Author: Trafficblast

Well, war has certainly changed. Fallout, the RPG series with a 20-year legacy, finds its latest entry taking another chance at braving a new direction: online multiplayer. It puts a major focus on cooperating with other people in a world with perpetual activities that seek to sustain your engagement indefinitely. It’s an enormous game and there’s a lot to see. Because of its online nature, GameSpot staff got access to the full version of Fallout 76 on the day of its general release, so we’ve been playing alongside you and everyone else.

At the time of writing, I’ve spent three modest days with Fallout 76, leisurely soaking in the world, churning through quests, and cooperating with both friends and strangers to do quests, participate in public events, and explore. I’m a series-long Fallout fan who’s enjoyed every mainline entry and avoided 76’s beta tests with the intent of making sure my first taste was of the launch product. I’m compiling my early thoughts here and will be updating my opinion with a finalized review once I’ve taken enough time to dive deeper and see the breadth of what Fallout 76 has to offer.

Fallout 76 feels like a game without a strong focus. It makes changes to the time-tested structure seen in Fallout 4 to make it function as both a single-player and multiplayer experience. But in doing so, both styles of play suffer from major compromises that exist only to serve the other, and as a result, neither is exemplary.

You and everyone else is cast a dweller of Vault 76, an underground bunker filled with overachieving, competitive people tasked with rebuilding the world after a nuclear apocalypse. That time is now, and upon leaving, you also discover that the vault’s overseer has undertaken a personal mission. Finding her becomes your overarching pursuit as you enter the vast remains of a scorched world where unknown beasts roam and every other human being is a real person playing the game.

Fallout 76 has no artificial human characters to interact with. The justification is that because the dwellers of Vault 76 are among the first to reenter this devastated America, there are very few coherent beings, and many of the folks who survived nuclear annihilation died before your arrival. Without established characters to populate the world, the vibe of Fallout 76 is an eerie one, frequently amplifying one of the series’ great strengths: the feeling of desolation. There’s a curiosity about the environment that drives you to veer off the beaten path, visit places that once were, attempt to imagine what life might have been like before everything went to hell, and what’s happened there since. Exploring the wasteland remains one of 76’s most enjoyable aspects.

But the lack of inhabitants is also Fallout 76’s biggest problem, and it limits the world to being little more than just an environmental showcase with things to kill. It means that the art of conversation, a fundamental series feature, is disappointingly absent. But more critically, it means there are no strong emotional anchors to help you become truly invested in the world, a complication that diminishes the game’s other core activities.

The biggest victim is the quest system. Without actually having people with needs and desires, initiating and undertaking quests frequently involves the use of environmental storytelling tools–listening to audio logs, reading notes, and browsing through computer terminals for key information. A quest will often explore the stories of certain characters, but they’re characters that have long since passed, and all you get are long monologues and one-way directives from a person who no longer exists and you can’t interact with. Your actions ultimately won’t affect anyone, or the rest of the world for that matter–everywhere you go gets reset with items and enemies regularly–and staying motivated becomes an issue after an extended period.

…there are no strong emotional anchors to help you become truly invested in the world…

Some of these stories are intriguing to be sure, and when you come across a tale about a character who piques your interest, you get excited to find out more about their last living moments. But there’s such an over-reliance on having disembodied voices talking at you for every aspect of the game that it’s easy for these standouts to become lost. The lack of a more relatable and personal connection between your actions, the world, and its inhabitants means that it’s easy for quests to feel like meaningless wild goose chases. It makes the idea of going straight into another quest–listening to more audio logs, running across the country to search for more doohickeys, reading through more diary entries–feel exhausting.

Fallout 76 also feels like it has fewer opportunities to complete quests in your own unique ways at this early stage, which exacerbates the sense that you’re having little impact on the wasteland. Lockpicking, hacking, and stealth abilities remain in 76, which provide a little bit of ability to choose how you solve problems. But the quests we’ve played so far all feel like they have linear throughlines to the goal. Exploring the world’s quieter, idle set pieces at your own pace remains the more rewarding narrative experience.

The reliance on things like audio logs and written notes also proves to be the biggest deterrent to playing Fallout 76 in multiplayer. By teaming up, you can explore the world together, get help in taking down difficult enemies, and complete any quest, but certain things are kept distinct to each individual player’s experience. Containers that hold items, for example, will have unique loot for each person who opens them. But what’s also unique is that quest objective completion is not shared, and every member in your squad needs to activate things personally to have them count toward their progression.

This is a great idea on paper, as it makes sure everyone sees each piece of a story themselves. But in playing with both good friends and strangers, I found that each person’s individual need to advance quests severely hinders the flow of the progress. Because of the need to wait for your squad to catch up, have each member take their own time to listen to important tapes (which is impossible when you’ve got voice chat going) and search terminals for pertinent information, questing in multiplayer requires a lot of patience and courtesy. Add to that the fact that Fallout is already a game that encourages constant, time-consuming gear management which penalizes your movement speed for being over-encumbered, and the idea of having another squad member just feels like an additional burden.

If you have a squad that is happy to skip the narrative content things will go much more smoothly, but then you’re denying yourself the one vector that gives these quests context. Multiplayer is more enjoyable when you and your squad are just content to leisurely explore the world, scavenge for items, and get into scrapes. Questing solo has its own obstacles too–packs of enemies will often have a handful of foes that are 10 or 20 levels above you–but not needing to wait around is definitely a big advantage.

Fighting enemies also doesn’t feel that meaningful in 76, a more morbid consequence of the lack of in-universe characters. Appalachia is filled with an assortment of delightfully mutated creatures both new and old, including humanoid enemies like the Scorched and Mole Miners who can wield firearms. But it isn’t as entertaining to take on enemies that haven’t wronged you or anyone you know. Without sadistic raiders and their despicable actions to be appalled by, interesting gang factions to get on the wrong side of, or being able to understand how this particular brand of super mutants came to be, the hostiles you encounter in 76 just feel like cannon fodder.

The combat mechanics don’t deal well with a lot of cannon fodder, either. Appalachia is filled with dozens of public events that invite everyone on the server to gather and participate in a unique task tied to a particular location. From the dozen or so I’ve seen so far, these largely boil down to escort and defense missions that ask you to hold back multiple waves of enemies. Fallout 76’s combat system is mostly unchanged from Fallout 4 and is serviceable enough to make small skirmishes with either firearms or melee weapons feel good. But the system is not so good that shooting hordes of enemies for 20 minutes in an event feels like anything other than a chore–the gunplay and movement are not satisfyingly responsive or kinetic enough to make them enjoyable for long periods.

That’s also partially due to the change in VATS. What was once a strategic pause-style ability that let you target body parts and take time to assess your surroundings is now a real-time auto-aim system that allows for additional damage, a change presumably made for multiplayer. It serves its purpose in being able to make precision hits on limbs when the action is manageable, but in more intense situations VATS does little to make up for the limitations of the real-time combat system as it once did.

Fallout 76 also falls victim to the series’ now characteristic penchant for technical bugs. Whether caused by the game engine or the online nature of the game, I’ve run into a number of technical oddities in the PC version. Problems like clipping through the world, frozen animations, entire buildings failing to load, enemies getting stuck in walls, audio logs not playing, enemies spawning out of mid-air, losing control due to unstable server connections, and being unable to turn in quests due to unresponsive prompts are just some examples.

Some of the changes in Fallout 76 are wholly positive, though. The straightforward but satisfying base-building component carries over from Fallout 4 and plays a bigger part in 76. A few smart decisions, like the ability to move your base camp for a trivial fee and the ability to save blueprints of entire structures for easy placement elsewhere, makes building complex camps a pleasant and fulfilling activity. The game’s unique take on player-versus-player competition is effective at deterring unprovoked attacks when exploring the world, too–it’s a lot of work for little reward if your target doesn’t retaliate. The flexibility of the new perk system (which is now card-based) allows you to change your abilities at will, which has encouraged me to use of Fallout’s weirder skills, depending on my situation.

Fallout 76 attempts to pull off some significantly new ideas for the series, but with few exceptions, they notably diminish many aspects of the game. Multiplayer is fun, but it’s not an ideal way to enjoy questing, and the shooting mechanics aren’t strong enough to make combat-heavy activities enjoyable for long periods. Things feel better as a solo experience, but the lack of in-universe characters makes becoming emotionally invested in the world and your goals difficult.

I’ll continue to play the game with the intention of finishing the campaign, a good portion of the side quests, and getting involved in end-game content. This review will be updated and finalized when all that happens. But at this early stage, I feel like the only reason I’m enjoying the game as much as I am is because of an existing fondness for the Fallout series, not because of anything that can be distinctly attributed to Fallout 76.

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Pokemon: Let’s Go Pikachu and Let’s Go Eevee are now available onSwitch, marking the series’ proper debut on Nintendo’s hybrid console. While not direct remakes of the classic Pokemon Yellow version, the pair follow its template very closely, featuring the same setting, story beats, and the original 151 Pokemon (plus their Alolan variants, which could be acquired either from certain NPCs or by transferring them over from Pokemon Go).

Despite their many similarities to Yellow, Let’s Go Pikachu and Eevee do introduce some new elements to the series–most notably Meltan, a brand-new Mythical Pokemon that hasn’t appeared in any previous mainline Pokemon game. Fittingly for a Mythical Pokemon, Meltan can’t be acquired through normal means, so we’ve put together a guide explaining just how you can add it and its evolved form, Melmetal, to your collection.

How To Catch Meltan

The key to getting a Meltan in Let’s Go involves connecting the games to Pokemon Go. As previously mentioned, you can link the mobile title to Let’s Go via Bluetooth and transfer any Gen 1 Pokemon you’ve captured there over to the Switch games. The Pokemon you’ve transferred will then appear in the Go Park, a new facility that replaces the Safari Zone in Fuchsia City. See our full guide to connecting Go and Let’s Go for more details.

To begin a transfer, simply speak to the receptionist at the front desk of the Go Park and follow the on-screen prompts. This is a one-way process; any Pokemon you send from Go to Let’s Go can’t be returned to the mobile game. However, you’ll need to complete at least one transfer in order to catch Meltan, as sending a Pokemon to Let’s Go will reward you with a special item in Go: the Mystery Box.

The Mystery Box is the key to summoning Meltan in Pokemon Go. Once opened, the Mythical Pokemon will begin appearing in the wild for a limited time, and you’ll be able to capture it just as you would any other monster. However, you’ll need to act quickly to catch as many as you can; the Mystery Box only remains open for 30 minutes, and you’ll need to wait a full seven days before you can activate it again by transferring another Pokemon.

While you can typically only transfer the original 151 Pokemon, Meltan is the sole exception. Once you’ve managed to catch one in Go, you’ll be able to send it over to the Let’s Go titles the same way you would any Gen 1 Pokemon. You’ll then be able to recapture it in the Go Park to add it to your team.

At the moment, this is the only way to obtain Meltan in either Go or Let’s Go. You won’t be able to find it in the wild in the Switch games, so if you’re hoping to add one to your collection, you’ll need to link the two titles together. However, The Pokemon Company has teased that a new Special Research questline revolving around Meltan will be available for Pokemon Go players sometime this winter, suggesting there will be other ways to acquire it in the future.

Meltan is a pure Steel-type Pokemon that stands at eight inches tall, making it one of the smallest monsters in the Pokemon universe. While it may not look particularly intimidating, it does have a notable distinction: Meltan is the first Mythical Pokemon capable of evolving, and it’s able to grow into a hulking monster called Melmetal.

How To Evolve Meltan

As before, Pokemon Go is the key to obtaining Melmetal. In order to evolve Meltan, you’ll need to feed it enough Candy in Go, just as you would evolve most other Pokemon in the mobile game. These are acquired each time you catch a Meltan or send one to Professor Willow, but be warned: you’re going to need to capture a lot of Meltans if you’re hoping to get its evolution, as the Mythical Pokemon requires a whopping 400 Candies to evolve.

Given how long it takes to reopen the Mystery Box, amassing enough Candy to evolve Meltan is a daunting prospect. Fortunately, if you’ve stocked up on Rare Candies, you’ll be able to use them to expedite the process. You can also feed Pinap Berries to Meltan during the capture phase, which will increase the number of Candies you receive if you successfully catch it. Once you’ve evolved Meltan, you can transfer your Melmetal to the Let’s Go games and recapture it in the Go Park.

Just as its base form, Melmetal is a pure Steel-type Pokemon. According to the series’ lore, it was worshiped in ancient times because of its ability to create metal. It is also capable of learning a brand-new move called Double Iron Bash, a two-hit Steel-type attack that can make the opposing Pokemon flinch.

Despite being more welcoming than other entries in the series, Pokemon: Let’s Go Pikachu and Eevee are deeper than they may initially appear. Before you embark on your journey, be sure to check out our nine tips you should know. We’ve also put together a guide on how to get Bulbasaur, Charmander, and Squirtle in the Switch games. For more, read our full Pokemon: Let’s Go Pikachu and Eevee review.

The latest pair of Pokemon adventures, Let’s Go Pikachu and Let’s Go Eevee, are now available for Nintendo Switch. Among other things, the new games feature connectivity with Pokemon Go, allowing you to transfer over certain monsters from the mobile title. In fact, doing this is quickest way to unlock the new Mythical Pokemon Meltan, but even if you don’t own either of the Switch games, you’ll have a way to get the new Hex Nut Pokemon in Go.

A new Special Research questline centering around Meltan is now live. By completing the missions assigned by Professor Willow, you’ll be able to encounter the new Mythical Pokemon in Pokemon Go, even without connecting it to either of the Let’s Go titles. The new questline arrived much earlier than anticipated; The Pokemon Company had previously teased that Special Research related to Meltan would be available this “winter,” although it hadn’t provided a time frame.

In addition to the new Special Research, Niantic is rolling out a few more special events to commemorate the launch of Pokemon: Let’s Go. First, you’ll be able to collect new Field Research tasks focusing on Gen 1 Pokemon at PokeStops from now until November 27. Niantic says these tasks feature monsters “not commonly found” in either of the Let’s Go games, such as Kabuto and Omanyte, giving you a good incentive to catch and transfer them over.

On top of that, new Raid Battles are slated to arrive in Go from November 23-26. During this time frame, you’ll be able to encounter certain Eevee evolutions–Flareon, Jolteon, Vaporeon, Espeon, and Umbreon–as Raid Bosses. Raichu and Alolan Raichu will appear as Raid Bosses more commonly during this period as well.

Unlike other Mythical Pokemon, Meltan is capable of evolving. Its second form is known as Melmetal, and it can learn an exclusive Steel-type attack called Double Iron Bash. Be sure to check out our guide on how to get Meltan and Melmetal. We’ve also put together nine tips to know before starting Pokemon: Let’s Go and a guide on how to catch Bulbasaur, Charmander, and Squirtle.

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When transferring your Pokemon from Pokemon Go to Pokemon: Let’s Go, Pikachu / Let’s Go Eevee, make sure you don’t do anything to interrupt the process, says Nintendo. Interrupting the transfer could result in you losing some of your Pokemon from Pokemon Go.

To make sure the process isn’t interrupted, Nintendo highlighted some best practices on its support site. When you decide to start moving your Pokemon from Go over into Let’s Go, make sure to avoid clicking the home or power button on your Switch. You also don’t want to press the home button, turn off Bluetooth, or suspend the Pokemon Go app on your mobile device. Nintendo also advises keeping your mobile device and Switch console close together during the process to ensure a smooth transition.

Following this advice should prevent any problems when you transfer your Pokemon. If you notice that your transfer has somehow paused itself or did not completely move all your Pokemon over, Nintendo advises you turn off the Pokemon Go app and uninstall it. After reinstalling the game, you should be able to resume the transfer again. However, any Pokemon that were in between your mobile device and Switch may be lost for good, “as uninstalling and reinstalling the app would cause the transfer process to be stuck in limbo.”

If you’re having trouble transferring any of your Pokemon from Go to Let’s Go–including the Pokemon Go exclusive Meltan–check out our guide. For even more Let’s Go tips, check out our list of 9 things you should know before starting and our guide to getting Bulbasaur, Charmander, and Squirtle.

In our Pokemon: Let’s Go, Pikachu / Let’s Go, Eevee review, Jake Dekker gave the two games an 8/10, writing, “…Pokemon Let’s Go Pikachu and Let’s Go Eevee are delightful reimaginings of the series’ origins and a deep RPG in their own right. It makes a lot of smart improvements on the original Red, Blue and Yellow while holding on to what made them so special in the first place.”