Most of this FOLON's flaws stem from its unique circumstances: The fact that it's a community project made entirely by volunteers doing their best, the fact that Bethesda all but stopped the game's release, and the fact that almost everything was rebuilt from the ground-up. There are glitches ranging from quirky to game-breaking, but to focus on them is to miss the forest for the trees. Of all the grand, ambitious modding projects based on Bethesda's games, FOLON is the only one that has succeeded at delivering on its promised scope, its story, and its level of polish. Some mods are an inch wide and a mile deep. Some mods are a mile wide and an inch deep. FOLON stands alone as a mod that is a mile wide and a mile deep. From your very first steps the signs of this meticulousness and scope are there. Familiar items clutter the shelves and cabinets, but just about all are new and crafted specifically to fit this new setting. It also soon becomes clear that the nature of this setting is very different. London is green, run-down, overgrown, and teeming with life and dangers. Ammunition is scarce, channeling your early efforts into melee. The scarcity forces you to explore dark, harrowing interiors to find better weapons and supplies, but beware the powerful new monsters lurking within, waiting until you're at your most vulnerable before springing an ambush. Combat is demanding. With ammo and medicine at a premium, you will soon familiarize yourself with legendary British cuisine to replenish your health, discovering prewar foodstuffs like Black Pudding and Spotted Dick. Every firearm you encounter is a new creation. Gone is the incredulous Pipe Gun, replaced instead by Crude Guns that actually look like functional wasteland hardware you could cobble together in an allotment shed. You could say all of these are just details, but FOLON is built on strong foundations of precision and care. Its flaws can be remedied because it has good bones. Just mind the gap.
