Fallout 3 Review

Fallout 3 is an incredibly original title in a next gen World seemingly bursting with first person shooters. Whereas most FPS games seem content on having pure carnage and a multiplayer system to please the fans Bethesda have shunned multiplayer for an engaging story, atmosphere you can almost taste and originality by the bucket load.

Fallout 3 is the first in the series to be made by RPG powerhouses Bethesda,after buying the rights from Interplay and is the first true sequel to Interplay’s Fallout 1 & 2. While the original 2 games took the shape of isometric RPGs Bethesda have blended RPG and FPS to great effect in a similar fashion to that of Morrowind and Oblivion. However to pass this game off as simply “Oblivion with guns” doesn’t do Fallout 3 justice.

The game itself takes place in Washington DC in 2277AD some 200 years after an American war with China which resulted in a nuclear war leaving the US in radiated ruin. While most of the population was killed many survived through living in a series of underground vaults, and this is where the main character comes in. You are a resident of Vault 101 which has reportedly been sealed for 200 years. Whilst futuristic in setting the game itself is set in a surreal view of the future from a 1950’s perspective. From the music on the in game radio to billboard designs and vending machines. The unique blend of designs throughout the game works extremely well, so well in fact that switching from an old World War 2 style pistol or rifle to a laser or plasma weapon doesn’t seem out of place at all. Even the architecture is a mix of historic and distant future yet doesn’t feel in any way out of place.

As with most RPGs the first objective is to create your character’s looks, base stats as well as their speciality skills. While Fallout 3 is no different in needing to do this the manner in which it is done is extremely unique. Your character (be it male or female) starts quite literally from the beginning. Having just been born you are treated to a cut scene with your parents. From the dialogue between them you choose your sex, name and via a gene progression machine how your adult self will look. You are then eased into a blend of story, tutorial and character stat creation as your character ages from cut scene to cut scene. Starting as a one year old you learn basic movements and after interacting with a child’s book title “You’re Special” you then set your base attribute points. (Special standing for Strength , Perception, Endurance, Charisma, Intellect, Agility and Luck) Flash forward to your 10th birthday and you are introduced to your PIP Boy 3000 which acts as your inventory, stat screen and map as well as being given a BB gun and learning how to attack. A further cutscene sees you reach the age of 16 where you take an aptitude test in the shape of answering a number of quirky questions that decide you characters stronger base skills such as lock picking or Speech. This test can be skipped and the the strengths decided manually to keep repetition to a minimum. A final cutscene brings you to your escape from the Vault after being told your father has left and you are being hunted by the Overseer and Vault security. It is only when the Vault door finally rolls back and you journey outside for the first time that the scale of this game first hits you.

As your eyes adjust to the sunlight you are greeted by a decimated DC. Most of which is just a pile of rubble and the buildings that are still standing are charred and dirty. Unlike most games with their pop up backgrounds Fallout 3 has incredible draw distance. In other words if you can see it…you can visit. After stepping out into the Wasteland for the first time you can just make out the ruins of downtown Washington DC in the distance, outlying towns closer by and an expanse of hilly scorched earth. All of this is your new potential playground as you step from the linear vaults to a true sandbox style game.

Your first natural stop off point is marked by a mass of metal close by that is the settlement of Megaton. A town built around an unexploded atomic bomb by remains of an airfield. Stepping into the town introduces you to Lucas Simms the town Mayor and Sheriff. Dialogue takes the form of multiple choice, some options are basic questions, some will touch of your main mission while others introduce you to karma. Reacting in certain ways to certain people or by doing certain actions your karma alignment will fluctuate. For example you can choose to be polite to Simms, say little or be aggressive all of which result in very different reactions from civility, to caution to a fight that will see the rest of the towns residents make turn on you and attack. Dependent on how far you are prepared to push karma in a certain direction can result in the game giving you a very different experience each time you play. A good idea of how much this game can differ simply by your actions is found right in Megaton. Taking a good or neutral stance which Lucas opens up the possibility to diffuse the bomb in the middle of town. Should you diffuse it you get a big boost is karma, are handed a nice amount of bottle caps (the games’ currency) and keys to an abandoned house in town that becomes your home where you can store items or weapons, change the interior design or rest and recover your health. You can leave the bomb as it is for no gain at all or when walking into the town bar you may come across Mr Burke a sinister guy in a suit and fedora giving off a 1930’s gangster vibe who gives you the option of arming the bomb and destroying the town. This results in not a home in an entirely different area a HUGE drop in karma and Megaton and it’s residents no longer existing (except for the malfunctioning head of the town’s robot deputy laying near the remains of the town). Karma gains or losses aren’t restricted to big gestures such as this however. Simply stealing items of junk, lock picking doors and hacking computer terminals in places you shouldn’t all has an impact. Terrorizing a few members of a settlement can result in other residents fleeing when you approach or attacking you on sight. All of this adds up to a potentially different experience each and every time you play the game through.

Travelling around the Wastes, much like Oblivion is a process of walking to each location to “unlock” it and then using fast travel via your map. The locations can be anything from a park to a multi-storey building, not all of them are mission related but for the budding explorer there are plenty of items to find. While most items are junk that you won’t have any use for other than selling to vendors, it is possible to find a whole host of weapons, armour, health items, stat boosters and even schematics to create weaponry from certain junk items you find. Getting to these items is no cakewalk however, the whole of the DC area is full of a variety of survivors all either enforcing their will on the ruins or simply trying to survive. Whether it be the Mad Max style raiders, the power armoured Enclave, futuristic robots or mutated creatures the area is infested with enemies all out to take you down. How you defend yourself is totally down to choice. Not only do you have a wide range of weapons ranging from baseball bats or sledgehammers through hand guns all the way up to miniguns or personal mini nuke launchers the manner in which you choose to fight is also down to personal choice. Not only have Bethesda allowed the FPS fans to play this game as a straight up shooter they also incorporated a semi turn based combat for those who aren’t into constant action using the VATS system. VATS is engaged by a single press of a button that effectively pauses the game. Your potential targets are then zoomed in on, you are given a breakdown of hit percentages for each part of the body and then use action points to stack commands. Targeting individual body parts can result in anything from instant kills to the crippling of body parts to slow your target or make them drop their weapon. The action points used to do this aren’t limitless however should the target survive it is usually enough to give you breathing space to then shoot from the hip in instant action and get the job done. The difficulty comes in when facing larger groups of enemies how to manage your action points to do the most damage to the group while minimizing potential damage to yourself. The weapons themselves aren’t without problem. Depending on how you play the game ammo for any gun can be hard to come by. Add to that the fact the each weapon or piece of armour you use degenerates with each time it is used you are actively encouraged to use everything you come across. If you find a weapon you prefer using and can find a regular stock of ammo it is possible to repair it using either certain vendors or by repairing it yourself with another version of the same weapon. The amount each item can be repaired is proportional to your ( or the vendors) repair skill, so for instance a vendor may only be able to repair an item to 50% whereas if you work on your repair skill and get it to 100% you can fully repair it and reap the benefit, whether it be increased defence on an armour piece or increased damage from a weapon.

Working on skills can be done in 2 ways. As you kill enemies, pick locks and hack computers you are given experience points. As you accumulate points and level up you are then given a pool of points to distribute into your various skills. Each of the skills also has a corresponding rare book that gives small boosts that can be found all over the Wasteland. As a result if you are prepared to search long and hard it is entirely possible to have a number of skills hitting the maximum 100 points. Each time you level not only are you treated to a pool of attribute points you are also awarded a list of perks from which to choose. Depending on how you attribute your points and whether you are playing as a good or bad character these perks can vary completely and each perk can give further skill boosts or add other possibilities as to how you play the game. For example should your sneak skill be high enough when you hit a certain level you will be allowed to choose the Mr Sandman perk. This perk turns you into somewhat of an assassin and allows you to murder humanoids in their sleep with a single click or risk of drawing attention to yourself as opposed to shooting or clubbing them and possibly not getting a one hit kill or causing enough noise to arouse attention. Other perks such as Lady Killer/Black widow allow your character attacking bonuses against members of the opposite sex as well as opening extra dialogue options in some situations. The potential perk combinations are huge and with only a single choice per level until you reach the level 20 cap it is a question of deciding which would benefit you more with each level you raise. Even having all of your perks selected the chances are you will hit certain points in the game where you wish you had chosen something else just to have a slightly easier pathway through certain situations.

So how can Fallout 3 be summed up?

Graphically the game is an absolute treat. From character modelling to game environments everything is extremely well drawn and rendered. No small detail has been overlooked at all from the designs on junk and boxes to the nuclear winds whipping the wispy clouds through the sky at breakneck speed nothing has been left to chance. Even the small details on the enemies isn’t missed. From the radiated scars to the makeshift armour on the 30ft tall Mutant Behemoths. I’ve heard many a game critic speak of next gen gaming’s various shades of brown and grey and while this game is no different in that aspect it is the colours that fit to the theme. There are splashes of colour to be found but all has been faded as you would expect after 200 years of laying derelict and uncared for. Without question the most colourful touches to this game are from explosions in particular of the nuclear variety where there sudden blinding flash and subsequent mushroom clouds are again dealt with in jaw droppingly great detail.

Soundwise Bethesda have been very subtle. Each weapon strike has it’s own sound and a sound that is totally believable. Baseball bat swings and hits sound like baseball bats sings and hits. Handguns sound like peashooters compared to shotguns or rifles. Explosions sound like they do damage. However just with the graphics it is the small audio touches that despite being easy to miss all make for that authentic experience. Brushing against a table with a bottle on it is greeted by the sound of a bottle toppling and rolling in synch to the animation and the growl or shout of an enemy will change in volume depending on how close they are. When it comes to music the game is dominated by the radio stations and while the DJ chatter between songs does become repetitive it does accurately reflect how you are progressing. In the instance of Galaxy News Radio DJ Three Dog will report on things you have done throughout the game. Should the in game radio not be your cup of tea there is also subtle ambient music that doesn’t dominate the gameplay but will adjust from gentle melody to a more up tempo tune when you are under threat. Voice acting is also extremely well done. Unlike with Oblivion where you hear the same voice spouting the same lines for a wide range of characters here each person or enemy feels individual.

Gameplay? Having the choice of playing the game as an all out FPS or as a tactical shooter is a masterstroke. While the VATS cut scenes may not always be spot on the switching between the 2 styles is pretty much faultless. Add to that the huge options in skills and perks as well as the karma alignments and then replay ability is significantly increased. For those who want to search every inch of the Wasteland there is easily a solid 80 hours of gameplay available on one play through and for the achievement lovers out there exploration and replay is an absolute must to rack up the 50 available. The learning curve is also well balanced. The further you travel from Vault 101 the more dangerous the enemies and the bigger the groups.
All this being said there ARE bugs in this game I found my game crashing on a handful of occasions but the autosave function put paid to any great loss of progress. On occasions dead bodies just go into a wild epileptic fit or decapitated heads can jig around or circle endlessly which. There are also a couple of occasions where certain enemy types will sudden skyrocket without reason. However these occasions are few and far between and do not take away from what is a truly excellent title.

Graphics 9.5
Sound 9.5
Gameplay 10
Playability 9.5
Overall 9.5

Simply put a must buy for all FPS,RPG or adventure types out there. The gameplay is solid enough to hold out on it’s own while the storyline is engaging and huge range of options allows for great replay value.There are bugs but they don’t dampen the experience. The lack of a multiplayer game will upset some however fitting that option into this title would be an incredibly difficult task.