Story
I may be a nerd but right now i'm a happy nerd. This game is amazing. The moment you start up the game you can tell you're in for a treat. It opens up with a video of war and how it never changes. Starts with world war two and shows how it goes and then moves to the time that the games set in and how what happens in war, will always happen. The games setting is in 2077 but integrated circuits were invented late and were still not very popular leaving the game in a 1980s time setting. Also meaning oil is much more valuable then it is today, witch is what caused the whole game. A large Pool of oil is found in the Pacific ocean, and America and China both thing it is there oil. So a cold war happens between America and China. Knowing this a compony named vault tec makes vaults around America to "preserve humanity."
Thats what the people thing at least. There real plan is to test humanity under certain conditions. Such as 99 men, 1 women and vies versa. Or even one man and a bin of puppets. A nuke falls over Boston wear the charter you made lives in. You get rushed over to a vault and are in cryogenic for 210 years and while you were frozen some man has came and killed your wife/husband, depending on what gender you make, and steals your son. You leave the vault and can go do what ever you want.
Gameplay
The gameplay has been improved much more then its predecessors. In the last few games the shooting was kinda off. I cant really describe it but you never felt in control. Also the new system for V.A.T.S (Vault-Tec Assisted Targeting System) witch slows time to a crawl and targets body parts of your enemies for you to shoot or attack. It may be nice to aim for the head for the extra damage but crippling some ones arm/leg may not let them attack or run away. Also the enemies in the game are not just generic bad guy 1 or bad guy 28. Because of the nuke and test that have happened in the wasteland. There are mutated enemies such as bigger rats and blood bugs ect. Mutated humans and zombie like humans. Just the verity of enemies are incredible. Another thing that Bethesda added was the abilty to build up settlements and make weapons out of the junk of the waste, like you would in real life. For example, if you wanted to make a scope for a weapon. You might need to find some thing like a toy car for screws, a glass for glass and a sheet of MEDDLE for the MEEDLE of the scope. And every peace of junk does this thing has parts that will add to other things you want to make. With the settlements that you can build its the same system find something like a tree and get wood for a home. The more people that join your settlement, the more attention that you get from raiders. Witch makes you need to build defences, witch makes people join and so on.
World design
As i stated before the game is set in a split future. Theres more technology but its still in an 1980/90 vibe. Still with that historical landmarks are still there. Along with some buildings. Like the Fenway park (baseball filed) witch is used as a town thats walled off. The world may be smaller then the rest but its still big enough to satisfy. In just a few minutes you can go from downtown Boston to the top of a sky scraper then to were the bomb dropped. Because you were alive before the nuke dropped you know more or less how the world was before hand. So you walk up to a trader to buy/sell somethings and he talks about baseball, and how it was a sport wear one teamed beat up the others with baseball bats. And moments like this, in the middle of a destroyed world just listen the mood, brake the tension witch is nice when your going from taking over a base to just an incorrect talk about the pass. At other points you may also go to other vaults in the commonwealth and find there storeys.
Other
Just random things i might want to say about the game that I don't believe would fit into any other. The dialogue in this game is alright. Some times it can be great while other times it can be bad, at best. And the lip-sinking is just god of-fell. You can play the entire game in first person or third person witch adds a whole new gameplay aspect. Also there is a skill tree, well I would not really say tree more skill book as you can pick any one you want as long as you meet the criteria.
Finely Verdict
This is hands down game of the year for me. I loved it, the gameplay was amazing. The story, although weaker then the rest, is still amazing. Looking for your son then uncovering something larger is just amazing. On a scale of 1 to 10 I would say 9.3 amazing.