Okay guys, I must admit I am very sorry it took me so long to write another review; after Chrissy I sorta fell off the face of the Earth. You know.....with a PS3 in hand. Tekken 6, Batman: Arkham Asylum, Force Unleashed, GTA4, and several others will probably make it to my review list (although I know this is a PC gaming section, so I may just leave out Tekken and Force Unleashed).
Anyways.....
FALLOUT 3
Fallout 3 is the universally loved and most recent title in the critically acclaimed Fallout franchise, set in a post-apocalyptic world inhabited by mutant monsters and craven mercenaries. While many are displeased that Bethesda created the best-selling and most highly rated game in the series (when they aren't even the original creators), none can truly deny Fallout 3 was the real standout of 2008.
Gameplay:
Well, where do I begin? Fallout 3 is a standout in many ways, and is considered a hallmark for RPG/FPS hybrids (now headed by Borderlands), and probably will be for quite some time. Personally, I just cannot get enough of the game, even though I haven't played it too often recently. Now, some people believe Fallout strays too far from it's RPG roots for a more cinematic style of gunplay, but I can honestly say; so what? VATS is a brilliant invention, whether it be new or old, and it is but one of many highlights to this game. And plus, after the first few levels, Fallout 3 starts leaning more into a dark and gritty RPG filled with some very untraditional fighting that fills many people with a sick sense of satisfaction. Even though it uses the same engine as Oblivion (albeit heavily upgraded), Fallout manages to differentiate itself quite admirably, changing even the basic conventions of lockpicking and theft. Perhaps I should regale; you can't compare Fallout to Oblivion in any way. They are wildly different, and share only very basic similarities. Some people think they can be one and the same, but I tend to believe otherwise. Anyway, enough chit-chat; Fallout has a very fleshed out shooting component where guns have weight, intense gore is present and a movie-style way of doing combat for you makes itself very useful. Wait, what? Gore? In a Bethesda game? It is rare you see stuff like that from them, but they sure as hell get it right; grab Bloody Mess and you'll be shooting people's limbs off, decapitating them with pistols and even ripping them apart with a hammer. It's bloody, it's violent, and it sure is messy (hence the name of that fore-mentioned perk). What else? The level up system is cool and really gives you a true ability to select what you want to invest your talents in, and aside from investing points in abilities you also can get a 'perk' with every level up. These are the real meat of the system and really reward you for sticking with the game; you feel evil when you can cannibalize corpses, you know you are damned cool when big monsters protect you like tame (yet violent) pets, and it's just badass when you can actually become a real bounty hunter. What is a real draw is that you can't get all the perks in one playthrough; there are simply too many for you to obtain in your limited 20 level romp. This really encourages multiple playthroughs, and I know a certain person who keeps playing the game just to see all the different combinations. I think he's going to be playing on his deathbed for some reason. What else? Ok, you get allies who can follow you, the enemies are wildly different and are either disgusting insects or fearsome behemoths. Oh yeah, you get to verse titanic mutant monsters that run at you with a giant sledgehammer. Nice. Then there is the karma system, a good and evil tie-in that weighs your actions and changes the game depending on your morality; if you are good you get free stuff of randoms, but you get hunted by criminal mercs; and if you are evil you just get a lot of people hating you. I can't really describe the gameplay for much longer; there are far too any options in this game to do almost every action, and would only take me days to re-iterate. So let me just say this; what do you feel when you walk into a ruined street of Washington D.C, rubble and debris everywhere, and a war between steel-armoured guys with lasers and monstrous ork-like creatures erupts? Oh, and futuristic helicopters fly above and start dropping troops in, and chaos ensues between 20+ enemies? Likely, your answer to that question will determine your level of enjoyment with the game. Fallout 3 is big. It's well done, and everything is just so unique. Attention to detail is everywhere, and I cannot get enough of strolling around and getting hack-sawed by a floating robot, or being mutilated by leather-garbed raiders out of the blue. All that while classical jazz music is playing. SCORE! For such a huge wasteland, everything seems perfect. Nothing annoys me overly, so this is why I give it a
10/10
Sound:
Fallout 3 sounds great, and that isn't a big surprise coming from one of the biggest and most successful game developers' of the modern era. Bethesda has an uncanny knack of making everything sound either right or simply good, and you will never believe lasers or plasma rifles should sound any different. The actual music in the game made specifically for the title does well in presenting the emotions of whatever scene is playing out, although a lot of the time as you explore the vast landmass you won't even hear any music unless you turn up your handy radio-device/thing. The liscenced song tracks the dev's have picked are unbelievably good and perfectly fit the strange sense of soullessness you feel throughout the entire game, and you can really tell something is wrong with a world that governments tried to describe as a utopia to unknowing citizens. That comic-smiling man always freaks me out, for some strange reason, and it often has a lot to do with killing innocents and romping poor mutants and listening to songs like "I Don't Want to set the world on Fire" or "Jolly Days". You would think it shouldn't fit a nightmarish wasteland survival-horror game, but disturbingly, it does; almost too well to be joked about. The sounds are great, and you really feel like you are in this world.....again. The melee noises are a bit uninspired though, and the explosions seem a bit downplayed. Does it really matter though? Oh, and the voice-overs are suitably briliant. Liam Neeson anyone? Oh, what about the sublime Ron Perlman? Didn't catch him did you?
9/10
Story:
Fallout 3's story is dark, sometimes humorous yet never far from creeping you out. As soon as you are walking around Vault 101 in the beginning of the game, you definitely know something is wrong with this underground maze of quiet people and jolly cake-killing machines. Even without the life-determining G.O.A.T test, you can tell that the venerable Overseer has a really stunted view on life and will brainwash everyone to his way of thinking for his corrupted idea of 'peace' to take fruition. Lying bastard. Now, it's not really a spoiler because you feel like it's going to happen anyway, but I just loll over the idea of killing your best friend's sick-minded father and then watching her as she screams in pain and anguish, even though she probably knew it might happen. Later on, feeling like a righteous hero as you storm streets littered with tyrannical opponents alongside a heavenly saviour in the form of a giant humanoid robot hurling bombs at clusters of evil. I'm not kidding. Fallout 3 has a very wide story, and one that goes very well with the side quests the game is chock full of. It doesn't take your vision to consistently know you are in post nuclear-war America. The story does give you some tough morality choices, ones that affect the many different endings to the game; should you blow up a city built around a nuclear bomb for the fun of it, or save the poor residents from annihilation? This is something that isn't even really part of the story, although watching the undoubtedly awesome explosion from a couple miles away can have dire consequences on the future of your character, like not getting a free home or...umm...missing out on a tonne of missions. Yeah. The storyline is involved, eccentric, and only suffers from the fact that the ending sequence seems a bit abrupt, and some things just seem out of place. The multiple story arcs thing helps to cover this up though; some people never even had to go to Galaxy News Radio HQ. Stuff like that tends to add up.
9.5/10
Presentation:
Fallout 3's menus are shockingly good, and give you that real feel of the world it tries to entice you in. There's no shortage of the comic-book style pictures that disturb you to the very core and oft make you laugh out loud, and you probably won't notice Fallout 3's relatively short loading screens. When you weigh out that once you are out in the open world there is not another loading screen no matter how far of the surprisingly large game area you traverse, you would forgive the five-ten second loading screens (perhaps longer depending on your rig). The UI is detailed and well done, and never serves to screw up your game-time by interrupting or blocking anything. It's all very well and good, and that's pretty much why I give this category a
Visuals:
Whilst definitely not the best looking game of 2008, it still was one of the better ones in visual fidelity. Most people will notice many upgrades over Oblivion's engine (as both games use the same one), and it is obvious that attention to detail is just as good (or perhaps better) as other recent Bethesda games. However, many people think Oblivion is the better of the two simply because it is far more rich and bibrant, sporting a vast array of colourful palettes and simply being a beautiful world to look at. This is in direct contrast to the ugly world of Fallout, which has a very grey and dark form of display, but anyone with an eye should notice that character models and the environments have more detail and animations are sharper and more fluid. Watching Liberty Prime go to town still sits in my head, even after witnessing the spectacles of Killzone 2 and Force Unleashed. Still, compared to the more modern games, whilst it does it's job well it isn't by any means as good as most others, yet I can't give this any less than a solid
8/10
Lasting Appeal:
Fallout 3's open world style and vast array of story arcs and gameplay stuff will keep you coming back for more and more, long after you've finished it once. I simply get a kick out of wandering around killing things to the tune of big band music from the last century, and it's a safe bet you will too. I've spent many hours on this game, and it will always sit fondly with me as one of my favourite games. Oh, and VATS is hilarious with Bloody Mess, or did I already mention that? It just never gets dull.
Thoughts and Notes:
Fallout 3 is unbelievably massive, and a true testament as to why Bethesda is so widely respected. The DLC will give you a lot more to do, especially the extra 10 levels on of them gives you, plus the fact that the 'ending' actually now turns the game into a true sandbox title. But, honestly, you don't need the numerous DLC packs to enjoy this game; it's just the salt on your steak. (Yes, I'm Australian.)
Overall Score: 10+9+9.5+9.5+8+10= 56/60 (approximately) 9.3 out of 10.
Say what you want about the review; in retrospect I haven't been feeling good mentally whilst writing this, so feel free to point out any inconsistencies or simple wrongs as you like. I already know there's probably going to be a lot of mixed views about this game if there are comments, and I knew that risk when I wrote this.
Is that with or without the DLC that you get in the GOTY edition?
I have a Spoiling question...could someone please PM me, it's about the ending sequence of the main quest, but i don't want to ask it here in case someone else hasn't played yet. thx.
-Exile(\/)
GoodGame; it is the review for the original PC version released as is, without any DLC. I just make reference to the DLC every so often, but they don't in any way affect the score.
If it was the GOTY edition I was reviewing, I would probably add a 0.5 to story and that would be it, sadly. I've already given perfect scores for gameplay and lasting appeal heheh, perhaps too prematurely lol.
You have some fine reviews, but your scores are very high.. Are these games really that close to perfection?
Having played Fallout, I'd say it was good but far from perfect. As a dungeon crawler, it was absolutely phenomenal and easily earns a 10/10 for that. As a RPG, I had some serious problems with it. I didn't like the main story personally; the side-arcs were much more enjoyable, but unfortunately much too sparse in the sandbox world. Short of having a strategy guide on your lap, they were very difficult to actually locate. The biggest fault with the main storyline was that it was atrociously linear (not to mention packed with cliche). The player didn't get to make any choices at all with regards to the main storyline until after the end-game boss was dead (and even then the choices were completely unsatisfying). Speaking of the end-game boss, for me it was just queuing up headshots and watching everyone in the room fall dead before they could fire a return shot. Talk about anticlimatic.
Difficulty-wise, Fallout suffers one of the huge banes of sandbox games; it's hardest near the beginning and easiest near the end. As your character levels up and acquires more equipment, he becomes expontentially more dangerous, but the opponents you encounter early on are pretty much just as dangerous as the ones you will encounter in the late game. This is before we consider the fact that the player himself is probably getting a better feel for the game as he goes along. If anything we have a slight hump near the beginning with a gentle downward slope towards a ridiculously easy end-game. The balance between the character perks is also completely out of line, with a few obvious "best" choices that are ridiculously powerful compared to the alternatives, and others that are stupidly underpowered.
I was actually offended by the sensational and unrealistic violence. Virtually any weapon will decapitate a dead enemy if the killing blow was to the head, ignoring the fact that the ONLY weapons you have that can even theoretically do this are rocket launcher and sword (and even then, you'd need to be exceptionally strong to achieve decapitation with a sword). The gore levels are disgusting, with no optional settings to reduce or eliminate them.
Replayability? I'd say close to none. The main storyline is completely linear, the side-quests and dungeons, while interesting, are pretty much the same every time and not worth playing twice.
Overall, I'd say Fallout 3 was a good game, but it had a lot of serious problems and really doesn't go down as anything special in my books.
The other funny thing about the main story line (as I recall), it could be completed in around an hour or two bypassing all side quests.
The strength of this game was indeed in the side quests and the general exploration. I did not find the main story line as compelling. I also have much fonder memories of Fallout 2 in comparison with Fallout 3. Alas, I did not play Fallout 1.
My only complaint about the game is the lack of a useful flashlight. The Pipboy is okay, but i think its range needed to be doubled at least.
Interesting opinions all.
joasoze I tend to give games review scores based on what I think of each category, so even if it's a game I say is bad it might still get a decent score because I gave it a 8 in sound or something. Unlike professional reviewers such as IGN, I don't give an average based on what I think it should be; I give it a score that actually tallies the minor scores. Some don't like that system, as many tend to like giving the game what they think it deserves, which is perfectly fine. I just like doing it this way hehe.
Personally, I do think Fallout 3 deserves a score that high, because I really like everything about it. Remember, this is an opinion review; nothing to do with public stuff. Thanks for the input everyone by the way.
I've followed what the zealots over at No Mutants Allowed have said about Fallout III and that was very entertaining. You should see their comments when the first gorey combat pics were released! It were like: "....ok, so we can shoot heads off...." and "yeah, this is EXACTLY what I expect Fallout to look like....".
Then when they realized that you can kite they declared the lead designer as satan and wanted him nailed to the cross. But then again, being told that "we're true to Fallout" and getting an Action-RPG is understandably quite infuriating to those who wanted a turnbased RPG.
Myself I've only played 10min of Fallout 1 and 2 and none of part III but I will do it as soon as I get a '24 screen and the game goes down in price a bit. Then it's achievementhunting
My personal review of Fallout 3: great graphics, great storytelling, nice gameplay and... ooohhhhh, Dragon Age was released, kthxbye.
I'm planning on finishing it *someday*, though, but I'm in no rush to do so either. Perhaps because I know that, without the oh-so-expensive DLC, I won't be able to continue playing after finishing the main campaign which leaves me with very little desire to actually finish it.
Fallout 3 sucks badly.
gameplay 10/10? That's a joke. I can think about half dozen FPS-RPGs and none of them is worse than FO3 in gameplay.
I love Fallout 3. Great Graphics, Great enemy tactics. (At least, the ones who are supposed to have tactics...), A VERY pleasing range of weapons to choose from. The Expansions were somewhat cheesy...Pitt was short, and the others were a stretch...Keep in mind i haven't played Broken Steel, and i've only WATCHD the begining of Point Lookout...But over all, I'd say between a 9 and 10 is not out of the question.
Tuco: We've given the reasons we liked the game...How about some real reasons you didn't like it, rather than "None of these games were worse"
-Exile
Fallout 3 is a "passable" game at around 6/10, even if you don't compare it to previous installations of Fallout, including Tactics. Because if you do, it's going to tank at somewhere around 2/10 to 3/10.
Fallout 3, like it's predecessor Oblivion, have added nothing but modability and nice graphics to their respective franchises, at the cost of immersion, soul, story, roleplaying potential & meaningful choices.
Sooooo wtb the younger generation of gamers who weren't ALIVE when all of these soooo amazing rpgs and other predecessors came out? cause for me the first serious rpg (i.e. any rpg) I played was oblivion and since then i have put over 360 hours on multiple files into it.... why? cause its awesome imo and the only experience i have with any polished RPG (except knights of the old republic but thats a different rpg style)
In other words it deserves a 9/10 (fallout3) because its compared to CURRENT games its worth that score.
The perk system could have been done differently...namely, the things like Black Widow/Lady Killer and Child at Heart, should not have been perks, but instead, something built into the game in a more accessible way so as to keep the RP from being so limited. But nothing's perfect. Luckmann, i fail to see how FO3 is lacking in the places you claim it has cost.
Fallout III is amazingly immersive in it's breadth of scope. As captivating as cereal straight out of the box to a pothead. Graphics are outstanding, rich in detail and texture in order to appreciate some of the great mod characters you can add as followers. Strippers!
Fallout 3 sucks
At the start you are like oh wow exciting perks etc. but eventually you get fed up of the repitive combat system. Fed up of travelling back and forth to cities you have visited half a million times to talk to people who never say anything new because once you have talked to them once they never say anything original EVER again unless its directly mission related. You get all these special perks but 90% of the time conversations always steer exactly the same way.
Sure it is a big game but wandering around the wasteland is dull as shit not an interesting experience. The graphics are ok but the way people walk over terrain and attack is unreal. The dialoge is boring too.
'I use the radio to promote well-being.'
Intelligent answer: 'So you use your voice to promote good?'
'Yes you're right. You're quite intelligent aren't you?'
I guess I just got bored of it. Maybe a 6,7 maybe an 8 if thats really your thing. But game of the year? One of the best games ever?
No chance
(Coming from a younger generation)
Alright, thats your opinion and ya some dialogue ect. was crap like that example.
Edit: the difference between this review and the ones i was attacking is that he has points besides it was bad in general, and he didn't compare it to older "better" games that at least in my case aren't relevant to the games goodness.
If you guys don't like my opinion, that's fine, but remember that this is my opinion and not what I consider to be fact. Just clearing up.
Its all cool
Im just pissed off about my mates going on about it when I really cant stand it any more
I like fallout 3, however one thing I do hate. I play it on my 27inch tv and I cant read nothing on screen on the pipboy.
It seems to me you need a 50 inch to be able to read or you need to bi sitting right in front of the television.
Other than that it's cool
Good review.
Personnally, I was a little "iff" about it..then I heard about the HUNDREDS of possible endings, the fact that it can go 1st/3rd person, the VIAT system, the guns, the gore..All right!
Then I bought it...and realized there was only 3 ending (good, neutral, evil...lamez) and after playing it, that none of your action really mattered if only to maybe facilitate your life in one perticular pass in the game, or maybe open another talk option with NPC #234213.
Not to mention all that talk about guns guns guns!....There's only 1 shotgun and it sucks, 2 assault rifles and they're meh too..I ended up playing the game wiht the hunting rifle more than anything else.
There's also none of the team making like in the previous ones..sure you cna ahve one person following you around, which you have little to no control over (actually no control), 2 at the same time if you count the dog (OOoohhh..) which kinda remove the whole RPG aspect and added more into the "Shooter" portion.
Something else no one tlaked about: vehicles....if they would have added a car or something, going from point A (top of map, East) to point B (down under, West side), the 23553453 miles between those 2 points would have been better driving a car or a B.O.S. Hummer, driving over raiders, mutant creatures, not to mention a ncie thing to haul your shit around too, and your team..oh wait you ain<T got no team.
Oh right, the way they made the map you're forced to do those stupid ass DC Subway line "dungeon" to get somewhere.
If I was the B.O.S. I would use that Fatman launcher to clear all that shit in the streets, so my guy and everyone else don't have to walk 10 miles undergorund in Ghoul County....jsut to reach the radio station and get told to keep going underground until you reach the Washington Monument...game killer, right there.
Being a fan of the first two Fallouts and waiting for a long time for this game to come out i must say I was really dissapointed with Fallout 3. Even as a stand alone game it was just a mediocre. The whole time I played it just reminded me too much of ES4. Story was lame. Plot was even worse. Dialog was pathetic. Combat was too repetitive and not fun. VATS doesnt seem like it was fleshed out and real time combat was just terrible. Not a single npc that was interesting or that I cared about.
I found it to be depressing to constantly run through the desert. There should have been a quest at the end to make it a lush land. Then again i can see how this would not quite fit into the concept althought would have been great.
I cannot think of a game that would have done this before.
For instance there is an Oblivion Mod where you can build a city step by step.
Something like this.
I love the empty wasteland... I must be a depressive or something.
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