Fallout 3: Game of the Year Edition

Written by Adam Woolcott  on December 16, 2009

Review: It's the Fallout 3 you love, along with alien abductions, inbreds, and... teddy bears?

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Fighting is a common avenue in Fallout 3, and the game offers a couple ways to actually engage in combat. If you're a fan of first-person shooters, you can play that way, merely firing your guns at enemies until they die, attacking various points on the body to decrease efficiency. Those more tuned to RPGs, however, will dig the Vault-tec Assisted Targeting System, or VATS. VATS makes the game a turn-based affair (of sorts); pressing R2 will stop the action and highlight the various body parts of an enemy, allowing for more precision in attacks. Success can cripple, if not outright kill your enemies; aiming for the head can either cause said head to be removed from their body, or it can cause them to lose their ability to aim properly, causing all kinds of amusing chaos. If you can play FPS-style the same things are possible, but you have to have good aim; the rest of us will find VATS to be a great alternative. There are downsides - the enemies can do a lot of the same tactics Ц getting shot in the head one too many times will cause your own aim to be all over the place. Only Stimpaks (the main method of healing since there's no magical spells in this game) a visit to a clinic, or sleeping in a bed will heal your injuries Ц not only that, but merely waiting won't restore HP like Oblivion. And also, VATS is based upon AP (attack points), and when they're out, you can't use VATS again until there's enough AP for an attack...until you reach level 20 and select the newly available perk to refill after a successful kill.



Leveling is a different beast too Ц rather than allow someone to become good at everything, Fallout 3 lets you tailor your character in a way that benefits what you're into. Upon reaching a new level, you get stat points to boost numerous categories that one would expect in an RPG, and once you finish, you can choose a single perk (out of many, far more choices than levels) to make you more proficient at something. Some perks are tied to gender; a female character can use her feminine wiles to get what she wants, while the Lady Killer perk has the same affect for males. Child at Heart offers unique discourse with kids Ц oh yeah, there's kids in the game, though they can't be killed, sickos Ц which can come in handy, especially with kids that have good information. Mysterious Stranger is a VATS feature; every once in a while, a gangster-looking guy will show up and assist you in combat, instantly killing whatever you were fighting, while awesome western-style music plays. It's all random, but his appearances are always awesome. Most of the other perks deal with skills and the like. The game itself only allows you to reach level 30 (up from 20 in the pre-Broken Steel days). Once you get there no more experience is doled out. So if you miss out on a perk, level 30 is the point of no return. Also, unlike Oblivion where enemies leveled with you and kept the game balanced out, you can become much more powerful than enemies in time, but all the same, some places are not to be traversed until you get tougher or you'll find yourself dead.

Gears of War pushed a theme dubbed Destroyed Beauty, and Fallout 3 falls right into that mold. In the wastelands, you'll see nothing but miles and miles of dead trees, barren ground, destroyed roads, houses with little left to them, abandoned factories, and random little settlements, or what's left of them. The underground metro system serve as the УdungeonsФ of the game, and also are the only way initially into the remains of Washington DC. DC is a totally different place than the wastes; buildings are demolished, yet some still stand. The Washington Monument is battered, but still standing tall. Same with Capitol Hill, which presents the ultimate challenge of the game. You earn your passage into this landmark, fighting all the way...and then waging war within the hallowed halls. It's almost like a real election, only you're voting with your missile launcher. Granted, this becomes a familiar theme throughout Ц aside from one very bizarre area, everything looks the same. The vaults, despite having their own little quirks, all tend to feel similar. It's obviously by design since the radiation and nuclear damage wiped everything out, but sometimes it can get a little boring wandering the wasteland despite the technical efforts here. Fallout can be played with a first or third-person perspective, but really...first-person is the way to go, as Bethesda still hasn't really figured out a good third-person animation system. It's better than Oblivion but still awkward.

Fallout 3 is one of those games that technically has a nice overworld theme, but there's almost no reason to listen to it. Your awesome Pip-Boy, which serves as the main menus, also has a radio, picking up signals across the wastes from various factions. The best one is Galaxy News Radio, which is run by a cool cat named Three Dog, who you encounter in the main quest. Not only does he play classic tunes from the 1930's and 40's, he also commentates on the happenings in the area, most notably the adventures of...you. As you progress and do quests, you'll get notoriety for performing them, whether you did the right thing or a very bad thing. It's a nice touch to recognize your efforts. Three Dog also drops subtle hints about other quest locations by reporting УrumorsФ that you can use as a tip. He's always right. You can kill him, but his replacement is a depressed woman who will frequently lash out at whoever Уkilled our DJ.Ф Another radio station is dedicated to an outfit dubbed the Enclave, which plays overly patriotic music while propaganda plays, as the Enclave fancies themselves as the remnants of the US Government. There's the opposite too, a hilarious Peoples Republic of the US, full of Chinese propaganda, since it was China that nuked the US 200 years before the game began. One station is even tied to a quest, as you enter one of those screwy vaults to help an elderly lady perform music for wastelanders and the traveling caravans that you encounter to trade with. Oh, there's voice acting too, yes, with Liam Neeson as mentioned, and Ron Pearlman doing his Уwar never changesФ thing, and the rest is pretty competent.