Fallout 3
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Fallout 3
RPG of the Year?
It has been many years since we have had a Fallout game that has been considered to be very good and then it was only on the PC. So when Interplay sold the single player rights to Bethesda, so they could start the third title in the Fallout series there was much rejoicing and even some fear on the part of fans of the original games. People were worried that Bethesda would fail to keep the magic and dumb down the game. But fear not if you enjoyed Oblivion you will love Fallout 3, this is the darker, grittier, more mature cousin of The Elder Scrolls Oblivion.
I am a huge fan of the first two Fallout games and Fallout Tactics, but I did realize that the series needed to evolve in a new direction because the game could not use the same gameplay mechanics in this day and age. After playing through Fallout 3 twice now I can honestly confirm it was the right thing for Bethesda to take over this series and bring it into the modern age.
Fallout 3 has a great story and one we have not seen too often in a video game, but I will not talk about it because beyond starting out in Vault 101 and searching for your Dad across the wasteland in and around Washington D.C. (very common knowledge), the rest of the story is not known, but is one of the best game stories in a very long time. You start out literally popping out of your mother’s womb, hit A to cry, and then you name your self, pick your sex and how you will look. Then through a series of interactive and important flashbacks you learn about yourself, your family and the people of Vault 101.
Once you leave the Vault the game opens up for you, you can travel where you want, act how you want and help or hinder the people of the wasteland while being who you are in the game. Amazingly how the world around you reacts to you is based on your actions, with some factions even wanting to help you and others trying to kill you just based on a key choice you made during the game. In the end though Fallout 3 is not a game you will want to finish just once, but several times just so you can see and do everything in this incredible and one of the best RPG’s of this year.
Yes. That is a mini-gun and yes you can use it.
Gameplay
Some gamers might say Fallout 3 is The Elder Scrolls: Oblivion with big booming guns and they will not exactly be wrong. The game feels like Oblivion in many ways, but it is so much more then just switching off swords for shotguns. It actually has some interesting gameplay additions which take it above and beyond the last Elder Scrolls game.
Fallout 3 uses both a real time action mode similar to a first person or third person shooter and with the touch of a button you can enter this semi turn based mode. This turn based mode uses V.A.T.S., the Vault-Tec Assisted Targeting System which allows you to target specific body parts such as the head to the torso to the legs and you are given a percentage chance if you will hit and do damage. The entire game uses a skill based system where you might be aiming at the monsters head, but a failed roll will mean you miss. It is only as you level your character up do you do more damage and have a better chance of actually hitting the various monsters, mutants, animals, robots and others out there. The first person shooter real time mode plays exactly like a first person shooter except the bullets do not go where your cursor goes. V.A.T.S. uses action points which automatically regenerate and each weapon uses so many action points during combat in V.A.T.S. mode so it is not something you will be able to rely on all of the time. Careful management is an important skill to use during hectic firefights of your action points for quick victories over the enemies in the wasteland.
Fallout 3 uses the same skill attribute system from the earlier titles S.P.E.C.I.A.L (Strength, Perception, Endurance, Charisma, Intelligence, Agility and Luck) so fans of the other Fallout games will recognize them and which to start their character out with. But for those who are not familiar the basic information on S.P.E.C.I.A.L. is that Strength is for how much you carry and how hard you will hit with a melee attack, Perception adds a bonus to your explosives, lockpicking and energy weapon skills as well as if there are any enemies around you, Endurance is your physical fitness for health and resistance plus the use of Big Guns. Charisma is for using the speech skill and when bartering for goods (very important), Intelligence for Repair, Medicine and Science skills. The higher your intelligence means the more skill points you can distribute when you level up. Agility is great for sneaking and small guns as well as it affects your action points with V.A.T.S. and Luck will help all of your skills a little but improves your critical hit chance.
Lassie has nothing on your dog if you find him
Exploring the land is extremely important in Fallout 3 as you will find quests, locations and plenty of baddies to kill. If you just follow the basic quests you get soon after you leave the Vault, you will level up, but you will be no where near as powerful as you can be. There are over 200 locations to discover, plenty of sewers, buildings, military bases and vaults to explore. The level design through out is great, especially in the vaults which are fairly intense at times.
Being a role playing game of some scope the quests you perform are range from the standard go to such and such location and blow something or someone up, collect items, and more. The main quests in the game are incredible, especially near the end of the game where they are simply mind blowing and in the years I have been playing video games I have not had more fun playing the few end quests as I did in Fallout 3. Brilliantly designed and very fun, as well as feeling epic with a large dose of WOAH is the best way to describe them. The normal quests are just as well done, with some hilarious, scary and exciting parts in many of them. If I had one gripe about the quests, it could only be the actual quest journal which does not feel streamlined enough for such a high quality game. It gets the job done but it could be better.
Now Bethesda unfortunately caught some major flak from various countries and agencies for using drugs in the game to help boost your performance. They changed the names from real counterparts to fake ones, but they work the same with helping your alertness, pain management, radiation and more. But you can and often will become addicted and will have to deal with the effects of the addiction and trust me, coming down off a high, in a deep and dark vault with those altered effects going on is not fun with mutants everywhere.
Managing your health is important as you can image, but unlike Oblivion you can not just wait to heal, you must use Stimpacks, food or water which is radioactive or sleep in a bed which can cost money or you may have to kill someone to use it. Sleeping or using Stimpacks is also the only way to heal your damaged limbs, watch out for this because your health might be full but you can be still hurt and need to heal your damaged limbs. Radiation also plays a huge factor in the game, as there are places you will go which are highly radioactive, food and water are often radioactive and sometimes there are mutants which will make you glow in the dark. Using various drugs will reduce the radiation sickness, but it is also something you must keep an eye on because on the harder difficulties it is not hard to end up with severe or fatal radiation sickness.
While the gameplay in Fallout 3 is nothing new, except for the V.A.T.S. gameplay which is excellent, Fallout 3 has so much going for it the game feels like a whole new experience, even with the Oblivion overtones fans of the Elder Scrolls series will notice.
Charisma... great so people like me even if I am EVIL
Graphics
Graphically Fallout 3 is outstanding, just like its high fantasy cousin The Elder Scrolls Oblivion. The graphics are very similar in fact in many ways from a few textures to the obvious character design. But these are not bad, since most people can agree that Oblivion was and is one of the best fantasy role playing games of all time.
From the very first moment in the game when you are born, the game has this great Fallout look to it. Or how we would imagine how the Fallout universe looks in 3D. Rough, the use of steel, rusty, dirty and very old school in a perfect post apocalyptic manner, and even though the overall look of the game does not vary very much, the quality is so high in the overall level design you do not care.
Like The Elder Scrolls Oblivion, Fallout 3 suffers from some animation issues when the character dies and they enter the “rag-doll” death effect. A few years ago this would look fine, but we have seen better and normal death physic effects in many other games. The death effects when a character explodes or implodes or loses a head look great with plenty of blood and guts spraying everywhere, splattering the floor and sometimes even you.
Your head is crippled, time to fix it.
Audio
Bethesda is one of the few companies who understand that a great story needs a great voice acting cast to tell the story from start to finish. Oblivion is proof of this when they hired an outstanding cast for The Elder Scrolls Oblivion when they hired Patrick “Captain Picard” Stewart and Linda “Wonder Woman” Carter among many others. In Fallout 3 we still have a couple of recognizable voices, such as Liam Neeson as your dear old dad and Ron Perlman as the narrator (same as in the first two Fallout games). Almost every voice actor is on the top of their game, spouting profanity and insults with bile in their throats or attempting to gain your favor or they just want to grab your attention and make them selves a general nuisance.
All of the music is excellent, pulled from such musical artists as The Inkspots and Bob Crosby and the Bobcats with their classic sounds from the 30’s, 40’s and 50’s. Musically the game hits the right notes at the right times except for the adventuring music which does become slightly repetitious.
Sound effects are top notch as well with some stellar sounds for everything from monster growls, weapon sounds and everything else which snap, crackles and pops in the game. And everything which does make a sound effect does in this 1960’s era sound effect for key items such as computer terminals to projectors. The amount of detail in the sound effects is subtle and direct from some alternate 1960’s universe and we can almost see Andy Griffith walking around if he was transported to a post-apocalyptic world.
You will do this often and it never gets old.
Value
Like all of Bethesda’s titles, Fallout 3 has immense replay value, giving you so many different ways to play it from sneaky to a builder to even just a gunslinger type of character. Plus there is the absolute fun way to be really evil or neutral or even just a good character. But no matter how you decide to play your character the game will keep you on your toes, your radioactive toes.
"Braaaiiiinnnzzzz...."
Bottom Line
If you like role playing games, buy it. If you like first person shooters, buy it. The game is just amazing in everyway and we could not have expected a better Fallout title. Bethesda has another huge galactic hit on its hands and now we need to see some downloadable content please.
Pros
+ Very good graphics with some great world and level design
+ Audio is fantastic especially the music
+ Awesome combat and battle system with V.A.T.S.
+ Nice open gameplay allows you to play the game how you want to
+ Blow the nuke up…
+ Many cool weapons
+ Game is a constant challenge
+ World feels alive
Cons
- The bleary landscape gets old very quickly then again the world has blown up
- Many loading screens, we need a new engine for FO4 and Elder Scrolls 5
- Very hard at times, but you can save everywhere
- When wandering the world the music is repetitious and sounds like it came from Oblivion
- More voice acting would be nice
Final Verdict
Here's a small guide to help you understand our evaluation of games.
PRESENTATION GRADE
Can be from the game's box to the contents of the booklet, and even the game introduction. (Intro, menus, options, etc)
GRAPHIC GRADE
Up to what point the graphics have been worked on my the developper. The design type, the effort used for textures and environments, as well as animations and framerate.
AUDIO GRADE
Is the soundtrack a good match to the game's style, he ambient sounds keeping with the gameplay and the sound effects clear and convincing?
GAMEPLAY GRADE
Placement of the controls and the inferface that the player with be using during the game.
REPLAY VALUE GRADE
The most important factor in the evaluation of a game. It identifies the lifespan of the game and the fun of coming back again and again.
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