Fallout 3

Review by I BlackJck I

With the success of Bethesda's 'Oblivion' hopes were high when they announced they would be working on a Next-Gen outing for the classic RPG Fallout. Can Fallout set a new high for Console RPG's or will they be left behind in the shadow of an atomic cloud?

Story

Set 200 years after a nuclear war has devastated the world Fallout 3 begins with the human race in ruins and the Washington DC area reduced to a radioactive wasteland. However humanity survives, scraping a living off the ruins of the past or hidden away deep within Vaults. It is inside one of these Vaults that the story begins, with the birth of your character. The first hour of the game will be taken up by your characters childhood. This imaginative set of character creation tools and gameplay tutorials which manages to teach you the basics manages to lay the base of the story.

The main quest line follows the search for your father across the irradiated remains of the Capital Wasteland. As you track him down you begin to uncover some long buried secrets from your past and explanations as to why he left. While the story is interesting and has some nice surprises towards the end it never compels you to keep playing to find out what happens. One of its biggest failings is the games inability to get the player emotionally connected to the characters in the game. Some scenes are full of emotional story and dialogue while all we see is a blank face. The game still retains its high standard of gameplay throughout the actual quests but its at these pivotal cut scenes where instead of pulling the player into the game it leaves them out in the cold.

While the storyline may feel slightly lacklustre the side quests will provide you most of the entertainment in the game. The same amount of care has been given to each one, and their storylines can sometimes rival the main plot lines of the game with twists and surprises to be found everywhere. Each will last up to an hour and some much longer so there's plenty to do out there. The people you meet and places you visit on these quests really help in bringing the huge world that Bethesda have created to life.

Gameplay

One of Fallout's most outstanding achievements is its scale. The map spreads over 16 square miles and features numerous famous locations such as the White House and the Jefferson Memorial alongside post war towns that have sprung up in bomb craters and even on an old Aircraft carrier but these are only a few of the hundreds of locations on offer. Each place you discover can be entered and then explored for any rewards that may lie within. You can spend hours at a time just walking across the wastelands, meeting travellers, junkies, enemies and always finding signs of the world before the bombs and it cannot be stressed enough how immersive the world can become.

But exploring the wastelands is a dangerous business, before long you'll be surrounded by a horde of irradiated monsters or a gang of gun-toting raiders and be forced to solve the situation by less than non-violent methods. For this Bethesda have included a large array of weaponry, ranging from brass knuckles and a baseball bat to plasma rifles, combat shotguns and the 'Fatman' which launches mini-nukes at anything you deem necessary of complete annihilation. The combat system works very well throughout the game and this is without a doubt down to the new VATS system.

The Vault-Tec Assisted Targeting System will soon become your new best friend. Hitting the left bumper freezes the action and brings up a percentage based targeting system. Simply select the limbs you want to maim or destroy and then watch the action cam showing your shots hit home as an enemy's head rolls off his neck. However it does far more than show you some gruesome marksmanship it soon allows for a much deeper and more tactical level of combat, you can choose to target an enemies weapon if your health is low to give you some time to get some more shots in as he drops it and runs at you with his bare knuckles. Failing that just pull out a .44 Magnum and perform a rather clumsy lobotomy.

Bethesda have also taken a leap in the design of their quests, unlike more and more games being released Fallout 3 doesn't treat you like an idiot, you won't be given each stage of every quest as a map marker for you to blindly run towards. Many quests will require you to do some investigation before proceeding to the next area. One example sees you hunting an android which has had its mind wiped and surgically altered to look human. You must start by asking around and pick up clues to where it now is, while it's hardly rocket science just being able to work something out for yourself is a welcome change and forces you to explore the world around you to complete your mission.

Another addition that Bethesda have given Fallout 3 is the Pip-Boy 3000, a handy in game menu system which keeps track of your items, quests, maps, health, character stats and any radio stations you've uncovered. It fits into the worlds futuristic yet retro theme perfectly.

Graphics and Sound

Visually the game is not a great leap forward from Oblivion, character modelling and animation still has the same rigidness and conveys as much emotion as an East German traffic warden. For most of the game you can forgive this but when the story tries to pull on your heartstrings the scenes seem flat and unemotional. While up close you may not be impressed, the vistas of the Washington area are a stunning sight. Stepping out of the vault for the first time you can see a great expanse before you, the ruins of the city in the distance with famous sights such as the Washington Monument jutting out above the skyline. Even with the huge area that Bethesda has created I encountered very little pop-up and everything seemed to gel together smoothly as you travel the wasteland. The games explosions are in a league of their own, fire off a couple of Mini-nuke's or start to shoot up a car and soon the screen will shake as you watch smoke and flames reach into the air. In several fights I got into a few stray bullets hit a car, setting off a chain reaction as derelict vehicles that littered the road exploded all around me.

The games music keeps the pace of the game nicely, picking up when the action begins and remaining in the background as you wander aimlessly between towns. It isn't going to blow you away but neither is it a problem. You can also find radio stations as you roam the map, some of these are available across the majority while some only broadcast within specific areas, these are nothing compared to the GTA radio stations but do break up the monotony of a long journey over the wastes. The voice acting also doesn't let the game down, however while most of the voice actors (including Liam Neeson as your father) have performed well it is ultimately let down by the poor character modelling.

Decisions, Decisions

The games character customisation offers a lot of choices for the player, with only 20 levels available you must decide early which path you want to take, specialising in one field can offer some good rewards but will also leave you unable to access other disciplines of the game. These choices will have an affect on how you play the game, if you're a smooth talker and good lock pick some quests can be completed without the need to raise your weapon, however at other times the ability to squeeze off an accurate burst with an assault rifle will save you a lot of time. This open design of the missions ensures that there is no one way to achieve your goals. Each level you advance also sees the ability to add a perk to your character, these can range from 'Thief' which grants some extra skill points in sneak and lock pick skills to 'Explorer' which reveals all locations on your map, you can spend forever looking at the selection screen debating what choices you will make.

The other major decision will be how to regain your health. Most food and drink is irradiated, while it will give you some easy health after a battle you'll also take in some radiation, too much and you'll start to hinder your characters attributes these negative effects increase until you take in too much and die. While the amount of 'Rads' you take in from eating is unlikely to cause too much of a problem in the short term it builds up and eventually you'll be paying a doctor to cure you. On a similar theme are drugs, they can provide temporary bonuses to your character but take too many and you'll find yourself addicted to it, and hen you run out be ready to face the penalties that withdrawal can bring.

Conclusion

Fallout 3 was both complimented and criticised for being Oblivion with guns. The statement is right in both senses. Bethesda have taken Oblivions huge world, deep character customisation and multi-path quests and improved but have also left the poor character animation and largely redundant 3rd person view as they were. Even with these problems, you'll soon become lost in the world they have created exploring the rocky irradiated wastelands or the ruined streets of Washington. It's average storyline is compensated for by interesting side quests and a mind-boggling amount a land to explore.

Combat is varied from hand-to-hand to huge mini-guns and rocket launchers, the VATS system is a brilliant addition bringing tactics into the game. What could have so easily become a boring slog is actually a challenging shooter. The varied gameplay choices for your character in terms of attributes and quests allows for a second or even third playthrough and you'll still be seeing things for the first time and making new choices.

Fallout 3 was always expected to be an epic RPG experience, it has stayed with many tried and tested methods off gameplay but also added plenty of new features. It certainly has its problems (many inherited from Oblivion) but these are completely removed by the awe of looking out across the beautifully created wasteland or immersing yourself in the world through the side quests and exploration.