My Rating: 9.5 / 10

Fallout 3

XBOX 360 PlayStation 3 Microsoft Windows

ESRB Rating: M

BBFC Rating: 18

PEGI Rating: 18+

OFLC Australia: MA15+

OFLC New Zealand: 18+

Developer: Bethesda Game Studios

Publisher: Bethesda Softworks

Engine: Gamebryo (Oblivion, Warhammer Online, Civilization 4)

Reviewed on: XBOX 360

Spoiler Free

Mature Language (Keep in mind, this is an ESRB M rated game so kids shouldn't be playing this in the first place)

The Review:

You're suddenly awakened out of a nap and are told that your dad has left the vault, his assistant has been killed, and you're next. Within 5 minutes you've left the only life you've known behind forever. The great expanse of the Capital Wasteland first greets you with a sign that points you to a scenic overlook. As you first set eyes on your new home you realize something, you've never played a game like this before, but that it's a good thing, a really really good thing.

Bethesda's Fallout 3 comes 10 years real time and 36 years game time (it takes place in 2277) after Interplay's 1998 hit, Fallout 2. Along with a new location, new characters, and new missions comes a new game design. Gone is the isometric top down view and in is the first person view. Bethesda really went for more of an action oriented game than an RPG oriented game yet does not alienate fans of the first 2 games. You start out being born, and after questioning how two Caucasian parents could end up with a Hispanic child, you are soon witness to your mothers death.

Flash forward 1 year and your dad leaves you alone. As a future explorer you decide its best to escape your cage and wander around the room. The first book you come across is You're SPECIAL. Flipping through the pages edits the SPECIAL (Strength, Perception, Endurance, Charisma, Intelligence, Agility, Luck) aptitudes and will be with you the rest of the game. Flash forward to your 10th birthday and you're thrown a surprise birthday party. You receive 2 main gifts, a Pip-Boy 3000 and a BB Gun, both of which will remain with you for the rest of the game (well you can get rid of the BB Gun but it doesn't weigh much and does a significant amount of damage in comparison to some of the other weapons in the game)

Flash forward 6 more years and you find yourself taking the GOAT or the Generalized Occupational Aptitude Test. The results of this test are to show you what job you will have in the future but more importantly allows you to choose (or get assigned) three main skills. There are 14 skills that range from Lock Pick to Sneak and can be edited every time you level up. At every level up you also get to select one perk, which gives you a bonus in at least one skill set.

It's on a fateful day 3 years later (you are 19 by now) that your dad leaves the vault for unknown reasons. You are led to believe that your life is in danger and the only way out is to leave everything behind. You grab what little possessions you have and find yourself in a new world, full of radiation-enhanced creatures, mutated humans, and hookers, lots and lots of hookers.

While certainly not the first FPS RPG game, it is the first game that incorporates a turn-based style action mode that a user can activate anytime called VATS. VATS stands for Vault-Tec Assisted Targeting System and gives users the ability to pause the game, select which part of the body to attack at, and then have the game attack for them.

I used VATS more often then not and despite my previous reservations, found that VATS was my friend and that I should use it as often as possible. VATS isn't free however and costs Action Points which can be replenished over time or by the use of drugs such as Jet. Drugs such as Jet, Psycho, RadAway, and Rad-X all play in a significant part of the game and while they may help you temporarily you can easily get addicted to them if you take too many in a short amount of time. While a doctor can easily fix your addictions for 50 caps, you won't find a doctor in the middle of the wasteland and will have to travel to a city to get healed and back on track.

Weapons are certainly not hard to come by in the Wasteland and with enough knowledge you can even make your own. While you don't have to make any weapons yourself (I myself never actually made one and instead opted to only use what I found) there are bonuses for making your own as you can use what miscellaneous and otherwise useless items in the wasteland into your own personal ammunition. Weapons do degrade overtime and must be repaired over time. I did find this particularly annoying due to the fact that weapons degraded at a much faster rate than they would in real life (then again this game takes place in 2277 and isn't trying to be realistic by any means) yet it did add a sense of realism that sets it apart from other FPS games.

The Wasteland itself is about 16 square miles and is similar in size to Oblivion (Bethesda's previous RPG game). While it is in no way as large as Far Cry 2 (or for that matter True Crime: Streets of LA), the size is just right, and offers the ability to fast-travel to areas already discovered. While you may expect a nuked out area to be nothing more than dust and grime, quite the opposite is the Capital Wasteland. Cities (rather a group of buildings inhabited from everything from little children to super mutants), landmarks, and ruins scatter the Wasteland and do give the wasteland much needed variety.

Surrounded by open desert and small cities is Washington DC, complete with Washington Monument, Lincoln Memorial, and the Capital Building, just to name a few of the more touristy spots. The city is large and plays just as much of a character as all the other NPC's do. While you can traverse the city on the streets and alleyways there is a Metro subway system that you can also take (the subways of course don't work however they provide an easy way to get from point a to b nonetheless). The subway systems are themselves filled with

Radiation in the Wasteland is just as much as an enemy as a Mirelurk or a Mole Rat (as expected though in a nuked out city). Radiation is most commonly found in water yet can be found in food, drink, and even in the air in some areas. Medications like Radaway will get rid of radiation and keep sickness in check. The pip-boy doubles as a Geiger counter and tells you how much radiation your are being exposed to and how much radiation you have suffered. Food is often a double edged sword and while it does replenish a small amount of health it also adds a small amount of radiation.

Let's face it, just as in the real world, the wasteland is filled with horrible people willing to do horrible things, whether you give into a life of crime, killing, and stealing or follow your dads example of selflessness, virtue, and truthfulness is up to you. Nothing stops you from purchasing an assault rifle and absolutely tearing a city apart, killing moms, dads, sisters, brothers, sons, and daughters alike but there is one thing you gain by being good, karma. Just as in real life, karma's a bitch and having good karma on your side can help you out in some sticky situations.

Just as in Oblivion, there are several side missions and while I refuse to go into any detail due to the spoiler free nature of this review I can tell you that they offer a great variety and often are just as enthralling as the main quest itself.

Without spoiling the game I can tell you that the game's plot is very solid and full of twists and turns. It is one of the most gripping storylines out there and does not disappoint. The end climax is amazing and if there had been the right conditions I may have orgasmed.

Fallout 3 keeps Fallout 1 and Fallout 2's 50 and 60's style graphics and is filled with robotic servants and 80's style computer terminals. While some question why a world set 270 years in the future would look so retro I love the theme and found it very modern at the same time. Cars and electronic equipment litter the streets and buildings of the wasteland and remind me of what people in the 50's would have thought to be the future.

The Nitty Gritty:

Graphics: 9/10 The game simply looks amazing. While other games may have skimped down resolution on textures on buildings and other non-focal points, Bethesda does a great job of making you feel just as apart of the wasteland as the player him or herself. While they do a great job with the background elements I did feel the character animations lacked a sense of life that otherwise would've given this a 10/10 rating. This being said I have seen gameplay on the PS3 as well as a high-end PC and can say that while the 360 and PS3 game look virtually the same, the PC is a major leap in graphics and if you have the rig to handle it, I would definitely pick up the PC version if the best graphics are a must have.

Audio: 9/10 While there is no full on background music (which I love) the music from the radio is great and kept me company through more than one onslaught of Raiders. The voice acting is top-notch and the narration by Ron Perlman is immaculate.

Length: 8/10 It took me 9 and a half hours to complete the main mission of the game, and the side missions add on hours and hours of gametime. To fully 100% the game I would expect the average gamer to take anywhere from 4-5 weeks.

Replayability: 9/10 Once you complete one of the many endings you should try all over again and get a whole new one, with new skills, new attributes, and a new attitude.

Gameplay: 10/10 It's rare to find just the right amount of action and adventure and role playing in a game, and Fallout 3 is perfection. Dare I say it's even better than Deus Ex?

Overall: 9.5/10 The game is amazing and is a must pick up for those that like FPS, Adventure, and RPG games. Fans of the first two and players totally new to the Fallout realm will find the game equally as exciting and exhilarating. This game is easily worth the $59.99 (£49.99 and €69.99) price tag and will not disappoint. I give this game the game of the month over Fable 2, Dead Space, LittleBigPlanet, Far Cry 2, and Jillian Michael's Fitness Ultimatum 2009.

My Rating: 9.6 / 10

This game is amazing!! the size of the world is huge not to mention great to play! this game is game of the year hands down. There are a few minior glitches with the disc running so hard but I believe that NXE with the download feature will fix those problems.

My Rating: 9.8 / 10

Ilike the whole choose a body part to shoot and the choices in the game were funny too. I was hoping to see more choices and less glitches. The graphics were good but it was alittle too dirty for me. The sound is awesome, the gunfire, the melee, even the music seemed to fit right where it needs to be. The game wasn't difficult it just seemed that most enemies were overall just stronger than me and i needed to focus on evasion more than attaking. With the whole world at your disposal and the massive amounts of secrects make this a game to be replayed for a while. If it wasn't for the difficulty and gitches, It would've got a 10

My Rating: 9.4 / 10

From the creators of the 2006 GOTY Oblivion comes Fallout 3, a post-apocalyptic RPG set in the nuclear ravaged landscape of Washington D.C. in the year 2077, creating your own unique character head out into the open world and carve your destiny...
Read on to find out why this game is preparing us for the future...of gaming.


The environment is astounding!

Gameplay

So the gameplay is what you would expect from any good RPG, create your own character giving him/her the most crazy looks you can imagine and setting out on a quest in a wide open world with many secrets to uncover. Starting out at your birth in Vault 101 (a safe haven for people to escape the nuclear holocaust) you create what you want to look like... After this you will get taught the basics of Fallout 3 over a few “game years” and can begin to become whoever you choose, only when something changes one day in the vault and you are forced to leave can you really experience this RPG for full.
Upon leaving the vault YOU choose what YOU want to do, explore the wastes of D.C., become the saviour of humanity or the destroyer of it. Aside from the freedom of doing what you want you can take on the main quest which leads in from the events in Vault 101 (I won’t spoil it for you though), overall this main quest I feel is relatively short, around 8-9 hours long, but there are so many other side quests you can partake in your going to be at it for months.
Another interesting factor of Fallout 3 is V.A.T.S, (Vault-Tec Assisted Targeting System) which basically allows you to target individual parts of the enemy body and gives you a percentage of how likely you are to hit them. A great addition to the game as it gives it a more cinematic feel when you watch your target being blown to bits in slow-mo. However you can resort back to first person shooting if this doesn’t tickle your fancy.


V.A.T.S in action!

Graphics

The graphics are just beautiful in Fallout 3, light effects are astounding as you can watch the land get slowly lighter at dawn and darker at dusk. Bethesda have really gone all out to try and create a realistic game world that is believable, however I have noticed that the graphics can tend to glitch every so often which is a slight shame. I also notice though that when night comes in Fallout 3 it is damn near impossible to see anything without your light on. However I suppose if you went into a wasteland in the middle of the night you wouldn’t see very much would you. I do like the darkness in the game however, it can make you just that bit more creeped out when you know anything could be lurking around that corner.


Fallout 3 has earned its place as one of the goriest games ever

Music

What more could you ask for music wise in Fallout 3? Some of the greatest hits from the 50’s are in there! And the best bit? You can choose to listen to them anytime and anyplace thanks to an in built radio, some of the songs you can’t help but sing along to once you get the words, I know I have on several occasions without even knowing I was! Although you will hear the same stuff over and over again sometimes, a small let down. Also in keeping to the trend of Oblivion, whenever you are travelling and there is no danger the music is fairly clam and peaceful, but when danger is near the music gets more faster and aggressive letting you know, your being followed/watched by something.


The Mini Nuke, Just one of the devastating weapons in Fallout 3

Replay Value

There are over 100 hours of gameplay in Fallout 3 with almost unlimited options to do and lots of quests, of course the game just keeps on getting bigger with new DLC coming, Operation: Anchorage, The Pitt and Broken Iron. Operation Anchorage is out now adding a whole new quest. What’s more is that the Capital Wasteland is so vast that it will take many hours of exploring to find everything!


Conclusion

Fallout 3 is the must have RPG of 2008, With an expansive (and realistic) open world to explore, an advanced targeting system and an enthralling main quest accompanied by lots of side missions just makes you want to keep playing on and on to see what happens next, with more DLC on the way Fallout 3 is still getting bigger and better.


Gameplay – 9/10
Graphics – 8.5/10
Music – 9/10
Replay Value – 9.5/10


Final Score
9.4/10

My Rating: 9.5 / 10