Fallout 3
Rating M
Score: 9.0/10
After Halo 3, and Call of Duty 4, the Xbox 360’s, Playstation 3’s, and PC’s, the new game line up is looking a little stale. Call of Duty 5, Left for Dead (not for PS3), and this game are the only huge new hits out there. Does Fallout 3 give gamers what was promised (namely, an amazing game), or was it just too much hype?
Let’s start off by clearing the air. Fallout 3 is NOT a first-person shooter. I don’t know why people insist on saying it is. Clearly, it’s a first-person RPG game, more or less. I just needed to clear that up before going any further.
The story is what this game is all about, since there’s no multiplayer. The story is complex, compelling, and best of all, gripping. You’ll likely not put the controller down for hours. The story starts off as a baby, choosing you’re best and worst stats (Which I’ll explain further in this review), right until you’re an adult. Not to reveal too much, but once you get quite far in the game, you’ll notice some redundancy in the missions.
Talking with people will be an important feature. You’ll learn instantly that this game gives you a lot of freedom in talking. Be nice, be mean, or be neutral - Just be who you want to be. It directly affects Karma, which plays an important role in this game. Karma primarily affects the ending you get, but it also affects the way people talk to you, and act with you, especially with good and evil characters.
Stats affect your character personally. Stats include Barter, Big Guns, Energy Weapons, Explosives, Lockpick, Medicine, Melee Weapons, Repair, Science, Small Guns, Sneak, Speech, and Unarmed. The stat names are self-explanatory. The stats you excel will determine your level up perks. There are hundreds of perks, and most can only be unlocked if you’re good enough in a certain stat.
The combat is something else. You can either stubbornly believe this game’s a first-person shooter and run out of ammo really quickly, or use the V.A.T.S. feature. The V.A.T.S. stands for Vault-Tec Assisted Targeting System, and during the time you use it, it slows everything down while you aim carefully at the unfortunate target. Once you selected where to aim, you fire, getting a dramatic view of your character. The negative thing is that the firing is in real time, meaning you can still get shot and even die during V.A.T.S..
Previous fans, and potential fans, will be dumbfounded. There’s so much rich content and so little to nitpick about. Looks like all that hype was well deserved.