Strap on Your Pip-Boy, It’s a Fallout 3 Review!
Luke Earhart
February 11, 2010
Filed under A & E
Before I begin, yes, I am about a year late in playing and reviewing this game. By now, there have been around five expansion packs released for this game, but I have just recently rented the original Fallout 3 from GameFly. Since many people have not even tried this game yet, a little background is in order.
Fallout 3 was released in 2008 by the developers Bethesda, who also made the Elder Scrolls Series. This game is about a post-apocolyptic alternate future of the world. This complicated, alternate timeline diverges from ours soon after World War II.
At first, the changes are minor, but soon, major events begin to unfold, mostly involving the United States’ tests of nuclear technology, and our relationship with China. At some point, we had a Great War with China, with neither side very victorious. Two-hundred years after this, the events of Fallout 3 begin.
You play as “The Lone Wanderer,” but actually, you play as whoever you choose to be whether it is a villain, a saint, or just someone looking to survive. The true start of your quest is when your father goes missing in your De facto home of Vault 101. It’s up to you to escape the vault and find out what happened to your father. However you choose to play, this game leads to very interesting scenarios.
The story and how you approach it is very open ended. If you want, you can avoid the whole main mission and just explore and take on the amazing multitude of side missions. All new adventurers should beware though, unlike Oblivion, you cannot beat the game at level one; the enemies are all at a set level and they do not level up with you.
One specific main mission I tried doing at a low level left me one versus one against a Super Mutant Behemoth, a 20 foot tall monster that wields a fire hydrant as a weapon. After that, I learned that you should make it a routine to continuously save the game every so often to avoid impossible fights and to prevent gameplay time loss.
The Pip-boy is a watch-like accessory that you get when you turn ten in Vault 101. The Pip-boy functions as a portable Geiger counter, an inventory where all your weapons and armor are held, and a helpful quest log/map.
A new addition that Fallout 3 has is a combat system called the Vault-Tec Assisted Targeting System, or VATS. It pauses the game and allows you to have a chance to hit exactly where on the target you want. Some enemies have specific weak points that are hard to hit by just aiming, so VATS eventually becomes a necessity. The only downside to this system is that it uses Action Points, which can run out after a certain amount of shots, so you have to be very careful.
Gameplay is a lot like Bethesda’s last game, Elder Scrolls: Oblivion. You can freely attack enemies; if you trust your aim, that is. Sneaking is always a viable option, but if your skill is low, enemies will detect you very quickly. The way you judge what type of character you will be is by your starting attributes such as Strength or Agility, and how you allot your talents when you level up. You have the freedom to choose whether you want to use smaller guns such as pistol and small rifles, or whether you wish to use melee weapons, or even just your fists. The talents allow any of these options to be mastered, with various additions to your attacks or how you attack.
Overall, Fallout 3 is one of the best open world experiences I have had in a while. The freedom of doing whatever you please, as long as you’re at an OK level, is a very overlooked feature of most games nowadays. If you are seriously thinking about buying this game, get the game of the year edition, it has all of the expansion packs built in. Fallout is a huge universe and another game is in the process of being created as we speak, it will take place in Vegas. In the end, this game is for people that have patience, and love intense action that could happen at any moment. Fallout 3 gets two thumbs up.
