Fallout 4 Creators: Bethesda Softworks Released: 10th November 2015 PS4/XBOX One/PC £49.99
You know your history, right? Bet you got a good grade in school too.
So if I quizzed you on 'The Great War' between communist China and the United States that was fought in the wintered mountains of Alaska, and after dropping the Atomic Bomb on Hiroshima, the Chinese retaliated by dropping bombs on America, you'd know all about that, right?
Of course that's not real, but these are the stepping stones to creating the rich world of Fallout, writes Aaron Champion.
The setting of this game is Boston, 2277, 200 years after the bombs dropped, in a slightly different USA; the country actually discovered Atomic fusion a lot earlier and have thus adjusted their technology accordingly, life looks very 'The Jetsons'.
'Vault-Tec', an advanced technology company, just before the bombs dropped, developed underground 'Vaults'; capable of sealing up to 200 humans inside, safe from the nuclear radiation, with the ability to grow food, create oxygen, raise and teach children, and so much more.
These Vaults were locked shut until the 'All Clear' was given by Vault Tec, however, some of these were never given this message and have been locked ever since.
It is now a known fact that these Vaults were actually used as experiments, to see what would happen to humans under certain conditions.
For example, a vault with 99 men and one woman, a vault run entirely by children, a vault in which plant life took over human life, and your vault is no different.
Vault 111 was used to test Cyro technology (the ability to freeze and preserve a living human for an extensive amount of time) however, something went wrong and you are now tasked with finding out who stole your son whilst you were frozen, and who duped your town into becoming test subjects.
If you've played Fallout before, this is more of the fantastic gameplay you've come to love; first and third person views, hundreds of locations to explore, gruesome enemies to defeat, and a mental sense of humour.
Fallout 4 has perfected every bad (but not that bad) feature of the other games too; for example looting enemies and looking inside boxes does not require a separate, time consuming animation, instead you hover over the object and can instantly see inside and take from there.
I have two favourite aspects of this game; the first of these is customisation. Thousands of weapon mods, armour mods, settlement building, Power Armour customising, chemical creating, food cooking, drink brewing, the list is almost endless.
Secondly, the tiny feature, that adds so much to the gameplay, is the junk found. In previous iterations of the series, junk was just that; useless and, quite frankly irritating when accidentally picked up (as it takes up more room that you can use to carry).
Now, however, junk has a use; every single thing found in the game can be retained and later turned into raw materials to be used in all of the aforementioned customisation; bottles used as glass, tins used for metal sheeting, rugs used as upholstery, screws used to modify a weapon, etc. This means searching the landscape is even more engaging.
And much like the flexibility of customising, so is the world; incredibly engrossing and entirely expansive, you have a choice on which missions you complete, which people you help, which locations you explore; it is entirely up to you. Bethesda, the game's developer, have stated that their programmers still haven't done and seen everything that is in the game, that's how huge it is.
With confirmed 4 DLC packs, and more to follow, Fallout 4 is set to be the biggest, most enjoyable and never-ending game of, well, 200 years.
