Fallout 3
Bethesda Studios
PS3 (Version Reviewed)/Xbox 360/PC
Every once in a while, a game comes along that really shakes up stale genres. That not only makes followers fall in line but also draws in new audiences to the mix. That gives people unlimited freedom in a vast gaming environment to do almost anything they want to do. That draws the player into a fantasy world that you become a part of after a while.
That game was called Oblivion!
Yes, I know that's not the game we're reviewing here, but I'm stating this to put the cat right out of the bag: Fallout 3 is Oblivion with guns. There are no two ways about it. Sometimes, Fallout 3 seems like a sci-fi mod for Oblivion.
But I'm going to start this review off with a heart-felt defence for Fallout 3. Even before it was released, it was christened with the “Oblivion with guns” moniker. I even know people who were huge oblivion fans who thought that to playing Fallout 3 would be to sully the awesomeness Oblivion unleashed upon the gaming public back in 2006.
But I ask you, dear friends, what is so wrong with that? What is so wrong about Oblivion with guns? Some people believe that Star Wars Trilogy (episodes IV to VI) have heavily borrowed from the Lord of the Rings books. Does that make those two separate entities any less epic than they were? No! Why you ask? Because everyone likes choice. When you were a kid, didn't you sometime pretend to slay dragons and then later on pretend to manoeuvre your battle cruiser through an asteroid field? Or was that only me? Never mind..............
My point is that yes, if you've played Oblivion, you will feel eerily at home with Fallout 3. Everything from the start menu, to the way the buttons are mapped on the controllers, to the way the speech system works, is all (dare I say) stolen from Oblivion. The melee attack system is the same, except that instead of Daedric Claymores you get to swing around something called The Shishkebob.
But honestly, Fallout 3 is a different game. It's like the SCUMM-VM thing some of the older gamers would be acquainted with. SCUMM-VM was this game system that Lucas Art made for Day Of The Tentacle, but proved to be so intuitive that it used it for all of their point-and-click adventures from that point on. Games like Monkey Island and Sam and Max might look the same (in the way the thing is supposed to control), but they are actually really different games. And each one is something classic.......
….......just like Oblivion and Fallout 3. So please, everyone, cast that assumption aside. The bottom line is: If you liked Oblivion, you should get Fallout 3!
The Story:
Fallout 3 plunges you straight into the action as soon as you start a game. You choose your sex, what race you would be (which as far as I can tell only changes the colour of your skin) at the time you're born into post-apocolyptia. The game then goes forward a year where you get to choose your attributes in true RPG fashion. Then at age 12 you get your very own Pipboy 3000 and get to know the VATS (more on this later) targeting system, all on your birthday. Then at age 16 your take your GOAT and distribute your major and minor skills. And then, at age 19, the game actually begins.
And the story is thus: in a post-nuclear holocaust world, a few pockets of humans have survived in shelters knows as Vaults. You live in Vault 101, situated in what used to be Washington DC. Your father was a scientist there, and as soon as you turn 19, the proverbial crap hits the fan. Your father runs away without an explanation, your best friend urges you to leave as the vault-overseer has killed someone close to your father. And so, after spending all your life inside Vault 101, you get to leave the place into the devastated DC ruins for the first time in your life. And from there, the story continues.
Throughout the game, you have the ability to mould the story in different directions. This can involve anything from talking to characters nicely or rudely to change outcomes of certain quests to changing the whole landscape of the Fallout world. For example, one of the first quests you get after you have exited the Vault is the choice of either disarming or arming a nuclear weapon I the town of Megaton. You can choose either, one which will lead to good karma, the other to bad karma. And your actions also build up towards different endings to the game. Overall, the way the story forks a couple of times means that there's more incentive for people to play the game again a couple of times.
The Graphics:
The first time you leave the Vault, the light blinds you, as it should if you haven't ever seen the sun in your life. Your eyes slowly become accustomed to the light, and then the naked scenery of the Capital Wasteland come into view.
Fallout 3 is very “beige” in it's hue, if you know what I mean. Since not a lot can withstand a nuclear bombing, the whole of DC is now a desert with very slight vegetation. And all the colourful buildings and cars that once stood are now destroyed and devoid of any colour. While the colour of the game might border sometimes on “bland”, it it quite fitting for the setting.
And the art direction of the whole game makes up for any lack of oomph in colours. The world of Fallout 3 is very heavily influenced by pre and post-World War II art. The destroyed cars have an old muscle car feel to them. The general artwork of posters and stuff on the wall are very old comic book style. It all goes a long way to make you feel a part of the world.
Character Models are done quite nicely throughout the game. Each person in the Fallout 3 world looks slightly different from each other, which helps in giving each one a certain personality. The enemies are nicely made as well. It is especially fun choosing the “Bloody Mess” perk and watching your enemies blow up in a strew of blood and dismembered flesh when you successfully kill them!
But overall, don't expect anything mind-blowing in this department. It's all there, and it's just enough to keep you satisfied, but it's not extreme eye-candy, that's all.
There were rumours of the graphics suffering from frame-rate issues in the PS3 version, but honestly, it only happened to me once, at around the end of the game, for about one minute. That isn't that bad since the game is going to last around 40 hours even if you decide to run through it!
The Sound:
The game itself has very little BGM. There's only the one track that plays in the background sometimes. What you do have are radio stations that you can tune into. Of these, there's primarily one, Galaxy News Radio, that you can listen to all over the Wasteland. The news channel has a DJ called Three Dog who keeps you updated on current affairs. These might get a bit repetitive, since he only has a couple of things he does say. To Bethesda's defence, thought, what Three Dog says does change depending on what quests you've completed. The radio channel also plays a couple of songs. But still, the playlist is quite limited.
Other than that, sound effects are done pretty nicely. There's an eerie silence that encompasses the Wasteland most of the time, to go with the total destruction of a once-bustling city. The silence is sometimes broken with enemies screaming out at you when they attack. Nicely done, and the effects are helpful in letting you know where the enemy is coming from. The guns all crackle and pop the way they're supposed to. Overall, it's decent.
The voice acting has it's moments as well. Liam Neeson gives a pretty good performance as “Daddy” throughout the game. And he's good, the strange Fraser-esque accent is nice on the ears. But apart from that, the voice acting goes form being pretty okay to just plain bland. Mind you, none of it is bad, just that some of it is either overdone (like the aforementioned Three Dog) or lacks the kinda “heart” that would've made the game awesome.
Still, it's pretty solid as far as the sound department is concerned. I would've loved some more of those jazz tracks hidden away at Galaxy News, and one or two more station would've been the icing on the otherwise yummy cake. But hey, no complaints here at all.
The Gameplay:
Bringing back the Oblivion comparisons, most gameplay aspects are the same in Fallout 3. These include the melee system, right trigger to hit, left trigger to block. Other than that, you run around, talk, jump, kill, maim and do everything like Oblivion.
There are a couple of interesting changes in the whole thing, though.
One of them is the introduction of the VATS, otherwise known as the Vault-Tec Assisted Targeting System. VATS is a system which I personally think was made keeping in mind the use of weapons in the Fallout 3 world. In Oblivion, I was never tempted to raise my archery skill as I found it extremely cumbersome to use the bow and arrow. Fallout 3 does work okay at best as a FPS, it's strength really lies in using the VATS when you have to use any sort of gun on the enemy.
Basically, using the VATS takes you into a time-paused menu. You can choose which body part you would like to target with you bullets, along with the chance of actually hitting the target. You can then choose how much you shall attack one body part or enemy, depending on how many Attack Points you have left (reminiscent of older Fallout games). Once your choices have been made, you initate the attack, which goes into a time-lapse mode. The action looks pretty nice in this mode, almost cinematic. Using VATS effectively is the key to winning battles in Fallout 3. And personally, I love it! Not only does it make it feasible to use projectile weapons in the Fallout/Oblivion kinda world, it also adds to the drama of battles. I never got bored of this and it really helps the game pop out from what could have been an FPS hell. Well done Bethesda!
Levelling up is also slightly different in Fallout 3 than Oblivion. You still earn XP points by killing, successfully talking to someone, hacking or breaking locks. Just that now, you have a set amount of points that you can distribute between all the different skills that are there.
The Perk system is a welcome comeback from the older Fallout days. You can choose a different perk each time you level up. These perks run from anything like 50% extra damage to mutated insects to increasing the chances of critical hits to sometimes making a Mysterious Stranger help you out during combat.
The Perks and levelling system combined offer a very user-friendly way to upgrade you character. In Oblivion, you were kinda stuck with the character that you built in the beginning. In Fallout 3, you always have the option to somewhat change things around a bit even halfway through the game. Another solid plus point.
Other additions include the lock-picking, which differs from the way you picked locks in Oblivion. Plus you can play a fun “guess-the-password” game to successfully hack into computers.
All these things combined make for a very fun gaming experience. By the time I ended the game for the first time, I actually went back and started all over again; something Oblivion could not make me do! I mean, sure, it's an RPG. But it's got enough action in it to keep everyone thoroughly entertained throughout the journey.
Overall:
What can I say, it's Oblivion with guns! I know I keep on harking on about this. But I mean it as a compliment more than anything else. Sure, it feels like Oblivion in certain places. But if anything, it improves in it in many areas.
I personally though the Fallout 3 world was slightly smaller than Oblivions, and that the game is a lot shorter than Oblivion (I finished my first run-through in about 40 hours, while it took me around 90 hours just to end the main quest in Oblivion). But this game surely has more replay value. There were a rumoured 500 different ending to the game, which is a stupid number, I'm pretty sure there aren't that many. Still, there is a good and evil way to play the entire game, which changes things a lot.
So yeah, in the end, I think this is a game that everyone should buy. RPG fans would have already bought this since it was about 10 years in the making. But I think casual FPS fans should also get this if they've never tip-toed into the vast, magical ocean of RPG games.
I definitely am enjoying playing this for the second time in a row. And this is for sure one of the top three games I've played all year this year. A definite buy.
GREEN
