Great game, seems incomplete - just a teaser for DLC
Added 11/5/2009
Downloadable content should be mini-sequels to the main game, or additional fun but not required to fully enjoy the main title. This game violates these rules. More of a Fallout 3 - starter edition, where you have to either buy the GOTY edition or pay a lot for the DLC to get satisfying conclusions to many of the main plot lines.
Beyond that the game is highly enjoyable, has fantastic graphics and audio - and is a lot of fun to play. Just too bad the creators had to be so greedy with its DLC.
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Good but complicated.
Added 10/27/2009
This is a fun game, but you need to realize it takes time to learn all the issues, weapons, etc. I would recommend a buy to anyone who loves gaming.
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Frickin Awesome!
Added 10/25/2009
In short, the game rocks. With up to 100 hours of game time with the original game, plus 5 add-ons of another 20-30 hours, you get much bang for the buck. The world is vast and the places to explore as you get to know the wasteland of Washington D.C. leave you reluctant to finally turn off the comuter and get some sleep at 3 a.m.! A few of the underground levels seem repetitive (subways and tunnels that look the same), but otherwise the graphics are the bomb and each explored building and location feels like a separate entity, pushing the stroyline further.
All in all a great accomplishment.....
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Not what I hoped for.
Added 10/25/2009
I hadn't played any of the older Fallout games, so I came into the series not expecting much. I bought the game on the recommendation of a friend, but I didn't turn out to be what I hoped. I thought this was an RPG, but it's really not. It's a first person shooter disguised as an RPG, and even though the game packaging promises adventure and action it really fails to deliver. So here's a list of pros and cons for this game:
Pros:
- Visually the game is quite well made. On my desktop computer it looks absolutely beautiful.
- Open game play, you're not forced to immediately pursue the main story, and after the initial few quests you are free to explore the entire map.
- It delivers the theme nicely. Fallout is based on mid twentieth century ideas of a post apocalyptic world. The radio station playing 1940s hits, as well as the themes of the houses and the perception of computers and robots is spot on for the era and I simply loved it.
Cons:
- Awful gameplay all around. The combat system is that of a poorly made FPS combined with an AP based targeting mechanism named V.A.T.S. The "shoulder view" had me completely perplexed. Who is the world thought that this would be even remotely interesting or functional? The only way to play this is would be by zooming in completely. Your characters' movements are awkward, the positioning and bulkiness of your companions is highly irritating and the mouse pointer is very inaccurate. I actually abandoned my companions for several quests simply because trying to fight in a crowded Vault corridor with a dog and super mutant right in front of you just did not work at all. Instead of the V.A.T.S. targeting system they should have made AP based commands for your companions. The very few options you get don't really help at all, so most of the time having your companions with you was detrimental to your gameplay and just not fun at all.
- Voice acting was amazing for the first few hours of play. But when you hear the same voice coming from 40 different NPCs it gets really tiresome. I was so happy to hear Liam Neeson would play your character's father, but even his performance bored me to tears eventually. They should have either hired more voice actors OR they should have done what most RPGs have done, which is get audio for main characters, and have text for everyone else. It must have been an ambitious project to give voices to all these NPCs, but in the end it just makes the game seem unimaginative.
- The open ended gameplay really destroys the main story. There are no bosses in the main story with the exception of one huge mutant who you can one-shot anyways. All the enemies are generic NPCs who either spawn randomly or come at you with limited numbers. Combat rarely lasts more than 40 seconds or so, it really hurts the game in the end. The main story is very short, the ending is predictable, full of plot-holes and will leave any RPG fan feeling empty. The ending is so abrupt and unsatisfying that it discourages people from starting a new game and exploring further. 60% of the world map is filled with places that add nothing to your story. You're usually given a situation in the form of a side quest, then you can choose to approach it from a good or evil side. Whatever you do, it doesn't really matter. You will level to 20 (which is the cap) without doing most of the side quests. You don't need any amazing weapons from them, because you can just loot them off dead NPCs, there's no point in developing your character after the first initial hours of the game, because it doesn't matter in the end. I really hoped that the side quests and all the explorable content would be fun, but the game keeps really tight to it's main theme, so exploration is unsatisfying and character development doesn't matter that much. After first completing the game I wanted to start over and do things differently, but it didn't change the game much in the end and I felt really let down.
- Even at the highest difficulty setting, this game offers no real challenge. The mini games for hacking computers and picking locks are gimmicks that won't keep you entertained for long.
- It's the same boring thing over and over. Every house is half destroyed, every vault has the same basic design, every DC building works the same way. All you do for 80% of the game is loot crap, meds and ammo. At the end of the game on the hardest difficulty I had my bags full of stimpacks and chems, as well as enough ammo to equip a small army. What's the point of going around creating weapons when I get over encumbered every 5 minutes because trash NPCs are dropping weapons by the truckload? There are no surprises in the game, not in the characters (they're all one dimensional), not in the environment (broken stuff, wasteland, yeah we get it) and certainly not in the story. Every conversation with NPCs goes the same way, you can either be nice, mean, or indifferent. The game does so little to keep the player interested it's appalling.
- The game is vulgar in a completely off-putting way. The player will for example stumble upon a settlement inhabited by just children, much like a "Peter Pan" setting. I initially thought it was charming, until the first kid I bumped into starting swearing and cussing for no reason. This isn't edgy, this isn't clever, this is vulgar. I can deal with the burned corpses, the gore, hell I even understand foul language from packs of raiders or slave traders. But really, little kids? Ugh, what a mess. I'm not saying children are angels, far from it, but this really doesn't do anything for the game. It would work if some of it was funny, but it isn't, there is no humor in the game, just depressing story.
- Bugs. Installing this on my laptop (an expensive one, mind) was a nightmare. Why was this game released with so many bugs? I consulted a great Fallout wiki and honestly there were more bugs listed than anything else. This game is a hot mess of design flaws, shame on you developers.
- $49.99 for a game that I finished in three afternoons. Ouch.
How this game got a Game of the Year award is absolutely beyond me. I guess there just isn't much competition for this genre and people will give their support to anything that's new.
I really hope that the people who made this game look at the mountains of negative feedback concerning this release and learn from it.
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Excellent game, despite its flaws
Added 10/21/2009
Fallout 3 is not without flaws, but is incredibly fun despite them. While you could rush through the game in 10-15 hours, the freedom to explore means that you could be playing for up to 100.
Pros:
The game revolves around your exploration of the world. There's a main quest line, which is pretty basic, but that's not the point of the game. The main story can be completed quickly, and only picks up towards the middle. However, there are thousands of stories in Fallout 3, some you encounter via going through the main quest, and some you encounter by exploring a location you saw in the distance. You may find raiders attempting to infiltrate a Vault, or a mad scientist trying to play god, or a cult run by a dictator, or ex-slaves trying to start a new life. Discovering these stories, and thus learning about the world, is the true joy of Fallout.
The writing is excellent, and really fleshes out the world. Some dialog options are the standard good / bad, while others let you have some fun by being aggressive, seductive, snide, etc. Sure, the outcomes are usually the same, but the choice makes it easier, and more fun, to play a role.
There is a lot of variety in how you complete quests. The outcomes are generally either good or bad, but there are many ways to get the same thing done, and some perks / companions that reward being neutral. You can do quests through dialog, usually in at least a couple ways, or through force, stealth, or some combination of the above. You can also be pretty crafty with how to get things done, if you think outside the box. For example, before entering a fight with a large force, you could sneak in and steal the enemies' ammo, or plant mines in their path.
What you see is what you can get to. If you see something in the distance, you can get there and explore it. This creates a very rich, realistic world, and inspires you to explore. There's usually something interesting in every location. You benefit greatly from raising the draw distance on the graphics settings.
Mods breathe life into Fallout. There's a wide variety of mods available, with some making small but tasteful changes, while others create whole new quest lines, new NPC interactions, and alternative routes for level advancement. Mods can add a wonderful amount of gameplay to Fallout.
The graphics are great, and can be maxed out on older systems. I have a 3 year old system, a 2.8Ghz Core 2 Duo with an 8800 GTS 640MB video card, and the game runs at 35-60fps with the graphics set to the highest draw distance.
Sound is equally good, with surprisingly good voice acting, considering how many characters there are in the game, and that every line of dialog has been recorded. Music suffers for being repetitive, but there are enough ambient environment sounds in the game to warrant playing with the radio off.
Cons:
Bugs. The game will crash to desktop. There will be days when it never crashes, and then there will be days that it crashes several times in one night. The auto-saves / quick-saves make it less annoying, but it will happen, even with the fan-made patch installed. The game is fun enough that I played through the crashes. There are also smaller bugs, such as an occasional body requiring a save / reload before you can loot it, or some dialog conversations that mention things you don't know, or ignoring things you did. Nothing too bad, but not ideal.
Challenge. While the first half of the game feels challenging, it gradually becomes easier and easier, until you feel like your character is nigh-unstoppable demi-god. While you can increase the difficulty of the game, some Perks seem too good, and I was surprised at how easy the combat in the 2nd half of the game was, even for social characters that focused on speech and charisma. Likewise, I like that all skills find a use, but replay and choice feels diminished when you're able to max several skills by lvl 20.
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