Fallout 3 Reviews

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Written by BuckGB on November 1st, 2008

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Any game this ambitious and wide-ranging is bound to have a few flaws. I noticed a few graphical glitches in some of the underground locations, and some of the character animations are a bit stiff. Still, none of these minor hiccups was enough to distract me from the game's all-encompassing alternate reality.

Unfortunately, the game suffers from several of the same flaws that plagued Oblivion. The characters sometimes seem to be animated like walking mannequins. Several of them will even stop whatever they are doing and talk to you if you walk up to them, even if you are already talking to someone else. Thus, it's like trying to listen to two or three people talk at the same time. It can be very difficult. Their path finding is much better in this game, but when they run into each other they still look rather amusing.

Another must-have title to make wallets weep and players rejoice, Fallout 3 live up to expectations and only seldom stumbles, even then in expected areas where scale and scope get the better of it slightly. Regardless, it's an undeniable classic and if you only plan on buying one or two games this winter, we couldn't name a title that could give you value for money in the way that Fallout manages.

If the main story's plot twists are sometimes hokey, at least they fit with the '50s nostalgia that guides the design -- emblemized by an ever-cheery mascot. The style is rooted in the naive early days of the nuclear era, when optimism and the fear of annihilation went hand in hand. In "Fallout 3," the American Dream is a charred blueprint survivors are struggling to follow. But hope never dies, and the final stretch of the story includes a Strangelovian display of national power that's spectacular, ironic and heartfelt. The player leaves thinking America might just survive this war, right in time to start some new ones.

Fallout 3 is, hands-down, the richest, deepest, most captivating game world I've ever explored. You'll have that same feeling of awe you experienced after reading J.R.R. Tolkien's appendices at the end of Lord of the Rings. Middle Earth really did exist, if only in the head of a mad artist dreamer from Oxford, England. The world of Fallout 3 must never exist. Consider Bethesda Game Studios the Ghost of Christmas Future.

There is almost too much good to be said about Fallout 3. It presents the best sandbox (open-ended, do whatever you want to do) video gaming experience ever.

It would be easy to just say that "Fallout 3" is "Oblivion" set in post-apocalyptic Washington. If you didn't play "Oblivion" (Bethesda's award-winning RPG set in a mythical realm of swords and castles), you missed out on something beautiful. But "Fallout 3" takes this even further and delivers probably the largest explorable game world ever, and it never gets boring.

It's funnier how a year after Bioshock we are seeing something as amazing as Fallout 3. Just when you thought the next generation hit a threshold, Bethesda breaks through it showing us that they have staying power in this business. They initiated us into the next generation with Oblivion and now they have us drooling on our second course. Fallout 3 is a truly engrossing title that will have you stuck in a chair for hours on end. If you are a fan of western RPG's and want something different, add Fallout 3 to your list.

The futility as a straight shooter is slightly offset by VATS (Vault Tec Assisted Targeting), which has you queue up individual body parts of enemies for a more efficient, targeted, and cinematic result. But a mix of the two never quite comes to fruition without the right balance or feel.

Fallout 3 is a stand-out RPG that offers a heaping amount of replay value and entertainment. The NPCs that fill the world are natural jerks and it makes the experience all the more entertaining as they are humorous and nihilistic. The voice-acting helps take the game to new lengths and the VATS defines how players will think about Fallout 3 long after they complete the title. Fallout 3 is an outrageous game that's a joyful ride until the closing minutes of the game.

You've also possibly heard that the main story's ending is awful, and to be perfectly honest, yeah, it's a problem -- not even a choice so much as a gun to your head and an irrelevant cutscene that pays shallow homage to the hell you've scrabbled through. And when it ends, it really ends. No continues or tying up unfinished business or pushing through to the game's level 20 cap.

There's an easy solution, of course: Don't finish the game. There's so much more to do anyway before you chamber yourself like a bullet and pull the trigger on the epically anticlimactic and frankly bewildering finale. So don't do it. That ending will wait, and your appreciation for all the lovely things this game gets right will be better for it.

Oblivion with guns, then? Well, not really. Fallout 3 doesn't really fit such a neat description - indeed, its more traditional RPG elements feel closer to predecessor Morrowind, while its harsh difficulty and the streak of black humour running through it are pure Fallout. On its own terms, it successfully melds many aspects of the old PC games with the first-person perspective and grand scope of Bethesda's most celebrated title to date. Whether or not the two should have been bolted together in the first place is debatable, but this is a fascinating mess - much like the dystopia it portrays, you might say.

Bringing together excellent combat, complex role playing, a strong story, realistic and compelling characters, humour, fascinating environments, strong atmosphere, graphics and sound, as well as a truly memorable plot and ending is no mean feat. Fallout 3 is a masterwork. You simply must buy this game!

While I found scavenging to be oddly satisfying, the true heart and soul of Fallout 3 is how player choice is incorporated into the questing and combat. Every mission puts your alignment in the world on trial. Given how tough some of the choices are, it's difficult to play the entire game with the ideology of (I'm a good Samaritan) or (I'm a ruthless killer.) I entered the game with the hope of being as evil as possible, but ended up being a gray in-betweener. This falls squarely onto the shoulders of the phenomenal writing. The dialogue is brilliantly penned, some of the situations couldn't be more precarious, and the game has a knack for making you feel guilty and/or foolish. Unfortunately, as strong as the dialogue is, it's hard to embrace its emotional moments as all of the acting is incredibly wooden.

Although the overall graphics and their brown/grey tones typical of Next-Gen games leave a bit to be desired, some environments are truely magnificent, despite a technical proficiency clearly outdated. The graphics engine shows its age, with disgraceful textures and rough modeling not very successful, which is even more annoying as the game slows down heavily during loaded scenes. We also experienced few graphical bugs and occasional crashes, sadly something quite usual from games of this studio, even if they're scarce enough. Let's finish on a more positive note with a special mention for the excellent 40s and 50s musics that one can hear on the Pip-Boy radio, that give the game a nostalgic feeling that neither art direction nor dialogue seem to be able to convey. Definitely a plus to the atmosphere that remains one of the strong points of Fallout 3.

If it feels like I'm not getting anywhere with this review, it's because I'm taking great pains to not ruin the world for explorers. I can't stress it enough, the world should be what you're after here. if you're looking for amazing story, memorable personality, NPCs you really, really want to kill (or save, I guess, if that's your style), or anything else, I'd honestly suggest you look elsewhere. Just to give you an idea, here's all my gripes, in bulletpoint form.

1. I did not care about the NPCs.
2. I did not care about the story.
3. The writing is a cheap imitation of the previous Fallout titles.
4. The NPCs are pretty stupid and the AI is completely wonk.
5. Mobs can get caught on the smallest bit of geometry.
6. The quests are binary, as mentioned, and that's annoying.
7. I didn't really care about finding my father.
8. There's too much "junk" in the world.
9. Some of the support systems (engineering and lockpicking for example) aren't really support. They're necessary and core for the development of your character and totally key in succeeding.
10. The inventory is clunky and over-designed. Hell, the pip boy itself was left in the oven way too long (which is somewhat ironic considering how quickly this game came together).
11. Perhaps the greatest fault of the title (as a Fallout game), I felt no great connection to the people in the world or my actions.
12. The VATS system makes the entire game, assuming you haven't specced yourself into gimpville, way too easy.

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