There's no shelter holding this one back! (Fallout 3 (PC))

Member Name: Hexxen

Product:	Fallout 3 (PC)
Date:	24/02/09 (82 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Endless world of RPG possibilities

Disadvantages: Story is over quite quick if you just focus on completing it

I'll start this saying i am a massive, massive RPG fan and have been for a very long time now. I've grown up playing them and have many notches to my RPG bedpost shall we say, that said i was a little apprehensive about this game just because of the fact Bethesda's last effort Oblivion i actually really didn't get on with very well. I found it very open and the story to start off with was very wishy washy for me, that said this game is again very similar but with a fair few hefty twists up it's sleeve.

I went into this game with an experience of the previous two games (showing my age a little bit) which are dark, gritty, apocolyptic RPG games. General rule of thumb story wise for all 3 games even (this one included) is that a nuclear war has taken place and you are part of the society that was left behind. How you take advantage of your position as one of the last few settlements of the world is entirely up to you, do you play the do-gooder and help as many people as possible? talking your way out of every conflict? or do you simply go strong armed into everything, guns blazing and ask questions later. These choices do effectively shape the world your playing in, opening up new quests, new missions, items, friends, places, apartments, factions, you name it.

You start in the infamous Vault 101, a big underground nuclear shelter built before the war. With enough food and technology to last for decades upon decades since what is mildly nodded at through a fair few things the 1950's/1960's. You play the son/daughter of a well revered scientist within the vault, in fact you even get to play various parts of your character growing up. The birthday party where you first get your Pip-Boy (the computer you wear on your wrist, you'll be seeing this interface a lot through out the game as you go on) is a lot of fun, interacting with people in different ways and even choices you've made so far concerning stats and stuff do start to open up different dialogues. It's from this point on you can choose to be the second coming of jesus or evil incarnate.

Through a few twist's of fate and for one really unknown reason to you, your dad has gone missing and has actually opened the vault venturing outside - something no one has done ever. Not wanting to lose what's left of your family you chase after him and make your way out of the vault and upon setting foot outside your eyes are blinded by the sun until they focus and you for the first time get a glimpse of the wastelands before you.

Up till this point it is in fact quite structured as a bit of a tutorial, getting you to interact with people and achieve small goals that go towards picking skill points and such (all skippable right through to the important bits if people are on their 2nd playthrough). You do get a go with the VATS system quite a few times before you leave too, this is basicly a target assist. You point in the general direction of the person you want to target and then you hit V, this gives you a zoomed in perspective of the person and gives you a chance to weigh up your chances of hitting them in about 7/8 different body parts essentially crippling or killing them outright. These %'s to hit are all modified by range, weapon and the skill at using the particular weapon which is generally improved by either modifying, finding a better one or going up levels and pumping up the appropriate skill (Small arms, laser weapons etc).

I expected once i left the Vault and was wandering round on my own back that this would very quickly go the same way as Oblivion for me but whether it's the really interesting setting or the fact that wherever you turn there is something going on it really held my interest, a little too damn well when im playing it into the wee hours of the morning for weeks upon weeks. Your very quickly introduced into towns, factions and just general survivors trying to get by, aswell as a lot of hostile Raiders. Raiders tend to be the cannon-fodder, they put up a fight in the earlier levels of the game when your quite ill equipped but after a little while and a little familiarity your taking entire groups of these on without breaking a sweat.

The story carries on very well too, there is an integral main storyline that you can go on and do but you are completely not required to. So as long as you dont power your way through the normal storyline you can pretty much log on today and say hey i'll go and just wander this side of the map and see what i can find. Be it the nasty supermutants or the docked aircraft carrier in land "Rivet City" there literally is a gold mine and it's placed all over the map. Endless quests, endless people to talk to and even more things to shoot, it's enough to keep anyone busy for a while. There is incentive to play it through a second time aswell, you can only reach a certain level and that doesnt contain enough skill points for you to be proficient at everything so you could easily specialise yourself to be an unarmed peacekeeper after blasting your way through as an evil heavy weapons specialist who is really good at repairing his or her weapons.

The only warning i would put out to anyone specificly in the younger market looking to play this is that there is a lot of adult themes. Be that through gory sequences from the VATS (heads rolling off, blood splattering) or references to drugs, sex, prostitution, it's just something to be wary of. It does earn it's 18 certificate pretty well.

For a game i was more than a little wary of, i was very surprised and got so much enjoyment out of this game. In fact i've played it through twice and racked up many many hours between both, just playing it to be the complete polar opposite and scrape through the story. There is so much fun to be had here, and there is an official addon "Operation Anchorage" that can be downloaded from Bethesda's website which gives some insight into Alaska's liberation from a chinese invasion army. Which is well worth playing in itself, you relive the battles in a standalone simulation game putting you in the eyes of soldier there.

The main issue was some of the incompatibilities and bugs in the game when it was first released, now i personally had very little issues getting it to run or be stable for extremely long periods of time but there are already quite a few patches out to band aid a lot of these problems. On top of that there is a really living forum underneath the official website that caters to a lot of people who did have any problems with it. It is a hefty game as far as machine requisites go but as long as you are in that ballpark (especially the graphics card, but this should be standard for any new game) then you shouldn't run into many problems.

I could go on for hours about the choices you can make and how that changes the fate of your character, the people you affiliate yourself with and the world around you but i think it's just something that has to be experienced. One of the deepest games i have personally seen for a long time and i dont expect that to change overnight. So i implore any RPG fan or previous Fallout fan who hasn't already picked this diamond up, please do.

Summary: An awesome very strong RPG that is true to the previous games