I have been playing the absolute shit out of Fallout London for the past week. And I think I've finally met my match, because at Level 14 with a decent chunk of quests under my belt, I have only explored about 1/4th of the city. When I look at the mostly uncharted map, and realize how much I have already done, I cry angry tears. This is my London Low-Down. Mind the fucking gap, samurai.
The Good Doggie
There are few things in life more satisfying than a bowler-hat-wearing, cigar-smoking British bulldog. Or pug. Or maybe a mutated rat - I honestly don't know what breed the game's resident Dog Companion™ happens to be. With a name like Churchill and the scariest walking sound effects known to man, this powerhouse can really lay down the law while I get my ass handed to me by a giant wombat. I was actually worried that I would have trouble finding him, as my first thirteen levels passed by without so much as an introduction to any of the companions. Once I began to focus on the main story, however, I quickly discovered that companions seem to crop up as the plot goes along. Respectful fellows, they are.
Churchill saved me from a rabbit, then a bandit, then he served as an absolutely stellar distraction for an oversized mitten crab. He didn't win, mind you, but he kept the heat off my back as I jammed shotgun shells down this thing's throat faster than chili dogs at a county fair. At this point in the playthrough it's honestly just nice to have someone else for an enemy to focus on when the going gets tough. It gives me time to reassess the area, run like hell, and maybe come back for the companion when I feel more ready - they're unfortunately sworn to carry my burdens.
Mechanical Pacing 201
FOLON does a fantastic job at spreading existing Fallout 4 mechanics apart from one another, and slowly expanding your knowledge of the world through those. When you begin, it is nearly impossible to find a workbench - I didn't find my first useable weapons workbench until around level 5, and I felt like a kid on Christmas who just found out that Santa got him the new Xbox. Being able to use my current materials and skills to modify my weapons was a game-changer early on, despite my low-level not facilitating powerful modifications. I started stashing materials in that workbench specifically, coming back to that spot like a central step along my journeys, and before long I had a fairly decent supply process in which I stopped at the workbench place before finding my way back to the Hideout.
Which brings me to settlement building. The Hideout is a player-run settlement that works exactly like Home Plate in Fallout 4; you can't bring new settlers in, meaning you can't establish any sort of production process inside. The Hideout is meant entirely for base-building, which makes it a perfect way to introduce settlement mechanics to the game before you get too deep with real towns. It's like Settlement 0.5, where you can learn what works best and what doesn't before getting thrown into a scenario with settlers that depend on you. Having that isolated trial run is brilliant, and keeps the player's task list simpler before getting harder.
How To Piss Me Off (Trademark Pending)
Okay now I've got to talk about the not so great for just a second so we can reel it back in with the fun stuff later. This game loads...it just loads so damn long. It is a direct and inescapable product of being an entire game running on the Fallout 4 engine, which already has an entire game in there to scooch over and make room. Loading is a bitch. There. That is all. But then the assets unloading can also be a cornswallow. I have no idea if that means anything, but it approximates my feelings right now. In very specific parts of London, entire streets will just flicker in and out of existence before my eyes. Once again, likely a product of two trains on the same track, but it could also be a result of my 50 or so mods that I have installed specifically to reduce problems like this. Before about thirteen hours ago, I would also drop a caveat in here that sometimes the game would crash in specific an unavoidable spots with no deviation, but I managed to solve that little shit-stain of a problem with the help of FOLON's Discord server.
These two existing technical drawbacks, that being the abysmal load times and the inconsistent asset loading/unloading, combine to make this game truly a chore to play in the worst of times. Some instances can see me never miss a beat for five hours and make such good progress that I almost forget where I'm at in the real world, while other instances put me in a deadlock situation where I load a game save then load an interior save then get confused by an asset glitch so I reload the interior save; by the time I realize it's not going away, I've wasted twenty minutes just walking through a door. This irritates the living shit out of me. Enough with the bad stuff, let's move on.
That's A Really Big Clock
This title puts it's best foot forward right out the gate when it comes to setting, story and narrative pacing. You start out getting the classic intro slides that bring you into the general concept of Fallout: London, then you are unleashed into an opening segment that leaves you with no hard and fast backstory aside from "resident test subject" at the local Cheesecake Factory. You have no voiced protagonist which helps slide the player into their character's shoes, and there is a noticeable increase in perks, stats, factions and items being useful in dialogue that integrates conversation much deeper into the other game mechanics than Fallout 4 ever allowed it to be. You get a British rework of the Pip-Boy early on, along with a belt-mounted flashlight and a healthy dose of What-The-Fuck Syndrome by the fact that you wake up to a castle under siege. If the castle were underground, run by brainiacs.
The main plot, with what little of it I have gone through so far, seems incredibly competent. It is here to facilitate one thing and one thing only: a continued exploration of mechanics and roleplaying. As mentioned previously, you are very deliberately carried through the plot in a way that spoonfeeds only as much mechanical depth as you need at any given time. You learn piece by piece, which makes each one all the more valuable, and the same applies to the story's threads and the city of London. The main path when you escape the intro area is more or less a suggestion; you have two main health debuffs that you must find a way to undo, and it's your job to explore London to do so. You're introduced to the Vagabonds as your first joinable faction, but that introduction also allows you to learn about the Thamesfolk whom you can choose to search for first rather than getting in with any specific group. I chose to join the Vagabonds because, on survival mode in an already hard game, there is a decided need for any and all advantages that an extended NPC family can provide.
But that's the thing: I didn't have to join the Vagabonds. Hell, I may not have to join anyone at all. The interactions you have along the storyline give you openings for these faction questlines, but don't require you to pursue them. This is a staple of many Fallout games, including Fallout 4, and it felt good to see it implemented so early on in the mod as it sets a standard. Your quest doesn't rely on factions, but getting involved in a faction is a great way to understand the world that Fallout: London presents. It is a world in which the city has been in turmoil for so many years, with betrayals and failed alliances preventing any harmony between the different gangs. The highly irradiated Thames River creates a natural barrier and obstacle for any group looking to expand too quickly, and thus the political landscape has remained fractured. Powerful groups keep to their lane, and live the good life for doing so. It will take a real mover-and-shaker like the player character to break the mold and push London to it's next big step. At least, that's how I see it.
Ferryman's Next Stop
I have a long way to go in London, I can feel that in my bones. But the world has already drawn me in so deep - despite the technical hurdles - that I don't know if this mod can flop for me. Whatever the rest of this mod has in store, I am confident that it will be a fun and interesting expansion of the Fallout storytelling I know and love.
Next stop on the Writers River: Enderal. Getting into FOLON really opened up an excitement for other total conversions, and Enderal is obviously the biggest one that I could go to next. The best part is that with its own Steam page, I can keep my Skyrim playthrough entirely separate from my Enderal playthrough. Oh, what a time it is for me to be alive! I have not one, not two, but three awesome Bethesda games to sink my teeth into, plus some secret side purchases (stay tuned) that will really open me up to some fun stuff in the future.
Well, that'll about do it for me. Have a great day, and remember: mind the fuckin' gap!
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