Fallout 3 Review & Rating (PC, PS3, Xbox 360)

Fallout 3 is a massive open-world RPG from Bethesda (makers of Elder Scrolls:  Oblivion) and takes place after World War III in the bombed-out, post-apocalyptic wasteland of Washington D.C..  It’s a huge game that will suck you in and keep you busy for hundreds of hours as you scour the wastes for tidbits of information and hidden loot—and then you can start playing the main quest.
A lot of people (including myself) grumbled quite a bit when it was announced the Bethesda would be helming the new reboot of the Fallout franchise.  While Oblivion had its die-hard fanatics, the game felt clunky, unfinished, and far too “open” for its own good.  However, while building Fallout 3, Bethesda took into account all of the bad reviews that Oblivion received and created a game that is vastly superior both graphically and script-wise, leaving players with a decided emotional attachment to the characters they create and the world in which they live. 


Gameplay

One of the best improvements developers made was defining a central quest.  The opening sequence of Fallout 3 is a wonderfully integrated character generation progression in which Fallout fools you into creating your avatar by asking you questions and giving you the opportunity to interact with characters.  This all takes place as you “grow” from birth through to your teenage years.  The game keeps the old S.P.E.C.I.A.L. system (and acronym for your seven base stats which you’re free to upgrade as you see fit if you have the XP) and after this sequence you will have a fairly good template on which to build the type of character you want to play as.  After that, all Hell breaks loose in Vault 101 as your father disappears, the leader goes nuts, and everyone tries to kill you. 

Longish story short, you escape the vault and head out into the Washington D.C. wasteland looking for your papa.  The minute the Vault door rolls back, you get a sense of how immense this game truly is.  The vista you’re met by is an incredible representation of what D.C. would look like after a holocaust.  In fact, the map and building models are so accurate (both in design and scale) that several D.C. residents petitioned Bethesda to edit the game because it was too emotionally disturbing for them to see their city in ruins.
As you step out into the retro fifties futuristic-style landscape complete with awesomely cheesy billboards, rusted-out hover cars, and malfunctioning personal robot assistants you’re greeted by the harsh realities of life after the collapse of civilization.  Fallout is a dark game—very dark.  The waste is populated by hordes of unsavory characters, sadistic gangs, mutants, feral animals, and mutated insects.  It’s very inhospitable and living in that cesspool has turned the NPCs you’ll meet into suspicious self-serving meanies—even the kids curse like sailors!
The world is also filled with Fallout’s trademark dark humor.  You’ll find yourself laughing and cringing at the same time as you waste a feral ghoul and his head flies off and rolls down the subway tracks or laughing out loud when you come across a town full of cannibals who resemble characters from “Leave it to Beaver.”

As you stumble through the waste (and stumble you will because most of the travel is accomplished on foot,) you’ll be forced to do combat with a wide variety of enemies.  Fallout gives you a satisfyingly vast amount of weapons with which to do battle including pistols, shotguns, energy weapons, experimental weapons, clubs, sticks, sharp knives, and even a gun that launches trash!
Combat takes place either in a real time pseudo-first person shooter style (which really doesn’t work all that well) or using the Vault Assisted Targeting System (V.A.T.S.).  V.A.T.S. pauses gameplay and allows you to choose a specific target on an enemy ranging from various body parts to the weapons they’re holding in their hands.  The chances of you actually hitting that target are a function of your skill with your equipped weapon, the distance between you and your target, and the enemy’s defensive capabilities and are displayed as a percentage over the specific target region.  It sounds like V.A.T.S. would slow the game down but I found myself using more often than not and it actually made the game more fun.
While the game is limited to the main quest and half a dozen side quests, it will take you at least 20 hours to beat the main quest and closer to 100 (and maybe several play throughs) to complete all of the side quests.

Unlike similar RPGs, the side quests are actually quite varied and often interesting enough to make you forget the main quest for a while.  Indeed, that is one of the best aspects of the game, it’s super immersive.  Even when you’re not playing, you’ll find yourself thinking about the game, what you’ll do next, and what you should have done differently. 
Part of the draw is the karmic outcome of your actions.  Fallout sets very few limits on what you can and can’t do.  Feel free to save the world one person at a time, or turn the wastes into an even more hellish place by destroying individuals’ lives, killing innocents, and blowing up entire towns.  Indeed, Fallout offers players the ability to delve into dark corners that almost every other game shies away from.  Some of the dialogue options are just brutal and you can pretty much shoot anybody you want.


Graphics

Graphically, the game is truly amazing.  The character models and world design are so far above the bar that every other RPG out there looks as though it should be played on an 8-bit Atari.  Though draw distances are a bit sketchy and some clipping issues are relevant, you won’t have any trouble overlooking them when compared to the rest of the game.  Even the facial animations are great though the Playstation version does suffer from character model glitches on occasion. 
The lighting is spectacular and the Fallout world features a real day/night cycle.  Many are the times you’ll be trudging through the midnight landscape by the eerie light of your Pip-Boy 3000 and stumble across a rad scorpion or a feral ghoul out of nowhere.


Sound

The voice acting is incredible with heavy-hitters such as Ron Pearlman, Liam Neeson, and Malcolm McDowell lending their tremendous talents to the NPCs and credibility to the world.  (I was hoping for a cameo from Richard Dean Anderson but was sadly disappointed.) 
The score and sound effects are also quite compelling but one of the best features of the game audio is that ability to listen to fifties-style tunes on your Pip-Boy’s radio.  Nothing compares to wading into battle against a clan of Mad Max-style raiders while listening to big band music or a sultry crooner singing about a lost love.  It’s very surreal.


Value

This game has enormous replay value.  I spent a straight month playing it and still didn’t find every location on the map.  There are thousands of great little gems to sniff out ranging from other Vaults to personal fallout shelters and individual pieces of junk that can be transformed into weapons.  However, when you reach the end of the main quest, the game is over.  You’ll have to revert to an earlier save if you want to go check out that cluster of Deathclaw caves you missed the first time around.  I found myself cursing myself for initiating the last mission of the main quest way too soon.


Final Verdict

The game is so massive, so immersive, so satisfying that you’ll easily be able to overlook the few flaws.  It’s one of the best games of 2008 and with all of the downloadable content coming out and Fallout 4 on the horizon; the franchise is definitely here to stay.

Pros:  Huge world to explore, massive replay value, good versus evil subplot, tons of gear and guns, total freedom.

Cons:  A short main quest, a few glitches (clipping, disappearing weapons, odd color changes), and some side quests that don’t really hold water compared to the rest of the game.
 

Overall Score = 9/10