Fallout 3 – 360 – Review

Welcome to Vault 101, a safe haven
for all surviving residents of Washington DC after the atomic bombs hit. Here,
you’ll live in a harmonious brotherhood with many other brainwashed individuals
while under the watchful eye of the Overseer. Outside of Vault 101 is a
contaminated world full of miscreants, mutants, giant insects, rabid dogs and
other unfortunate beings so you better be thankful for your shelter because once
you leave, there’s no going back. If you do in fact leave, you better prepare
yourself for a world of revelation because Capital Wasteland isn’t full of
sunshine and flowers anymore. Listen to the Overseer and you’ll live a beautiful
life in the company of people who aren’t full of radiation and pessimism.

It’s too bad that your main
character is catapulted into a situation where they can longer live within Vault
101 because once you leave Vault 101, you’ll realize how much suffering the
world has gone through in the subsequent years after the global atomic war of
2077. While it isn’t full of color and fruition, it’s still beautiful in its
own peculiar way. After stepping outside the doors of Vault 101 and being
blinded by the sunlight, you’ll soon see a massive world waiting for you to
explore it. Players will embark on their quest to find their father after he
escaped Vault 101 for reasons unknown and discover the truth around every
corner.

The story of Fallout 3 isn’t
as epic as I first imagined, but it’s at least satisfying when you get deep into
the title. Players will experience a heaping amount of choices they’ll have to
make and several of them surround the life or death of an NPC. You see, Capital
Wasteland isn’t a cheerful place to live – everybody hates everybody. This
dog-eat-dog world is all about survival and the only person anyone cares about
is themselves. So NPCs will provide you secrets and insights about other people
to better their own lives. Whether it’s a henchman of a bar owner telling you
how to steal his money and kill him or a bigot giving you information on where
to find a party of ghouls to murder, Fallout 3 is an a extreme world that
doesn’t like to take “no” for an answer. Within the first few hours of gameplay,
you’ll learn that the best way to play Fallout 3 is to play as the
anti-hero (i.e. Wolverine, Gambit, and The Punisher) who is only needs to look
out for number one (a.k.a. yourself).

Exploring Capital Wasteland, you’ll
soon realize that it’s going to be tough to survive on your own. You can even
look at the NPCs called ‘ghouls’ to see how sad the world has become. These
unfortunate people were outside of shelter when the bombs hit and had their skin
burned off from the blasts. They’re literally walking and talking zombies that
are discriminated by the rest of the folk who were able to find shelter. They
even have created their own community where only ghouls live so they can be
treated equally.

Fallout 3 isn’t just about
the decisions you make, but it’s also about surviving those decisions because
not everyone will look at you respectfully if you’re an all out evil-doer or a
saint. Many quests will have you choosing between saving or taking a life. If
you’d rather just reap the benefits of a quest right away, you can kill the
individual in question. But if you’d rather search for an alternate route to
save your dignity and their life, you could speak to the person you were hired
to kill to embark on a new quest and possibly receive better spoils.

Fallout 3 employs a karma
system to keep track of your good and evil deeds. You can easily switch between
the good and evil side within a few hours of questing so you aren’t always stuck
on one side of the spectrum for the rest of the game. It’s a good thing too
since there’ll be characters that’ll join up with you (which if they die,
they’re dead for good) throughout the game. Depending on your karma, certain NPCs will join you on your quests. So if you’re too good of a person, a
mercenary may not be willing to join up since your reputation isn’t to his
liking.

Taking place in the first-person
perspective by defaults, players can switch it up to the third-person
perspective on the fly with the click of the left bumper. The best advice is to
stay in first-person since you’ll be using your guns a lot and it’s real tricky
to target a moving enemy in third-person. If you’re having trouble targeting
your enemies, you can also pause the action and jump into the Vault-Tech
Assisted Targeting System (VATS) to pick which enemy you’d like to target, which
body part you’d like to hit, and how many times you’d like to shoot depending on
your action points (AP). The head, arms, legs, chest and the weapon an enemy is
holding can be targeted. Each body part and/or weapon has a percentage attached
to it on how likely you are able to connect with the attack and how much damage
will be taken from the attack. The attacks are displayed in slow motion and
it’s an enjoyable sight to see as the enemy’s blood is flying everywhere and
body parts are blown to pieces. Without a doubt, the death sequences are superb
and are the highlight of the combat.

The role-playing aspects of
Fallout 3 are as in-depth as ever. Leveling up your character is essential
if you want to roam the world of Capital Wasteland (Washington DC) since the
farther you roam away from Vault 101, the harder the enemies will become. Unlike Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, the enemies don’t level up with your
character so be prepared to skirmish with enemies at a higher level then you if
you wander too far away from your safety zone. Believe me when I say that
encountering a super-mutant isn’t the fondest time for anyone.

Players will have the chance to
assign their ability points they earn from leveling up in a S.P.E.C.I.A.L.
(Strength, Perception, Endurance, Charisma, Intelligence, Agility and Luck)
system. With leveling up, they also have the chance to choose their own
specialized skills such as ‘Lockpick’ (opening locked doors and containers),
‘Speech’ (persuasion of NPCs), and ‘Science’ (hacking computers). If those
don’t interest you, then possibly skills such as ‘Big Guns’ (how effective you
are with large weapons) and ‘Melee Weapons’ (more damage via melee) will. There
are over a dozen different skills to specialize in and if that isn’t enough,
there are perks to unlock and upgrade in. Perks such provide bonuses and
attributes on top of the skills and abilities you level up in. With a perk like
‘Animal Friend’ players will gain the aid of animals when they are nearby if you
get into a scuffle. There’s even a ‘Lady Killer’ perk that provides more damage
to women enemies. So as you can see, Fallout 3 is an impossibly deep RPG
that gamers can immerse themselves into.

One aspect that’ll play an important
role on how people play Fallout 3 is the weapons. Each weapon is graded upon
its condition and it’ll worsen as you progress through the game. You’ll have to
pay attention to the condition of the weapon is in because it’ll produce less
effective results if it’s damaged. Your best bet is to fix your weapons of
choice and keep them in great condition until you find a better weapon to use. You can also build weapons within the game by buying the blueprints and then
scavenging to find the parts to build it.  Among the best weapons you’ll build
or run across is the Rock-It Launcher. It’s easily the most useful weapon as it
does an incredibly amount of damage. You can load the Rock-It Launcher with any
item you find within the game. Yes, that’s right; If you’d like to fill it up
with ashtrays and tin cups, by all means, you are able to do so.

Lastly, looking at the graphics, you
might see similarities to Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion and for good reason
since Bethesda, the developer, also worked on Oblivion. The environments
that Bethesda has created are top-notch and among the best work this year in
terms of detail. Sure they aren’t full of color, but they aren’t supposed to
be. The post-apocalyptic world is impressive and downright scary at times
(especially at night) when it comes to what the future could hold for humanity.
Fallout 3 also uses the Havok physics system that is hilarious in motion
when you use VATS and are blowing off an enemy’s head. As for the load times,
they are somewhat on the average side in terms of length. The character models
aren’t as good looking as the environments are and there is an occasional drop
in the framerate when you enter into a large firefight with an enemy.

Gameplay: 9.4
If the third-person perspective was better, Fallout 3 would’ve been
an almost perfect RPG. Even with that said, everyone needs to spend time
showing off how amazing VATS is since it is pure ecstasy.

Graphics: 9.4
Once you leave Vault 101, be prepared for an epic world full of beautiful
disasters and calamities.

Sound: 9.5
Bethesda has once again hired superb voice-actors and filled Fallout 3
with outstanding sound effects.

Difficulty: Medium/Hard
Depending on the quest and how far you are leveled up, Fallout 3 will
vary on the difficulty level.

Concept: 9.7
It’s great to see the Fallout franchise back on top again. It may
not have the same developers or team behind the originals, but I can guarantee
you that there’s fun to be had within Fallout 3.

Overall: 9.4
While Fallout 3 may not be for everyone (especially those who are
looking for something a little more light-hearted), that doesn’t stop it from
being a marvelous game. The replay value alone should hold gamers over until the
dawn of the New Year. Fallout 3 is a must-have for gamers who are
looking for the next bona-fide RPG on any console.