DEVELOPER: Bethesda Softworks
Played on: PS3
Initial impression: First Person RPG with Shooter aspects. I don't want to set the world on fire...
Liked:
- Story (Main and 2/5 of the expansions that I've played)
- Environment
- Morality/Karma
- Attention to detail
Disliked:
- Lock-ups
- Certain Actions Mean Nothing
On The Fence:
- Point Lookout (1 of 5 DLC Add-ons included in the GOTY)
As soon as you start this game your character is born. You choose gender and physical features of your "future self." Fast forward and you're 2-ish. You choose to allocate points into your attributes, Strength, Percetion, Endurance, Charisma, Intelligence, Agility and Luck, in a clever book called "You're S.P.E.C.I.A.L.!" (made me laugh). Fast forward again and you're 10. You get a Pip-Boy 3000, a wrist-mounted stats supercomputer. You also get your first weapon and some very basic training. Next time jump and you're 18. You're subjected to the Generalized Occupational Aptitude Test (or G.O.A.T. for short) where you choose the skills you want to concentrate on. Finally the game starts...
The year is 2277. For all your life, all you've known is the underground dwelling where you live. Vault-Tec's Nuclear Fallout Survival Vault #101 has been your home for the last 18 years... but not for long. You awake to the sound of alarms and your friend Amata yelling at you to wake up. Your father has ESCAPED! But, the Vault's been sealed for 200 years! No way! The Overseer - Amata's father - blames you and the cops are after you! Time to get the hell out!
And so you do. Your first glimpse of the post-nuclear apocalypse is bleak at best. Some wandering to the nearest ruined town reveals a sign pointing to an actual inhabited settlement. These people are wary, but let you in because they figure you're not trouble. You can find someone who knows where your father is, but he's a prick. Here's where the game gets really interesting. This town is chock full of side-quests, some of which involve the Morality/Karma system. You, too, can be a prick. You can be a saint. If you want, you can play the middle-ground. It's all up to you, but tghe path you choose WILL affect certain other aspects.
Case in point: This first town is built in the crater where one of the nukes hit - except it didn't detonate. You're asked by a few NPC's to deal with the bomb. One wants you to trigger it (remotely), destroying the town and everyone in it. Do you play nice and just disarm it, do you just leave it alone, or do you tread in darkness, sending dozens of people to their nuclear doom? Disarming it gains you trust from the locals. They give you a house and treat you like one of them. Destroying it means you can never go back there (because it doesn't exist) and the extreme few who survive will hate you.
Attention to detail is really unique in this one. Most technological things look like they fell out of a 1950's Sci-Fi film. Other items are caked with grime and dirt, making them appear as though they've been used, abused and abandoned in the elements. You can find audio recordings, hand scribbled notes, books, magazines and journals to give you insight on the people who used to live out there. You can hack into computer terminals and read logs or reports to see what businesses were doing when the bombs fell, or to remotely unlock a pesky safe or disable a security gun.
The radio DJ on Galaxy News Radio plays 1930's and 1940's records (the same few because "they are the only ones that still play") and will inform his listening audience of your exploits. He'll even tell the results of your missions, changing his banter depending on your Karma level.
The one aspect that REALLY caught my love was player-made weaponry. You will encounter schematics for weapons that require you to scavange through old gas stations, supermarkets and destroyed houses to gather the correct combination of resources. Thing is - it's somewhat believable. Take for example the Bottlecap Mine. You need to find a Lunchbox, 10 Bottlecaps, a Sensor Module and a Cherry Bomb. The lunchbox is the housing, the bottlecaps the additional shrapnel, sensor module to detect an enemy's presence and the cherry bomb for the explosion.
Plus: The Vault Tec lunchbox that the mine is made from is identical to the metal lunchbox you receive with the Collector's Edition of Fallout 3. How's that for marketing?
Unfortunately it is time for what I don't like.
Lock Ups
This game suffers a very real and problematic KNOWN ISSUE. It will seize at seemingly random times somewhere around halfway through the main storyline (depending on how many sidequests you've finished and if you did any of the add-on content). When I say seize, I mean the game will stop completely for minutes at a time and often cause you to power down your system in order to break the cycle. I have had to restart my PS3 about 15 times in the last two weeks because of it. What happened just before that? Well, I completed one of the DLC/add-ons to gain powerful armor earlier than you can through the regular storyline. I've read that the save-game file gets huge and often may become slightly corrupt, especially after doing some of the DLC/add-ons.
Certain Actions Mean Nothing
This is going to be a major spoiler if I go into detail (and I will) but I'm going to try to explain it spoiler-free first. Sometimes you can do things that, in theory, should be a HUGE DEAL to everyone - so huge in fact that you should be able to tell everyone all about it every chance you get OR word of the deed should have been spread somehow.
***START SPOILER***
Paradise Falls is the Wasteland's Slaver haven - where a corrupt group of scumbags deal in human trafficking for personal gain. I decided that this was unacceptable and, after freeing some kids (as part of a quest) I laid waste (lol) to the entire compound. I murdered every single slaver there. I set all the other slaves free.
Now when I run into people (ex-slaves, mostly) who are in fear of getting taken to Paradise Falls, I can't say anything like "Don't worry, that place is history!" This pisses me off because there are a LOT of other things you do (through quests) that ALLOW you such recognition. I think somewhere I actually missed a quest later on to do what I took it upon myself to do - clean out the town. I can't help it that I'm thinking ahead, and I should be rewarded for taking it upon myself to right that wrong.
***END SPOILER***
I really can't find much of anything I'm on the fence about with this game. I've played through 2 of the 5 expansions and am in the middle of number 3. Much like a lot of the rest of the game, you don't need to do them in any specific order... in fact I did one of them early on to take advantage of a perk you gain - a perk that makes staying alive easier.
Oh that's right - wait - Point Lookout. This add-on has issues, and I had issues with it. I liked the overall story. I liked the setting and the scenery was great. Hell I even liked the few twists on the familiar. What I didn't like was that enemies were about 2.5-3x more difficult and there's a certain piece of the plot that, without revealing too much, fucks you over hard... for the rest of the game. Meh - I should have seen it coming, but it's OK. You get a great weapon if you play your cards right.
Anyhow I give Fallout 3 a whopping 9.5 out of 10 based on the hours and hours of pure fun I've had. I love this game. It's probably one of the best I've ever played. The .5 I don't give it is for all the bullshit I've had to deal with as it locks up about 2-3 times every time I play now. I still love ya, Bethesda, even though I want to punch you in the head for those lockups.
