May 10 2009
Sunday Review: Fallout 3
Ah Bethesda. What wonders have you handed us this time. Yet another story of post-nuclear mayhem unfolds in Fallout 3. Avilable on PC, XBOX360, and PS3, Fallout 3 is quite the interesting game. While I played it, I spent hours on end traversing the wastes of what used to be Washington DC, taking down super mutants, and spending my days becoming severly irradiated. What? It made my limbs grow back when they got broken, sue me!
Story: 10/10
You play as a hero, born deep inside of Vault 101. The beginning of Fallout 3 takes you through your early years, and once you emerge, its all up to you what unfolds. The missions to complete the main story quests, where you set out to find your father and help him to complete a project that will provide non-radiated water to the city, is available right off the bat, but there are a plethora of stories and experience to be crafted by the hero, and they change depending on whether or not you feel like being the holiest of hollies, or a complete asshole.
Gameplay:5/10
The gameplay of Fallout 3 has given me a few issues. First of all, the game is buggy. Very buggy. Characters have been known to dissappear, or inexplicably be dropped onto a completely different map. Quests have been bugged, Waters of Life locked up on me through THREE patches of the game. Aside from that though, when you can play smoothly, the game is fun. The VATS system helps the FPS-impaired still be able to deal some heavy damage to the dangers you run across traversing the wasteland, and the level of exploration you can do is great. If you’re a PC owner, Fallout 3 has many mods that you can use to alter your gameplay, and get more out of the Fallout 3 experience. There’s also a Fallout Wiki that is just FULL of useful information about the series as a whole. If you like this game, check it out to learn more about the PC mods.
Graphics: 7/10
I had a love/hate relationship with Fallout 3’s graphics. The environment was amazing, the guys at Bethesda put a LOT of work into recreating Washington DC’s every detail, and it just really does look like the country got nuked, and you’re running through the crumbling aftermath. Now the character detail. That was something that left more to be desired. The body movements the characters make can be very stiff, and talking to people in the cities, makes them look like mannequins. The lips barely move, and there’s a complete lack of expression, even down to the voice acting. And some of the effects of weapons and perks are just corny. Like exploding bodies, and vaporizing things into a pile of goo. What?
Music: 7/10
Fallout 3’s soundtrack is full of older music, and all the tracks used for the game come from real artists from the 1920s-1930s. Although I did manage to fall in love with almost every track they chose for the game, the tracklist can actually get quite repetitive, leading me to sometimes opt to tell my pip-boy to shut the hell up so I can hear some good ol’ wasteland silence. When you hear the same track 2-3 times in an hour it can get a little annoying, but at the same time, each track is a classic. Good for spending some time radio on, some time radio off.
Replay Value: 8/10
Half the fun of Fallout 3 is making your character. And the things you can get as you stat up in different ways is awesome, and there’s no way to experience it all by playing through it as one character. If you want to be good, you’ll miss out on cannibalism. If you love guns, then you’ll miss out on the Ninja perk. The customization of the stats as you level up lets you create different play styles. Do you like to sneak around and use the small guns? Do you not care about your safety and charge in with power armor and a HUGE gun? You can stat up in a myriad of ways, and all of them turn out to be fun ways to play the game.
Overall average: 7.4/10
Fallout 3 was definitely an enjoyable game, in spite of all the glitches. I havent even touched on the expansion packs for the game yet either, and all three of them offer new areas, new weapons, just new content galore. The newest one even extended the level cap. I’m excited to see what Bethesda can cook up in the future, but for now, Fallout 3 is definitely a keeper.
