Fallout 3 review (From Swindon Advertiser)

Fallout 3 review

11:05am Tuesday 13th January 2009 in Gaming By Sam Kearns

Oblivion the Elder Scrolls was Bethesda studios major breakthrough on the Xbox 360 and the PC. While I cant say it ever appealed to me, I appreciate that the game was well received by reviewers and gamers alike and was a milestone for action role playing games in the current console generation. Unsurprisingly, Bethesda has aimed to move that stone another mile further with its new title, Fallout 3, essentially an reshaped Oblivion. Set in a post apocalyptic Washington D.C, Fallout 3 has the player emerge from a secluded Vault 101 in the search for your missing father, however, the Capital Wasteland is a fearsome place, and to survive in it you must make harrowing choices. Will you liberate the suffering people of the wasteland, or become yet another blight upon them?

From the start, Fallout 3 must be congratulated with its visuals. While essentially we only have a Re-skinned oblivion (with textures and layers from Oblivion appearing throughout the map) it is done with such a fine detail to presentation that one cannot begrudge the nostalgia. The massive Wasteland map looks visually remarkable from top to bottom; stand on any precipice and you are greeted by a glaring sun, a harsh plain, or maybe ashen grey ruins crumbling on a nearby hilltop, and the effect is remarkable. You will be spending a lot of this game exploring, and its this visual aesthetic that keeps it rooted in reality. Although the “real” style of the graphics can get repetitive and bleak (after all, in real life one destroyed building will look pretty much like another) it is necessary for this type of game; you aren't in a shooter where you will have fierce action all the time, in Fallout you will take the time to just look around to see the sadness of a bygone era, and the murky browns and greys do suit the dystopia setting.

The sound is also something to be praised. The population of the Capital Wasteland all have mostly well written and performed dialog, and its a treat to see so much of a game using voice acting. While I cant say theres much in the music department; one lonely wind blown track is identical to another, the sound effects do help the ambiance, such as the cracking zap of a laspistol firing, or the rumbling explosion from a mini nuke firing.

Like I mentioned, in Fallout you will do a lot of exploring. Half of the pleasure comes from seeing what you can find, and the game rarely disappoints. The world is bustling with all kinds of characters, monsters and locations for the player to discover, and the interaction with them is something to be applauded. So gameplay is largely focused on seeing what missions you can find and what situations you can get into. The great thing about this is choice. Now choice seems to be the fashionable thing in gaming these days, and often what is shown to be a choice merely is a distraction that has little to do with the events of the game. In Fallout, the choices you make are important. Such choices vary hugely, from deciding whether to steal or buy your food, to whether to carry that gun or leave it, to whether you want to nuke an entire settlement off the map. Your decisions effect how the game is ultimately played, and that is reflected in the characters stat building as well. You can make your character accustomed to his favorite rocket launcher, or you could make her the best pickpocket in the land. In Fallout 3, choice is abundant, its varied, and it isn't abused.

The combat is vastly improved from Oblivion, which adopted a basic hack, slash then block principle. In Fallout we switch to earths future, and so you get guns; lots and lots of guns. The weapon range is interesting enough for a game of Fallouts size to keep you going and there is always a different style to play with if you get bored. Its very easy to switch from using the shotgun to using the sniper rifle, and that is thanks to the V.A.T.S system. V.A.T.S targets the individual parts of the enemy's body, and if your shot hits, you get to see a rewarding cinematic of the blow landing. While it sounds crude, popping heads never gets tiring, and the visual effect of seeing your bullet stream from your barrel, across the wasteland, and separating a raiders head from its corpse is always entertaining. However this does mean an over reliance on the V.A.T.S system, as shooting with most guns normally doesn't feel as accurate or comfortable enough. To outline what I mean; in a good first person shooter you can feel the force from the gun; you can feel the shudder of the machine gun in call of duty, or you can witness the power of the sniper rifle in halo. In Fallout, without V.A.T.S, the shooting has no weight to it, and while this would usually only be a atmosphere problem that would be easy to ignore, the aiming reticule on Fallouts arsenal is so small that you would struggle to hit an enemy at all. Human enemies in the game have such gaunt character models that without the precision of the system, aiming became a chore, and shooting didn't feel that satisfying to pull off without wasting an entire clip of ammo and most of your health. If V.A.T.S wasn't in the game, then I wouldn't be able to let that slide, but thankfully it is, and I managed to play a good 60 hours of this game without it being too problematic, so I can forgive Fallout a tad.

Where I cant forgive Fallout, is the lack of power in the main story arc. While I was contented to explore the Wasteland for the majority of my playtime, completing the much more interesting side missions given by the bedraggled citizens of D.C, the actual story was a bit of a let down. After a few missions, you find it to become repetitive, and you care for the characters so little that seeing one of them perish has little to no effect on the player. The climax of the game, while being visually astounding, has no real sense of urgency as most of the work is done for you, and the pacing of the campaign as a whole is shoddy. You will wander through so many identical rooms that you will swear that you were getting deja vu, and this isn't helped by the lack of interesting creatures you will fight on your way. The ability to talk your way out of every situation is very rewarding in parts, but I pretty much told the last boss to go away and leave me alone, and to my surprise, he did with a small shrug and a mumbled apology. This is hardly the satisfying conclusion that I wanted from Fallout. I had spent around 50 hours maxing my character out in the world and exploring to my hearts content, but to then suddenly find that the actual story is so shriveled and pointless, that I began to question whether it was all worth it. The ending of the story actually made me put my face in my hands. I wont spoil it for you, not that it matters in this case, but it will leave you wondering “what was the point?”

But I digress, I played Fallout for a long time so there must be something that dragged me back in every time. The game in my opinion hasn't advanced the Action RPG genre, however, that doesn't stop it from being one worth playing.

Gameplay 9.3
A game full of exploration and choices, the combat mostly works well and the whole package comes together nicely

Presentation 6.5
Slick menu presentation and overall polish is hampered by a bad story arch and several glitches

Graphics 9.4
The real world image works for fallout, a real treat

Sound 7.0
Voice work is brilliant, sound effects are good, but music is less then average

Length 9.6
If you wanted to do everything, prepare for a very long sit down. Choices change each play through

Final score
9.1/ 10