awoolcott's Full Review: Fallout 3 for PlayStation 3
In some circles, Fallout 3 is one of the most controversial games ever. Not for what you think; instead, it's a battle between old-school Fallout players whom were into the series when it was PC-only, and new owner Bethesda, who acquired the rights a few years back when Interplay went belly-up. If this sounds like some kind of nerd fight...you're probably right, but I digress. Regardless, Fallout 3 was watched with scrutiny by many, wondering if the development team known for the legendary Elder Scrolls franchise could pull off a game in this series without feeling like something totally different from Fallout and Fallout 2. Whether or not they did is none of my concern; with the move to consoles, Fallout 3 is opened up to a whole new market, a market still carrying memories of Oblivion rocking 2006 and 2007. Now that it's here, what can be said? Fallout 3 is a huge, lengthy RPG with many traits of the developer right in the open – first-person perspective by default, a massive game world with numerous paths, and some kind of world-saving main quest. The difference? How your actions can shape a world that's a bit weird and maybe a bit lost all the same.
Fallout 3 begins in the year 2277 in fallout shelter Vault 101, where you're born...and supposedly, this is where you'll die, approximately 200 years after the bombs fell on the US. Upon being born, the game digs into the character creation system you're used to, but what's different is the affect it has on your father, who is modeled around your own character choices. Your formative years are used as the tutorial for the game; scenarios present themselves to show you're a nice guy or gal, an ambiguous guy or gal, or a mean-spirited, jerk of a guy or gal. Alas, while life in the vault is just so very interesting (and by interesting I mean OH GOD LET ME OUT), a huge event changes your dull life in this sterile environment. Your father, played masterfully by King of Men Liam Neeson, suddenly leaves the vault without warning. This puts you in danger, as the Overseer (more like Dictator) puts a hit out on you simply for the familial ties, forcing you to escape the vault in exchange for life in the Wasteland of the greater Washington, DC area. The goal? Find your father and find out why he suddenly ditched the vault without warning.
...Of course, you don't really have to bother right away. Upon exiting the vault, with the Washington Monument in the distance, the game becomes your own little amusement park, free to basically go anywhere and do anything the game world allows. Moreso than Oblivion, the last game from Bethesda, the choices are more open; almost every quest has tons of directions depending on the kind of character you create and what kind fo attitude you carry. For instance, the first town you encounter close by Vault 101 is Megaton, named that way because of a live, but not yet detonated, atomic bomb in the center. Because this is a stop on the main quest, chances are you'll come across a quest asking to neutralize the bomb so Megaton isn't threatened anymore. Do so, and the town is yours; the local sheriff gives you a house, an awesome robotic butler, and the townspeople really like you, except for maybe the crazies that worship the nuke. Yet if you don't instantly go down and disarm the thing, you might encounter someone with a reverse proposition – detonate the bomb and wipe Megaton out. It kills a couple large quests since the quest-givers can't speak when they're dead, but there's still a nice little reward including lodging in a different location, which in and of itself offers another open-ended quest with many possible outcomes.
In comparison to Oblivion, Fallout 3 doesn't have quite as many quests – instead, they're just larger and more open in how they can be handled. How you handle them all dictates your character and how others respond to you. If you're a goody two shoes, mercenaries will come and randomly attack you; a nice deal since they usually have good loot to add to the collection. Yet if you're a real scumbag, a different band of avengers will hunt you in the same fashion. I noticed as my level increased these attacks lessened, maybe they just give up knowing I'm a lean, mean, life-ending machine. Some quests lead to others, and there's a large amount of small, undocumented adventures one can take on, like traversing the other vaults, which tend to be even more screwed up than 101, or collecting recordings that reveal numerous secrets in the wasteland. There's even a town of people who are really friendly on the outside, but let's just say they're quite insane. Granted this is somewhat of a theme here, life in the wasteland isn't exactly normal. All told, we're looking at a 40-50 hour game here if you spend time doing all the quests and finding all the locations on the map.
The main quest is, in the Bethesda style, not quite as memorable as the rest of the game, since it's really only there to keep focus for those who want one. It's not super lengthy either; I'm guessing less than 10 hours if that's all you do. It can be interesting enough, especially when you find another vault to enter and see the ensuing insanity, and ultimately arrive at Rivet City, a huge town built on an old aircraft carrier and containing people important to the mission of the game. The catch to the main quest is the finality of it – based upon your choices, there's hundreds of possible endings, though all contain a common theme, it's more tailored to the decisions and tactics you employed. The trick is, as advertised; once the main quest ends, the credits roll and the game ends. There's no exploring post-game like other open-world games, unless you keep a separate save before you hit the point of no return. The key, then is to do as much as possible in the game before embarking on that final mission, making the main quest even less relevant to adventuring in the wastes.
Fighting is a common avenue in Fallout 3, and the game offers a couple ways to actually engage in combat. If you're a fan of first-person shooters, you can play that way, merely firing your guns at enemies until they die, attacking various points on the body to decrease efficiency. Those more tuned to RPGs, however, will dig the Vault-tec Assisted Targeting System, or VATS. VATS makes the game a turn-based affair (of sorts); pressing R2 will stop the action and highlight the various body parts of an enemy, allowing for more precision in attacks. Success can cripple, if not outright kill your enemies; aiming for the head can either cause head to be removed from body, or it can cause them to lose their ability to aim properly, causing all kinds of amusing chaos. If you can play FPS-style the same things are possible, but you have to have good aim; the rest of us will find VATS to be a great alternative. There are downsides - the enemies can do a lot of the same tactics – getting shot in the head one too many times will cause your own aim to be all over the place. Only Stimpaks (the main method of healing since there's no magical spells in this game) a visit to a clinic, or sleeping in a bed will heal your injuries – not only that, but merely waiting won't restore HP like Oblivion. And also, VATS is based upon AP (attack points), and when they're out, you can't use VATS again until there's enough AP for an attack...unless you're level 20 and chose the right perk.
Leveling is a different beast too – rather than allow someone to become good at everything, Fallout 3 lets you tailor your character in a way that benefits what you're into. Upon reaching a new level, you get stat points to boost numerous categories that one would expect in an RPG, and once you finish, you can choose a single perk (out of many, far more choices than levels) to make you more proficient at something. Some perks are tied to gender; a female character can use her feminine wiles to get what she wants, while the Lady Killer perk has the same affect for males. Child at Heart offers unique discourse with kids – oh yeah, there's kids in the game, though they can't be killed, sickos – which can come in handy, especially with kids that have good information. Mysterious Stranger is a VATS feature; every once in a while, a gangster-looking guy will show up and assist you in combat, instantly killing whatever you were fighting, while awesome western-style music plays. It's all random, but his appearances are always awesome. Most of the other perks deal with skills and the like. The game itself only allows you to reach level 20...once you get there no more experience is doled out. So if you miss out on a perk, level 20 is the point of no return. Also, unlike Oblivion where enemies leveled with you and kept the game balanced out, you can become much more powerful than enemies in time, but all the same, some places are not to be traversed until you get tougher or you'll find yourself dead.
Gears of War pushed a theme dubbed Destroyed Beauty, and Fallout 3 falls right into that mold. In the wastelands, you'll see nothing but miles and miles of dead trees, barren ground, destroyed roads, houses with little left to them, abandoned factories, and random little settlements, or what's left of them. The underground metro system serves as the “dungeons” of the game, and also are the only way initially into the remains of Washington DC. DC is a totally different place than the wastes; buildings are demolished, yet some still stand. The Washington Monument is battered, but still standing tall. Same with Capitol Hill, which presents the ultimate challenge of the game. You earn your passage into this landmark, fighting all the way. It's almost like a real election, only you're voting with your missile launcher. Granted, this becomes a familiar theme throughout – aside from one very bizarre area, everything looks the same. The vaults, despite having their own little quirks, all tend to feel similar. It's obviously by design since the radiation and nuclear damage wiped everything out, but sometimes it can get a little boring wandering the wasteland despite the technical efforts here. There's also some werid bugs that some have reported; personally all I've seen is a random game freeze, as well as the annoying PSN notification bug that hangs while a friend comes online or a message is received. The future Trophy patch should hopefully fix this problem. Fallout can be played with a first or third-person perspective, but really...first-person is the way to go, as Bethesda still hasn't really figured out a good third-person animation system.
Fallout 3 is one of those games that technically has a nice overworld theme, but there's almost no reason to listen to it. Your awesome Pip-Boy, which serves as the main menus, also has a radio, picking up signals across the wastes from various factions. The best one is Galaxy News Radio, which is run by a cool cat named Three Dog, who you encounter in the main quest. Not only does he play classic tunes from the 1930's and 40's, he also commentates on the happenings in the area, most notably the adventures of...you. As you progress and do quests, you'll get notoriety for performing them, whether you did the right thing or a very bad thing. It's a nice touch to recognize your efforts. Three Dog also drops subtle hints about other quest locations by reporting “rumors” that you can use as a tip. He's always right. Another radio station is dedicated to an outfit dubbed the Enclave, which plays overly patriotic music while propaganda plays, as the Enclave fancies themselves as the remnants of the US Government. There's the opposite too, a hilarious Peoples Republic of the US, full of Chinese propaganda, since it was China that nuked the US 200 years before the game began. One station is even tied to a quest, as you enter one of those screwy vaults to help an elderly lady perform music for wastelanders and the traveling caravans that you encounter to trade with. Oh, there's voice acting too, yes, with Liam Neeson as mentioned, and Ron Pearlman doing his “war never changes” thing, and the rest is pretty competent.
Closing Argument
As someone who can claim Fallout 3 to be their first entry in the series, I found the game to be highly entertaining once the world is opened to you. Yeah, it's basically Oblivion in a post-apocalyptic setting, but only on the surface; dig deeper and you find a game with more options and possibilities than Oblivion had. You can be mean and nasty in Oblivion and still come to the same conclusion; in Fallout 3 your temperament actually can affect the world around you and how the final moments progress. Though the move to Bethesda might have been controversial, it seems to have paid off, and the franchise has been reborn for a whole new generation of gamers, especially gamers who don't use their computers to play. PS3 owners looking for another huge, open, and fun role-playing game should waste little time picking up Fallout 3 and digging into this crazy world full of strange faces and strange places.
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