Hello there, and welcome to Vault 101 where you’ll grow up in a safe environment that protects you from the out side world, and as well as a Vault where nobody enters and nobody leaves. Until you have to, when you grow up with your loving father and find out that he went missing and left the vault. Thus, you set out on a quest, a quest to find your dad and venture the wasteland of Washington D.C., filled with Raiders, Slavers, Ghouls, Mutants, and bizarre creatures that roam the area. This is a adventure of survival, this is Fallout 3.
Ah life ain’t it grand, peace, freedom, and bacon and eggs, yet life isn’t perfect from nuclear fallout’s and, war that ravages the wastelands of Washington D.C., this is where you come in, because once you take that step out of Vault 101, there is no turning back. You begin from birth, meeting your father and creating your character, then moving on to growing up. As times change in the vault you become old enough to have your own Pip-Boy 3000 and actually learn how to live you life at the vault, until that fateful day when your dad goes missing, and you have to leave the vault in search of him. As soon as you step out a bright light hits your eyes almost blinding you and showing you what happened to the outside world, and how it fell to chaos. That right there is probably a great beginning to a story like Fallout 3, a futuristic first person RPG set in the year 2077 and in the Capital wasteland of Washington D.C. . You play the role as, well…. you, because you are able to customize your character to completely feel the way and sorta look the way you want to look. From hair, to face, to eye colors, it’s all there completely customizable and ready to go for you to set out and face the wasteland.
A boy and his dogmeat
As you venture on out, you’ll realize that your free to do anything and yes do anything you want to do and also explore as much as you can with this limitless freedom you have, say you want to go to the Downtown ruins of D.C. you can do that but you won’t make it far since out in the world there are creatures that will kill anything that moves and with you starting out at Level 1, well let’s just you’ll want to take some baby steps until you feel ready. But with the area being so large, you’ll find new places everywhere you go, no matter what. Whether you go north, south, east or west, there’s always something waiting for you and ready to take action. Speaking of action the game has plenty of it, and plenty of blood and gore (so not suitable for the kids) also a lot of thing for you to do while looking out, you’ll take on a lot of raiders and fight alot of things out there but also take chems and meds to help you get back on your feet, but be warned to much chems and you’ll be addicted to them. The game is very solid on bringing a realistic feeling to the outside world and all of it’s horror’s in a nuclear wasteland but it can also be fun (thank Bethesda for the Bloody Mess perk) and no this game is not Oblivion with guns it’s way more than that and nowhere near it. When fighting in combat you are given two choices either fight it in real time or use V.A.T.S ( Vault-Tech Assisted Targeting System) which slows down the combat and makes it a real gun slinger game where you play chance on the body parts you select based upon your action points and hopefully get critical hits to take out your opponent , which in turn earns you experience points for you to level-up and gain perks to use in the game and help you out even more (like I said thank Bethesda for the Bloody Mess perk).
Say hello to my little friend!
The Graphics are top notch and incredibly good, Bethesda really took their time to make Washington D.C. look gritty and really depressing, also the characters looks amazingly good although there are the occasional pop-ins and technical glitches, but even though all those are there it won’t stop you from looking at the amazing scenery in the game as well as stopping for a moment to just soak in the depressed and bleak future of tomorrow. Other than the graphics, the dialogue is on the ball which characters responding to every question you ask them or to every jerk answer you give them, you can either be a good person or be a jerk like I said before and either be neutral or evil, but know this whatever you do, you decisions will determine the outcome of your ending and for me we’ll let’s just say I was very nice and got a good ending in order for me to complete this game. Although Fallout 3 is very long (took me 50+ hours to beat the game, which made it amazing) it is well worth it and very, and I do mean very well put together, and sadly there is no Game+ where you can play the game over with all of your past equipment but that’s no biggie. All in all, from the story to the graphics, to the dialogue, to the gameplay, Fallout 3 is a no-brainer for Game of the Year unless you have a reason not to buy it or at least rent it, this game has to be on your shelve. Do Bethesda that one big favor.
Side Note: This game was reviewed using a PS3 and something you should notice is that the game is sometimes loses it’s framerate but not all the time, also PSN notifications do bother the game but you can always turn those off or log off PSN (please patch that Bethesda) also there are no trophies yet! so if your that Trophy Whore and don’t want to pick up the game for that reason (which is stupid) then wait for the patch. Other than that the game plays as well as the other versions and shouldn’t be looked as inferior but as equal to each other. (Issues have been fixed with a patch and the trophy patch is now out, DLC is soon to come)
Scores:
Presentation: 10
Really well done, Bethesda knew what they were doing when they took the franchise over.
Graphics: 9.5
Amazingly good, there are the occasional issues but that won’t stop you.
Sound: 10
The sounds and the score are top notch and deserve a lot of credit.
Gameplay: 10
You’ll have fun from start to finish, and the game is very addicting.
Replay Value: 9.5
Once your done, you’ll want to play it again with diffrent choices.
Final Score: 9.8 / 10
Tags: Bethesda, Fallout 3, PlayStation 3