been controversial for the fact it favors an "evil" playthrough. Indeed, there are only a handful of quests which do not require working with complete scum. However, it is that very need to work with the deplorable and blunt their efforts which makes an intriguing path for those who don't simply want to have their Sole Survivor crack and go Raider.

    The premise is the Sole Survivor is invited to a sick gladiatorial game under the guise of rescuing someone's family, only to kill the leader of the Nuka World bandits in single combat before being declared their new leader. It is all very Chronicles of Riddick. The game then encourages the Sole Survivor to go along with this, help the Raiders reclaim Nuka World then proceed to start settling the Commonwealth with outposts.  

Heavy is the head which wears the Overboss helmet.

    There doesn't appear to be much moral ambiguity to the Nuka World Raiders. The three gangs assembled by Raider Overboss Colter found the (apparently) peaceful traders of Nuka World. They proceeded to attack the town, take it over, and then turned it into their party palace. Colter further vilified himself by creating the Gauntlet, which is nothing more than an arena for witnessing the murder of innocents. The Nuka World Raiders keep slaves, one of the surest signs of evil in the Fallout universe, and are parasites on the Commonwealth if they build settlements. Surely, it is an evil decision to side with them.

    I'm not so sure.

    One of the interesting things I've discussed about Fallout 4 is there's no actual villain to the story. The Institute is, at worst, guilty of amorality in the pursuit of science and a refusal to acknowledge the sentience of their creations. They are paranoid and ill-informed about the surface world, using that to justify murder and replacement. The Brotherhood of Steel plans genocide against a sentient race but justifies it in the name of the fact they are not human and very likely capable of wiping humanity out. The Minutemen are good but incompetent while the Railroad is mono-focused on one issue. All of the groups are influenced by the Sole Survivor and changed by their relationship with him.

    In the case of Nuka World's Raiders, the DLC does something which I have long argued was necessary in the Bethesda Fallout games: it humanizes its Raiders. In the original Fallout games and New Vegas, raiding is an action rather than a state of being. Tribals, gangs, and organizations raid but they have motivations for doing so. The Great Khans are a culture, for example, who just so happens to have a tradition of stealing from outsiders to sustain themselves like so many historical peoples.

Nisha isn't a nice person. Could you guess?

    Bethesda's games have lagged a bit behind this with the majority of Raiders in Fallout 3's Capital Wasteland being a bunch of cannibals who attack you on sight. They are so numerous, its very possible they outnumber the actual settlers of the land and have possibly depopulated the region of major settlements but for Megaton and Rivet City.

    Fallout 4 was less extreme but still had Raiders exist in bandit camps that murdered anyone who approached. It also had terminals talking about their hopes, dreams, and aspirations as well as relationship to other Raider gangs. It also had the Gunners and Forged as a Vault-born pair of gangs which were primarily mercenaries but had become as Raiders.

   Nuka World's Raiders are divided into three individual gangs with the Disciples, Operators, and the Pack. The Disciples are the most overtly violent, surrounding their base in the viscera of the dead with prisoners kept imprisoned for torture. The Operators are the most mercenary, existing solely for the purpose of making money and being no better or worse than the Triggermen in Goodneighbor. The Pack, by contrast, is the most alien as they act more like original series tribals with odd traditions and an alien morality.

    Over these three gangs but under you is Porter Gage, who is an individual who has an interesting story. A farmer, he witnessed his family and friends repeatedly robbed by Raiders with no attempt to fight them. Switching to become a caraveneer, he soon found the state similar. Too proud to submit to thievery, he eventually decided to become a Raider himself. He has a simple philosophy based on a binary principle: you either take or are taken from. This sounds simplistic and self-justifying except the Sole Survivor is a Raider.

You see, Overboss, they can be reasonable. For a price.

    You kill and you loot your enemies' bodies as well as homes. Now, of course, the primary difference is the nature of your targets. Much as Dexter Morgan is the serial killer who kills serial killers, so is the Sole Survivor a Raider who kills Raiders. Sometimes, this is in self-defense but just as often, the protagonists seek out Raider Dens so they can be slaughtered for caps or goods.
  
    Certainly, when fired upon, the instinct of the gamer is to send his or her character barging in to slaughter their attackers rather than retreat. That is the nature of the game and one of the criticisms who favored pacifist playthroughs in the original game. Even the saintliest Sole Survivor is a mercenary for one faction or the other and ends up attacking locations where children live (The Prydwen or Institute).

    Still, none of the three gangs of Nuka World share the Sole Survivor's scruples. Missions for them can involve murder and mayhem depending on how you choose to play them. You will be offered missions which could very well turn whole towns against you. However, it is interesting to note you can actually play the entirety of the game without hurting any innocents. You can refuse Radiant quests to harm the innocent and only take the ones against groups you are enemies with like Super Mutants, Gunners, or (in my case) the Brotherhood of Steel. You can also buy the land and crops which will sustain the settlements which are necessary to keep your new kingdom in Nuka World going.

Maybe you can free them as Overboss. Eventually.

    But why would the Sole Survivor do this? Why would they not simply massacre every single one of the Raiders in Nuka World and liberate the enslaved traders therein? Well, the answer may well be they're trying NOT to act like a Raider. As Overboss, the Sole Survivor can potentially blunt or redirect the Raiders underneath him as well as achieve peace.

    They don't have to sentence all of the gangs to execution like Judge Dredd. By providing the Nuka World Raiders with the various theme park zones to loot or use as they see fit as well as settlements to keep them happy in chems, they can actually avoid simply eradicating them. You can avoid war never changing by introducing something foreign to the setting: peace and compromise. It's Gray and Gray Morality because you're capitulating to scumbags. None of the Nuka World Raiders is a model of good citizenship with Gage probably the nicest one of the bunch and he's a ruthless killer. Nevertheless, governments in real life make these kind of deals all the time.

The Pack are neither good nor evil. Just animals.

    The Raiders can also be used as a force against the other Raiders, Gunners, Super Mutants, and enemy factions in the setting. The Minutemen are grossly outgunned and even if you're backing them up with a major faction like the Institute or Brotherhood, its destined to be a bloody slog. The Radiant quests show the Nuka World Raiders aren't afraid of fighting any of them, though, and can be bodies on the ground for retaking the Commonwealth.

    As long as they're paid. Indeed, while their leaders are all monsters, the average Raider is simple in his wants and desires. They want to be fed and have lots of chems. With Nuka World and their settlements, they have the Commonwealth version of the sweet life. Even so, you're not going to be able to make peace with all of the Raiders and one third of their ranks will end up being slaughtered by you anyway. If one were going for the least malevolent option, it would be best to have the Pack and Operators as your allies while the Disciples are your enemies. At least then you avoid having serial killers in your employ.

You killed him and took his stuff.

     All of this would be pure speculation on my part if not for the fact this is a valid route detailed in the DLC with your Sole Survivor entirely capable of putting down or nay-saying the more violent quests of their allies. They can acquire territory with words or caps. You can be the peace-maker and the negotiator of the Raiders rather than the brute.

    You can get away with it, too, because the Raiders aren't animals and mostly just want to enjoy wealth and drugs like most criminals. You can also be less than morally ambiguous and just murder or intimidate the Commonwealth's settlements into compliance. You have the option of being evil in Nuka World but what is "good" is very nebulous as another pile of bodies is a questionable triumph for justice--even when it's as odious as a group as the one you're now in-charge of.

    Interestingly, the theme of making peace and compromises is one which is carried throughout each of the Zones. In Kiddie Kingdom, the best case scenario is to convince Oswald and his army of ghouls to move on so you can take over. You take over his land which he is bothering no one on, in order to give to Raiders but ultimately do him a favor. Dry Rock Gulch is a place where the robots are willing, even desperate, to serve as long as you play to their biases. Cito the Ape-Man can be convinced to share his territory with the Raiders, which works out fine because Cito is a hardass who won't have a problem keeping the Raiders in line. It'll also allow him regular human contact for the first time in decades. Galactic Zone? Okay, there's nothing wrong with Galactic Zone but some malfunctioning robots but diplomacy is still the preferred way of getting things done in this game.

Peace means Oswald has to give up his home.

     There's a price for your actions if you choose to play peacemaker just like making a treaty with the Brotherhood of Steel and NCR results in the firing of Ambassador Dennis Crocker. In this case, while the Minutemen might be willing to go along with a General who has decided to cede territory to Raiders (since they'd otherwise not exist without him), idealistic Preston Garvey loses all trust in his closest friend. The kind of realpolitic of making peace with monsters is unforgivable even at its softest. You lose him as a Companion and from then on, he is merely a cold business associate.

    The question is why would you want to? Why go to all this trouble for the bandits of Nuka World when you've killed so many for less? For me, I think it's a good roleplaying opportunity. I didn't play the Minutemen or Railroad ending because I thought the grayness of Fallout 4's main quest demanded a more cynical ending. It's why I went with the "cover-up" ending of Far Harbor. The Sole Survivor bends over backwards for these Raiders simply because he doesn't HAVE to kill them like so many others. A peace treaty between Nuka World, the Institute, and the Minutemen in my gameworld is an ugly uncertain thing but it's perhaps the best the Sole Survivor could manage. Who am I to gainsay them after they've suffered so much?

What would Cappy? Kill everyone, probably.

      Then again, perhaps the best option for Nuka World is to simply slaughter all of the Raiders and give back the territory to their victims. Nuka World will remain a mostly-hostile place full of monsters and horrors but you can, at least, turn the power back on. The Commonwealth will remain a safer place in the objective sense even if you don't have Raiders at your back to help you against the threats which assail it. Perhaps peace and keeping your followers happy comes at too high a price. Certainly, Preston Garvey agrees with the belief the Nuka Worlders deserve nothing but death and if you meet him after you've joined them then he will only become your friend if you turn on your brethren to slaughter them.

    Despite my words, Nuka World is not set up to be an ambiguous situation. The Raiders are awful people, through and through, while the traders are noble victims who do nothing wrong except under extreme duress. Even Harvey lures you to your doom only because he's witnessed the murder of friends. Yet, after playing a game of slaughtering hundreds if not thousands of people, I couldn't help but wonder at the fact Nuka World is the only time I can actually find a peaceful solution.

[QUOTE="CerberusGate, post: 4181982, member: 97288"]I don't as well; he's not devolved into Someguy's level of facetious trolling (i.e brings up a point and devolves into childish insults not offensive enough to be banned while defending said point) and has remained mostly reasonable in his posts though he admittedly slipped up (but at least has the decency to apologise for said slip ups).[/QUOTE]

I am sorry for some of the things I've said today. I really posted all night and day so I guess I had a LOT of pent-up passion from when the Bethesda forums moved.

[QUOTE="CerberusGate, post: 4181982, member: 97288"]I don't as well; he's not devolved into Someguy's level of facetious trolling (i.e brings up a point and devolves into childish insults not offensive enough to be banned while defending said point) and has remained mostly reasonable in his posts though he admittedly slipped up (but at least has the decency to apologise for said slip ups).[/QUOTE]

I am sorry for some of the things I've said today. I really posted all night and day so I guess I had a LOT of pent-up passion from when the Bethesda forums moved.

Fallout 4: Nuka World DLC review

    I've never shared my post-apocalypse plan. It's to take a car, journey to Disneyland and take it over. Alternatively, I will journey to Brazil and live on a plantation where I will grow the ingredients necessary to create Coca Cola. If this is a peculiarly specific plan for Armageddon, I should note that if you somehow merged Disneyland and Coca-Cola then I never would have left as a child. I would have run away from my parents and lived in Colaland's sewers along with the other feral children.

Why save the world when you can rule it?

    As you can imagine, Nuka World is a kind of weird drill into my brain from the good people at Bethesda. I love Disneyland even if the reality is an overcrowded place you never have enough money to fully enjoy. I also love Coca-Cola even if it is so sugary sweet that my poor diabetic family genetics will never be able to live off of as I've always dreamed possible. I don't think anyone else necessarily had as high a hope for this DLC as I did but I may have unfairly put expectations on this due to my desire. Does it live up to it? No, unfortunately, not. However, it's still pretty damn entertaining.

My wife wouldn't want me living here. Maybe I could commute.

    The premise is the Sole Survivor finds the abandoned tram system to the Pre-War equivalent of the Magic Kingdom (which is in Massachusetts of all places). Along the way, he discovers the place is controlled by three allied gangs of raiders and their Overboss. Stumbling into a bravery test, the Sole Survivor kills the Overboss and in proper Necromonger fashion is named their new leader (mostly due to their second-in-command's endorsement).

The Overboss. Invincible to all but the dreaded squirt gun.

    There's two ways of proceeding from this point with the first being to ally with the raiders and take over the theme park sections they don't control. The second is to wipe out all of the raiders and liberate the settlement for its population of slaves. The DLC is geared strongly toward the former, which will throw some players for a loop as Fallout 4 was notorious for "forcing" you to play a hero.

    Indeed, the climax of Nuka World's "Evil" path is having you lead an army of raiders into the Commonwealth to assault its settlements. Which, if you've been playing the traditional way, means that you'll very likely be attacking your own settlements.

I love the skeleton who died happy in this pic.

    This is probably not going to be the path which roleplayers will enjoy but there's actually a story to be told here. The Sole Survivor as the man who had been forced repeatedly to compromise his morals for the sake of an ungrateful wasteland only to eventually snap and turn on his former loved ones. Certainly, there's a temptation to simply unleash the anger and rage of a very disappointing finale for the main game and simply enjoy the easy pleasures of being Lord Humungus. I've wanted to be a Raider since the beginning of the Fallout series and I finally have the chance even if it didn't fit with my current build.

Alas, I can afford everything in the Disney Marketplace!

    Still, I would have appreciated Nuka World if it had been far lower level and available as a place to journey to from the very beginning. It's eaisly the best "evil" settlement and as memorable as Paradise Falls from Fallout 3. If you choose to play the role of the Overboss, you even get a memorable scene where Preston Garvey is horrified by your actions and turns against you. It's the most emotion he ever displays in the game. Sadly, we don't have reactions from Piper, Valentine, Strong, and Cait who seem like they'd have opinions on your new vocation.

A wonderful brother-sister pair of raiders.

    The DLC's raider gangs are well-detailed with the Disciples, the Pack, and the Operators. The Disciples are a group of cannibal amazons, the Pack are animal worshiping feral humans, and cultured rich kids who'd decided it was better to steal than work for a living after being cut off. I decided to side with the Operators up until the point I decided to eliminate them from the park. I kind of regret we didn't get a "good" or at least neutral gang of raiders because I hated turning against them despite each group being complete scum. They're fun scum, though, which is what's important.

Blood worms are the worst.

      Nuka Cola the product is notably something which has been built up from Fallout 3 and is now a major part of the backstory despite being only a minor part of the setting. It is the equivalent of Cola Cola as well as the Disney corporation in the setting's backstory.

    Its ubiquitous presence in the setting means I was genuinely interested in finding out the history of the product and getting a bunch of Nuka Cola swag. Indeed, I'm hoping Bethesda puts out some Nuka Cola shirts because I want one. I also was very excited about painting my power armor in fire engine Nuka Cola red. If you find this a little strange then you should know how much fun it looks. We even get a return of Nuka Cola's biggest fan from Fallout 3 in Sierra Petrovita.

These raiders have personality. Evil awful personalities.

    I do think there's an over-focus on combat in the DLC. Even if you eliminate all of the gang boss leaders, this just results in all of the raiders in the park becoming hostile. I would have appreciated more options to deal with them. It would have been cool to do something like A Fistful of Dollars or the Sith Academy in Knights of the Old Republic where you play the various factions against one another until they're weak enough to completely eliminate.

      On the plus side, there's a "peaceful" path through dealing with the Raiders and Commonwealth's settlers which I found to be surprising. You can be a moral Raider who pays for land and good with caps. Unfortunately, there's no option for freeing the slaves or persuading the Raiders to devote their efforts to less monstrous acts. Even so, there's a lot of fun little sidequests like meeting with a bunch of Hubologists who are even more insane than their predecessors in Fallout 2 and the mythical founder of Nuka Cola who is living like Walt Disney's urban legend underneath the park. It says something about how much I enjoyed this setting that I wish it had been its own game.

Slaves. The gift which keeps giving.

     Like the Magic Kingdom, Nuka World has multiple "worlds" with a Futureworld, Wild West World, Coca Cola Land, and a mountain made of fizz. Each of these have different sorts of enemies and plenty of games which can be experienced. Like the best of Bethesda's creations, each land has an extensive Pre-War history to explore as well. Honestly, I loved the Wild West world the most since it involved rounding up Giddy-up Buttercups and being addressed as the Silver Shroud if you're wearing the costume.

    There are flaws in this DLC like the fact it's about twenty minutes long if you're playing a purely good-guy raider who would never associate with a morally ambiguous faction. Likewise, the Raiders are a trifle underdeveloped. They have personalities, themes, and major characters but no real side-quests or conversation options. There's a lot of places they could have expanded on the history of the gangs as well. Lore breaks like Enclave armor in a display case are also annoying. On the other hand, it's probably the single most fun DLC I've played from Bethesda and rivals Old World Blues for the amount of enjoyment I derived.

     In conclusion, Nuka World is an amazing DLC and I wish there was more of it. I think its also suitably grim and dark despite its whimsical atmosphere. I think this is probably the best DLC which Bethesda has put out since Mothership Zeta.

10/10 (in terms of fun)
9/10 (in terms of playability)

Fallout 4: Far Harbor review

    All Hail Atom! Atom is life! For when he is split, he unleashes immense power in every direction for which has created this irradiated world! *Ahem* Sorry, I got the opportunity to join the Children of the Atom cult which I have always felt was one of the best elements of Fallout 3 (as well as criminally underused). I likened them to the Servants of the Mushroom Cloud from the original Wasteland and consider them quintessentially Fallout despite not having been incorporated into the setting until Bethesda got a hold of them.

A lovely little radioactive town on the coast.

    Honestly, the lack of Atom content was one of my biggest disappointments about Fallout 4 after its awful dialogue system plus the changes to the skill tree. Okay, it wasn't even in my top five biggest disappointments but it was in the top fifteen. Making the Children of the Atom one of the major factions of Far Harbor wins definite points with me and it is one of the reasons I'm playing this DLC at all.

    Disturbingly, after finishing Fallout 4, I discovered I didn't really have any desire to continue. The game was a 10/10 but it felt like it was finished after the Institute took over/was destroyed with no real reason for the Sole Survivor to continue his wandering. Unlike the Lone Wanderer, the Sole Survivor never really felt like a scourge of evil and struck me as the sort of guy who'd settle down. Maybe because the game encouraged me to buy a dozen houses for him and his polyamorous companions.

The fog is beautiful and deadly. Amazing effect.

    The premise of the DLC is Nick Valentine, your lovable noir detective robot buddy, has been contacted by an old friend whose daughter has gone missing. Kasumi has had vivid dreams of being experimented on and believes herself to be a Synth. Journeying to the real-life island of Bar Harbor, now known as Far Harbor due to the B-sign wearing away, the Sole Survivor discovers an island irradiated by a permanent fog. Worse, the island is divided between three hostile factions ready to tear each other apart.

    In a very real way, Far Harbor is miniature version of the main game with the options of trying to achieve peace between the three factions or eliminating those factions which you don't like. There's the Synth-populated Accadia, the aforementioned Children of Atom, and the Harbormen who are simple fishermen in an unclean world. The developers at Bethesda outdo themselves as all of these factions have a history not only of inhabiting the island but also interacting with one another.

Mirelurks really fit the setting.

The Harbormen have inhabited the island the longest but the radiation on the island has gotten to the point they can't survive there without specialized equipment from Accadia. The Children of the Atom, by contrast, thrive in radiation but are run by a power-mad religious cultist. Accadia just wants to be accepted by humans but the Harbormen (good) loathe androids while the Cult of Atom (evil) accepts them.

    As in Fallout: New Vegas and Fallout 4, you have the option of traveling to each of the factions and learning what they're about. Really, I'm actually kind of disappointed with how entertaining each faction is because I can't help but think this could have been made into a full-blown game. They could have done Fallout 4: Far Harbor and sold it in stores since it would have been pretty damn good. There's great NPCs, dialogue, writing, and some genuine moral dilemmas about the ends justifying the means.

     The island is also populated with a large number of new monsters, including walking carp and hermit crabs which carry buses on their back. There's a definite fishing theme to the monsters and that works well for Fallout.

     The scaling is akin to Point Lookout in that a lot of the monsters have ridiculous damage reduction designed solely to make it so end-game content users can have a challenge. It's not quite as bad where Swamp Folk and Punga Tribals were shrugging off things which would obliterate Super Mutants but it's still noticeable.

    The island is also populated with a large number of new monsters, including walking carp and hermit crabs which carry buses on their back. The scaling is akin to Point Lookout in that a lot of the monsters have ridiculous damage reduction designed solely to make it so end-game content users can have a challenge. It's not quite as bad where Swamp Folk and Punga Tribals were shrugging off things which would obliterate Super Mutants but it's still damn noticeable.

Can you find the secrets of the mist?

    Far Harbor Island is notably the largest landmass ever produced for an expansion pack, another reason why I wish they'd just made it into its own separate game. Much like The Witcher 3's Blood and Wine, there's a point where Expansions really should just be video games in their own right as sequels have a right to be released as is.

    The setting is beautiful with the radioactive fogs actually dangerous and the beautiful forests being spooky in a way which is reminiscent of H.P. Lovecraft's writings. It is a Gothic New England island that is home to all manner of horrors and creatures which our hero may deal with. Indeed, the fogs invoke Stephen King's The Mist very well with every corner potentially holding some other sort of horror.
 
    Character-wise I think the Far Harbor residents and Dima are the most interesting. The Far Harbor folk really do invoke a fishing village in the future, trying to stubbornly cling to a life they long ago left behind. Dima, by contrast, is a prototype of the same model as Nick Valentine but re-envisioned as a kind of Synth messiah who rejects the Railroad's practice of brainwashing Synths into believing they're human. The interactions between Dima and Nick are quite good, which makes me glad I brought him to Far Harbor. I also love the Longshoreman, who is perhaps what happens when you have a player character who survives until old age--too badass to die.

A really fun little Vault.

    I'm also pleased to say Far Harbor does what no other expansion has done and includes a Vault. Vault 118 contains a parlor room mystery where the Sole Survivor must solve a murder committed by one of the 200-year-old robots living inside the luxury accommodations present.

     It's a hilarious and somewhat tragic story as Vault 118 is one of the few successful Vaults but it preserved a bunch of rich jerks. On the other hand, they're a bunch of entertaining narcissistic jerks and I think the entire thing is meant to make fun of the Sierra Madre adventure in Fallout: New Vegas: Dead Money. All of the actors and drama are here but they stumble over each other trying to be terrifying.

     Overall, I think this is probably one of the best expansions Fallout has ever produced but there is one major flaw. In the middle of the game there's an extremely annoying puzzle which feels like something out of Minecraft rather than Fallout. You have to move blocks around and build little machines to fight off attacking robots rather than fight them yourself. It's incredibly boring, frustratingly irritating, and takes far too long. Worse, it's essential to the plot and can't be skipped. I have to remove a point from the game for it. Otherwise, this is an amazing little game and I recommend it to all Fallout 4 players.

9/10

The Moral Ambiguity of Fallout 4

Note: This post will contain spoilers for the storyline of Fallout 4 and previous games.

    War...war never changes.

    These are the arc words of Fallout 4 and they have never been more appropriate to the setting. In simple terms, they are an acknowledgement that the conflicts between human beings will never end because we human nature remains immutable. People will kill for religion, resources, revenge, wealth, power, and glory until the end of time.

    The original Fallout ended with the realization the Master and all of his atrocities were motivated by a warped but sincere desire to do good. The sequel, Fallout 2, ended with the discovery the Enclave were the embodiment of Western privilege and racism with the Wastelanders being on the other side of it. Fallout 3 was seemingly the odd duck out since it was a conflict between the wholly-evil Enclave and the seemingly wholly-good Brotherhood of Steel but this is something I've changed in the past (see my essay here).

    The premise of Fallout 4 is the Sole Survivor is a Pre-War citizen of Massachusetts who manages to survive the Great War by being cryogenically frozen for 215 years. When he awakens to the brave new world of the Post-Apocalypse Wasteland, they are sent on a quixotic search for his missing son with only an old fortune-tellers' advice to guide him.

    Along the way, he or she discovers the Commonwealth is being fought over by two technologically advanced power-houses and two much lower-tech local organizations. Despite all four organizations having a point, the best you'll be able to accomplish is two surviving. Because the same belligerence and refusal to compromise of the Pre-War world is still intact in the Fallout universe.

A man and his dog have some difficult choices ahead.

     This conflict of factions is similar to Hoover Dam being fought over in Fallout: New Vegas. In fact, Fallout: New Vegas followed Fallout 3's example and made the conflict largely one of good versus evil. NCR, while corrupt and expansionist, was still a group out for the benefit while Caesar's Legion were a salad of everything a Western liberal non-misogynist technophile gamer would despise. The only neutral party in the story was Robert House and, if you chose the Independence ending, the Courier themselves.

    Fallout 4 one-ups New Vegas, however, by making it clear all four factions have a point. Unfortunately, none of the parties involved are WILLING to compromise and the unwillingness to make peace spells the downfall of those the Survivor chooses not to aid. It's interesting the game subverts traditional storytelling models by making it clear the "right" choice may not be the most beneficial one while foregoing the idea being more beneficial is necessarily "better." To explain, I'll give a brief rundown of all four factions.

The Institute

    The primary antagonists for the first half of the game are set up as the Institute, which murders the spouse of the Survivor as well as makes off with their child. They also callously murder the entirety of Vault 111's inhabitants, shutting off the life-support systems to everyone else in the Vault. We hear about the Institute's slavery of Synths from the Railroad, how they discarded sentient robot Nick Valentine like garbage, how they kidnap people to be replaced with dopplegangers, and learn they're experimenting with the Super Mutant-creating FEV. Perhaps the most damning act is the story about how they deliberately destroyed the Commonwealth Provisional Government (CPG) which would have created a new nation in the post-apocalypse world.

    Then we actually get to meet them.

Flawless, beautiful, soulless. Or is it?

    The Institute proves to a idealized vision of the future with grass, clean walls, science, and knowledge available to all. It's a Star Trek-esque utopia where humanity is at a level it should have been had not it destroyed itself 215 years ago. The people are friendly, likable, and idealistic. There is a dark side to the Institute in that it is built on the backs of Synthetic slavery but this is arguable on grounds of sentience. Many gamers have expressed agreement with the Institute they're just very well-programmed machines. The Institute argues they are not slavers because Synths are just, appropriately, video game characters designed to act like people.

    But are they?

    The question is debated back and forth throughout the game as we see quests involving Synths trying to prove their humanity, robots reprogrammed to act like humans (such as the hilarious Professor Goodfeels) but failing miserably, and individuals who blur the lines. There's even the fact the Institute might be potentially capable of changing as the Survivor is able to express he finds the organization monstrous in its actions but loves his family (his son turning out to be the director of the faction) too much to betray it.

    The Institute is a source of immense knowledge and resources which could be turned to the benefit of humanity but doing so requires the destruction of its enemies. Enemies who stand against the Institute on moral grounds. If you side with these enemies, you destroy the Institute but you also condemn the Synths to extinction as they can no longer be produced. Likewise, you potentially kill or render homeless countless innocent people whose greatest crime was believing the lie Synths aren't people (or producing them in the first place if you believe the Brotherhood of Steel).

     The Institute's guilt for its crimes is debatable, though. While many atrocities are done under the previous Directors, it's clear the majority of citizens are not aware of them. Doctor Li, despite being a member of the Directorate, is unaware of the FEV experiments being conducted a few hallways down. The massacre of Vault 111's citizens occurred under a Director prior to Shaun just as University Point's massacre was done by Shaun himself. These acts will not be repeated by the new Director (the Sole Survivor) but only if they choose to cooperate with the Institute. In simple terms, the Institute's leadership is corrupt but the individual members are not.

    Hell, some of the crimes they're accused of are ones they're innocent of. The Commonwealth Provisional Government wasn't sabotaged by the Institute, for example. They actually set it up but were blamed for its destruction, causing them to give up on the surface. This doesn't detract from the crimes they are guilty of, though, like the destruction of the University Point settlement or massacre of Vault 111's inhabitants.

    As Director of the Institute, the Sole Survivor has the potential to direct the organization down a more benevolent and less violent path. Unfortunately, they are not presented with any options to liberate the Synths or do more than choose whether to develop weapons tech or better Synth production. We also have an example of how changing an organization's institutional inertia can fail, even with a very capable and wise leader.

    Elder Lyons sought to reform the Brotherhood of Steel and while he managed to change it, the organization mostly reverted to its previous ethics after his tenure. It doesn't help your position comes from Father's nepotism as well as proving your allegiance by eliminating the Institute's ideological enemies. After the mission, the Institute sends Synths to secure checkpoints and positions across the Wasteland, including Diamond City. Piper may believe you capable of leading the Institute to a new Golden Age but is she right?

    Only time will tell.

The Brotherhood of Steel

    Fan-favorites of the franchise, the Brotherhood of Steel has gone through numerous changes from its original concept. The depiction of the one in Fallout 4 is a combination of the various incarnations of the group over the years (Western, Midwestern, and Eastern chapters). The Fallout 3 chapter of the Brotherhood believed in protecting the innocent from monsters as well as aiding humanity in its recovery by sharing technology. This is directly contradictory to the original Brotherhood's stated ethos of keeping dangerous technology from the hands of "savages."

    The Commonwealth Brotherhood of Steel has combined these missions by adopting a policy of destroying or controlling dangerous technology with a less-xenophobic policy of recruiting Wastelanders as well as ruling over them directly. While all Brotherhood of Steel chapters have been prejudiced against nonhumans, their new leader Arthur Maxson believes all nonhumans should be destroyed. This is a defensible position when dealing with the near-universally hostile Super Mutants of the East Coast and Feral Ghouls but becomes less so with the intelligent ghouls and sympathetic Synths you meet during the game.

A peace at the expense of the annihilation of all those different is seemingly a bargain when those are 90% evil. But what about the remaining 10%?

    The Brotherhood of Steel rejects both freedom as well as espouses racist values which put in mind various fascist movements over the years as well as the darker excesses of feudalism. Despite this, the Brotherhood has a lot going for it. In the horrific chaos of the Commonwealth, the Brotherhood of Steel are strong and they are sincere in their desire to help--almost fanatically so. If you're a Wastelander rather than a ghoul or Synth, the Brotherhood's rule is an oasis of safety in a radioactive desert. The fact individuals can join the Brotherhood of Steel and rise on merit also removes the inherent nepotism of feudalism.

    The Brotherhood of Steel is also dominionist as well as expansionist. They revere the concept of humanity and loathe the misuse of technology so there is no hope for any reconciliation with the Institute or Synths. The Institute and its survivors are marked for death and there is no hope for the Synths or their sympathizers in the Railroad. To side with the Brotherhood is to ask yourself whether the deaths of a minority of ghouls and Synths is worth the salvation of thousands. Also, whether freedom is a worthwhile sacrifice for survival.

     There is also the fact, for all of Elder Maxson's talk about siding with the founding principles of the Brotherhood of Steel, he is also a hypocrite regarding them. The Brotherhood of Steel was founded by Arthur's ancestor, Roger Maxson, for the purpose of confiscating dangerous technology from Wastelanders to prevent something like the Great War from ever occurring again.

    Siding with the Brotherhood of Steel results in you confiscating an entire missile silo's worth of nuclear weapons, arming them to another dangerous piece of technology (Liberty Prime), and then using them to get close enough to a generator in order to sabotage it. This results in a gigantic crater where the Commonwealth Institute of Technology used to be and the death of every citizen of the Institute unless you choose to evacuate it on your own.

     In short, Arthur Maxson betrays the original purpose of the Brotherhood of Steel in order to achieve an absolute military victory.

The Railroad

    The Railroad is my favorite faction in Fallout 4, which is surprising since I assumed they would be my least. In simple terms, they're just not as "sexy" as the Brotherhood of Steel or Institute. They're a bunch of Wastelanders from various walks of life united by nothing other than their belief Synths are people and their desire to free as many of them from the Institute's control as possible. They're named after the Underground Railroad, an organization of individuals who recognized the humanity of people living under some of the worst oppression in United States history.

    But is the Railroad good?

    They certainly think they're the good guys. One of the things the Railroad has going for it is certainty. That's a rare commodity in the Wasteland but they have every bit the fortitude and confidence in their cause as the Brotherhood of Steel. Desdemona, leader of the Railroad, makes it clear that a Synth is a person and you should be willing to risk your life for them the same way you would a human being. The fact many Synths have tried to kill the Survivor by the time they meet as well as the fact they've killed many humans is lost on the woman.

The Railroad's HQ being underneath a church is symbolic--but of what?

    The Railroad's methods are somewhat questionable as well. Rather than simply helping Synths settle into new lives, they brainwash (less charitably, "reprogram") them into believing they're human beings and leave them in the Wasteland to fend for themselves. This leaves them vulnerable to recapture by individuals like Doctor Zimmer and sometimes horrific identity crises. Paladin Danse, a Brotherhood of Steel zealot, cannot reconcile the fact he's a Synth with the fact he believes they are abominations against humanity.

    The Railroad's zealotry also makes them blind to events beyond their cause. The Brotherhood of Steel represents a danger to all Synths and their sympathizers but the Railroad remains unaware of their intended xenocide until the Brotherhood strikes. They intend to destroy the Institute in order to eliminate the oppressors of Synths but this means no more Synths will be created. The Railroad has no higher purpose than helping Synths or plan for the Commonwealth, which is not a problem in itself but Deacon notes would go a long way to getting more Wastelanders to trust them. They are also positively vicious in their questline.

    The Railroad ignores the many humans who will be killed and rendered homeless in the destruction of the Institute as well as the loss of knowledge. They don't even bother to evacuate the humans of the Institute in the same manner the Brotherhood of Steel doesn't. As bad as this is, it's doubly so when you discover they don't attempt to evacuate the family of agent Patriot, who helped hundreds of Synths escape over the years.

    Destroying the Brotherhood of Steel may be necessary as an act of self-defense as well as one to protect innocent human beings but there are children on board The Prydwen and they get not a single word of acknowledgement. It is perhaps because of this that Synthetic Detective Nick Valentine doesn't express much sympathy for them.

    This doesn't even bring up the Railroad is divided as to what qualifies as human as well with 1st generation android Synths considered to be "merely" machines the same way Pre-War robots like Codsworth are. This despite the fact Codsworth expresses shock, grief, and a range of human emotions which seem to point to his being alive (if not human). 3rd generation Synths look and sound human so the Railroad believes they are--nothing more, nothing less.

    Righteousness blinds the Railroad and anger even as they are the only people fighting for those who have no voice.

The Minutemen

    The final faction is another "good" one like the Railroad which suffers for the fact it is also ineffective. The Minutemen are the remnants, reduced to one active member in fact, of a Commonwealth militia known for protecting settlements against various threats. In-fighting, the loss of their headquarters, and catastrophic losses during the Battle of Quincy have broken them but they maintain a positive reputation with most Commonwealth citizens.

    If the Survivor chooses to join the Minutemen, rising to their leadership almost immediately, we also discover they run a similar arrangement to 1988 video game Wasteland's Desert Rangers. The Minutemen receive food, water, and caps in exchange for providing settlements with protection. Given you physically begin several settlements and can give orders for what is constructed on the settlements which join you, this is less like an alliance and more like rulership. It is also, perhaps not coincidentally, a scaled-down version of what the Brotherhood of Steel promises its citizens.

    The Minutemen's representative in the game, Preston Garvey, is unambiguously good and represents the best of a Wasteland hero. Unfortunately, Preston's naive touting of the Minutemen's graces tends to ignore its many flaws. The organization is well-armed, as militias go, but has nowhere near the power or knowledge as either the Institute or Brotherhood of Steel.

To be good or great - the Minutemen achieve one but can't reach the other.

    The organization's ability to project force is also far weaker than the former as they were effectively destroyed by an attack by a single Mirelurk Queen (impressive but something the Brotherhood of Steel or Institute Synths would have mopped the floor with). Laser muskets, crank-operated alternatives to Pre-War technology, are inferior to the real thing. When faced with threats like the Institute, Super Mutants, Brotherhood of Steel, and even the Gunners, the Minutemen are mostly outmatched. Indeed, it was the Gunner mercenary army which destroyed the Minutemen in the first place.

    The addition of artillery and the return of the Castle means the Minutemen can gain the ability to project force better than they could in decades, perhaps enough to be able to defeat Super Mutants and enough to defeat the Brotherhood of Steel in a surprise assault on The Prydwen. They even get the Brotherhood's Vertibirds if they destroy them.

     The Minutemen have historical issues with solidarity as well as cults of personality. From what little we can gleam of the Minutemen's history, they're an organization which only operates effectively when there is a strong central leader. With the retaking of the Castle and securing of settlement alliances across the Wasteland, the Sole Survivor is probably good for as long as they're leading the group but even then he has his or her orders questioned as one Institute quest can prove. 

    There is also the issue of the Minutemen having supply issues. Without the support of settlements, the members are left with no currency or sources of food. As we see with Libertalia, Minutemen have been forced to become Raiders because Commonwealth citizens have cheated them out of proper pay for protection. Again, this can be amended if you turn the Castle into a thriving settlement but the Commonwealth seems to be composed of fair-weather friends.

    Still, it's abundantly clear the Minutemen promise only the beginnings of a better life for the average Wastelander. It took NCR the better part of a century in order to become the power house it is in the West and there's no sign the Minutemen are going to achieve that sort of power anytime soon. Security and supply lines mean the Minutemen promise a better life. With time and work from the Sole Survivor, they can become both well-armed and well-funded to the point of beginning your own little version of NCR. The problem is that siding with any other faction AND the Minutemen seems like it would do better.

In Conclusion

    Fallout 4 is excellent for providing real moral dilemmas to its protagonist's player. For me, I chose to side with the Railroad and the Minutemen. I did so, however, knowing I was condemning many innocent people to die and potentially costing the people of the Commonwealth a better future. I was willing to let Rome burn as long as Rome's slaves were freed and that's not a warm and fuzzy feeling.

    Others chose to side with the Institute in order to make sure the world was a better place through technology and science, knowing they were going to have to kill a bunch of innocents to do so or thinking the synthetic question irrelevant. Others sided with the Brotherhood of Steel, believing the needs of the many outweighed the needs of the few. There's a right answer to which faction you pick but it will change depending on what kind of person you are or what you believe.

    Just like in real-life.