‘Fallout 4’ Should be More Like ‘The Last of Us’

After just a few hours of Naughty Dog’s “The Last of Us,” any seasoned gamer will say, “Ah man, I hope the next Fallout game is like this.”

With an emotional story, gritty, yet beautiful graphics and one of the smartest combat A.I.’s around, “The Last of Us” is undoubtedly a game of the year candidate and a thinker-why can’t more games be this beautiful, this smart?

That’s not to say Fallout didn’t change the way people think about games. Epic is scale, options and possessing an amazing story, Fallout 3 especially changed the way people thought about adventure RPGs and games in post-apocalyptic settings. Even though New Vegas didn’t stretch the formula, it was still an excellent game that ate over 100 hours of your life. How many games can do that?

But “The Last of Us” makes you think so much more, in a tenth of the time. While it uses essentially a beefed up engine of the “Uncharted” games, it’s ultimately so much more than a fun adventure game. The relationship between Joel and Ellie will eventually go down as one of the coolest in video game history. It’s without a doubt in the league of other titles that force you to care about their main characters, titles the likes of “Ico” and “Final Fantasy VII.”

Hell, Cloud and Aeris never had to worry about Clickers.

With the game’s setting and gameplay similarities to Fallout apparent, Now ask yourself this: in all the trials and tribulations in the Fallout series, have you ever truly feared the death of your characters? Also, have you ever felt like your opponents could inflict damage on you if you were smart? Unless one gets out of control, and decides to shoot a boatload of innocent people, it’s very easy to stay alive the Fallout games, in spite of all of the enemies, obstacles and drama. While the long, tenuous journey is much more epic than “The Last of Us,” the at times buggy gameplay and nearly-retarded A.I. hamper the otherwise remarkable experience that is Fallout.

“The Last of Us,” on the other hand, possesses a more thinking-man’s beauty. Behind the coming of age story and grim setting is a beautiful game with much more polish than Fallout. And while the replayability and customization isn’t in the same league as Fallout, the story itself will touch you in ways the Brotherhood of Steel never could. Add in some thrilling combat and you have a game that almost forces you to play it.

While “The Last of Us” was never meant to be compared to the Fallout series, Bethesda should take notice- nothing is stopping Naughty Dog from making their own epic one day. The work and polish in “The Last of Us” proves this company is capable of much more.

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About Patrick Hickey Jr. 13819 Articles
Patrick Hickey Jr. is a full-time Assistant Professor of Communication & Performing Arts and Director of the Journalism program at Kingsborough Community College and is the chairman of the City University of New York Journalism Council. He is the Founder and Editor-In-Chief of ReviewFix.com. He's also a former News Editor at NBC Local Integrated Media and National Video Games Writer at Examiner.com where his work was mentioned in National Ad campaigns by Disney, Nintendo and EA Sports. Hickey was also the Editor-In-Chief of two College Newspapers before he received his BA in Journalism from Brooklyn College. Hickey's work has been published in The New York Daily News, The New York Times, Complex, The Hockey Writers, Yahoo!, Broadway World, Examiner, NYSportScene Magazine, ProHockeyNews.com, GothamBaseball.com, The Syracuse Post-Standard, Scout.com and the official sites of the Brooklyn Aces and New York Islanders. His first book, The Minds Behind the Games: Interviews With Cult And Classic Video Game Developers was released in April 2018 and is chock full of interviews with legendary developers. His second book in the series, The Minds Behind Adventures Games, was released in December 2019. His third book, The Minds Behind Sports Games, was released in September 2020. His fourth book, The Minds Behind Shooter Games, was released in March 2021. The Minds Behind Sega Genesis Games and The Minds Behind PlayStation Games were released in 2022 and The Minds Behind PlayStation 2 was published in January 2023. Hickey is also a contracted comic book writer, currently penning his original series, "Condrey," as well as "The Job," "Brooklyn Bleeds" "Dem Gulls" and "KROOM" for Legacy Comix, where he serves as founder, owner and Editor-in-Chief. Hickey Jr. is also a voice actor, having starred in the 2018 indie hit and 2019 Switch, PS4 and Xbox One release, The Padre (also serving as English language Story Editor), from Shotgun With Glitters. The sequel, The Padre: One Shell Straight to Hell was released in February 2021- Hickey also served as a Story Editor and Lead Voiceover performer. He has also done narration and trailers for several other titles including The Kaiju Offensive, Relentless Rex and Roniu’s Tale. Hickey is also the lead voiceover performer on Mega Cat Studios’ upcoming title WrestleQuest, responsible for nearly 90 characters in the game, as well as Skybound's Renfield: Bring Your Own Blood, where he voices both Dracula and Renfield, as well as several other characters. He also stars in Ziggurat Interactive’s World Championship Boxing Manager 2, where he performs the VO of nearly every male character in the game. He also worked on the Atari VCS’s BPM Boy.

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