Fallout 3

"A game suffering from over-production..."

PREFACE:
I would like to say a couple things before delving into the review that are of importance to a potential reader. First, I have not played Oblivion. Nowhere in here will there be any comparisons to Oblivion's elements as a game, because I have not played it. Second, this review may potentially contain spoilers; I will do my best to mark them in typical GameFaqs fashion.

REVIEW:
Fallout 3 marks a completely new turn of events for the Fallout series. What is essentially a complete restart of the gameplay elements of the previous titles the new Fallout game puts the post-apocalyptic story into what is essentially a sandbox. Everything is open, and from the second hour of gameplay on the player is essentially permitted to do anything they want anywhere on the map. This is definitely a different, somewhat modern approach to the series which is allowed by advancement of gaming over the last decade. This adds a somewhat formulaic approach to the game like many other titles, and is not without its share of both pros and cons.

1) Gameplay (8/10):

Fallout 3 is truly a remarkable game. The gameplay itself is stellar and innovative. At its heart Fallout 3 is a first person shooter. It is played from the first person perspective and the canon provided puts the player at a point when ranged weapons are obviously preferred. Outside of the basic components of a first person shooter the game adopts many RPG elements. The player has a level which determines a multitude of things: HP, skill levels, perks available/acquired, and the vitals on the monsters encountered in the environment. This opens up the game to make several key innovations that make the gameplay truly fun and original.

The first of these elements is the VATS system. This system was really done to create a more simplistic and cinematic combat experience. During any point in combat a quick tap of a button enters the player into VATS which allows the player to target individual points of the aggressor outside of real-time. So essentially you can stop the game, target the grenade in the hand of your enemy, and blow it up before they throw it, or you can land a perfectly aimed headshot without allowing your enemy a chance to attack while you aim. This essentially levels the playing field for both veterans and newcomers to the fps-style game. Everything done in VATS is determined by your stats, skills, and perks. Agility as well as various perks affect your AP, which determines how many actions you can do in the VATS system before entering a “cooldown” period so your AP can recharge. Your skills with whatever equipped weapon determine everything from your chance to hit a certain part to your chance to score a critical hit. All in all the VATS system is truly remarkable, and is something that should be experienced.

The second of these elements is the perks system. While not as groundbreaking as the VATS system, it is of important to note cause perks influence how the game is played. Perks always provide some positive boost to your player. They can be as simple as an automatic boost in HP or a stat, but they can also bring another element to your game with perks such as Child At Heart which allows you access to certain dialogue options and information only available with that perk. This system brings about an enormous amount of customization on each play through, and can easily affect the way the game is played at any point.

The gameplay is not without its cons. There are significant portions of the game where the player spends large chunks of time doing essentially nothing. Fast Travel cuts down on this significantly, but the player isn't able to Fast Travel to a location they haven't been to (unless a perk is used at level 20), so the result is that roughly 30% of gameplay is spent running through an essentially empty wasteland to your next objective or point. Battles during this time are sparse; it is not uncommon to go across an entire zone encountering only 1 or 2 bands of enemies. This can really kill elements of action in the game, and frequently make travel and exploration tiresome and boring. Something that can typhoon a sandbox RPG where exploration can be half the game easily, and if it weren't for the inclusion of the truly breathtaking VATS system, the gameplay score would be significantly lower.

2) Visual and Audio Presentation (8/10):

Fallout 3 is a beautiful game; strictly from a looks viewpoint the game is absolutely amazing considering its scale. The wasteland is interesting, despite the massive amount of gray in the environment, the look of the game is never boring, and most importantly the graphics of the game never take the player out of the game. There is never a point in time in the environment where the player will look at something and be reminded that he is playing a game, everything has an immense sense of realism. That is until the NPCs move… As soon as motion starts it becomes inorganic, reminding the player that yeah… this is a game. It is the only thing that takes away from the graphical presentation.

The sound is where this game loses points. While the radio is fun and changes according to what your character has done up to that point, there is way too much repetition there, only a small handful of songs play on GNR and the Enclave, a quest allows access to another radio station, but that doesn't help much. Outside of that, the voice-acting and sound effects are top-notch, better than some animated movies.

3) Replay Value (10/10):

Fallout 3 is by definition a game that begs to be played more than once. With a multitude of different choices available during the story and different quests this game will leave you wanting to at least try being the “other side of the spectrum” after you have beaten it once. The primary cause of this is the karma system. Many actions in the game have good, bad, and neutral consequences, for example very early in the game the player can choose to save a town or destroy it by setting of a nuclear bomb. This choice plays a huge role in how the game is played from that point on, as it changes not only how the character is seen throughout the world, but what quests, followers, and choices to which a potential player has access. The best part about this system is the fact that it allows for corruption and redemption alike. No one single choice affects the player's karma permanently, it is possible to destroy the town and then through remaining actions and quests, positively affect the wasteland and come back into good graces. The opposite is true as well, a savior can become corrupted by making choices which are self-centrally focused and hurt others.

4) Story (7/10): [*spoilers*]

The story of Fallout 3 is essentially a divergence of a stereotypical premise. A loved one is lost in a cloud of mystery and the player is sent to find out why, while this has been done a thousand times Fallout 3 does a fantastic job of creating what appears to be a simple story, and throwing in several twists and turns to turn it into something truly original. The fact that your father is on a mission to save the wasteland to create clean water for everyone, the plot twist involving the Enclave, the social and genetic experiments that take place in the Vaults all serve to take that simple story and bring it to life in the canon.

The one big thing that takes away from the story is the fact there is no real focus on it, it plays almost no real role in the atmosphere of the game other than to give the player a larger point, but ultimately it is just a small collection of quests that tie together, there is not a significant amount of concentration on it, to the point where if the main story was removed from the game, outside of how the player got out of the vault, nothing would change. That is the problem I have. I gave the Story so many points for being so good, but because it is almost an afterthought in the game, I can't put it in the same box as other games with equivalently good stories because there is such a lack of focus on it.

5) Loose Ends (6/10):

This part is where Fallout 3 is really hurting. Some people can say that this section is essentially nit-picking, but this game has several problems that deter from the game as a whole. First and foremost this game is with bugs, serious ones. I have heard (and experienced personally) many of them, from NPCs disappearing of the map entirely to freezes during zone transfers, while some bugs, such as graphical glitches, are forgivable. Many of these are not, for example I have heard of several games where Walter, an NPC in Megaton, disappears entirely, leaving you unable to complete his freedom quests. This is an unacceptable bug, more than likely caused by a rush to get this game out for the Holiday season, a major detraction to the quality of the product.

Lastly I want to take this part to say that while this game is great. I honestly believe Bethesda spent too much time focusing on and trying to turn this game into something more than it should be. They focused on making the map huge and the environment huge, making every little corner have some secret it holds. While this gives the game hundreds of hours of gameplay, it honestly also hurts the game just as much as it helps. The single best thing that Bethesda could have done for Fallout 3 is taken a step back and said, wait… A chunk of this game is just extraneous crap that isn't really giving us anything. Lets carve it out.

6) Closing remarks:

Fallout 3 is a solid game. Any player should love to have it as a part of their gaming collection. While certain elements such as the scope of the atmosphere and the absolutely wonderful VATS system and gameplay give this game elements that could have made it an instant classic, the sheer size of the game takes away from it more than it puts back into the game. I honestly believe this game would have been orders of magnitude better had Bethesda cut out about half the map, and expanded more on the story and the concept of the Vaults/Super Mutants and how the Enclave ties into everything. They set the environment up to tell such an amazing story, but ultimately didn't deliver. Had they done that. I'd be giving it a 10.

Overall: 7/10

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 11/13/08

Game Release: Fallout 3 (US, 10/28/08)