Fallout 3 Reviews

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Written by BuckGB on October 28th, 2008

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However, this begs the question whether or not Fallout 3 walks straight into the same trap as Oblivion. To anyone who played Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion this should be a familiar symptom. Playing Oblivion is simply breathtaking in the first few hours, but soon enough players realize there are tons of generic-looking Oblivion gates to go through and the story takes too damn long to get going. Now, whatever Bethesda did this time around, they sure as hell managed to tone down on such aspects in Fallout 3. The story is well-structured, though a bit short if you minimize exploration and stick with the main quests. At any rate, while there are plenty of indoor sections that look similar, it all felt far less generic than the countless Oblivion gates in ES IV.

Now for the bad news. Although Fallout 3 works at a rock-solid frame-rate, the game isn't technically flawless. Sadly, occasionally quirky AI behavior caused certain enemies to jam between rock formations or objects that got in the way of their movement. That's not all. Companions assigned to head into combat with you tend to get lost, confused and often fall behind while you're out there doing all the hard work. One time a friendly character couldn't make a simple jump to reach lower ground. Instead he took the long way around and... pretty soon a message appeared on the screen, explaining he plunged to his death (WTF? How? Where? Dumb ass!). Other technical issues surfaced. Frequent glitches were noted when my character aimed with VATS while behind cover. When pausing the combat, my character had a clear shot at his target and yet when firing, the bullet never reached the enemy. Well, apparently it was supposed to hit the cover, but it was blocked by thin air instead (???).

Those of you that have played the previous titles in the series before Bethesda Softworks took the reins will be happy to know that there are plenty of elements and nods to the old series. The Brotherhood of Steel, a band of men and women that are on a mission to restore stability by peaceful means will pop-up in your adventure. Plus, there are a lot of mentions and hints at how previous events in the Fallout universe have affected Fallout 3. The weird retro-pop 50's pop art is there also, with illustrations showing what to do in case of a Fallout, and helping to convey the dark humor that the dialogue and gameplay is completely soaked with. By talking to non-playable characters (NPCs), you will notice that more than one voice actor does the work for most of the characters. Nevertheless, all the voice acting is done very well, and there is still much more variety than there was in Bethesda's Oblivion. Talking to them isn't particularly engaging though, and it is a shame the developers didn't try to expand on the dialogue systems that were created in Oblivion. The audio is wrapped up with an incredible and varying soundtrack with the brash title theme as a basis for a great soundtrack that revs up during battle, and accompanies you well along your journey. Of course if you don't like the orchestrated pieces, you can always listen to some of the old 40's music, with each track kind of summing up a different part of the game, despite being real tracks from the likes of Billy Holiday.

As with most role-playing games, Fallout 3 has a system for earning experience and leveling up. Upon leveling up, characters are awarded skill points and perks. Skill points are used to increase your ability to perform certain tasks. Hacking into a computer will require a good Science skill, while picking the lock on a door will requie a high skill level in lockpicking. Simliar to skills, perks are earnd with each level advancement and give you more options for character development such as enhancing ability scores, skills groups, combat situations and many more. How you assign your skills, perks and develop your character is entirely up to you. In addition Fallout 3 allows for NPCs, enabling you to have a party of up to three characters.

Fallout's genius is that there's so much to see, do and discover, and it's rare you'll find a character who doesn't have a quest or directions to a new location. The game buckles under the weight of its own ambition in some of the epic scenes at the end, but wandering the wastes, finding new towns and getting involved in the world's politics is a thrill. The role-playing isn't as far-reaching as Oblivion and as an FPS it's merely above average, but there are almost no other shooters of recent memory as deeply imaginative and rewarding. Only BioShock offers such a consistent, well-designed world.

Visually Fallout 3 looks leaps and bounds more interesting than Oblivion did. The character models are much more believable and you'll find very few clones in the Wasteland. Generally the wastes look pretty consistent (nuclear bombs tend to give the world a pretty consistent coat of paint), but once you go underground you'll definitely see more variety. Burned out buildings and pristine bunkers make each new map a big unknown, and you'll really enjoy digging in to whatever dwellings you come across. The art design, on the whole, seems to nail a post-nuclear 1950s (even though the game is set in the 2200s) and Fallout fans could hardly complain that the game doesn't do the series justice.

Thankfully, the levelling system is different than Oblivion's. In that game, I used the first six hours of my gaming time lockpicking every door and stealing all kinds of possessions, with the consequence that I went up levels when I went to sleep. I was a master thief, but the moment I went into the wide world I would be killed in an instant. In Fallout 3 they chose a more traditional experience-system. With everything you do (from successfully opening locked doors to killing enemies) you gain experience points. When you have enough, you'll go up a level and be offered the possibility to invest a number of skill points into your skills. There's about twenty, giving everyone the possibility to create their own character. I am someone with a high skill in lockpicking, gifted in convincing people and master of melee and energy-weapons. I don't really understand anything about computers or small guns and thus I play differently than if I were a sneaky whizzkid.

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