In “Fallout 4,” you play the “Sole Survivor” of Vault 111, a bunker in post-apocalyptic Boston. The world has been destroyed by a nuclear bomb, and your family has been destroyed by the villain Kellogg, a character who kills your wife and kidnaps your son.

Your job, of course, is to get him back.

“Fallout 4,” with its increasingly tense storyline, is a great take on the “survival of the fittest” genre. Throughout the game, you meet new people (some good, some bad) and attempt to get new weapons and armor for your fight. The toughest battle is against the game’s “Supermutants,” because you never know what’s coming; they’re always hiding and can find you quickly. When they do find you, they attack with whatever weapon is available to them, making this a great game for more advanced gamers.

In fact, “Fallout 4” is likely to start conversations between gamers about how great the game is, how hard it is, and the weapons, houses, armor and other elements available in the storyline. The graphics are likely to be another conversation starter, as the visuals have vastly improved from “Fallout 3.” For example, your canine companion Dog Meat actually looks like a dog now; in “Fallout 3,” he looked more like some half-hyena hybrid.

“Fallout 4” has received a huge amount of love over the past couple of months, which is well-deserved. The only noticeable drawback is that the RPG sometimes takes the player too long to accomplish the missions they’ve been assigned. But that one little complaint hardly matters: The game, made by Bethesda Game Studios and available on PlayStation and Xbox, is impossible not to recommend.

(3½ out of 4 stars)