While I enjoyed the concepts, the delivery was just not on par with the aspirations. This game is VERY formuliac, except that you are forced into rote methods to succeed. It's like playing chess. When you don't know what you are doing, it's fun. When you figure it out, it all preprogrammed feints and gambits. This is why I don't play chess anymore. Classic case of open world, but you better do it in a specific way, or I'll punish you so badly you never recover. Follow the mission suggestions, or you will have to start over.
While I love the story that is going on, it STILL suffers from its own narrative. Don't put in a time based limit and then ignore the time. Real time and game time move differently. You can do every sidequest, stop at every opportuntiy, and not advance your "condition", but two missions into your main quest and you have degenerated significantly. This is Fallout 4 all over again. Another good game, but you totally forget about the urgency of your condition because it doesn't advance if you don't advance your storyline missions. Angry Joe did a skit about it. You are doing nothing but keeping your settlements safe and totally forgetting to look for your son. "Oh, the crops look great this year. I still feel like I'm supposed to be doing something... Hm... whatever. This season's crops are looking great!" I've gone around taking care of every police action and mugging making major eddies, but my condition is still stagnant. Same, same. I'm still going to finish this, but it is disappointing that they used this "Your time is running out!", but have no consequence to not pursing it. Then you have the gamification of the rest, basically making this Grand Theft Auto 2077. They should have not wasted time in the side quests and gamey bits and focused on matching the story, incorporating the sidequests into parts to add flavor and fun. The micro-difference in gear necessitates minor upgrades endlessly. Tedious. Boring. Then you have to give filler content to justify the micro-upgrades. Circular thinking. Then level based gear is ALWAYS a bad idea. Restrict it in some other way, though price, availablity , or special condition (i.e. special chip, or cyber modification earned only throuh advancing your main story). I hate that I can't use it because I don't have a level, even if that level is reputation. WHY?! Does the gun know I'm not cool enough to use it?! Doesn't make sense. Silly gamification. Even with all these faults, it's still a 4.
