Conceptually, pretty fantastic, and the closest thing I've experienced to Outer Wilds since playing it a couple years ago. However, there are a few key mechanics (or lack thereof) that make this a less freeing adventure than I might hope. For one thing, I hate the fact that you can't take notes on characters, such as their attitudes towards other characters, their assumed associations, etc. Leaving me to try to remember all the faces and all the little facts I discovered about them is pretty aggravating when, if provided with a notes feature, I could feel proud of myself for putting things together faster than the game wanted me to. Another thing that bothers me is the part where the game says "oh hey, there's another body over there to check out, go check it out!" Like, yeah, sure, I'd love to, but right now I want to further inspect the scene you just showed me, as well as refer to my journal to try to piece things together. Just a bit more on rails than I would like.

Upon watching the first episode of Amazon's Fallout TV series, I was reminded of both everything I loved about Fallout, and everything I hate about Bethesda's gradual tonal shift away from the bleak lo-fi absurdism of the originals, and towards a more conventional, less eccentric flavor of post-apocalyptic sci-fi, peppered with slapstick comedy and well-established tropes. So, I decided to finally play the game for which I watched hours of playthroughs when I first discovered the franchise back in my early teenage years!