Fallout Boy becomes Fallout Man (Fallout 3 (PC))

Member Name: The Duke

Product:	Fallout 3 (PC)
Date:	07/01/09 (131 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Doesn't require a powerful PC, easy to play, tonnes of atmosphere

Disadvantages: Main quest is too short, the game ends once the main quest is complete. A few bugs.

Right from the very start, Fallout 3 offers a new twist on the RPG genre. Rather than "roll dice" or randomly generate numbers alone, your character's attributes are also determined by some little scenes that play out during the early part of your life in Vault 101 (a large nuclear fallout shelter that's big enough to support an entire community). This is a nice touch and it did help me get immersed in the game, but it can be frustrating for those that like to get involved in the game immediately.

After a traumatic event in your Vault life, you emerge into the real world for the first time, each step taking you literally further from your past. The real world proves to be tough going for an eighteen year old, a post-nuclear wasteland in the Washington DC area with mutated animals proving a nuisance, pockets of civilisation few and far between and plenty of raiders willing to take your bottle caps (currency) off your hands. Still, you have your goals to accomplish, so onwards and upwards!

For fans of the previous Fallout games, despite the change in genre from being a point-and-click RPG with an isometric view to first/third person/RPG hybrid, there will be a lot of familiar terms to get re-acquainted with, including the G.E.C.K., dogmeat, the Enclave and the 'feel' of the game remains consistent with earlier outings. Despite the rather gloomy and adult nature of the game, it's not without humour and there are plenty of incidents that caused me, at the very least, to give a wry smile while others are laugh out loud funny.

Bethesda has done a magnificent job in creating something that can equally appeal to both fans and newcomers to the series alike. Even with the change in technology to a first person, real-time affair, there are still plenty of RPG elements involved such as attributes, character levels, quests etc.

With the scope and depth of the game, there is plenty for gamers to see and do. Beyond the disappointingly short main plot thread, there are plenty of side quests to discover and a huge map to explore. Additionally, it seems as if plenty of thought has gone into the game mechanics, to improve the game play experience. For example, if you have discovered two places of interest on opposite sides of the map, you don't have to walk between them in real time. You can simply fast travel between them, which takes a lot of game time, but only a second in real time. You could still walk if you wanted to, though, and it is the best way to discover some of the cool things in the game.

No game is ever perfect though and Fallout 3 is no exception. I thought that the game itself was far too easy and I'd hit the maximum level of experience long before the climax of the game, making all but the most difficult combat encounters a walk in the park. Despite that, I was also disappointed that there wasn't more room for exploring the game after the main story thread had been completed due to a major plot point at the climax of the game. I guess it does give the game a certain amount of replay value, but after building up all that "experience" would you want to go back to being a level one character, even if you do decide to be "bad" rather than "good"?

I have spotted a few issues that might well be bugs, mainly related to items I can sell to characters, but nothing that has a huge impact on the game and may well be fixed by upcoming patches.

I played Fallout 3 on my Windows Vista PC with 2GB RAM and a 3Ghz Core 2 Duo processor and got great performance, with pretty much every setting set to high levels. The game is good graphically, but perhaps not amazing. That's not really an issue because the engine does the job in shifting things around quickly when necessary and I thought it was easy to get immersed in the game due to the graphics and audio even with the anachronism of having the game set in 2277, but seemingly with a 1950s vibe to it given the music and other elements dotted around such as the burned out cars etc.

I paid less than £20 and have had a load of fun from the game... in excess of thirty hours from my first go through the game and more if I replay the game. There's also the G.E.C.K. editor that Bethesda have recently released, enabling you to create more content for the game, should you choose and upcoming downloadable content (though I am unsure if PC gamers will have to pay for it). That makes it superb value for money in my book. Given that other recent A-list PC games have been extremely disappointing (Call of Duty 5 and Far Cry 2 as prime examples), this is where to invest your hard-earned cash if you're looking for a PC game with depth.

My Specs:
3GHz Core 2 Duo processor
2GB RAM
GeForce 8600GT graphics card
Windows Vista

Recommended Specs:
Intel Core 2 Duo processor
2 GB System RAM
Direct X 9.0c compliant video card with 512MB RAM (NVIDIA 8800 series, ATI 3800 series)

Summary: Superb FPS/RPG hybrid with loads of nice touches.