Fallout 3 (PC)

...
That game, was Fallout 3.

'''Story'''
Fallout 3 is a futuristic, post-apocalyptic role playing game.

In the year 2077, the world was in a war for resources, a war which ended in nuclear holocaust. 200 years later, the character is born inside of Vault 101, which is a fallout shelter built to keep everyone in, and more importantly, everything out. The character’s first interaction is with their father, James. ...
...to mention first is that Fallout 3 is an incredibly deep game. The amount of options you’re given from the very beginning is truly spectacular.

When you begin the game, you’re given the normal choices, whether you’re male or female, and you also get to choose your futuristic appearance. You also find a book called ‘You’re special!’ which allows you to distribute your starting stats. ‘Special’ is an acronym for Strength, Perception, Endurance, ... more

Note: This review does have images, Ciao seems to be having a few problems today.

Game Info
Certificate: 18+
Players: 1 (No Online Mode)
Downloadable Content: Yes, two current expansions, with another being released shortly.

Introduction
One day, not too long ago, I went on a bit of a spending spree and purchased around 10 games. I played them all extensively, and they were all good games. However, one stood out above the rest, the one that I found myself coming back to, the one I spent over 12 hours playing in a single day.

That game, was Fallout 3.

Story
Fallout 3 is a futuristic, post-apocalyptic role playing game.

In the year 2077, the world was in a war for resources, a war which ended in nuclear holocaust. 200 years later, the character is born inside of Vault 101, which is a fallout shelter built to keep everyone in, and more importantly, everything out. The character’s first interaction is with their father, James.

One day in the not so distant future, you wake up to find your father has escaped the vault. The inhabitants are bemused as to why. The overseer is furious with your father, and begins to become very suspicious regarding you, ultimately ending with him asking the guards to have you killed.

Evading your way to the only exit, you make it your personal goal to find out where your father has gone, and why he’s abandoned safety and conformity, for a disaster filled wasteland.

Gameplay
The most important thing to mention first is that Fallout 3 is an incredibly deep game. The amount of options you’re given from the very beginning is truly spectacular.

When you begin the game, you’re given the normal choices, whether you’re male or female, and you also get to choose your futuristic appearance. You also find a book called ‘You’re special!’ which allows you to distribute your starting stats. ‘Special’ is an acronym for Strength, Perception, Endurance, Charisma, Intelligence, Agility and Luck.

You can ultimately max your character out with strength and endurance from the beginning; however you’re limited to only a small amount of points, meaning you’d have to sacrifice all other stats, at least until you earn more points.

The game uses an experience system. You can earn experience for a plethora of things, the most obvious being killing enemies and monsters. However you may also earn points for hacking terminals, picking locks, completing speech tasks during conversation or even just locating a place in the world. When you reach a certain amount of experience points, you gain a level, allowing you to increase your stats and health.

It may sound far too easy to rack up points, but in truthfulness, you may even struggle to reach level 20 (which is the highest) by the end of the game, that is, if you don’t participate in side-quests and other special events.

After a level up, you can learn special things called ‘Perks’. Perks can often be useless, but some prove to be very effective. Certain perks are merely for conversationalists, opening new conversation branches to a certain group of people. For example, the ‘Child at Heart’ perk opens up new choices when talking to children, ‘Lady Killer’ is the same but for women, and so on.

The game throws away conventional menu systems for a unique and somewhat simplistic; ‘Pip-Boy 3000’ which is a wrist attached computer that your character was given for their 10th birthday.

Yes it’s very simple, but it does the job and includes a map, quests, character statistics and a handy radio, which plays a somewhat large part in this game. The Pip-Boy also has a built in flashlight, making sewer investigating that bit easier.

The thing I enjoy most about this game is the selection of responses you’re given during a conversation. You can choose to be either, a snide yet humorous player, or be a downright ass to everyone you meet. Everything has full voice acting, meaning you feel very immersed when it comes to choosing the suitable response.

During these conversations, you can unlock new responses in a multitude of fashions. For example, if you’re very charismatic you may be able to get more information, or get an item for free, and if you’re very good when it comes to guns, you may get an option to show off about your knowledge, netting you some free experience and a shocked other party.

That’s another important aspect to the game. Instead of your initial 7 skills, you’re given a further 15 or so ‘talents’. These vary from ‘small guns’ to ‘sneak’ and ‘speech’. These allow you to specialize your character even further. The more important skills ‘science’ and ‘lockpicking’ will sometimes be necessary in order to crack open story critical doors or simply to lockpick a safe to get some free gear for your character.

The lockpicking and hacking skills both have mini-game involved. They both look far more difficult then they truly are though. Hacking involves you trying to guess the correct password out of a huge (or small if you’re very experienced in Science) array of possibilities. You’re usually allowed four chances, each time being told how many letters you got correct. After four incorrect guesses you’re shut out for good, no second chances.

Lockpicking is somewhat more forgiving and as long as you carry a bobby-pin, you can attempt the lock as many times as you wish. If you’re having trouble with a certain lock, you can try to ‘force’ the door open. Forcing the door has an extremely slight chance of succeeding, and if you try and fail, then you’re lost your only chance of opening the door, so be careful.

As with most open world games, there is a moral feature, Fallout 3 uses karma. Karma affects how people react to you, and is a product of how you treated others. If you go around stealing items, breaking down doors, being rude to people, and then killing them, you’ll have a very low karma. This limits certain conversations with good people, but also opens new choices whilst talking to evil characters. The story itself isn’t affected by your karma.

Fallout 3 uses an auto-save feature, which usually kicks in when you enter or exit a building. It’s extremely handy but can sometimes be a nuisance. A good example of when it can be troublesome is when you’re traversing the wastelands. You’ll be forgetting to manually save and then you get killed. The wastelands have no auto-save function, meaning you’ll find yourself saving quite regularly in order to not have to re-trek your way to where you were when you died. I guess my criticism is the auto-save feature gives you a somewhat false sense of security, and you take it for granted most times.

The game is set in Washington D.C, which is obviously now in tatters after a huge bomb was dropped on the White House. Many landmarks still remain however, you can visit the Washington Monument and the Lincoln Memorial, which bear striking resemblance to the real things...well obviously not perfectly, the place has been eroded and blown up. Bad times

You’re not completely alone in your trek. You can find companions who will join you depending on certain factors. You’ll sometimes need to complete a quest for them to join you, and once they do, they will follow you, everywhere. You can direct them to stay in place or to follow you again. They each have their own inventory which can be vital as you’re limited to a certain amount yourself. You can equip them as you see fit. Give them your sniper rifle or a pistol and they’ll try to make the most use out of it in combat.

During your adventures around the wasteland you’re run into one of three things.
The first thing is people or creatures out to kill you! You’ll soon find out that nothing is very friendly here. There are mutated animals gnawing your shins, giant super mutants wanting to smash you with broken down cars, and then you have raiders trying to pummel you with bullets.

The second thing is radiation! Radiation actually plays a huge role and whilst you can withstand a large amount, too much and you will die. As you enter a radiated place, or if you eat/drink radiated substances your radiation level will increase slowly. The bar is split into levels, and at each level of radiation you lose effectiveness in combat. There are ways to reduce your radiation. You can visit a doctor and cough up some money, or you can use Rad-Away, a rare-ish drug which can be found at some merchants.

The final thing you will encounter are small distraught towns or holdings. There are so many to find, each with their own characters and storylines. Most towns have their own side-quest also, all of which are great fun, and can sometimes be a valuable mine of knowledge in the aid of finding your dad, not to mention a help in increasing your overall experience!

As the game world is so large, you are given a ‘fast-travel’ option which allows you to travel between places you’ve already visited immediately. This is clever as it still forces you to explore places, especially at the beginning of the game where your map is completely bare.

I’ve saved the best thing ‘til last. V.A.T.S!

The Vault-Tec Assisted Targeting System, or V.A.T.S, is an aiming assistant which allows you to pause the action and pinpoint where you wish to hit an enemy. The common choice is obviously the head, however you’re given a percentage chance of hitting each body part, so you might have a better chance at hitting the torso or leg.

Whichever part you do hit, you’ll see a slo-mo action scene of you attacking the enemy. The camera during these moments is usually horrible, but sometimes spot-on and helps make you feel even more deadly.

You can do this as much as you want, well, within reason. You’re given points which allow you to pull off a certain amount of attack within a given session. For example, with a pistol you may be allowed 4 or 5 shots, but with a shotgun, maybe 1 or 2. Even though these points replenish after a V.A.T.S use, you will be unable to use it again until you reach the minimum amount required.

I’ve written around 1500 words about the gameplay, and it stills feel like I haven’t done it enough justice.

Presentation
This game looks beautiful, but as with most open games, it can be very glitchy. Some textures take a very long time to load and can often ruin the experience. The wastelands look great, yet the textures again sometimes become a bore for the eyes, everything begins to look the same.

As for the sound, the game includes two full time radio stations. They play some very catchy songs, none of which are modern but they definitely fit the games overall feel.

Voice acting is impressive with some famous people voicing the main characters. Liam Neelson voices your father, and Malcolm McDowell as President John Henry Eden.

Longevity
If you don’t pick up this game, play it for a ‘bit’, and then wonder where all that time went, I will be very surprised. It’s extremely immersive. You’ll find yourself going ‘I’ll turn it off after I’ve just done this one quest’ and then continuously make excuses for yourself to stay longer.

Surprisingly, the game itself isn’t very long at all, and can be completed in around 6 hours. Of course, this is if you stick with the main story. There are loads of side quests, some of which can take you the upmost of 2-3 hours to fully complete, extending the longevity even further. The longevity for a player who wants to make the most out of the game can range from 40-50 hours.

Overall
This game is possibly the best game I’ve played this century. It’s got a certain charm about it. I’ve never played a game for so long in my life. The story, although a bit dodgy at points, is only half the reason you’ll be hooked. Exploring the wasteland, finding guns, making your own guns and increasing your stats is ridiculously addictive.

Choose to be good or evil, kill entire colonies of people, save or destroy towns.
It’s all up to you, but surely the right choice to begin with is to buy this game, now!

 

...less