Fallout 3 review




Editor's note: Bethesda provided us with a copy of Fallout 3. The video above was also provided for us, which is for the Xbox 360 version of the game.

Anyone who doesn’t live under a rock knows that Fallout 3 was released last week for the PC, PS3, and Xbox 360. The first numbered game in the series in ten years, there was much hope that it would follow in its predecessors’ footsteps, and it did. This review is based on the PC version of the game using a rig well above recommended specs.

The story takes place in the Fallout universe—nuclear war strikes the US in the 1950s and leaves the country in shambles. The rampant radiation has caused the living to die and turn into Ghouls, created the Super Mutant race, and mutated much of the local fauna. Regular citizens carry firearms and try to survive in the post-apocalyptic wasteland. Some lucky people hid out in Vaults, bunkers built to house people in case of war. The hero is a vaultdweller, and her quest starts when she leaves Vault 101 to find out why her father left. Fallout 3 takes place in the Capital Wasteland, which was once Washington DC and here she must make her own way in life, helping others (or not) on her way to finding her father.


Enclave Soldier--meet my plasma rifle!

At the beginning of the game the player creates their own hero through a series of events that occurs in her childhood. Projecting what they will look like as adults, and deciding on starting stats and skills are a few things that can be done. Fallout 3 uses the same SPECIAL system (Strength, Perception, Endurance, Charisma, Intelligence, Agility, Luck) and skill system as the previous Fallout games, but this time around several skills have been removed by lumping them up with other skills (for example, Pickpocket was added to Sneak). There are many different skills that can taken, such as combat skills (Melee Weapons, Small Guns, etc), Speech (to convince people to do stuff they don’t want to do), Lockpicking, Medicine, Repair, etc. The combat skills are necessary to improve combat effectiveness (chance to hit, damage, etc), while the other skills all have uses in other parts of the game.

The skill system is very important here—everything is based on these numbers and each successful skill check results in XP being earned (Lockpicking can be very lucrative in this aspect). The hero’s stats, skills, and karma (the game’s measure of alignment) all factor in to the conversations she has with NPCs. In fact, most quest objectives can be circumvented, or skipped entirely, by the proper use of the right skill. It is really refreshing to have so many ways through or around the same situation, which makes the game seem fresh every time that it is played. This freedom provides a good chunk of the fun to be found within Fallout 3.

At level up, the hero receives skill points to spend on her skills. She will also receive a perk at each level up—these are often tied directly to her stats or skills, and enhance her existing abilities by adding special effects (such as how the Sandman perk allows the hero to instantly kill a sleeping target for bonus XP). The higher the level the perk is, the more powerful it is. There is a level cap of twenty, which is quite easy to reach before the content in the game dries up. The fan favourite trait, Bloody Mess, makes an appearance, but this time as a level six perk and not as a trait.


A mutant Space Mutant--how quaint!

The hero can be joined by other characters during the course of her adventures. These characters are all NPCs and cannot be customized. Their equipment can be altered by trading them stuff and their tactics can be changed by talking to them, but the options are pretty limited. Also, they are very sensitive to the hero’s karma. Straying too far from their ideals will see them leaving the party. They can be useful, but aren’t really necessary (I only got a companion close to the end of the game). Fallout 3 looks and plays like a first person shooter game, but with some key differences. Shooter fans will be happy with this until they learn that manually aiming doesn’t guarantee hits—the hero’s stats modify the chance of each shot hitting, taking into account the body part aimed for. To help those less inclined to play FPS titles, Fallout 3 incorporates the called shot technique from previous games, calling it V.A.T.S. this time. V.A.T.S. allows the hero to slow down time while making called shots at the enemy. Individual body parts will show different hit percentages and a number of shots allowed by their action points can be queued up. Once chosen, the attack is shown in a cinematic fashion. Critical hits can be a lot of fun to watch as the force of some of the blows can knock the head or limbs off, melt bodies, or just toss the corpse around. And that is without the Bloody Mess perk.

For those not comfortable playing from a first person perspective, scrolling the mouse wheel changes the viewpoint to third person. Regardless of which way the game is played, the controls are flawless with the keyboard and mouse. Lockpicking and computer hacking are done through the use of minigames. The difficulty of the lock or security system changes the complexity of the problem to solve with the highest difficulty being quite hard to reliably perform. Luckily there is a quicksave/quickload system in place and that is it very quick in both regards!

Fallout 3 doesn’t have a very long main quest—it could likely be finished in ten hours or so, as the main quest seems to scale with the hero’s level. Luckily, there is a ton of optional content—the Capital Wasteland is huge. Entire cities can be missed by not exploring certain areas and entire underground areas can be found by poking around the right subway tunnels. Luckily, NPCs will point out locations of interest on the hero’s map and once visited, these locations can be freely traveled to by clicking on their icons on the world map.


All robots need eyeball lasers.

In my twenty-five hour sojourn into the Capital Wasteland (I got pulled into the main story and just couldn’t stop...) I likely explored at most a quarter of the content, giving me fuel to power future trips through the Wasteland. There is a slight problem with the main quest that I feel deserves mention—some parts can be skipped, and while this is nothing major, the hero behaves like they had participated in the skipped content which creates a weird feeling that something is just not right. The difficulty can be altered and helps the game appeal to a broader audience.

The Fallout universe’s atmosphere is very well presented here. The city of Washington is in shambles with crumbled buildings, dead trees, collapsed subway tunnels, and decrepit surroundings everything. Everything save the weaponry looks like it comes from old movies with even the most advanced computer terminal looking and feeling like an ancestor of the old DOS machines. Exploring the city can be an interesting venture, as all major landmarks can be found—it really looks like Bethesda spent a lot of time researching the layout of the city. The graphics are all sharp and bring the reality of the setting into clear view—it really does look like a trashed Washington. The game played fluidly on my rig, with only a few moments of hitching (likely caused by background processes), a single crash, and a prolonged slowdown during the final quest. There were a few problems associated with prolonged trips to the desktop to check emails as well, but nothing to major. I was really impressed with how stable such a huge game is.

Whereas the graphics just do a spectacular job, Bethesda really outdid themselves with the sound work. Voiceovers are spot on, sound effects are believable (down to the squishing when poking around in some piles of... stuff), and the atmospheric sounds are perfect. So why is it beyond spectacular? The hero’s Pip Boy 3000 (portable computer used to track maps, quests, notes, inventory, etc) comes with a radio. Over the course of the game, it will pick up a myriad of different stations. Galaxy News Radio, my favourite, plays a variety of old vintage music. These are interspersed with the DJ commenting on the events going on in the world, giving hints to the hero of where to go for more adventure, and otherwise chronicling the vaultdweller’s actions. There is a sharp edge to a lot of the conversation in the world, as the characters will freely use profanity and there is no filter to disable this.

While playing Fallout 3 it is hard to not get sucked into the feeling and lore of the series, as the atmosphere is perfectly represented through the gorgeous visuals and amazing music. The gameplay is perfectly engaging and as someone who regularly stays away from FPS games, I found it very easy to play. With the incredible character customization and freedom of choice available in the game, there is a great deal of replayability. Taking all this into account, this is a game I cannot recommend more highly. The only problem is finding something else in the future as good as the masterpiece, Fallout 3.