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Preys-World - Fallout 3 Review

Wednesday 19th of November, 2008 - 14:22:52 GMT

It seems to be a given at the moment that whenever anyone talks about Fallout 3 the words “Oblivion with guns” immediately spring to mind. It is a normal response to have; after all Bethesda immediately jumped to the prospect of a fallout game shortly after making Oblivion. This created all sorts of tension with gamers; Fallout fans were displeased about the prospect of Bethesda handling Fallout almost as soon as they made the announcement, and players who had never played Fallout but had played Oblivion sat worried that it was going to be a repetition of all the mistakes Oblivion had.

So what was the final result? The answer is a pretty damn good game that unfortunately still suffers from the inherent flaws of its sister predecessor, Oblivion. Effectively using the same engine, Fallout 3 recreates the Fallout world in 3D form, with all its surrealism and black humour. Upon walking out of the vault you’re met with a scene of total wasteland desert; a mix of daunting, pretty and lifeless all at the same time. Any trees you find in this land have been dead for a good long time, and the chance of them sprouting green leaves like that from Oblivion is negligible. The Vault section of the game is an interesting starter for the player, getting them acquainted with Fallout’s RPG system of Perks and VATS. You start off as a child and work your way up to an adult teenager before heading out into the big bad world of the capital wasteland.

It isn’t very long (depending on whether you just walk down the road from the vault) before you meet your first town, quests and general people. Conversations are thankfully more interesting than that of Oblivion’s, and the voice acting has improved. Similarly, every character in Fallout 3 that you meet feels a bit more unique. They have a scripted path of doing their own things and appear a bit more intelligent than Oblivion’s AI. In truth though Fallout 3 works better than Oblivion simply because the chances of you meeting anyone in the DC wasteland are slimmer; towns and villages exist, but are in small pockets, with only one area in the game that could be classified as a large town.

The quests are all interesting enough, whether you choose to do the main quest or the sub ones. Caution should be advised though when performing the main quest in that once you complete it it’s game over. While the main quest involves basically searching for your dad, the sub-quests provide more of the humour for the game. Examples include having to complete a book for a somewhat crazy merchant woman in Megaton. You can tackle these quests in any way you like, including just shooting the quest owner and stealing the loot. There isn’t really a limit to what you can do, and since no police force exists you can be as totally evil as you please. Obviously shooting someone at point blank range in the middle of a busy settlement isn’t going to win you any favours with the townsfolk, as they’ll be too busy screaming and running away from you.

The Perks and VATS system are also a neat aspect of Fallout. Once levelled, you are able to train up in key skills such as weapons, medicine, science etc. These skills allow you to become better at what you’re doing in the game. Perks give you specific special abilities. These usually range from bonuses in damage, resistance or radiation. Some however can be quite amusing. Bloody mess is the well recognised one, making everyone die in very gruesome ways (though why you’d need this considering the brutality of death scenes anyway is unknown...). Some of them give you health bonuses for being out at night, or in Nerd Rage if you drop below a certain amount of health you are given a large amount of strength bonus and resistance.

For my first character I put most skills into gunnery, meaning I was literally a killing machine with every weapon imaginable. In doing so however I was unable to open hard locks, or hack computers, so it’s important to create your skills in the game properly.

VATS meanwhile is the system used to target and hit areas of an enemy. A simple press of the right bumper on the Xbox 360 allows you to set up specific targeting for who you wish to shoot, then the games performs it in a sort of bullet time cut scene. Is it distracting and annoying? So far it’s been more a blessing for me if I’m in tight situations, and the cut scenes haven’t grown old. In the end it’s your choice whether you want to use it or not. You will find however that the same mathematical function used in the VATS is used in real time combat situations as well, meaning the likelihood of you missing if they’re far away is just as high as if you were using VATS. In a way Fallout 3 isn’t really a first person shooter, even if you use gunnery in the game. Instead it is a healthy mix of RPG mathematics and first person perspective that sort of works and sort of doesn’t. Problems occur when using such weapons as the sniper rifle or the fat man. With the sniper rifle, if you’re a good aim you expect to be able to shoot the target easily. Instead the maths comes in and you find you miss, even if you’re on target. Similarly blast radius damage seems to be poor, and this is particularly apparent when using the fat man weapon. When attacking someone with a nuclear warhead you expect to cause a fair amount of damage even if the enemy wasn’t within the middle of the blast radius. Instead the damage is lost if the enemy is outside of the blast radius. It’s all a bit silly really, and could put off someone who just wants to blow enemies away with nukes.

Other quirks and disappointments exist as well. The large town, Rivet City, is a disaster conceptually. Built inside the wreckage of an aircraft carrier, you might have expected an interestingly built cityscape inside a hollowed out carrier (or certainly this is what I expected and hoped). Instead you get a multitude of corridors and rooms’, leading to constant loading that is annoying and makes you not want to stay too long in the place. Sadly the Capital Wasteland follows suit. Divided into different sectors that can be accessed by travelling along different metro routes, the result is a city that feels unrealistic and broken. What should have been a massive interesting wasteland of a city are really just sectors of interesting attractions and that’s it.

It’s these things that let Fallout 3 down. Supposedly set at least 200 years after the war, you would expect maybe even a little bit more than what the larger towns have to offer. Instead what you’re given is underwhelming, but perhaps that’s to be expected from a game set in a nuclear aftermath. Thankfully outside of the city the wasteland is far more interesting, and will keep you entertained for hours. Although smaller than Oblivion’s world, you won’t find yourself tiring in finding interesting places to go to.

There is one other little thing that may or may not sway you from buying the game. Like Oblivion, Fallout 3 doesn’t feel like it has any sort of love put into the creation of it. Referring back to my review of Mirror’s Edge, ME felt like an idea had been born in someone’s head and luckily the group took to it and built it. It feels fresh. Fallout 3 doesn’t. Instead it feels like it has been strictly designed and mapped; every corner planned out precisely, like a lecturer making a game but not understanding how to make the player feel welcomed in the game. This doesn’t mean that Fallout 3 is a bad game, in fact it’s a very good game, but there is a feeling that Bethesda just doesn’t know how to make a feeling of enjoyment in a game. There are some memorable moments (Tenpenny Tower is particularly good), but that’s it. It feels like the game was made using a strict method rather than spark decisions and fun.

Whatever you choose to do, I would highly recommend you try out Fallout 3, whether you have played the original or not. Oblivion with guns? No. This is a new game, same engine, but new fun things to do. Join us in the wasteland! Watch that mutant doesn’t eat your leg.

- WMain00