Fallout 3

November 3,2008 - Fallout 3 has impressed many from the start. After winning numerous pre-release awards, Bethesda seems poised to continue its massive success from the Elder Scrolls series. Fallout 3 is finally on store shelves, and Bethesda has indeed created a beautiful game that offers vast amounts of options that should make Fallout fans proud.

Right out of the gate, you are given a wide variety of options for setting up your character before setting out on your life in the vault. You and your father live in Vault 101, the biggest and most notorious vault in the Wasteland of Washington D.C. Your father is a well-respected doctor until one day you find the vault on lock down. He has escaped and the Overseer of Vault 101 is looking to come down on you for it. Nobody is supposed to leave the vault. With a little help, you are able to escape the vault and head out into the Wasteland.

While you look for your father you will encounter one of the most fully realized worlds ever seen in a video game, something Bethesda touted heavily prior to release and certainly delivered. Grand Theft Auto IV had a great representation of New York City and Midnight Club: Los Angeles gave LA its due, but Fallout 3 gives D.C. much more. Vault 101 doesn’t initially set you up too well for what to expect in the Wasteland. But once you emerge from the vault, you will have no choice but to sit there and stare in awe at the barrenness of what is laid out in front of you.

The draw distance is incredible. You can see for miles. That works in a positive and negative way. At first, you must travel by foot, so looking out onto all that land sets you up for plenty of time devoted to simply traveling. After some time with the game, you’ll be able to use your PIP-Boy 3000 to fast travel between discovered areas (though only when outdoors). Still, though, it is worth taking advantage of the work that has been put into the game’s massive world. There is so much to see and discover. We can guarantee that unless you put close to 100+ hours into the game, you won’t discover every location out there.

The PIP-Boy 3000 is a great tool within the game. You get it during your tenth birthday party back at Vault 101. It’s meant for vault work, but you know how that turns out in games. The PIP once again grants you access to stat-tracking. Skills are similar to how they were in previous Fallout titles with a little modification. Fallout 3 also mixes perks into the gameplay this time. No, they aren’t replicas of the perks found in Call of Duty, but they do give you solid advantages. One perk can give you bonus radiation resistance; another can give you enhanced endurance, and so on. You can build all of these up decently well.

It takes quite a while to level up, so if you want to reach Level 20, be ready to put in solid hours. We just missed out on reaching Level 14 on a single playthrough with just a few side quests finished. If you play with harder difficulties, though, you’ll reach 20 easier. Throughout playing, you’ll definitely want to take advantage of biggest element introduced to the series: VATS.

VATS stands for Vault-Tec Assisted Targeting System. It “pauses” the game to allow for a queue of actions you want to perform. You don’t have too many options with a melee weapon, but a gun will give you plenty. While targeting, you can choose which limb to shoot and you will be shown the percentage of how likely you are to hit that limb. The number of shots you can queue up depends on both how many Action Points you have available at the time and how much AP each shot will deplete.

The system adds an interesting dynamic without cheapening the experience. It gives you a good amount of control and helps you determine how much ammo you are going to need to use. After choosing what to do, it sends you into a visually beautiful slow-motion cinematic. Even using it to smash a radroach with a bat is fun as hell. However, it doesn’t always live up to its expected accuracy. Sometimes a wall will get in the way or you will just plain miss. And of course there will be the times where it just won’t be useful, so you’ll want to stick with shooting from the hip.

One of the biggest issues with the game is the third-person camera view. Rather than being directly over your shoulder like recent third person shooters like Resident Evil 4, it’s in an awfully obnoxious overhead-like place from a very awkward angle. It comes in handy when trying to peer behind a wall, but for the most part you will want to stick with the first-person view.

Other than the occasional hiccup with VATS, the gameplay is solid. You can move around well but we wish there was a sprint option. All of the weapons are balanced and none should give you too much of a hassle. There are some great weapons in the game, some of which you won’t find until much later. The Ripper, for instance, is good for cutting up creatures, while the Fat Man, quite simply, “rules”. We did experience some freezing issues earlier on in the game. We can’t be sure if it was just an issue with our disc, but it’s something to look out for while playing.

The Wasteland is beautiful including every inch of land, every character, and every gun; everything you see is fantastically well done. We were very impressed with some of the explosion effects late in the game (and heard a great anti-Communist quote right before the explosion. You’ve got to love propaganda). Fallout 3 packs in some great audio effects and voice overs. Liam Neeson does a great job voicing your father, and Ron Perlman is included as well. All other characters are exceptionally well done.

So what you have here with Fallout 3 is a great addition to the series, even if you are a die-hard fan of Black Isle Studios’ work with the previous Fallout titles. It has some slight faults, but the quality of the rest of the package more than makes up for it all. If you haven’t already, go pick this up. It’s a great addition to this season’s line up.

Games, News, Reviews, Media and More