In the beginning…
First and foremost I must express that, like many others anticipating the release of this game, I am a diehard fallout fan. I have been since the initial release of the Fallout 1 demo, which I received in a game review magazine many years ago. I can still remember to this day the joy and utter amazement I felt running around this post apocalyptic, 50s sci-fi wasteland, blowing people away in over the top gory shoot outs, or having quirky conversations with interesting NPCs that really made me feel or laugh for a long time. But most importantly was the freedom to do and be what I wanted to be, to accomplish things my way, and see the result. The original game left me with a sense of real memories of a world in which I have a past, where things happened to me and I, through my actions or reactions changed the world.
Needless to say, the designers at Bethesda had a monumental task ahead of them, if they were to re-capture this feeling and recreate the beloved world of Fallout of which so many, like myself have such potent memories of. I had a lot of questions like, “Will it be as funny?” “Will it suffer from the Oblivion-esque repetitive voice acting?” “Is combat going to be all run and gun?” “Can I put explosives in annoying children’s pockets?” And while the answers to these questions aren’t exactly what I would have wanted, the truth of the matter is, Fallout 3 is a fantastic game that feels like Fallout, and gives you an enormous, beautifully rendered, living world to explore and act upon, with a palpable sense of consequence for your actions. And really, that’s what a great RPG is all about.
Growing up! Vault-Tec style.
The scope of Fallout 3 becomes clearly evident upon beginning the game, and realizing you’re experiencing your characters literal birth. From here the story of your character’s childhood doubles as an inventive character creation system that entertains as you decide how you want to develop your stats. As you play through, you’re introduced to the world of Fallout from the perspective of a Vault dweller, learning that there was a great nuclear war between America and China that decimated the outside world, and only a few lucky ones were able to escape the horrors of its aftermath, deep underground in special self contained bomb shelters. Vault 101, is your home. You’re born in the vault, and you’ll die in the vault, or so you’re told.
It’s glowing outside and there’s wolves chasing me!
The game wouldn’t be very entertaining if you spent your whole life in the vault, and so you awake to the sound of alarms while your best friend tells you that your father has escaped the vault, and now the overseer is after you. A short escape sequence later and you step out into the “real” world of fallout, the wasteland. Upon opening the rickety wooden door to the cave entrance to Vault 101, you’re given the opportunity to change anything about your character that you’ve chosen up to this point. Once done you are met with one of the most beautifully crafted vistas I’ve ever seen in an RPG or video game in general. From the shattered rock, to the disappearing roads, the decaying and rotting suburban homes, and rusting playgrounds, the scrap heap of a town known as megaton, built with old jet bomber parts, and off in the distance, the ruins of down town DC., all beautifully crafted, and even chilling in their depiction of a world, post apocalyptic. It’s here that the game turns from a life of luxury in the vault to one of survival, and desperation in the wastes.
Out here, everything is a potential score, but the risks are high. Picking over burnt out houses, or exploring the innumerable ruins, caves, tunnels, and even other vaults, often yields treasures in the form of food, ammunition, and rare technology, or information that has been lost since the war destroyed civilization. Fallout really shines here, immersing you in a world that’s fallen apart. While you explore, you’ll stumble across other scavengers, psychotic raiders, starved feral dogs, and all form of irradiated creatures, all trying, much as you are, to survive. The occasional pocket of humanity in the form of small towns or villages provides you with shelter from the pervasive chaos and radiation, and offers you the ability to trade your finds for other needs, and medical services.
Radiation is everywhere! From food, and water to burned out buildings, and smoldering waste sites, radiation is unavoidable. The only way to deal with it is to manage your dose by taking meds that you find, buy, or steal from other characters. This back and forth interchange only heightens the experience of tension, as you desperately try to survive this nightmare world.
The show must go on.
The Story of Fallout revolves around your search for your father, and the struggles of the denizens of the “capitol wasteland”. Play as the hero, or the villain, or even something in between, and the story adapts to you. Kill off an annoying character, save a small lost child, or even blow up a whole town, the game world is malleable and ever changing. This gives you the sense that you are in a living world, that breaths, feels, and responds to your decisions.
While there is only one main plot threat, there are numerable other side quests and smaller instances to play out, and enjoy. On the first play through, I only discovered half of the wastelands locations, and perhaps fully explored only a quarter of what they had to offer. Any complaint about this world not being large enough is washed away by the sheer volume of places to be discovered and experienced, characters to interact with, and stories to be told.
Ultimately the most important story is that of you, and how you lived in the wasteland. As you complete quests, and interact with the world, you gain “Karma”. Karma reflects how good or evil you are, and in turn how people react to you. Even the radio that you carry with you will occasionally, through news reports, reflect back at you what you have done, and how the world feels about it. Are you fighting the “good fight” or are you a scourge, cleansing the wastes of the last vestiges of humankind. Maybe you’re just trying to get by, any way you can, sometimes having to do something unsavory, and cold, so that you may survive. All these options are available to you and important to the fun, and immersion of this game.
Skills and Perks too have an effect on the way the world reacts and how you can affect it. High speech skill ratings will unlock new dialogue options allowing you to convince someone to do something they might not normally do, while a high strength attribute might allow you to intimidate a character into telling you something you want.
Perks, are powerful character quirks or abilities that can either improve your skills or give you a special power that can change game play. Cannibal, for instance, allows you to eat dead people, for health, while the mysterious stranger perk will make a fedora donning, trench coat wearing, savior appear to blast away at your enemies, in random intervals.
Into each life some rain must fall.
What would a story be without some conflict? In this arena Fallout 3 delivers as well, with a clever adaptation of the original Fallout combat system. While you are allowed to play the game through as an action FPS, the real fun comes from V.A.T.S., the “Vault-Tec Assisted Targeting System”. Which allows you to pause time, pick a body location on an enemy to target, and see what happens in a cinematic slow motion display of awesome. On top of it being a visually pleasing sequence, the target locations have damage effects that can be of tactical advantage to the player. Cripple a fast critters leg to slow them down, or the arm of a raider, to make them drop their gun, or even shoot a grenade in the hand of a super mutant, blowing it up and the mutants arm as well. V.A.T.S. offers a fresh and interesting tactical game element that shines in a world dominated with run and gun FPS.
Another important aspect of Fallout combat is that the weapons are fun, and interesting, and always available. No need to unlock a special gun here, if you know where it’s located, or get lucky in an encounter, you can have it at level one. This availability is tempered by the weapon’s condition level and available ammo. In the beginning of the game finding other guns for parts, and ammunition makes threat assessment an important part of game play. Knowing when to pull out your scoped 45, or when to just run and save your ammo, adds to the survival element that drives the world of Fallout 3.
Conclusion.
While many purists decry the choices Bethesda made in altering the game play from the original Fallout series, the truth of the matter is it still is a phenomenal game with vast in depth game play, entertaining character interaction, and a great storyline which in many important aspects remains in line with previous Fallout cannon. It should be noted that Bethesda took great pains to maintain the feel, the look, and sound of the Fallout universe, and for that I thank them. I could go into some of the in game glitches, and my annoyance with jerky character model movements, but these would be infinitesimal complaints compared to the joy, excitement, and addiction I now have for this game. With the many paths still yet untraveled, it has a great deal of replay value. So now, if you will excuse me, I have a wasteland to explore.
Fallout 3 - 9.0 out of 10
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