Fallout 3

aka: FO3
Moby ID: 37167
Windows Specs
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Description official descriptions

After World War II, rapid technology development carried humans towards a supposedly bright future, fulfilling their eternal dream. But eventually war raged again and in the year 2077, the dream suddenly came to a halt and mushroom clouds dominated the sky. A few communities survived in their underground bunkers called "Vaults"; others mutated heavily. Overall, what was left of the world was nothing more than a nuclear wasteland filled with ruins of a once great civilization. Two hundred years later, the human kind slowly but surely leaves the vaults and reclaims the lands of Earth.

The protagonist is one of them. As a member of Vault 101 in the wasteland surrounding the city formerly known as Washington D.C. and now called "Capital Wasteland", raised under the tight rule of the Overseer and the watchful eye of his father, he doesn't know anything about what is outside. But on his nineteenth birthday, his father unexpectedly leaves the vault. The hero's goal is to find him, learning part of the truth about what the Overseer concealed all these years on the way.

Fallout 3 is a role-playing game with elements of a 3D shooter. It retains many elements of the previous games in the series, while somewhat shifting the emphasis from social interaction and ethical role-playing to exploration of an open, continuous 3D world and combat. The player is free to explore the game's world from the beginning, visiting many optional locations, talking to characters and completing side quests. The main quest line, however, is largely linear, posing moral choices to the player only during its final phase.

Character creation and customization are similar to those of the previous games. The player shapes the main character by allocating points into the S.P.E.C.I.A.L. (Strength, Perception, Endurance, Charisma, Intelligence, Agility, and Luck) attributes. The skill system has been mostly carried over from the preceding installments, including weapon specializations (small and big guns, energy weapons, etc.), and active skills such as Science, Repair, Lockpick, and others. Passive skills, particularly Speech, play a lesser role than in earlier Fallout games. A few skills have been removed completely. Skill points and perks are acquired when the protagonist levels up.

Combat system has undergone a major overhaul. Tactical turn-based battles from the previous games have been replaced with two different combat modes; the player is able to switch between them at any time. The simpler system of these two is action-oriented, nearly indistinguishable from traditional 3D shooter combat. The player character equips a weapon (ranging from a baseball bat to the destructive mini-nuke-launcher) and attacks enemies with it; damage calculation is based on the participants' statistics more than on the player's dexterity, though the latter plays a role as well. In addition, the player can opt to switch to Vault-Tec Assisted Targeting System (V.A.T.S.) combat mode, a real-time system that allows the player to pause the game at any time and target specific regions of one or more enemies until the available action points are used. After all the actions have been assigned, the game plays them out in a slow motion.

The Karma system from the previous installments is back, keeping track of the main character's actions and decisions made by the player throughout the course of the game. Ethically unacceptable actions reduce the player character's Karma points.

Spellings

  • 異塵餘生3 - Traditional Chinese spelling
  • 辐射3 - Simplified Chinese spelling

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Credits (Windows version)

473 People (446 developers, 27 thanks) · View all

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Reviews

Critics

Average score: 90% (based on 144 ratings)

Players

Average score: 3.7 out of 5 (based on 281 ratings with 12 reviews)

Brilliant But Not Black Isle.

The Good
Ok. Its massive. Its huge. Its just bigger than any other game I’ve ever played. You can easily beat the game without encountering two thirds of the stuff that Bethesda has created for this game. Unusual NPCs, Bizarre and breathtaking scenery, and challenging enemies are all here.

I like the fact that the designers mixed it up a bit with different factions and alliances too.

The graphics come very close to being photorealistic, especially when looking at the outdoors, with broken roads and burnt up buildings. I freak out when I see how the inside of the buildings are torn apart and crumbing. The rusted sheet metal of the Megatown buildings gives a real post war atmosphere to the game. There are so many little touches that you’d miss if you weren’t looking, like the various phases of the moon at night. The character models are very detailed and articulated. The don’t just stand around. They wander throughout the world, ready to interact with you and others.

You can play as a straight FPS, or use the VATS, which usually ends with a spectacular if not blurry death of your foes. You can size up your weapons and decide which one will be the most useful against your enemies.

There is an assortment of moral choices with long reaching implications, which is refreshing in a game. You can also make choices and add perks. The perks can really change some of the game play, making some fights and quests a great deal easier. Bethesda does know how to balance gameplay. You can play as any kind of character as you want, as long as you learn how to play with the character’s weaknesses and strengths.

I loved the collection of old time songs, and really wish they had more. I really liked how many of the songs had themes that matched with the game. The environmental music was ok, and pleasant at times but a tiny bit repetitive. The voiceovers of Malcolm McDowell as President Eaton were well done. Liam Nelson was almost unnecessary. Good job on the sound effects and foley effects.

Major Kudos to whomever designed the Dunwich Building. The Temple made my skin crawl.



The Bad
I miss the “everything but the Kitchen Sink” approach to design that Black Isle was famous for. Bethesda touches on it, but don’t go all out. The black humor that was characteristic of the first 2 Fallout games is missing or at least muted.

By their very nature, RPGs tend to be buggy. Fallout 3 had a couple bugs, but nothing too bad in comparison to others. The character models were a bit repetitive, but not excessive.

Now on to the stuff that REALLY bothered me.

A hard limit of 20? You have to upgrade to Broken Steel to get to 30? Ugh… The 3 voice actors were used repeatedly for all the same characters. Some of the quests were breakable by bugs. I had an experience where an explosion occurred on the west side of the map and when I fast traveled to the east, the NPCs acted like they heard the explosion.


The Bottom Line
Its great! It will take a while to get through. But it may also make you boot up your old copy of Fallout for nostalgia reasons.

Xbox 360 · by Scott Monster (986) · 2010

Simply brilliant - but might not be for everyone...

The Good
True enough, it offers almost limitless freedom of actions, perhaps more than Oblivion ever did. You explore huge devastated city, with no chance to ruin something for yourself if you get there ahead of time. Nice implementation of VATS - they found use for those old turn based action points, to placate old fallout fans no doubt. Amazing soundtracks and 2008 graphic at its best. Voicing isn't bad either, at least much better than Oblivion is.

The Bad
None so far, beside little accidental crashes, but happens VERY rare. Some small items a little bit easy to miss, but I guess it's part of realism.

The Bottom Line
98% of people will love it, as its unmistakably best mix of RPG and FPS yet, but then again, those 2% who like the pure genre (skipping through talking, or finding it to be too much of an action game) will absolutely hate it. Oh and don't let anyone say it's short, there is no way one can skip through it in 7 hours unless maybe they sit with a guide in their lap and skip all conversations in mindless effort to pass it in record time (and even then I doubt it possible without cheating). Absolutely worth time spent - hopefully they will release add-ons, it seems to be build pretty much like Oblivion, with .esm files loading at start.

Windows · by Marina Shoykhet (3) · 2008

If you like oblivion and sci-fi, you'll like this.

The Good
The exploration that you can do in game could keep you amused for hours, there is just so much to see and people you can meet. Add to that the amount of side quest's you can do just add's to this. Most of these are acquired from the people of the wasteland, who you could enjoy talking to a lot.

One of the big plus points of fallout 3 is it's diverse range of weapons (and customised one off's you can find) can be a joy in itself. They are so varied, just about everyone has they're favorite. and there is just about one for every type of situation you will encounter in the wastelands.

One of the most interesting and unique features is the V.A.T.S targeting system. It do have limited usage of it, but is such a help, and so fun to use, just from a visual stand point.

The Bad
It's main quest line suffer's from a plot that is not exactly very original, but this is not a major bone of contention.

The ending, however is. Put simply, it's so rubbish, it ended up getting patched as part of the DLC.

The only other annoying feature is it's autosave. Or to be exact, how it won't save after you have just walked across the wasteland. Especially frustrating when you were killed by something like a lone raider or a landmine.

The Bottom Line
Worth buying. It is one of the current generation of consoles greatest games.

Xbox 360 · by Starbuck the Third (22608) · 2009

[ View all 12 player reviews ]

Discussion

Subject By Date
BOS-in-a-BOX bubbleman1987 Dec 9, 2012
(no subject) bubbleman1987 Sep 5, 2012
Minor complaint time! *spoilers* Simoneer (29) Feb 19, 2011
Melee character? BurningStickMan (17916) Jan 8, 2011
Teh Ultimate Fallout 3 Mod Guides! Slug Camargo (583) May 13, 2010

Trivia

1001 Video Games

Fallout 3 appears in the book 1001 Video Games You Must Play Before You Die by General Editor Tony Mott.

Australian release

Fallout 3 was originally banned in Australia in July 2008, but an edited version was re-submitted to the country's Classification Board. Funnily enough, this is also the version that was released in all regions.

German version

In the German version all blood and removed limbs were removed. This includes robot parts, e.g. the arms of Mister Gutsy.

References to the game

Fallout 3 was parodied in an episode of "Die Redaktion" (The Editorial Team), a monthly comedy video produced by the German gaming magazine GameStar. It was published on the DVD of issue 02/2009.

Awards

  • 1UP
    • 2009 - "Digital Delivarence" Award for Best DLC in 2009 (Editor's Choice)
    • 2009 - "Digital Delivarence" Award for Best DLC in 2009 (Reader's Choice)
  • GamePro
    • February 2009 (issue 245) - PC Game of the Year 2008
  • GamePro (Germany)
    • February 26, 2009 - Best Console RPG in 2008 (Readers Voting)
  • GameStar (Germany)
    • February 26, 2009 - Best PC Game in 2008 (Reader's Voting)
    • February 26, 2009 - Best PC RPG in 2008 (Reader's Voting)
  • Gamespot
    • 2009 - Best Downloadable Content/Expansion in 2009 (Reader's Choice; for the DLCs)
  • GameSpy
    • 2008 – Game of the Year
    • 2008 – PC Game of the Year
    • 2008 – Xbox 360 Game of the Year
    • 2008 – PC Game of the Year (Readers' Vote)
    • 2008 – Xbox 360 Game of the Year (Readers' Vote)
    • 2008 – #2 PS3 Game of the Year
    • 2008 – PC RPG of the Year
    • 2008 – Xbox 360 RPG of the Year
    • 2008 – PS3 RPG of the Year
    • 2012 – #10 Top PC Gaming Intro
  • GameTrailers
    • December 25, 2009 - Best Expansion/DLC in 2009 (for the DLCs)
  • Golden Joystick Awards
    • 2009 - Ultimate Game of the Year
    • 2009 - PC Game of the Year
  • IGN
    • 2009 - Best Xbox 360 Aftermarket Support in 2009 (Reader's Awards; for the DLCs)
  • Machinima 2009 - Best DLC in 2009 (for the DLCs)

Information was also provided by Big John WV, PCGamer77 and piltdown man

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Contributors to this Entry

Game added by Sicarius.

Xbox One added by MAT.

Additional contributors: Katakis | カタキス, Jeanne, Apogee IV, Carl Ratcliff, Solid Flamingo, Zeppin, Paulus18950, Lizzy Carft, Patrick Bregger, Starbuck the Third, Plok, FatherJack.

Game added October 31, 2008. Last modified March 7, 2024.