Fallout 3 - Big can be beautiful... (Fallout 3 (PC))

Member Name: twentyonemile

Product:	Fallout 3 (PC)
Date:	15/05/09 (12 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Detailed, beautiful, immense and visceral

Disadvantages: A little system intensive

Nuclear holocaust, War, Zombies, Deadly Plagues and human extermination...where would games designers be without these staples of the genre?

We've seen it all before of course, sometimes done well (28 Days later) sometimes less so (The Postman).
Thankfully Fallout 3 is the former; a fine post-apocalyptic romp through the mutant strewn streets of a ruined Washington.

Bethesda are among the A-listers when it comes to the RPG, having honed their skills on the equally epic Oblivion (one of the greatest gaming achievements of all time)
Only the likes of Bioware and perhaps Obsidian operate in the same leagues of attention to detail and sheer playability.

From the start Fallout 3 is a case of Art imitating life - quite literally. In a slightly disturbing journey you get to witness the birth and formative years of your character through the clever tutorial levels and introductions to the remarkably intuitive control and movement systems.

Living in one of the numerous underground vaults your character is part of a subterranean community established right before the outside world got all toasty. Life is safe, if a little dull until a sudden turn of events forces you to leave the safety of your vault and venture into the big wide world in search of your wayward father.

Big wide world isn't just dramatic hyperbole either. After your eyes adjust to the daylight (Nice touch) you see the map to explore is huge, massively detailed and beautifully styled in a post apocalyptic retro 50's flavour.
Ruined buildings, Mad Max style towns and all manner of mutant beasties are the order of the day.

Progression can be a little slow to start with as you meet characters and perform minor tasks for caps, the Fallout version of money, but soon you find yourself either stealing,buying or otherwise acquiring some pretty tasty weapons, armour and equipment. Including some you can build yourself.

In your travels you will invariably face a number of moral choices all affecting the future story and characters reactions to you. Do you do the right thing and help people for more subtle reward or become a hired killer and earn the big bucks?

Whatever your choice the story is well crafted and in true open-play style, leads, but doesn't force, you down a semi scripted path. You can of course take a break at any point to explore or do side missions for more caps, guns or the sheer kicks of exploding some heads.

Which actually brings me nicely to the combat.
When you get in a rumble you have two fundamental choices; fight on the fly in traditional FPS style or enter 'VATS'; a system which slows the fight and lets you queue up attacks in RPG style.
Far from being dull, VATS is often brutally satisfying as you get offered percentages for hits on your opponents various body parts. Hit them with a critical strike and watch the claret (or whatever colour blood they have) go flying.
This leads to very technical fighting as distance and angle all affect what you can shoot. Amazingly satisfying - blowing an enemies arm off as they hold a grenade or sniping the head off a bandit's shoulders somehow never seems to get old.

This game is massive, great looking and very in depth. Any player can lose as much or as little time as they want within and will struggle not to be impressed by the scale.


Bottom line - Big, Beautiful and brilliant. Bethesda remain at the top of the RPG pile.

Summary: Immense in size and attention to detail. Another great achievement from Bethesda