Who would have known a post-apocalyptic wasteland would be so much fun? (Fallout 3 (PC))

Member Name: Lucius86

Product:	Fallout 3 (PC)
Date:	15/05/09 (27 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Massive open world, great character, brilliant quests, fun but deep gameplay

Disadvantages: A few crashes, some may perceive it being too similar to Oblivion

There is something about early 20th century propaganda and advertisements that intrigues and fascinates me. Perhaps its the welcoming, optimistic art style, or maybe its the naive outlook on life or their dark implying messages covered with a flowery outlook on life, but either way it provides one of the most unique medium styles we have seen, and is quite a comical viewing compared to our modern visual output that strives towards either abstract or hyper-realistic artwork.

Fallout 3 uses early 20th century media to help bring character and life into an otherwise barren wasteland in a post-apocalyptic world. Created by Bethesda, who was responsible for The Elder Scrolls: Oblivion, life in Fallout 3 starts off with how all life started for us - at birth. After a grim opening, you are presented with choices to determine your character's your sex and future identity, and for the tutorial you are brought up by your father, voiced by the brilliant Liam Neeson. He will teach you the basics of moving around, interacting with the environment, and get you to shoot with your first rifle. You will also be introduced to your pip-boy; essentially the games unique way of handling you inventory, your own personal stats and attributes, the map, checking your radiation sickness and even a built-in radio.

You are stuck in vault 101; an underground refuge from the apocalyptic war happening top-side. No one has left the vault or entered since it was sealed shut, but when your father goes missing, you have to fight your way out to find out why he has left. All in all this has to be one of the best introductions to any game - unlike Oblivion, the NPC's have a lot more personality to them, they look less generic, and after only an hour's gameplay you really do care about what has happened to your Dad.

Your first experience into the big open world is almost exactly like Oblivion's - your eyes take a moment to adjust to the natural sunlight (you have never seen the sun before until now!) and you realise the nature of the new world - its grim, barren and desolate. With only a single quest to go to a nearby settlement, you really are left to your own devices.

If this sounds like a modern version of Oblivion with guns, you could be forgiven for it. The similarities are quite obvious - you can fast travel to previous locations, you are in an open world allowed to roam wherever you want, there are strong RPG influences allowing you to specialise in stealth, heavy weapons or pistols to name but a few. But Oblivion was a great game, and Fallout 3 uses some of the best features from it, improvises new gameplay features and improves in almost every way.

You can run and gun like a traditional FPS, but when in combat it could be wise to load up the VACs - the game pauses and then calculates the chance to hit a certain region of your enemy - be it the legs, head, arms, torso, or perhaps something more gruesome for your non-human foes! Watching you grab a head shot whilst in vacs, taking your enemies noggin' clean off never gets old, and it ends up fitting into your tactical decisions more often then you may expect!

There is a lot of inventory management involved - you can only carry so much weight, so be prepared to make some tactical choices on equipment before strolling off into the unknown - you never know when you might need that Rock-It Launcher...

The main quest line in Fallout 3 goes into a much greater detail then Oblivion's - I was worried at first it was all going to revolve around finding you Dad, but it goes far beyond that. The same can be said for the whole game world; although it's a tad smaller, the game is better for it - more attention to detail has been put into each location you visit, and the side quests are genuinely brilliant. Many times they had me laughing out loud at some of the more comedy moments, but I would recommend checking out every nook and cranny in the game, because you never know what you may find!

Technically, this game is quite similar to Oblivion - but the barren wasteland is not as beautiful as lush green forests. The character models look a LOT better though, which really does help with the immersion. On my rig, the PC version did not suffer from any pop-ins, slow downs or other anomalies - but the game did crash to desktop a couple of times.

I can't help but recommend you to keep the radio on at all times - not only could you hear about new quests through it, but Three-Dog and his radio show is pure genius!

Fallout 3 takes on everything that was great about Oblivion, and improves upon it in every way. The game has charm and personality; something that Oblivion lacks, and the Fallout franchise has been given a serious boost of adrenaline. I can only hope Bethesda continues to improve as they are currently showing, because if so the next game will be of legendary status.

Summary: The best game of 2008.