Fallout 3

[derek.haines]

FALLOUT 3

Genre: RPG
ERSB Rating: RP
Platform: 360, PS3, PC
Developer: Bethesda Softworks
Publisher: Bethesda Softworks
MSRP: $59.99

Synopsis: (From IGN) Vault 101 – Jewel of the Wastes. For 200 years, Vault 101 has faithfully served the surviving residents of Washington DC and its environs, now known as the Capital Wasteland. Though the global atomic war of 2077 left the US all but destroyed, the residents of Vault 101 enjoy a life free from the constant stress of the outside world. Giant Insects, Raiders, Slavers, and yes, even Super Mutants are all no match for superior Vault-Tec engineering. Yet one fateful morning, you awake to find that your father has defied the Overseer and left the comfort and security afforded by Vault 101 for reasons unknown. Leaving the only home you’ve ever known, you emerge from the Vault into the harsh Wasteland sun to search for your father, and the truth.

General Features

* Take in the sights and sounds of the vast Capital Wasteland! See the great monuments of the United States lying in post-apocalyptic ruin! You make the choices that define you and change the world. Just keep an eye on your Rad Meter!
* Vault-Tec engineers bring you the latest in human ability simulation – the SPECIAL Character System! Utilizing new breakthroughs in points-based ability representation, SPECIAL affords unlimited customization of your character. Also included are dozens of unique skills and perks to choose from, each with a dazzling variety of effects
* The wizards at Vault-Tec have done it again! No longer constrained to just one view, experience the world from 1st or 3rd person perspective. Customize your view with the touch of a button
* Feeling like a dastardly villain today, or a Good Samaritan? Pick a side or walk the line, as every situation can be dealt with in many different ways. Talk out your problems in a civilized fashion, or just flash your Plasma Rifle
* At Vault-Tec, we realize that the key to reviving civilization after a global nuclear war is people. Our best minds pooled their efforts to produce an advanced version of Radiant AI, America’s First Choice in Human Interaction Simulation™. Facial expressions, gestures, unique dialog, and lifelike behavior are brought together with stunning results by the latest in Vault-Tec technology
* Witness the harsh realities of nuclear fallout rendered like never before in modern super-deluxe HD graphics. From the barren Wasteland, to the danger-filled offices and metro tunnels of DC, to the hideous rotten flesh of a mutant’s face.
* Even the odds in combat with the Vault-Tec Assisted Targeting System for your Pip-Boy Model 3000! V.A.T.S. allows you to pause time in combat, target specific body parts on your target, queue up attacks, and let Vault-Tec take out your aggression for you. Rain death and destruction in an all-new cinematic presentation featuring gory dismemberments and spectacular explosions


WHY YOU MIGHT CARE: An advanced, post-apocalyptic Elder Scrolls. Combine weapons to great effect, choosing even what you want them to shoot (teddy bears anyone?). Complex graphical engine featuring more engaging characters and ENORMOUS draw distances. Corrects alot of the problems that Oblivion had. Massively improved combat system.

WHY YOU MIGHT NOT: A completely western RPG, not story heavy at all. Will still feature the inevitable glitches that come with open-world games. Still unknown as to whether all of the ambitious parts can make a coherent, fantastic whole.

 

[Mr.GAW]

One of my most anticipated 2008 games right up there with Fable 2, Rock Band 2, and Gears 2. I've never played the first two Fallout games, but from what I understand this is like the jump from 2D metroid to metroid prime for Fallout- so I'm sure it'll be different enough where I'm not missing out on a lot.

I loved Oblivion, and I get the feeling that this might run a little deeper emotion/story-wise.

 

[derek.haines]

One of my most anticipated 2008 games right up there with Fable 2, Rock Band 2, and Gears 2. I've never played the first two Fallout games, but from what I understand this is like the jump from 2D metroid to metroid prime for Fallout- so I'm sure it'll be different enough where I'm not missing out on a lot.

I loved Oblivion, and I get the feeling that this might run a little deeper emotion/story-wise.

I don't imagine that alot of people have played the first two games (just like the first two Elder Scrolls games). I don't think it matter enormously.

I'm playing through Oblivion again right now on the PS3, and it's amazing. I'm glad that they've decided to make the characters more unique and not just sort of "there" like they have been. It'll add alot.

 

[Darkslash]

I like the Style. It has 30's-50's elements and then there's Technology thats advance. Such as the Targeting system, seriously im might love montage's of those.

Ohh and then there's the mininuke. That is gonna be abused so much.

Also crippling elements. Instead of just getting the Red Screen you get crippled. Thats a nice feature.

 

[Crimson King]

Yeah, it's pretty much anachronism, reminiscent of cyberpunk. Pretty neat.

Also, it looks like it may NOT be banned from Australia.

 

[derek.haines]

Yeah, it's pretty much anachronism, reminiscent of cyberpunk. Pretty neat.

Also, it looks like it may NOT be banned from Australia.

Lol, I heard about that one. Bethesda just took the real-world drug names and changed them to fake ones.

Easy fix, but it sucks that the Aussies got their panties in a bunch about it in the first place.

 

[Spire]

I distinctly remember characters from Morrowind so much more than from Oblivion. Why? Because aside from the combat system, Oblivion lacked heavily in lore and characterization. All of Cyrodiil was hills, forests, and mountains; none of it was much different from the rest, and the same goes for all of the dungeons. These pics look so much like Oblivion, and that's not to say that it looks bad; just stating an observation.

I am a bit excited for this however, and will definitely try it out upon release. Nice to see Bethesda translating their RPG system to the future. I'd love to see Tamriel in the future, honestly.

 

[Chagen46]

God, making people explode is gonna be so much fun.

 

[Cashed]

Looking forward to picking it up for the 360. Graphically, it looks terrible, but Oblivion was fantastic, and after watching some videos, it looks like there's some very Bioshock-esque design elements that'll be fun to have.

 

[PhillipthaGoober]

Terrible? Not the best looking, but I'd say its better than terrible.

 

[derek.haines]

I'm personally happy to sacrifice a little texture complexity for what is quite possibly the best draw distance I've ever seen in a video game.

There seem to be a couple rough spots where the backgrounds are concerned, but overall it seems decidedly "not terrible".

 

[NeBz]

If the gameplay is anything like Oblivion I won't be getting it. I'm really looking forward to this, but I didn't like Oblivion.

 

[derek.haines]

If the gameplay is anything like Oblivion I won't be getting it. I'm really looking forward to this, but I didn't like Oblivion.

It's a heavily modified Oblivion from what I've heard, complete with an actual RE4-style over-the-shoulder view. It's supposed to be quicker and more precise than the combat in the Elder Scrolls games.

 

[Cashed]

I'm still calling the graphics terrible. The textures, animations and models are all poor. Amazingly enough, those were Oblivion's low points as well, along with the framerate at some points.

Best draw distance in a video game? Crackdown.

 

[derek.haines]

Crackdown's draw distance is nice, but the graphical complexity leaves a lot to be desired. It's easy to make polygons stretch into the horizon if you're not using many of them.

As for Fallout, I've been watching videos of it and I'm seeing nothing but well-animated character models, and thousands of solidly textured individual objects. We're not talking best-in-show here, but extremely solid and far improved over Oblivion.

 

[Red Exodus]

This might turn out to be similar to Oblivion where the PC version shines because of mods.

Cashed is sort of right though, the graphics aren't ground breaking but as long as you don't stare too hard you won't notice. I'm hoping that that's fog or haze and not the draw distance that I'm seeing in the pictures. I hate short draw distances in open world games.

 

[derek.haines]

This might turn out to be similar to Oblivion where the PC version shines because of mods.

Cashed is sort of right though, the graphics aren't ground breaking but as long as you don't stare too hard you won't notice. I'm hoping that that's fog or haze and not the draw distance that I'm seeing in the pictures. I hate short draw distances in open world games.

Every hands-on I've read or heard from every source has pretty much mentioned how epic the draw distance is. There seems to be a haze to cover up everything not rendered in real-time, but there's a huge amount of things to see as far as one can.

 

[Goldberg]

PC version is cheaper:

http://www.gamestop.com/Catalog/ProductDetails.aspx?product_id=65824

There will also be a Collectors Edition if anyone is interested:

http://www.gamestop.com/Catalog/ProductDetails.aspx?product_id=71146


The game looks great and it will most likely be Cashed's 360 version that will look terrible, I see lots of motion blur and that helps hide any ugly models or textures.

Also, this:
Leonard Boyarsky, art director of the original Fallout, when asked about Interplay Entertainment's sale of the rights to Bethesda Softworks, said that he felt as though "our ex wife had sold our children that she had legal custody of."

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallout_3

 

[Serris]

Leonard Boyarsky, art director of the original Fallout, when asked about Interplay Entertainment's sale of the rights to Bethesda Softworks, said that he felt as though "our ex wife had sold our children that she had legal custody of."

Can't blame him. Hasn't anyone seen what Bethesda did to the Star Trek franchise?

 

[derek.haines]

Can't blame him. Hasn't anyone seen what Bethesda did to the Star Trek franchise?

It would suck to have something like that sold out from under you by some corporate stooge, but Bethesda is likely doing more justice to the franchise than another in the original vein would have.

What has Bethesda done to the Star Trek franchise besides a great service?

 

[Cashed]

The game looks great and it will most likely be Cashed's 360 version that will look terrible, I see lots of motion blur and that helps hide any ugly models or textures.

The graphics aren't very good across all platforms, that was a great attempt at a 360 troll, though. Motion blur shouldn't be used to hide ugly character models or textures.

 

[Cashed]

I am so overwhelmed by this game. There's just... So much world... And I feel like I have no idea what I'm doing.

 

[Mr.GAW]

Trudat. I want to blow up Megaton but I feel like I have to finish all the quests their first. I'm trying to finish that god**** book before I get my suite in Tenpenny.

 

[Cashed]

After about twenty hours with the game... I don't like it.

The world is a bore. It's a nuclear waste. It's called a Wasteland. And guess what? It's a waste of land. There's nothing to do. Melee combat takes a backseat compared to Oblivion and you find yourself using ranged weapons most of the time. But there's a problem. Ammo is in VERY short supply. Even with a perk that nets me "a lot more ammo than you'd usually find!", at the end of nearly every mission I find myself using my Super Sledgehammer, as I've run out of ammo for all of the, I dunno, fifteen guns I'm carrying? Yeah. Graphics? I would call them awful. The game is brown. That's honestly the world I would use to describe the graphics before anything else. The first time you find yourself in Megaton you'll just be wondering "alright, where is ANYTHING?" as everything is connected and everything is brown. The graphics wouldn't be all that bad if the game simply wasn't in a post-Apocalyptic world, which apparently forces everything to be a shade of brown or grey. With some color, the wasteland of D.C. could be quite beautiful. The characters in the game aren't interesting in the slightest, I found myself mashing on the A button to skip dialogue as soon as I got out of Vault 101. Have fun talking to Moira Brown, too, she owns Craterside Supply, has a mustache and sounds like Sarah Palin. Animations are mostly better than Oblivion, but there are some that you'll laugh at. If you want to roll on the floor, simply switch to third person mode. The story, from what I've played, has been very predictable (though most games are), and outside of the story, unlike Oblivion, there aren't a whole lot of quests.

 

[derek.haines]

After about twenty hours with the game... I don't like it.

(Wall 'o Text)

So what would you rate the game, out of 100?

 

[Cashed]

70 at the most.

 

[derek.haines]

Wow, you'd be well below the Metacritic average for the game. I suppose that might actually have something to do with the amount of time you've spent with the game, as I can't see the majority of reviewers have spent a minute over 10 hours with it at the very most.

It's nice to have a non-journalista opinion to add to the mix.

 

[Cashed]

The only review I saw for the game was IGN's, and I won't be listening to that reviewer for awhile. This game is not a 9.6.

 

[Mr.GAW]

After about twenty hours with the game... I don't like it.

The world is a bore. It's a nuclear waste. It's called a Wasteland. And guess what? It's a waste of land. There's nothing to do. Melee combat takes a backseat compared to Oblivion and you find yourself using ranged weapons most of the time. But there's a problem. Ammo is in VERY short supply. Even with a perk that nets me "a lot more ammo than you'd usually find!", at the end of nearly every mission I find myself using my Super Sledgehammer, as I've run out of ammo for all of the, I dunno, fifteen guns I'm carrying? Yeah. Graphics? I would call them awful. The game is brown. That's honestly the world I would use to describe the graphics before anything else. The first time you find yourself in Megaton you'll just be wondering "alright, where is ANYTHING?" as everything is connected and everything is brown. The graphics wouldn't be all that bad if the game simply wasn't in a post-Apocalyptic world, which apparently forces everything to be a shade of brown or grey. With some color, the wasteland of D.C. could be quite beautiful. The characters in the game aren't interesting in the slightest, I found myself mashing on the A button to skip dialogue as soon as I got out of Vault 101. Have fun talking to Moira Brown, too, she owns Craterside Supply, has a mustache and sounds like Sarah Palin. Animations are mostly better than Oblivion, but there are some that you'll laugh at. If you want to roll on the floor, simply switch to third person mode. The story, from what I've played, has been very predictable (though most games are), and outside of the story, unlike Oblivion, there aren't a whole lot of quests.

I agree the game is not a 9.6, but it's definetly not a 7. 15 hours in I've never been short of something to do, but I do worry A LOT when I hear there's only 17 sidequests. I find it hard to believe, as I've really only explored the center of the wastelands and a bit of DC and have completed 6 sidequests already, but from what I understand there's truly only 17, with maybe 20 or 30 "mini" quests such as fixing the waterpipes in megaton. The limited number of quests is the only thing that should bring this game's score down IMO.

As for ammo, what difficulty are you on? Playing on Normal, I actually have EXCESSIVE amounts at this point, while at first it was difficult I admit, sometimes I'll find 60 shotgun shells and a sawed off shotgun on a shelf and that keeps me set for a good 2 hours. Ammo really isn't expensive either. Besides, I like the idea of having to scavenge for ammo and conserve it for important things in a wasteland like this. It was something I really liked about Bioshock as well. TBH, I don't even use melee (even though I have a chansaw and a shishkabob), and I never feel like I HAVE to. My hunting rifle never runs out of ammo, as it takes 3 shots to the head to kill a super mutant and I normally loot 6 bullets off their body.

As for the brown graphics, it's not supposed to be a fairy tale like fable. I'll admit the game doesn't look great (especially on my SD big screen) but that's because of the animations and some textures/rough edges. The browness really adds to the depressing, somber mood of the game, but that's irrelevant anyways, most quests dont take place in the wasteland, but in a town or in a subway tunnel or building.

With the exception of Moira Brown, who looks better as a ghoul than a human- most characters are interesting. Flak, Burke, Tennpenny, Abraham Washington, the cannibal leader- they all have personalities that'll really give you a certain "vibe" about them. I dunno tha any of them are really something that will make you feel attatched to them, but how many games can really do that anyways? All I can think of is Mass Effect, and that's a bit of a stretch. So NPC wise, I'd say its just as good as Oblivion, if that's saying anything.

I'd give it a 88. It's sure to last you 30 full hours for a playthrough no matter how you look at it, and it is a very immersive world. I think the combat is fantastic, and there's plenty of places to see. My only complaints with the game are lack of quests, the game ends when you beat it, the subway tunnels can get a bit obnoxious, and Moira Brown.

The RPG aspect of the game is just about as good as it can get IMO, VATS is great, there's plenty of variety in weapons as well as variety in gameplay, and I'm sure there's plenty of great ideas scattered in the enviornment when I've only found 20 some locations so far and there's well over 100.

So yeah, Oblivion is deserving of the 9.5 that it got, and this is not because I probably won't be able to play one charater for upwards of 100 hours w/o getting bored. Still a great game nonetheless.

 

[Cashed]

I started the game on Normal, and after escaping from the Vault in a terrible sequence where I was beating everyone and everything down with a Police Baton, I bumped the difficulty down to Easy to see if enemy drops would change. I didn't notice any significant changes with the drop to easy, so after looking at the achievement list to make sure I wouldn't be screwing myself out of achievements by dropping the difficulty, I dropped it to very easy. The game certainly played more fun on very easy, as enemies appear to have less health and aren't as accurate (and god **** are they accurate). I never had ammo problems in Bioshock, or if I did, I didn't notice it, as I could fall back on my Plasmid abilities. Having no sort of "magic" in a game like this feels kind of weird, and I feel like they COULD have figured it in somehow, I mean, with all this exposure to radiation and all these mutations you could just say that some people/creature's brains were affected as well, and ****, psychic powers. Towards the beginning of the game my hunting rifle always had excessive ammo too, but when I pull it out now I only have about twelve shots. I dunno, enemies just stopped carrying them I guess.

Brown graphics bug me. Really bug me. "Realistic" games in this generation mostly feature a palette of browns... and it's ugly. Real life isn't brown. I understand that the game isn't a wonderland like Albion or Tamriel, but having such a limited color palette just makes the game an eye sore to play. A nuclear wasteland can be communicated through other means than the color palette, so I really don't understand why they relied so heavily on using brown to communicate this feeling of gloominess and destruction.

The metro tunnels are my absolute least favorite area of the game, and you're forced into them way too often for quests. Just like Oblivion, way too much of this game takes place underground. I don't understand why they spend so much time and resources making this huge world and then have the player in tunnels so often.

Dialogue with NPCs in the game really bugs me because I now feel that every game needs to use Mass Effect's dialogue system. Lip syncing and amazing animations (that can actually communicate emotion!) add SO much to NPC interaction. I'm just really disappointed to see that the dialogue system barely changed from Oblivion.

I will agree that the RPG aspects of the game are excellent, I love picking a new Perk whenever I level up, and otherwise it's pretty much the same as Oblivion, so it gets my approval. Sadly I can't level up my acrobatics anymore just by jumping around, though.

 

[Mr.GAW]

Oblivion=Mass Effect>Fallout, but I still really enjoy the game.

I totally agree about the tunnels. Maybe I'm crazy, but I don't think the fun people get out of this game is from traveling for 15 minutes through a tunnel to the next destination. Why not just put some more towns or an airport or something above ground in the 60% of the map that's completely empty and cut down on the travel time? I feel like all RPGs need to have as many cities as Oblivion, but with more variety. This and Mass Effect would be indefinetly better with more towns.

 

[Cashed]

I'll agree to that. That was my main disappointment with Mass Effect originally. You're telling me in all these star systems, there's not a town I can visit? I have to go back to the Citadel? I wanted to see the different home worlds of the different species, along with mixed species environments that WEREN'T the Citadel.

 

[Mr.GAW]

I take it back, I think this game is deserving of at least a 9.3.

I played non-stop for pretty much 8 hours today, now 29 hours in, and I haven't been bored once. I've just realized how large the world really is, and it was foolish of me to think that just because there's only 17 sidequests there wasn't enough to do in the game. I just spent 4 hours in Evergreen Mills, some raider town just exploring and looting for caps and items. Previously I spent 20 minutes on a freeform quest to rat out slave-trader Seagrave for Bannon to get schematics for a weapon. There are so many locations to find and explore the world really is nearly as large as Oblivion. I have found plenty more towns and civilizations, the Underworld, Tennpenny Tower, Rivet City, Megaton, the Oasis, Paradise City, Big Town- etc. This game is crack, and I haven't been so engrossed in a universe since Oblivion.

The story is balls though.

 

[Cashed]

I saved right before I got to level 20 so I could ***** all the level 20 achievements, and one of the times I picked the "Place everything on my map" perk. There's quite a bit of ****... but still... a lack of towns... which is understandable in a nuclear wasteland.

 

[kigbariom]

I am very curious about this game, I'm not much of an RPG kinda guy, but an FPS RPG sounds like my kinda game! I had never heard of this series until recently but I think I'm going to try it out. Would it be better to get for PS3 or PC?

 

[The Executive]

The PS3 version, unfortunately, has a host of glitches. Some have broken PS3s. Until they get a patch rolling, stick with the PC version.

 

[derek.haines]

Just picked up the 360 version today (go DLC, go!) and my girlfriend is laying into it right now. Old time-y music is somehow fitting. Let's see how this mofo handles.

 

[Ramboknife]

The PS3 version, unfortunately, has a host of glitches. Some have broken PS3s. Until they get a patch rolling, stick with the PC version.

Really?...it's breaking ps3s?...yikes

 

[derek.haines]

I agree wholeheartedly with Mr.GAW--this game is digital crack. I've spent a dozen or more hours with it now and I feel like I've barely scratched the surface. The story, characters, and just the feel of the world is so much easier to get into that Oblivion--a game in which I didn't give a **** why I was doing anything, just that I was doing it. The FPS/V.A.T.S. system is surprisingly robust and it feels good, and the world has never once felt small at all to me. My favorite moment thus far has been a mission in which I had to travel to the center of a town littered with landmines, with the optional objective of disabling and collecting a landmine. That was fun stuff.

 

[Frames]

The PS3 version, unfortunately, has a host of glitches. Some have broken PS3s. Until they get a patch rolling, stick with the PC version.

Odd because I have the ps3 version and have yet to encounter any problems.

I really like this game, and while the number of sidequests are limited, they do offer more variety and substance overall than the dozens of formulaic quests in oblivion (with the exception of the dark brotherhood). The story is ok,

Spoiler

I guess martyrdom is the "in" thing now

but overall I felt that it was pretty basic and considering the nature of the game, could've been a lot more complex and interesting overall.

edit - Lincoln's Repeater or Experimental MIRV or Alien Blaster ftw