Fallout 3 (X360) Review

[JJJ]

This review assumes you know what the game is in general, I don't really have time to explain all of that.

Fallout 3 is a massive RPG by Bethesda that continues Black Isle's incredible RPG series. Note that I played and finished both Fallout 1 and 2 on PC and they occupy a very high spot on my all-time list. Fallout 3 is done using the Oblivion template - massive world, first-person perspective, huge number of weapons and items to find and use. In Oblivion's case, Bethesda created a world entirely without personality or life. A failure. For Fallout 3, Bethesda actually did learn from the history of the series and have produced a much better game with tons of personality.

Bethesda has attempted to recreate the complex dialogue trees of the older games. This worked for the most part. Compared to Oblivion, you will have to talk much more to NPCs, and the writing is much better. You also have many more dialogue choices - and some of them will allow you to solve quests non-violently if you are into that sort of thing. Its like Bioware-lite.

The graphics are very good on Xbox 360. Its a huge improvement over Oblivion. Draw distance is very far, and the framerate rarely hitches. The only issues I have with the graphics are minor: overall the game is very, very dark; Some of the textures could be described as muddy up-close; and certain transparent textures aren't handled right by Xbox 360 (wall lichen, paint, blood etc) and look extremely ugly.

Fallout 3 in combat could be described as a FPS game. However, it changes up the formula with its VATS system. Using this, you can push the right bumper and pause time. During this time you can use Action Points to target different parts on different enemies. This is an awesomely fun system! It really adds to the fun, sneaking into battle - and then targetting two different enemies and killing them both with 'Sneak Critical' headshots! The problem with VATS is that it doesn't really line-up with non-VATS combat. When you run out of AP, you can simply fight with the normal FPS interface and wait for your AP to recharge. Huh? seems a bit unfair and unrealistic. Of course, many people would have been pissed off if they couldn't shoot at all after using VATS so I do understand the tough decisions Bethesda had to make here.

The quests in Fallout 3 are generally very good. Most have multiple possible solutions, depending on your level of violence and whether you are a good or evil character. The sidequests are plentiful, and are quite detailed. The main quest is excellent, but short. I have finished the game in about 35 hours - but I estimate I've missed about 50% of the sidequests. Most games, I really wouldn't bother going back to finish these. But in Fallout 3, this is a huge part of the fun. Kudos Bethesda for not taking the easy way out and over-focusing on the main quest.

Now I'll get to some fairly major negatives of Fallout 3. The first ties in with the large number of quests. When I finished the game, I was at Level 18 of a possible 20 (Level 20 is the level cap). I didn't 'grind' levels at all, and I missed many, many quests. Yet I almost hit the cap. Why? Now if I go back and do some of the sidequests I missed, I will surely hit the cap in a few hours. So thats discouraging exploration - in a game thats primarily focused on it?

It all starts to make sense when you consider Fallout 3 DLC. The upcoming DLC in April, 'Broken Steel' lifts the level cap to 30. I think all the DLC looks fun and interesting, but it seems very obvious to me that Bethesda level-capped the full game *very* low in order to get more sales of 'Broken Steel'. Its even more bizarre that they are releasing this DLC last. If I played the other two released DLC, 'Operation: Anchorage' and 'The Pitt' before 'Broken Steel', I would be hitting the cap so quick there really wouldn't be any point.

The only other thing I can think of is that Bethesda assumed that 75%+ of the sidequests would be skipped by the average gamer. That way you wouldn't have problems with the cap. But then - why create such a huge and vibrant world? Bethesda seems very confused on this aspect of the game.

An issue with games like Fallout 3, that create such a realistic environment, continues to be NPC AI. The world looks and feels very real, but you soon find out how very scripted and triggered things really are. An example with *minor spoilers* ahead: At one point you come to a slave camp, and have a quest to free some slaves. There are a whole variety of ways you can do this - but Bethesda doesn't really seem to provide for the most obvious one. Kill all slavers. I chose this route. First, I walked into Slaver HQ, put a shotgun to the leader's head and blew it off. He had two guard slaves that immedietely attacked me, and were killed as well. Now, I needed to leave the HQ and find and kill all the other slavers. As soon as I left the HQ, about a half-dozen slavers were already firing at me. How did they know I killed their leader? If they suspected something why didn't they charge into the HQ to find out what happened? I tried reloading and killing the leader again - this time with a silenced pistol while sneaking. Same result. The game 'triggered' all of the slavers to attack as soon as their leader died. I realize the difficulty in creating realism in situations like this, but as we get closer to true realism, these types of artificial 'triggered' events stand out much more starkly.

My other gripe in Fallout 3 are the characters you can recruit into your party. You can only recruit one character at a time, after which they follow you and help you fight. The first problem with this is the lack of character interaction. Basically, the party members have no real back-story to solve, and don't grow with the story in any way. You can't talk with them about anything except to change their battle tactics or leave your party. So if you were expecting conversations with your party members a la Dak'kon from Planescape: Torment, or other Jedi in Knights of the Old Republic, prepare for massive disappointment.

The second problem with party members is their level of battle awareness. They are dumb. If you play a sneaking, sniping character like I did - this is highly irritating. They will charge in and start firing as soon as they sense an enemy. You can order them to 'wait here', before sneaking in, but thats an awful solution.

The final problem with party members is that they are overpowered. Not so much their attacks, but they can absorb *huge* amounts of damage! For instance, my character wasn't the world's toughest, but near the end of the game I could absorb maybe 10 shots from Enclave soldiers (this is on hard difficulty). My party member could absorb at least 50-75 and still have tons of health left. This despite the fact that her armor is the same as my own. I think their defense was artificially boosted to compensate for their lack of intelligence! The consequence of this is it makes some parts of the game very easy - as you can let your party member run in blindly and absorb dozens of shots while you pick off enemies from afar.

I would say the best way to avoid the poor party members in Fallout 3 is to do just that - do not let them join you if possible. I think the game is much more fun and balanced this way.

Overall, Fallout 3 is a wonderful game. If I've spent alot of time enumerating its flaws, thats only because its so close to true greatness. Its by far the best RPG currently available on Xbox 360 - Oblivion and Mass Effect in particular don't come anywhere close. I think Bethesda are starting to grow as a game company beyond the cliches of older games, and thats great for the game industry. Its also great how popular Fallout 3 has been commercially. That means more awesome RPGs will be made. Fallout 3 is a solid 9/10.

[JJJ]

One of the cool things about Fallout 3 is that everybody's playthrough can be markedly different. So I'd be interested to hear if other's experienced some of the same stuff I did or totally different.

I had one friend who went in and just straight up finished the main quest in about 12 hours. He put all his points into repair and small guns and he said he was near invincible at the end, because he guns were totally at max condition and he had great skill with them. I think he wasn't even at level 15... Anyway he thought the game was too short

[JJJ]

Just to add one more critique to the review:

I went back and played the finale again, to see one of the alternate endings. I also brought a different AI companion along. Wow.

Fallout 3 fails here, just horribly.

*spoilers*



























The finale presents a tough choice, as to who should enter a radiation-soaked room. This AI companion is radiation-resistant. However, the game completely ignores the presence of this companion - who obviously should be the one entering! It totally throws the believability of the ending out the window. Ridiculous. Even worse, you have the option of recruiting this companion *directly before* the finale in the story arc - so the designers had to know that a huge percentage of gamers would be taking him to the finale. Did they not care that this wouldn't make any sense? Or not realize it until the ending cinematics were already completed, and not have the budget to go back and edit?

Its hard to state this strongly enough. Fallout 3, in this circumstance, has one of the *dumbest endings of all-time!* Ouch. Needless to say, I revise my score to 8.5/10. Shame Bethesda...

[Zork]

I really enjoy the game but the ending is so stupid and such a letdown. Especially when I recall the devs gloating about how there would be a bunch of different endings...something like 30 or 50 if I remember right. I wonder what happened to that?

My point is, don't promise something you know is impossible or stupid and then don't follow through on it and not even mention it anymore like it didn't happen and disappoint your fanbase with lame endings...it makes you look like jackasses.

Oh well, at least they acknowledge the endings are lame and are looking to rectify it with the Broken Steel DLC.

My only other gripes with the game is most people still look pretty ugly, it's a lot better than Oblivion where everyone was just nasty but I guess it makes more sense in a post apocalyptic world than in Oblivion where everyone in Medieval times is stereotypically ugly.

[JJJ]

Endings:
In terms of endings, there does seem to be a fair number of combinations. But they are 'composite' endings, because they are composed of three parts. So, the first part you'll see a different video depending on your Karma (2 videos? Not sure), then the next video depends on your finale decision (2 videos... Grrr...), and the final video is dependent on your Project Purity decision. So if you consider each 'mix' of those videos a different ending, then there are 8 endings. Anyway, nowhere close to 30-50...

Yeah the character models aren't the greatest - but much better than Oblivion.

One huge upside is the amount of voice actors. The extremely small number of voices in Oblivion totally ruined it for me. Like, literally you could talk to 3 different people within shouting distance of each other, all with the same voice actor. And for the most part, the actors wouldn't even attempt to change their voice! I'd rather just read the text and use my imagination...

In Fallout, yes you do hear some of the same actors. But its quite a bit more infrequent, and usually not often in the same environment. So I give Bethesda credit for that.

[Zork]

Endings:
One huge upside is the amount of voice actors. The extremely small number of voices in Oblivion totally ruined it for me. Like, literally you could talk to 3 different people within shouting distance of each other, all with the same voice actor. And for the most part, the actors wouldn't even attempt to change their voice! I'd rather just read the text and use my imagination...

Speaking of dialogue and voice acting...that reminds me of something I found ridiculous in Oblivion. I'm glad they decided to have more traditional dialogue and stuff in Fallout unlike in Oblivion where it had that retarded Conversation Wheel thing where you could intimidate someone or insult them and they hate you then make a joke or compliment them and make them laugh or blush from being humble. Thats just completely ridiculous...it was pretty much another reason why I didn't care for Oblivion.

[JJJ]

I had forgotten about the conversation wheel. What a piece of shit.

Honestly, there are so many flaws in Oblivion that its really a shock Fallout turned out this well.

Whats most bizarre is how Oblivion is one of the highest-rated games of all time - most reviews didn't even mention 25% of the huge flaws. Makes you wonder if they played more than 10 hours of the game? Speaking of which, this trend continues on to Fallout reviews - which gloss over virtually all the negatives I discussed.