Fallout 3
Fallout 3 was everything I could have hoped for. I was worried for many reasons about the game. I loved the first two, and regard the first in particular as one of the most formative games in my background–it was one of the games that propelled me toward my destiny as a game designer. Bethesda had an enormous task trying to deliver and meet my expectations.
No real spoilers ahead… I’ll keep pretty vague in my descriptions so your experience in the game will not be worse for reading this.
Luckily for me, and the gaming world as a whole, they beat my expectations. In the first few minutes, I was pulled in with the beautiful delivery of the tutorial elements of the game and the very cinematic approach they took. The first hour was just a great experience, even if I didn’t kill anything awesome.
My second hour was okay. I wandered around and took in the beautiful vistas of the general DC area, but only ran into a few creatures along the way, looting a few mailboxes and blowing up a car or two.
The third hour hooked me completely. I wandered into Springvale School near Vault 101 (where you start) and was scared out of my wits. I was challenged, and I was rewarded, and all was right in the world.
Afterward, I finally made my way to Megaton to embark on actual quests, and was very happy with them. I spent the next 3 days played (yes, 3 days played… I catassed all week because I had the week off from work) meticulously completing every optional objective I could, always trying to find the most beneficial way to complete a quest.
The main questline is superb, doing things I’ve never really seen in games before, pulling at my heartstrings and getting me emotional in one direction or another along the way (usually, I was pissed at one or more of the characters at any given time).
And, I’m happy to report that the “good” and “evil” paths are quite divergent from each other. My evil character is up to level 12 now and I’ve only done a few of the main quests. Word of warning: If you’re planning on just going unarmed/melee, be prepared for a challenge.
Bethesda really delivered with Fallout 3, and we can learn a lot of lessons for great storytelling, quest making, and world design for MMOs from it.
The main questline must be good, because every review I read focuses on it. What about the peripheral content? Is it like Oblivion in that you can play it for weeks or months without every tackling the main questline?
Yeah, you can do all the other stuff too. There are a couple dozen other quests that are tracked directly in the Pip-Boy, and a bunch of others that are more freeform that aren’t tracked.
Even though I hit 20 with my first character and beat the main storyline, and I’ve done almost all of the other tracked quests, I still have a bunch of places I’ve still never been in.
In my opinion, this is the best game Bethesda has ever made. I was a bit disappointed in Oblivion, and they corrected most of the issues I had with that game for this one.
To experience everything in Fallout 3, you would have to play it through at least twice (good/evil choices, but there’s also some specific neutral content).
I’m trying to ween myself off it right now since I have work tomorrow.
Fallout 3 has come *this* close to knocking Bioshock out of the number one spot on my personal list. I haven’t had 3 solid days to play, so I figure I’m only about 1/3 of the way into the “good” side. This is a very solid Bethesda style game. By that I mean if you’ve played one of the last two elderscrolls games, it’s going to be very familiar. I really have only two beefs so far.
1) The character animations remind me of the wooden puppets of Morrowind and Oblivion. The graphics in general are lovely (if gray) but the animations are unnatural. This is more evident in 3rd person than 1st person perspective.
2) Melee combat still feels like hammering the button to me. It’s possible that I lack the finesse required for melee. On the other hand, the combat shotgun is my best friend.
I’ve also been extremely pleased with Fallout 3. My good character was a small guns character and I found it to be quite enjoyable. The combat shotgun does tend to make things a bit easier. All in all, I loved it.
The main story is very compelling and relevant to what you’re trying to do. I missed a huge swath of optional content that I’m not doing on my second character.
Most of all I felt that the game was true to the Fallout franchise. After about three hours I lost the “Elder Scrolls with guns” feeling and fell in love, once more, with the franchise.
My main complaint is that the primary story is pretty short. That isn’t a big deal but if you don’t pay attention you can “end” your game in a hurry. The great thing is, however, that you can avoid it for the most part and go and really enjoy yourself.
The only other concern I have is that the game is buggy on the PC. VATS can crash you, minimizing can crash you, and sometimes options disappear. A little frustrating. Also, patching is really strange. You run the patch, it says “updating” and it just runs the game. You never get a “complete” from the patcher. Oh well, minor annoyances in an amazing game.
Fallout 3 doesn’t fail in any category, “living up to the legend of 1 and 2″ included. That post-nuclear 50ies humor that I loved about the prequels is still intact; shooting everyone in the head is there; and sneaking behind a store clerk to steal his goods and sell it right back to him was never so much fun (since fallout 2, anyway).
And the best thing, I’m about 54 hours in at the moment, and not once have I been bored by anything.
The only gripe, obviously, is the level cap. Why do we need it again? Why not let the character be all-powerful? Or at least gief more skill manuals plx.
this is the best game i ever played. i suggest that when you get fawkes you should stop the main quest. this is because once you go in the citadel you cant get out of the main quest which sucks. dont do the sidequest wasteland survival guide. you have to get crippled,fight raiders, mirelurks, and robots and it is very upsetting