Review

Fallout 3

Over the years, Fallout has had a cult following dating back to its early days on PC. Fallout mesmerized gamers with a post apocalyptic world, forcing a survival of the fittest mentality. With a new generation of hardware for consoles and PC’s, Bethesda Software is developing Fallout 3 promising an expansive world, more Mad Max post apocalyptic scenery and an open ended approach with hours of content. Fallout 3 is classified as an action rpg allowing your character to level up gaining XP, through combat and completing quest and other task along the way. With an impressive list of features Fallout looks poised to take Game of the Year honors. Will it succeed? We will soon find out.

In the year 2077 the world was consumed by nuclear fire. Any and everything on the surface of earth was destroyed, burned, and left in a heap of metal and debris. Billions of lives were lost, Sky scrapers fell, and plant and animal life are all obliterated at the hands of nuclear war. Civilization on a global scale after this point will never be the same.

Vaults were developed by Vault-Tec with the intentions of providing life underground in the event nuclear war would destroy the surface (which it has.) It is unknown exactly how many vaults are in existence, but one thing is certain. No one ever leaves and no one on the outside can come in. Each vault contains all the amenities needed to sustain and maintain a lifestyle with out ever having to go to the surface. Jobs, food, water as well as education and plenty of leisurely activities all provided in the safe secure walls of the vaults.

Born in the vault…Vault 101 to be precise, that’s where our journey kicks off. The game starts oddly in a medical room, with you being born (that’s right the game starts with your birth.) After a brief sequence you hear dialogue from your father and the Dr. You then get to determine which sex you will be. After a little more dialogue you choose your name and determine how you’re going to look once you grow up. You can choose skin color, hairstyle, and race. After you make your choices you have a brief moment of joy with your father, before this tender moment goes south. During this brief happiness your mother’s health suddenly begins deteriorating and before the medical staff can do anything, she passes away. Time passes and as a toddler you listen to your father as he talks to you and gives you a brief tutorial on movement and basic functions. As you get older you acquire your Pip-Boy 3000, take your G.O.A.T. (Generalized Occupational Aptitude Test,) to determine what type of career path you’ll have in Vault 101. All seems cozy and quaint, until Pops decides to abruptly leave, leaving you behind with no good byes or explanation what-so-ever. It’s at this point where the story really picks up and the action takes off. After making brief good byes and confrontations, you set out after your dad to figure out why he left and just what in the H-E double hockey sticks he was thinking in the first place!

This is not the futuristic world we would have pictured. The world seems to have been stuck in the 1950’s with cars, homes, and other inventions all having resemblances of things in this time period. The look while “old fashioned” to us fits well in Fallout and still manages to have that futuristic look. The geographic location presented during your journey is centered on Washington D.C. and the surrounding areas. By time you finish this game (if you possess the skill,) you will traverse wastelands, sewer plants, grocery stores, car factories and other diverse locations, all in an attempt to make it from point A to B.

Yes you are S.P.E.C.I.A.L. Well….maybe not, but this is an acronym used in reference to your attributes. Each attribute affects the many skills you have at your disposal:
S: Strength- How much raw physical power you have. The stronger you are the more items you can carry and the stronger your melee attacks are.

P: Perception- Allows you to determine whether someone is a threat or non threat. Also gives bonuses for explosive, lock pick, and energy weapon skills.

E: Endurance- Overall level of fitness. The higher your endurance, the better your health, environment resistance, and big guns and unarmed skills will be.

C: Charisma- Determines how likely someone will be friendly towards you. High charisma can also give bonuses for the Barter and Speech skills.

I: Intelligence- Having high intellect, yields more skill points you can distribute when you level up. Intelligence also determines how well you are at Science, repair and medicine skills.

A: Agility- Determines the number of action points for the V.A.T.S. combat system. Also affects the small arms skill and your ability to sneak past threats.

L: Luck- Having high luck raises all of your skills slightly, and also gives you a higher probability or getting critical hits with weapons.

There are a handful of approaches you can take when developing your character. Want to be super smart and agile, or incredibly strong and charismatic. Or maybe you’ll decide to have an even mix of every attribute? The choice is yours giving you the ability to play the game, and not having the game tell you how to play.

In addition to the SPECIAL attributes you have skills that go hand in hand with the attributes mentioned above. Each skill is governed by a different SPECIAL attribute and can only be improved by leveling up the related attribute. All the skills are as follows.

Barter- Affects the prices you pay for buying and selling items. The better your barter skill means lower prices on equipment which is always a good thing.

Big Guns-Determines proficiency with the over sized weapons.
Energy Weapons-Determines proficiency with using energy based weapons.

Explosives- Determines the strength of any explosives you might use, and how easily you can disarm bombs.

Lock pick- self explanatory ha ha….A higher lock pick ability will allow you to pick locks with a harder difficulty. In addition you will need bobby pins in order to pick locks, so be sure to keep a ready supply.

Medicine- How many HP’s you replenish with each Stim pak are determined by this skill. Also affects how effective Rad-X and Rad Away are. Rad-X boost your resistance to radiation poisoning, while Rad Away decreases the amount of radiation in your blood stream. Too much exposure makes you sick slowly decreasing your stats over time, and receiving too much, results in death.
Melee Weapons- another self explanatory skill… A High rating means more damage from melee attacks.

Repair- Allows you to maintain and weapons and armor. A higher repair skill makes custom weapons created start in better condition. In order to repair something you need two of the same item, with one being in better condition than the other. Once you make a repair it’s possible that the item will receive a stat boost.

Science- Hacking computers is determined with this skill, and also represents your general scientific knowledge.

Small Guns- Determines how well you handle small fire arms.

Sneak- The higher the skill, the better you are at stealing, and pick pockets while undetected. If you attack while being undetected you get an automatic critical hit.

Speech- How much you can influence someone through dialogue is determined through the speech skill. Persuasion comes into play when coaxing NPC’s into spilling the beans on vital information. Higher speech increases the likely hood of success depending on the conversation.

Unarmed- weapons designed for hand-to-hand combat, and unarmed combat are affected by this skill.
Again the possibilities are endless and completely open ended.

As I mentioned above you can be put at risk for radiation poisoning. Radiation can be absorbed from practically anywhere throughout the Fallout universe. Water, food, barrels of waste, in confined spaces and sometimes through structures. Management of radiation levels takes close attention especially when replenishing HP. Drinking water is the next best method of health replenishment (aside from Stim paks) and drinking water has a certain amount of radiation (unless it’s purified water.) with each sip of water your radiation increases, giving you a sure fire way of absorbing radiation. This element puts a different spin on your surroundings forcing you not only to watch out for raiders, mutants, and various creatures, but also the invisible threat of radiation. This is Fallout after all and as the name implies it would serve you well to watch out.

Every child that’s raised in vault 101 receives a Pip-Boy 3000. This gadget that clasp to the wearers forearm is the new “mans best friend” (sorry dog lovers.) During gameplay the PB3000 is your most vital tool in your survival outside the safe and secure walls of vault 101. To keep everything organized the PB is broken up into three tabs STATS, ITEMS, and DATA. Each tab is broken up into various sub categories depending on the tab, to keep everything well organized and easily accessible.
The Stats tab keeps track of overall physical condition, radiation levels, SPECIAL attributes, Skills, perks, and generalized info such as any accomplishments. General info also includes your Karma status as well as your rank within that status. Karma is affected by certain actions throughout the game. Stealing other peoples property, picking locks to access private property and hurting innocent people negatively affect Karma. On the flip side, helping people in there time of need positively affects Karma. Karma directly effects what kind of character you are. Will you be on the side of good or evil? Being either or really opens up different approaches to tackling Fallout 3. There is no wrong way and you have complete control over how good (or bad) you are.

The Items tab keeps track on your entire inventory from weapons, armor or clothing, ammo, aid and misc. items. This is the tab that will allow you to equip and un-equip items, use items for healing purposes and drop unwanted items or repair items as needed.

Data allows you to use maps (in both local and world varieties,) keep track of all quests you have and listen to discovered radio signals. Quests will be shown on screen as active, inactive or completed.
Combat in Fallout 3 is handled extremely well. In addition to plenty of blunt objects, you also have a wide assortment of weapons to due you bidding. While using firearms you have the option of using free aim like a normal FPS, although I would strongly advise against it. This game wasn’t intended to use free aim so Bethesda implemented a system called V.A.T.S……This system allows you to scan an area and auto aims on any of the threats you wish to attack. Once the scan begins time stands still and allows you to calmly, and strategically take out foes one by one. Data is broken down into accuracy for hitting certain parts and the amount of damage you can do for each attack. V.A.T.S. uses AP and each queued attack consumes a certain amount of AP that varies with each weapon. After your AP is depleted it will replenish in time for the next battle. During combat you can target different body parts on enemies, potentially crippling them and slowing them down. However, you are at risk of having your extremities damaged when being attacked by enemies. Once certain body parts are crippled you have three choices. You can either use a Stim-pak (which is the frequent option), find a Doctor to heal you, or find a bed and sleep it off. Sleeping also replenishes all of your HP, however in order to sleep you must have ownership of the bed your laying in, so don’t expect to raid someone’s house and “borrowing” their sleeping quarters.

Nuclear splendor best describes Fallout 3’s graphics. Barren wastelands make up the vast scenery during your trek, with bridges spanning miles reduced to over sized columns with slabs of road and cars hanging off like confetti. Neighborhoods with houses are literally “torn of the frame,” everything about the scenery screams destruction and chaos and the graphics really help make an impressive statement. The opening song “World on Fire” gives a very accurate depiction of the type of hellish ordeal people have had to make adjustments with. Through all the destruction and rubble you can almost picture just how beautiful the world once was. A future that resembles the 50’s with a suburbia feel, and wide open areas seems like a nice future to me. Character models while nicely detailed move awkwardly about, seeming stiff and jerky. It is especially noticeable when you switch to the 3rd person view. Your character looks out of place in the environment and I couldn’t place whether or not the blame can be put on the camera angle or the odd animations. Despite the awkward nuances the game is still pretty, with detail oozing out of every corner. Though the animation could be a little better you honestly don’t have time to notice during a heated battle with super mutants vying to rip you to shreds.

Controls in Fallout are responsive and very comfortable. The analog sticks control your characters movements. Clicking in the left analog has your character to go into stealth mode (directly affected by how high your sneak rating is,) allowing your character to slip by threats undetected. A: is your action button, opening doors taking items, and engaging NPC’s in conversation. B: opens and closes your PB3000, while holding the button turned on a flashlight function for illuminating those dark and dangerous areas. Y jumps and X reloads your weapon and holding X holsters or un-holsters your weapon. LB toggles between 1st and 3rd person views (trust me keep it in 1st person,) and RB enters V.A.T.S. mode. LT aims/blocks while RT attacks/shoots. I couldn’t find a single complaint control wise with the brief tutorial I was navigating the wasteland disposing of raiders and mutant creatures in no time.

The music for Fallout 3 while good is honestly more of an acquired taste. To keep the 50’s era theme going there are a bunch of songs that play from your Pip-boy with that 50’s feel. I personally thought the music suited the game nicely, having a pleasant mix of swing, and slow songs that compliment and play off each other well. During the long treks (and I mean LONG,) the music kept my interest in chugging along when trying to find new locations, dr.’s or merchants. In order to hear the music you have to be close to a radio station in order to get a signal. Stations are located throughout the wasteland and can be toggled using the PB3000.

Fallout 3 is the type of game that you will either love or hate. With tons to do and a fantastic narrative you would be hard pressed not to like it.