Fallout 4 does some things really well and other things not so well. But, in my opinion, the good things outshine the bad and, honestly, the bad things aren't really "awful" but rather "disappointing". The gunplay feels great, exploration & discovery are rewarding, the settlement building is brilliant and the companions & their backstories are, mostly, well done. The disappointments were the shallow dialogue options, the bad gun design (the famous "assault rifle", for instance), the lazy way the enemies scaled up (spoiler: they just become more bullet spongey) and the fact every single playthrough felt the same regardless of how you played. I never got the feeling that I was affecting the world in any meaningful way, positive or negative and I couldn't play through the game as an antagonist, selecting evil dialogue options. But that aside, I've had a tonne of fun with FO4 over the years, which I bought on Steam at release. A lot of folks seem to hate on this game simply because "It's not like Fallout New Vegas", which I'm not sure I fully understand. FO4 is a stepping stone in the evolution of the franchise and bridges the gap between FO3 and FO5. New Vegas felt like a separate, arguably superior, game in its own right and F76 was simply an MMO experiment which, for the most part, failed. Even if you're on the fence and only considering the base game, it's still worth buying the DLC for no other reason than because it's a pre-requisite for installing and running Sim Settlements 2. Sim Settlements 2 is a community mod with extraordinary production values and boasting some first class voice acting and extremely well-written storylines. It's so good and there's so much content to be found, that it could shine as its own separate game. Think along the lines of the relationship between DayZ and Arma 2... After 1700+ hours, I can't really grumble about my time in FO4 and the GOTY edition is a bonkers price. I can whole heartedly recommend it.
I've known about STALKER for years and years, but only recently decided to purchase it as it was on sale. Honestly, I don't understand the love for this game. It's tedious from the word go. The gunplay is abysmal, with enemies needing around 10 headshots before they go down - assuming you can land a decent shot in the first place. Unless I'm right up close to an enemy, I find myself constant missing and failing to inflict any damage whatsoever. I know the pistol is supposed to be poor, but I find the shotgun to be equally depressing to use and the automatic rifles are only a slight improvement. For a stealth game, the stealth mechanic makes no sense. Crouching down and moving slowly through bushes towards an group of enemies seems to just invite every single enemy nearby to begin shooting at me - and hitting me with pinpoint accuracy. In fact, the cycle of dying/re-loading/dying/re-loading gets incredibly frustrating in no time at all. Why swamp me with dogs, boars or bandits right at the beginning of the game and not give me the weapons or sneak skills to deal with them? I like difficult games, but give me some glimmer of hope that I can fend off the enemies or avoid them altogether. I don't seem to be able to do either. I do like the fact that it (appears to be) open world and I'm left alone to do what I want, but the NPCs seem to be fetch-quest givers and nothing more: "Go here and shoot this thing. Go here and talk to this person. Go here and collect this object". There isn't an obvious reason to be doing any of these quests, aside from earning some money. I find myself not caring about any of the NPCs whatsoever and have generally just ignored them whilst I explore. So to conclude, what we have is a FPS/Survival Horror game with poor gunplay, poor stealth mechanics and a plot which I couldn't care less about. Unless I'm missing something utterly obvious, I can't recommend it at all and didn't enjoy my time with the game. Sorry...
