Fallout 3

The Good
Fallout 3, the game that I have been waiting for since I finished Fallout 2. Why back in 1998. Some 10 years later, and Bethesda finally makes good and releases Fallout 3 upon us. After so many false starts, can this be true at last? Am I really writing this review. Or am just dreaming that I am a man writing this review?

Oh sorry for my metaphysical meltdown just now, I haven’t slept in days. When I first heard that Bethesda was making Fallout 3, I felt elated yet not. I mean it could have been worse, what if Square soft had made it? It would have spiky haired goobers, teenage melodrama, kindergarten philosophy, and gasp, a contrived plot.

Can Bethesda’s unusual style of games live up to the classic imaginings of Black Isle? (And am I crazy or is everyone stealing my use of casual asides?-MM-)

To say that I was intrigued would be a bit of a misnomer. I preordered the game, the special edition, and went to the midnight launch. I did not sleep much that night, I can tell you.

Set about 20-30 years after the events of Fallout 2. We find that the wastelands are in worse shape than ever. Humanity has made little progress in turning back the tide, and reclaiming it’s past. Things really are worse than ever.

It is into this cruel world you are thrust. Will you help man’s progress or hinder it? Or maybe you don’t care either way.

Fallout 3 starts out very interestingly, and oddly it starts off with you as a baby. With simple objectives like “walk to dad”. It continues as you grow up in a Vault. Until on your 19th birthday, the game begins in full.

Your dad has gone missing. And Vault 101 is in uproar. Some of your friends are dying and the Overseer blames you, for the troubles, this leads to one of your first moral choices. You eventually make into the harsh wastes, leaving behind all you knew. Your goal is simple to find your dad. From here things get more complicated, at the fate of humanity will be on your hands.

There are tons of quests in the world of Fallout 3. Besides the main ones, there are a good number of large ones, from the world spanning, Nuka Cola Challenge, to helping, Moria complete her “Wasteland Survival Guide”.

There are also a slew of other things to do. From finding as many of the mini-encounters that you can. To collecting bobble heads, killing all the super mutant behemoths, the list goes on. Furthermore the Capital Wastelands are huge. And to see all the game has to offer will take quite a bit of exploring.

The setting is interesting as well. Instead of the West Coast of the USA, it takes place in the ruins of DC, the “Capital Wastelands”. Having walked those same streets myself in the real world, I found Fallout 3, chilling. Particularly when walking down Pennsylvania Ave. I have also been to the west coast, and did not find it invoked the same feelings. Perhaps because Fallout 3 just had better graphics, or perhaps it is because you do not see any real world places in Fallout 1&2. You can even travel to Bethesda, MA!

Fallout 3 takes place in an alternate reality. In which technology is largely based on nuclear power. Yet everything still has that 40’s-50’s art deco thing going on. This installment also keeps the series dark humor in tack. From the ridiculous notion of the coin-operated bomb shelter, the stupid grin of Vault boy, or the slogans like, “When the world ends, your life doesn’t have to!”

Now I would like to talk about V.A.T.S., and Fallout 3’s combat system. No V.A.T.S. is not a strange cult that worships a dead sci-fi author, or a special interest group, or a new age diet. It is the Vault Assisted Targeting System. Or VATS for short.

V.A.T.S. plays very much like the turn based system of the previous games in the series as well as Arcanum. During combat you can pause the action, and enter how many shots you want to take and what parts of the body you want to target. Head shots can kill the quickest. But a well placed leg shot can cripple your enemies, an arm shot can greatly reduce there aim. The amount of shots you get is based on your AP, which is based on your level, more on that later.

There is also standard FPS style combat, which is much more challenging that the V.A.T.S. And does not include to wicked cool death animations. The boys at Bethesda, took the Burnout franchise’s concept of realistic damage, and transferred it from cars, to super mutants. These animations are fun to watch and never get old. What better way to finish off a pesky mutant, than by blowing it’s head off, and seeing his eyeballs fly off. The gratuitous violence reminds me of the old skool shooter, Rise Of The Triad.

But wait there’s more! With the plasma gun you can turn your foe into a pile of goo! Fun for the whole family!

There are tons of guns and weapons in Fallout 3. There are of course the standards, like pistols, machine guns, and shot guns. Which are all fun to play with. But it is the absurd weapons that steal the show. Like the Fatman launcher, which fires mini-nukes. Be warned that there is a limited number of the mini nukes in the game. The is also the shiskabob, a flaming blade, that will slash and burn some super mutants. Other favorites of mine include the rail spike gun, which does exactly as it’s name implies, and fires rail spikes. And of course the junk gun, which fires well junk. These last three have to made on one of the workbenches found in the game.

Leveling up in Fallout 3 is your more standard system. You gain experience, and when enough is gained you level up. Each new level you can pick what skills you want, as well as a new perk. You gain perks quicker this time around. You can also supplement your levels by finding magazines. Guns & Bullets, raises your small guns skill, Lying Congressional Style, increases your charisma. And Grognak: The Barbarian, raises you melee skills.

There is also the Karma system. But fear not it goes beyond the good and evil thing.(Hey I’m philosopher and don’t know it!-MM-) There is good, bad, and neutral karma. Which lead to different perks, as well as different endings. There are also special perks which are quest related.

The graphics in Fallout 3, run on a modified Oblivion engine. And it’s looks fantastic. The world of Fallout is bleak, and terrible, yet beautiful, at the same time. (It’s like Detroit!-MM-) And the lighting effect are superb. As is the overall design. From the humans and non-humans of Fallout, to the places, you will go.

The sound and music excels as well. From the music composed for the game, to the licensed music. It’s all from the 40’s and 50’s and like Bioshock, fit’s the game wonderfully. A lot of reviews claim that the voice acting is not that good. How can that be when Ron Perlman, and Liam Neeson, and Malcolm McDowell, all lend there talents? I think what these reviewers meant to say was that all the minor characters do not sound that good. (Have these people played Final Fantasy X? They could not have if they think that this is bad!-MM-)

And that is not even entirely true. It is not that they do not sound good. It’s more to do with that you hear the same voices over and over. There is only one voice for the ghouls for example.

Another nice little effect is the radio. During the game you can hear Three-Dog, the non fascist radio personality, recount your heroic endeavors.

The Bad
For some reason Bethesda decided, that the level cap would be Lvl 20. Why? By mid game I was already maxed out! And the non-VATS combat tends to get a little clunky.

Venturing the seemingly endless subway systems gets old. The good news is once you have already discovered an area you can just zip there via your fast travel.

The A.I. can act oddly at times. And the bugs do not help. But they are not as bad as some may want to believe.

Exploring the wastes is not as fun as it should be. At least later in the game. When giant rad-scorpions ambush you constantly. And the enemy re-spawn rate is way to high!

The Bottom Line
Overall, Fallout 3 was worth the decade long wait. And while it is not the same as the other ones that is kind of the point, to re imagine the Fallout universe for today’s game market. If your PC can run it, or you have a Xbox 360 or a Playstation 3, you are required to play this game! Seriously, I know where you live!

Here to Fallout 4, not taking another 10 years!

The Good
It improves on Oblivion in some ways. The environments are more interesting and varied (but most feel more artificial than Morrowind). The faces look normal again (still miles away from e.g. Mass Effect or Crysis). Level scaling seems to be mostly absent. The PIPBoy interface is well done. Physics is improved, and by improved I mean that cups are now bolted to tables and so on.

The Bad
Fallout 3 is really an action-adventure title and not a RPG. The stats are mostly meaningless.

The set pieces vary from decent to abysmal and do not from a coherent whole. The nature of presentation in previous Fallout games left a lot to the imagination and you could fill the details yourself and pretend it made sense. In F3 everything is available in very graphic detail and it does not come together well.

Radiant AI is still crap. The results are either hilarious or frustrating, depending on your mood.

There's some swearing, prostitution, and tons of gore, but it doesn't feel like it's part of the world, but rather it that it was just tacked on to make the game edgy and mature. This is a rather dubious addition to a game which mostly feels like a Disney production.

They tried hard to include "Fallout features" like being able to put explosives onto people but apparently it didn't occur to them that some were a design flaw in the first place and while it was cute in a 2D isometric RPG game in 1998 it's kind of stupid in a modern fully 3D first-person game.

The Bottom Line
It's Oblivion with guns. It's very far from an ideal "Fallout 3", but depending on what you are expecting it might still be enjoyable. Playing it I can't help but feel that the target audience for Fallout 3 is ten years younger than for the previous Fallout games.

The Good
Let it be known from the very beginning that Fallout 3 is a RPG, just as original games were, just as Oblivion was. The majority of the outcomes of your actions will depend on your skill points. Shoot, hack, talk, repair, shop or do anything else and you can easily expect a dice roll determining the success of your action. There is another thing I should get out my system right away before getting down to the fine details. Fallout 3 wasn't developed by Black Isle. This means a number of things, but most importantly it entails an idea that Bethesda couldn't physically deliver a game which would have stayed faithful to the classic Fallout games. This should be remembered while evaluating this game.

Alright. So what is great about Fallout 3, you ask? Very many things is the obvious answer! The most outstanding aspect of this game is that it was developed for explorers. Being one very deep in my heart, I just can't possibly resist a game that offers a huge world filled with thousands of hundreds of details to uncover, characters to meet and places to roam. This is where FO3 differs greatly from Oblivion. There are no generic Ayleid ruins #53 or the samey Cave interior over and over again. The locations in Fallout 3 have history to them or at least a peculiar idea behind their existence.

Here's a last message received by a 911 operator at a police HQ. Here's a Vault with a cloning project gone bad. Here's a Nuka-Cola plant, complete with a working conveyor belt and specifically designed robotic security. Here's an Oasis with the real trees growing amidst the wasteland. Here's a US fort with an ability to launch a nuclear missile, or another one introducing to you the latest, unique model of power armor. Here's a museum of technology with a number of expositions still working. Here's an abandoned hotel with the residents gone mad worshipping a deity with a silly name -- an obvious nod to Lovecraft. This list can go on forever.

No matter how much time you invest in exploring the locations of Fallout 3, you will always be rewarded with either a unique weapon, armour, environment or a story. That really brings the exploration aspect of the game to the foreground of Fallout 3 experience. The feeling of discovering a yet another interesting location carries with it the most pleasure to be had with this game.

Not to say that it doesn't excel in other areas. There is a lot of talk, saying that Fallout 3 has been dumbed down when compared to its predecessors. It's not a completely unreasonable claim. However, personally I was amazed by the amount of details which comprised the RPG system of the original games making their way into Fallout 3, with a few welcome additions. Because your stats really matter. There were always doors and locks I couldn't pick, computers I couldn't hack and NPCs I couldn't outsmart. The repair system works fabulously well, making sure that you won't be getting a great weapon from the enemy corpse that easily. The barter system really works too with me being short on cash most of the time. Sure, your experience may differ. But I really felt the challenge this game poses, and I have completed both Fallouts without a drop of sweat! Just kidding, it's an easier game, but certainly not "dumbed down".

At this point we should really to talk about the inevitable. The visual representation. I deliberately avoid employing a word "graphics", because it usually implies a number of distinct technological requirements and Fallout 3, while not exactly belonging to the Luddite camp of modern day Adventures is still two or three years long out of date. This is not by all means a cr(y/i)sis, because the lack of technological prowess is easily made up with stupendous and absorbing world design. I am not sure how Washington DC will look after a nuclear blast, but Fallout 3 gives a very convincing picture indeed. Desolate square miles of concrete debris populating a scorched corpse of a land aren't that easy to forget. The menacing remains Washington monument seen from all over the wasteland are akin to the tower in Cyrodiil in Oblivion, but, of course, the effect here is much more intimidating and depressing.

Sure, doesn't avoid repetition at some parts, but I guess that's price you have to pay for achieving such a strong homogeneous look. And, seriously, we don't really expect one collapsed building to be drastically different from the other?

But worlds mean absolutely nothing without exciting stuff to do in them and while exploration aspect, which I mentioned in the second paragraph, is all nice and cool, the RPG is nothing without quests to perform and NPCs to please. Now, quest system in Fallout 3 is a coin, and a very doublesided one at that. By no means they are dull. God, no. There is always a double bottom to every one of them and it's impossible to predict where a quest might take you or what turn of events might await around the next journal entry. Even more than that, Bethesda clearly made its homework, for not only the quests are interesting they are also filled with numerous choices and checks. Don't want to be bothered going to a remote minefield? How about lying that you did? Suspicious of your quest giver, ask around, maybe there is something completely sinister about his motives. Pretty much every quest is multilayered, filled with choices and really provides an opportunity to flex all of you various perks, skills and attributes in numerous checks.

The Bad
Now, here comes a tricky coiny part. Surely, the quests in Fallout 3 are amusing. But that's that. They are just hilariously amusing leaving us with nearly an ocean of unused opportunities and an Everest of untouched subjects and themes, post-apocalyptic fiction is usually respected and loved for. A humanity rebuilding itself from the ruins of the nuclear holocaust has nothing better to do than collect Nuka-Cola bottles, build towns around atomic bombs for other people to blow them up, live in towns full of children, listen to the radio DJs and dress up in ridiculous super hero costumes. I mean really? Where is the slavery, violence, bigotry, gambling, prostitution, rape in the amounts encountered in the original Fallout games? Most certainly not here - for Fallout 3 takes only a passing glance at those themes at a curious angle, as if asking the player "Isn't that fun?". So much wasted chances for the stories that would really matter to our hearts and brains.

This is true not only in regard to the quests of Fallout 3. It's really a part of a much bigger problem. Which is this: Fallout 3 quadruples all the superficial aspects of original games, without being able to match their true nature. What do I mean by "superficial aspects"? Well, you've seen them all in the marketing: Vaultboy, Nuka-Cola, 50's aesthetics, mellow jazz and well-known standards, over the top violence and so on. Indeed, all these were bringing a huge amount of style and identity to original games, but they were much subtler there. Retro stylistics were only there to introduce you to the world of Fallout, to make an initial shock of encountering this horrifying world for the first time. This was a sort of an amusing gimmick, that really helped a transition into the much more grittier and darker world, in which nobody really knew or cared about the vault boy, retro songs, American lifestyle, rock-n-roll jackets and robot butlers.

Not so in Fallout 3. It remains rooted in those amusing gimmicks right to the very end of the game undermining any attempts to make this version of a Fallout world believable and vibrant. With the exception of amazing environmental design, it's simply a fake. Its characters are fake, their feelings are fake, their stories are not that real either.

And I firmly believe that many other problems with the game like uneven voice acting and dodgy writing are also the symptoms of the overall superficial quality the game, unfortunately possess. The worst part in all this story is that it was a deliberate decision on the developers part, who wanted this game first of all be amusing and franchise once again recognizable. Oh, well.

To a lesser degree one can easily be annoyed with poor animation, not exactly the best interface, few unimportant bugs and a rather generic, by-the-book soundtrack clearly lacking a masterful touch of Mr. Morgan.

So, without further ado, let's sum it up!™

The Bottom Line
Talent: 3/5

Bethesda is no Black Isle or Troika. There was absolutely no need to create or play Fallout 3 to state that. But what they can do, they do nicely. An amazing look of the Capital Wasteland stands as a proof that Bethesda doesn't need any tree rendering middleware for it's locations to look stunningly great.

Ambition: 4/5

Merging two RPGs of such different pedigrees is a spectacular feat in itself. Just as with Oblivion, Bethesda really believes that with games like Fallout 3 it's creating a great new brand of RPGs for the future. Many people believe that, while I just applaud the moving forward even though I am wary of the direction the wagon is facing.

Originality: 3/5

Fallout 3 owns every bit of its personality to a couple of well-known games. The strings that hold these two together are interesting enough to examine up close, though.

Effort: 4/5

Bethesda tried, it really tried hard, having created tons of original content, quests, locations to absorb you into its world and never let go. They worked long hours to integrate SPECIAL system into a completely new context and that shows. One point off for not hiring Mark Morgan and a new animator.

Adequacy: 2/5

Oh, well. Contrary to what people say, Bethesda did get Fallout. But, unfortunately, chose to ignore it in favour of the more recognizable, fan-base building and generally amusing gimmicks.

Total: 3.2/5

Oh, what a pity. I advise you not be fooled by such a low score. Fallout 3 was a successful experiment, even though it is based more on a compromise rather than "the best of both worlds" philosophy. So, in line with the positive outlook of the 50's America I suggest looking at Fallout 3 as a continual growth for the Bethesda game company, building upon its own achievements while not shying away from taking the tips from the classics. And as for original games, they are always there to provide a nostalgic shoulder to cry on about the days long gone. So stop this nonsense about butchering the franchise, and enjoy the game for what it is. An interesting experiment that manages to produce an excellent breed of great RPGing, at the same time rejecting any emotional connection you try to establish towards it.