The only thing which fell out was my brain - from my ears (Fallout 3 (PS3))

Member Name: dj981

Product:	Fallout 3 (PS3)
Date:	16/01/09 (223 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: A role-playing enthusiasts dream

Disadvantages: If you don't fall into the above category, prepare for a coma

[Insert noise of LP being ripped from the turntable]

Sorry, I can't do it. I've spent a lot of time trying to concoct ways of being nice to Fallout, this despite RPG's appearing somewhere between swede and Songs of Praise on my list of things to avoid at all costs. I tried so damned hard to like it and intended to review it on its own merits, and part of my withered brain still wants to prevent my fingers from articulating how I really feel about it before they completely undermine my consumer reviewer integrity. In keeping with the preposterously disjointed tone of this review, here's the bottom line several hundred words early: -

**RPG's have always struck me as glorified spreadsheets, and Fallout is no bloody different**

Admittedly, the post-apocalyptic storyline is pretty decent. I've been introduced to game narratives in some pretty harsh ways - orbiting earth in a besieged spacecraft; in a restaurant toilet cubicle with blood cascading down my mutilated arms; en route to my own execution during a military coup - each one etched indelibly into my memory. Fallout 3 elevated itself into a whole new league of severe introductions however, by making my first action in the game to emerge blinking and gasping from the uterus of my in-game mother, who promptly suffered a heart attack died... Really. This was somewhat disturbing in that it's probably as close as I'll ever get (and ever want to get) to re-enacting the real thing; although was also a fairly apt precursor to a game harbouring an entire festival of disturbing experiences.

Fallout 3 offers up an alternative future after the culmination of the Second World War. Developer Bethesda displays scant faith in mankind by transposing the peace process of the 50's with a cataclysmic nuclear war, rendering the entire U.S. a desperate landscape of irradiated ruins and lawless wastelands. As if this wasn't bleak enough, the passing of generations has bastardised the genetics of flora and fauna to introduce new species of two-headed cows, vicious moles the size of dogs and enormous insects, each thriving in their toxic ecosystem. The wastelands also play host to violent scavengers, murderous Mutants, and desperate displaced people trying to find a place to settle in the rag-tag collection of townships; most of which are barricaded, insular and hostile to intruders.

Not that any of this concerns you initially, as yours has been a life of comparative privilege. Prior to the war, a select well-heeled few buried themselves in subterranean vaults to escape the slaughter, sealing the door behind them in the knowledge they'd never see daylight again. Vault 101, an entirely self-regulated society headed by the 'Overseer', has been home for your first 20 years, and despite your mothers' untimely death you have thrived under the auspices of your scientist father. Fallout's prelude sequences chronicle key moments of your early life below ground, and offer enough glimpses of the Overseers' rhetoric to instil the creeping feeling that the Vault is more stifling autocracy than safe haven: -

"We live in the Vault, and we die in the Vault."

Your father has other ideas though, escaping one night unannounced into the dangerous vistas above. Against his pre-recorded wishes, and despite violent resistance from Vault security, you pursue him into the wastelands in search of answers.

From the moment I emerged into the haze above ground, I resolved to break from tradition and attempt to play an action RPG precisely as the developers intended. My only minor indiscretion was yielding to the irresistible urge of subverting the character creation section, resulting in a high-foreheaded, bug-eyed freak with green mutton chops, a fetching combover and horrible underbite, like some heavily irradiated Amos Brearley. Sadly, since I elected to play most of the game in first-person view I soon discovered this was a grand waste of time. Of course, I could have ice-skated my way through the game in the frankly disastrous third-person view, but for obvious reasons, didn't.

Apart from the aforementioned silliness, I immersed myself in learning the nuances of Fallout's mechanics. I decided early on how my character was going to develop: a gun-toting science-boff with strong engineering skills. I'd be the type to hack the computer terminals, turn off the security, then kick the door down and unleash hell with my expertly maintained arsenal of big cocking guns. But these dreamy delusions were brought crashing down to earth by the realisation that until I'd sunk enough hours into the tiresome act of grinding my stats upwards, I was about as dangerous as a new born kitten wearing a gum shield and foam oven gloves.

I spent the first four hours solid running away. In fact that's a lie, because from the outset in Fallout you seem to only have two speeds: brisk walk, and oh for f***'s sake I'm carrying too much crap again (more on that later). Your character's impulse to get a move on doesn't even strengthen in situations of grave danger during which even the most arthritic of us would attempt a little sprint - for example being chased down by an eight foot mutant wielding a nailboard. Yes, I walked briskly away from danger. I walked briskly away from Mutants. I walked briskly away from Raiders. I walked briskly away from moles, flies, and pretty much anything that posed the remotest of threats. For what seems an eternity the wastelands are a minefield of peril almost impossible to traverse without being regularly trampled into submission. As soon as you dispatch one adversary via a lengthy process of whacking it with a baseball bat, another two arrive, only this time your baseball bat is broken and you've devoured all your medical supplies.

I'll concede that the VATS system is a smart way of handling the combat, enabling you to freeze time and target specific areas of your assailants' anatomy. Depending on distance to target, stance and a number of other (at times seemingly arbitrary) factors, your likelihood of a successful strike in each area is expressed as a percentage. The idea is to probe weak points until they are crippled and ultimately of no use to your opponent. For example, somebody wielding a sword in their right hand would be somewhat less dangerous if you blew it to pieces with a 12-gague, no? As undoubtedly entertaining as the system is, it's practically useless for several arduous hours until ammunition, health and XP are in requisite supply. Like so many RPG's, by the time you reach the 'fun' bit, all enthusiasm for the experience has seeped away. In the intervening period I found the most effective tactic was to circumvent VATS in favour of circle strafing with a blunt instrument equipped, opting for a good old-fashioned real-time bludgeoning instead.

In frustration, and mindful I'd soon be adding a new section to my totem of unfinished games, I decided to stick two defiant fingers up at exploration and plough on with the meat and potatoes of the game. Finding Dad. This quickly brought me to the ruins of D.C., rather unhelpfully overrun with Mutants and inaccessible save for the crumbing network of subway tunnels, also overrun with Mutants. An hour and a half later, no nearer to Dad and exhausted of all my ammunition and health after what felt like a hundred re-enactments of the same sodding fight, I hid sheepishly in a darkened corner and pondered my next move. 'Leaving' appeared to be it. Tail fixed firmly between my legs, I attempted to fast travel from D.C. back to the safety of Megaton, the first and only safe haven I'd encountered at that point.

"Cannot fast travel when enemies are nearby"

Cock it.... "I know", I thought, "Let's run back into the subway..."

"Cannot fast travel from this location"

Cock it... "I know", I thought, "Let's get buzzed out on all the drugs in my inventory, go and fight the Mutants outside, then fast travel."

"You are now addicted to Buffout"
"You are now addicted to Jet"
"You are now addicted to Beer"

Cock it...

I finally made it back to Megaton where I now needed curing for all my rabid addictions, only to find the clinic was out of hours and closed. To pass the time I tried to push a two-headed cow into a radioactive pool, only to discover even livestock posed too much trouble for my ailing walking corpse. In an act of petulance I delivered a blow to the cow's left face with a baton, which seemed to enrage passers by to the point I was driven out of town under a hail of bullets. At that moment the drugs I'd been taking wore off, leaving me over-encumbered with items and moving at a snails' pace. To compound matters the game autosaved at the town gates, leaving me in a perpetual loop of respawning and being shot dead by angry villagers, my only available response being a futile attempt to shed all the useless shit I'd gathered so I could muster an evasive brisk walk again.

and so on...

If you enjoy this brand of gaming, by now you're probably sneering at my ignorance like Jilly Goulden reading some Stella-addled chav's scathing review of a vintage Sauvignon Blanc, but I'm sticking to my guns here: these games are, have always been, and always will be little more than sophisticated spreadsheets supporting a traditional narrative. There's no getting around it; from the biggest most explosive battles, to the micromanagement of your ever-expanding inventory and character statistics, everything is an exercise in number-crunching. Even in a title like Fallout where the drier elements of role-playing are stripped away in favour of more action, all the enjoyable moments are book-ended by a tedious admin process to ensure the right KPI's are at the right levels. Making sure your health is high enough. Ensuring your weapons and armour are in good order. Making sure you're not too irradiated. Making sure you're not carrying too much of the useless crap you just can't resist picking up. It's more like my job than a game. If you enjoy the whole process of resource management and have a lot of spare time on your hands, this will no doubt be an enchanting experience. Conversely, those who only manage to snatch a few hours at their consoles a week will find their time with Fallout a frustrating and disjointed affair.

You might argue all games are governed by mathematics at their core, but mull over this. My car has an engine. It lives under a bonnet. I don't care how it works, as long as it does. Now imagine all games are cars. Fallout is like an enormous, high-spec, gas-guzzling SUV, only you have to manually operate every single mechanical part of it whilst attempting to enjoy driving it.

I can't stress enough how much I wanted to enjoy Fallout. Despite the often earth shatteringly bad voice acting, I found the atmosphere and aesthetic consistency of its bleak environments grimly captivating, genuinely encouraging me to explore further. Yet despite claims of unparalleled freedom, the same old genre-specific problems persist. The scope for spontaneous discovery is in practice limited to how much time you invest in improving your statistics and harvesting supplies, and that in turn leads back to the dreaded micromanagement again. It's like being trapped in a flowchart where all eventualities lead back to the stats screen. While matters do improve later in the game, only the RPG enthusiast and most determined among us will muster the patience to see it through.

For fans of the RPG only. I'm not one, if you hadn't guessed.

Summary: I'm sorry, Fallout. I really wanted to love you.