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Super-satisfying and super-gory
But ‘Fallout 3’ isn’t for everyone
By Darin Kwilinski
The combat shotgun is, by far, the most fun to use, and combining it with VATS creates super satisfying, and super gory, way to dispose of enemies.
The fall season has been pretty rough on gamers. The onslaught of games that has been released has undoubtedly put a dent in some people’s pockets, and now “Fallout 3” is asking you to pony up more cash for a post-apocalyptic adventure through the waste lands. It delivers the goods, but it won’t appeal to everyone.
The story is fairly simple, and starts out with a kick-ass voiceover from Ron Pearlman. Your father escapes from your residence of Vault 101, so you go after him. Along the way you’ll encounter a number of different characters and missions. Interaction with the NPC’s is widely varied by how you treat them, but overall it’s the most boring part of the game. You can just as easily get by killing everyone rather than hear what they have to say.
“Fallout 3” starts with a clever character creation system and puts you through a small tutorial session in Vault 101. You receive your inventory managing “Pip-Boy 3000” when you turn ten years old, and then flash forward a few more years to when your father escapes. After you leave you are told to find the small settlement of Megaton, which, for some odd reason, is built around a still active nuke. Later you are asked to either deactivate it for the townspeople or blow the town to smithereens for some businessmen.
Moral choices like this come up constantly in “Fallout 3,” but they only go skin deep. Characters treat you differently based on your karma level, but you rarely see the same people twice, so what you do after the mission doesn’t affect the main game at all. You complete a set of missions for a character and then move on. It makes for a rather shallow experience.
Compounding this issue is the ability to kill nearly every non-player character in the game. Again, in Megaton, a shop keeper was trying to sell me items that I wanted, but I didn’t have the money for. So I raided her shop and stole the things I needed. When I left the shop, no one said anything about it. What good is the speech and barter skills if all I have to do is shoot the NPC to get what I want?
Combat is broken up between real time and your VATS system. VATS allows you to stop the battle and pin point specific spots on an enemy to attack. It’s dramatic and fun, up until the hundredth time you use it. You can’t skip the cinematic, slow-motion portion, so using VATS can become annoying, leading you to just play out battles in real time.
“Fallout 3” is not a first-person shooter, but rather a first-person RPG. Your ability to hit enemies is decided by your level and skills, not how well you can aim a gun. There are a large variety of weapons, ranging from baseball bats to rifles, lasers and rocket launchers. The combat shotgun is, by far, the most fun to use, and combining it with VATS creates super-satisfying and super-gory, way to dispose of enemies.
Everything from healing to saving is handled through your Pip-Boy, and you’ll be using it constantly. It’s a neat way to keep you immersed in the game while you venture about.
Graphically, the game looks fine and presents a fairly believable wasteland setting. Nothing is very civilized and everything looks like it was put together with scraps after the bombs fell. Overall, the presentation is handled well, but there are a few glitches, such as enemies floating in mid-air, that shouldn’t happen.
“Fallout 3” takes a while to warm up. I played for nearly six hours before I started to really get invested in the game. The main quest takes a little over 20 hours to complete; thus taking six hours to get me really into the “Fallout” world is mildly irritating. The game isn’t very accessible to people who haven’t played “Fallout” games before.
All in all, however, “Fallout 3” can be fun. It may take a while to get into, VATS can become annoying, and NPC’s are expendable, but its open-ended game play and presentation save it from becoming too much of a hassle to play. “Fallout 3” surely won’t satisfy everyone, but give it a chance and you may find something worthwhile.
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