Gaming Trend

Gaming Trend Review

Fallout 3

1. Official Site
2. Platform: ps3
3. Publisher: Bethesda Softworks
4. Developer: Bethesda Game Studios
5. Release Date: 10/28/08
6. Genre: RPG

by Mike Escobar

Leading up to the release of Fallout 3, there were many people that questioned the decision that the latest entry in the franchise was abandoning the traditional isometric viewpoint for the new first-person look.  On top of that, the change in developer from Interplay (legendary creators of Fallout and Fallout 2) to Bethesda brought some concern.  Let me be the first of many to say that we had nothing to worry about.  Bethesda has done a phenomenal job of taking up this franchise and making it so much more than Elder Scrolls - Oblivion with radiation and rifles.  Fallout 3 is not just the latest entry in this series, but truly the spiritual successor.  For those that loved the earlier games, you will feel right at home in this fully-realized radioactive wasteland. 

The game does an excellent job of easing you into the story (and control scheme) literally from the moment of your character’s birth.  These early playable sections provide a logical method to determine your sex, look, and style.  There’s even an aptitude examine you take at a young age to help determine your play style strengths for the rest of the game!

Calling the game environment a “wasteland” might conjure images of vast, lonely tracks of land (a la Oblivion), but this is not the case at all.  The world is teeming with everything from mutated creatures out for your blood, to peaceful settlers looking to just survive in this harsh landscape.  The developers hit a home run with the NPCs – these are not just mannequins wandering around on a pre-programmed path with canned responses.  Everyone has their own agenda, whether it’s the traders out looking to make money, ‘peaceful’ zombies just trying to fit in, or the occasional homicidal robot.

Graphically the game is absolutely stunning, and does an excellent job of showing off the power of the PS3.  For those of you familiar with the Elder Scrolls series, the style of graphics will be instantly recognizable.  The smooth transition from day to night, the terrain, objects, and people you encounter – all are beautifully rendered and you get an immediate feel for the post-apocalyptic world around you.   Character animations are smooth, with the exception of some infrequent clipping issues; they interact with the environment smoothly and in a believable manner.  The game starts earning its “M” rating right away with the graphics.  Virtually every enemy you encounter will inevitably be dispatched in a shower of blood and gore. While this effect does get used quite often, it’s a nice visual reward whenever you manage to terminate one of those pesky mutants!

With so many different areas to explore (several hundred) there is the danger that everything blurs together and you would see the same thing over and over.  Bethesda does a great job avoiding this pitfall by making the towns, subways, and barren wasteland distinctive enough that you never have that “been there, done that” feeling.  Even after more than 40 hours of exploring, the locations are still fresh and interesting.  This is definitely a fully-realized world, with every sort of building, business, or location you could imagine, all of them devastated by nuclear war.

The one drawback that prevents Fallout 3 from receiving a perfect score for graphics is the 3rd person mode.  While a nice addition, this view adds very little to the game and almost feels like it was added in just to satisfy players’ demands for it.  Playing from this perspective is difficult at best, and once you enter V.A.T.S. mode for combat you’re drawn back into the 1st person view anyway.  The only value it adds is the ability to see how your character looks in any new clothing you acquire.

With talents such as Ron Perlman, Liam Neeson, and Malcolm McDowell, it is no surprise that the voice acting in Fallout 3 is top-notch and adds immeasurably to the game experience.  Ambient sound fits the mood well, and never intrudes on the game, only enhances it.  The radio stations that you receive are enjoyable, and actually change as you interact with the world and progress through the story. The radio gives you additional hints on where you should go next, or even what your reputation is becoming in the world.

Overall, the sound quality is amazing, and you will be rewarded if you have a full surround sound system with subwoofer.  The first time you hear the whoosh of a missile flying by you will send a shiver of fear up your spine, and the boom when it hits its target just immerses you in the game that much more.

When Bethesda first announced that they were making a first-person shooter/RPG out of Fallout 3, there were many puzzled looks going around.  How can you possibly combine these elements, along with the turn-based nature of the previous Fallout titles, and have it make sense?  Needless to say, Fallout 3 combines all of them in a nearly flawless manner, making this title uniquely enjoyable to play. 

One of the highlights of the controls is the VATS system.  The Vault-Tec Assisted Targeting System, or VATS, allows you to freeze combat to target specific body parts on your enemies.  This adds a strategic component to every fight, as different enemies will have different weaknesses.  For example, shooting out the control module on a robot will make it go crazy and attack anything around it.  If attacked by the aforementioned missile-toting mutants, you can target the missile launcher and attempt to eliminate it from the fight.  Just beware, if you want to use that missile launcher after you defeat the mutants you’re going to be left with a damaged and mostly ineffective weapon.  Until you go and get it repaired, that is.

The default control scheme works well, but can be fully customized if you desire.  The menu system is clear and simple to navigate, and doesn’t suffer from too much depth – you can easily access any menu choice with very few button clicks.

Fallout 3 is first and foremost an RPG, and as such conforms to the traditions of the genre.  You get experience points for killing things and completing quests, you’ll progress from level to level and gain hit points and new abilities, and you’ll have to make the tough choices when managing your inventory.  But it’s the manner in which this is implemented that makes this game so special. 

Inventory management, typically a chore when it comes to RPGs, is a snap to manage and it’s laid out in a logical manner.  You can easily view just your weapons, just your health and stat ‘buffs’, or even just the random trash you manage to gather in your travels.  This makes choosing what to keep and what to sell a lot easier.  The ability to repair items assists you greatly in managing your inventory.  Since anything you pick up is rarely in pristine (or even very good) condition, you have the option to repair similar items, combining them to make a single item of better quality.  This not only increases the selling value, it can also increase the damage and durability of the item.  This ability is affected by your repair skill, so choose wisely when assigning your skill points if you want to take advantage of this!

Combat is definitely one of the high points of this title and gives you two methods of dealing with your enemies.  You can choose to completely ignore the VATS system and deal with your foes just like a first person shooter, or you can treat every encounter at a more leisurely pace using the turn-based VATS.  Or any combination of the two, that’s the beauty of Fallout 3’s combat system.  Early in the game when you’re attempting to kill radroaches (overgrown bugs with attitude) with a BB gun, you’ll have a much easier time of it using VATS.  Later in the game when you are accosted by bloatflies (overgrown flying bugs with attitude) it’s easy enough to just whip out your laser rifle and put them out of your misery in real time.  One of the bonuses when using VATS is that you are quite often (some might say too often) treated to a slo-mo cinematic view of the carnage you are wreaking.

Experience points come fast and furious, and you’ll be leveling up almost before you know it.  Based on your intelligence, at each level you are given a certain number of skill points to assign however you like.  With skills ranging from Barter to Unarmed, most of the talents are pretty self-explanatory.  In addition, each of the skills has a tooltip that summarizes what they do and what effect it has on you.  During gameplay, Fallout 3 will give you a status message telling you if your skill is not high enough to perform an action, and what skill level is needed.  For example, if you’re trying to unlock a safe that is of ‘hard’ difficulty, the game will inform you that you need a Lockpick skill of 75 to even attempt this.  Good information to have next time you level up and are considering where to assign your points. 

Each time you level up you are also given the option of selecting a single ‘perk’.  At early levels the perks are less dramatic, giving you modest bonuses to your various skills.  As you progress, the perks that you have available to choose from get much bigger, adding things like health regeneration and extra strength whenever you’re in sunlight.  This adds yet another strategic element to the game, forcing you to plan out your perks carefully and choose bonuses that complement each other.  The perks are organized into tiers, with a new tier being opened up every two levels, beginning with level two.  The good news is that you are able to view all the perks and their effects even at level one, which helps immensely when deciding which ones to take.  There are also quest-related perks scattered around the world that can add things like strength, or even fire resistance to your character.

Your actions in the game world have a profound effect on how you are treated wherever you go.  Bethesda uses the concept of good/neutral/evil karma for pretty much every action you take.  Whether it’s something as small as giving a beggar some money or something as large as blowing up an entire settlement, your decisions have profound consequences on the population of the wasteland.  Play the Good Samaritan often enough and people will welcome you as their savior and you’ll even hear folks on the radio sing your praises.  Act evil enough though, and you just might find out the only people that want you around are the slavers and mercenary groups!  Each karmic path has its own advantages, and even some of the perks are based on what your karma is.

One of the biggest gripes against console RPGs has always been the use of ‘save points’.  Thankfully, Fallout 3 allows you to save pretty much anywhere in the world, so this is not a concern at all.  So at 3am when you just can’t go without sleep any longer, you can save where you’re at and return to play at the exact same spot you left.

My biggest pet peeve about the PS3 is the hit and miss nature in what games have trophies and what games do not.  I’m sad to say that Fallout 3 does not have trophies at this time.  This is especially puzzling because the Xbox 360 version of the game has a fully implemented list of achievements.  I can only hope that this shortcoming can be addressed in some future patch.

Trophy issues aside, this game has loads of replay value.  Being able to choose running through the game as either completely good or completely evil yields some very different results, both of which are extremely satisfying.  The sheer variety of missions in the game, and how you choose to approach them, lends itself to hours and hours of play time.  Regardless of your karmic choices, the ability to play through the game as everything from a dumb but strong brawler and then turn around and attempt it as a brainy, super ninja hacker (or anything in between) will keep this game fresh and on top of your play list for a long, long time.

Entering this wide open game world for the first time is nothing short of thrilling.  And that feeling just doesn’t go away.  The storyline draws you in and keeps you enthralled through the entire game.  It is no surprise to anyone that has played a Bethesda game that they have come through on a beloved franchise, well worth several hundred hours of your life!

Gaming Trend Score

94

1. Graphics: 95
2. Audio: 95
3. Controls: 95
4. Gameplay: 95
5. Value/Replay: 90
6. OVERALL:94