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Fallout 3
Best Single-Player Game Ever?
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When I first got my 360 I borrowed Oblivion from a friend. I played it through its entirety twice, I believe, and asked my friend if he’d sell me the copy since he didn’t play it. He said that he couldn’t because it was a gift and I understood. So, I resolved myself to just waiting until the game dropped in price and then I’d pick it up. Well, that never happened. Here it is, 3 years later, and the damn game is still full-price. Granted it includes 2 expansion packs now, but it is still no cheaper than any other title on the system. I’ve waited so long to get it that I actually forgot how badly I wanted it. That is, until I played Fallout 3. After one night of playing Fallout 3 I was reminded of how incredible Bethesda games are, and I broke one of my cardinal rules about NOT ordering shit on the Internet whilst intoxicated, and I bought a copy of Oblivion.
From what I can remember, Fallout 3 is a massive improvement on the Oblivion engine as well. Not only have the graphics been improved, but the introduction of guns has brought a new slow-motion targeting system called V.A.T.S. that provides for some fantastically cinematic battles. At any point in a fight you can stop gameplay completely and focus on a target and then select which body part you want to shoot at. Different body parts have different to-hit percentages based on how exposed and how small/big they are, and they also do more or less damage (head does more damage than body, for example). If you have Action Points remaining you can queue up attacks and then watch them play out in slow-motion, and MAN does it look cool sometimes. Battles have to be seen to be believed in this game and I can’t give the developers enough kudos for how good of a job they did. The only thing that would have made them better would be the ability to skip past the slow-motion. Sometimes I just want to kill that minor creature with one shot and move on, and waiting 5 seconds for the slow-motion sequence to complete is lame.
I’ve read a lot in the reviews about how massive the world in Fallout 3 is, and frankly I’m going to disagree. Yes, it’s big, but I don’t think the amount of raw content to explore goes beyond any other RPG. The main storyline is about 10 missions long and it took me 19.5 hours to complete it, doing 3 side-missions. When I look at my world map it looks like I’ve seen about 20% of the world, which is really cool, but massive portions of that world are virtually empty save for trees and rocks. I am now 12 hours into my second character and this time I am barely focusing on the main plot and am just exploring. They have an awesome feature where any primary locations you haven’t found appear as hollow triangles on your compass, allowing you to easily find areas of interest instead of just waiting to randomly come across them. While searching for said locations I was pretty surprised by two things: the aforementioned massive areas of empty land, and the fact that you are so often restricted in your travels by massive walls of rubble. What sometimes appear to be vast, open city-areas are in fact tiny plots of land that don’t have a whole lot of space to move around in.
OK, enough of my complaints. It’s starting to sound like this isn’t a game I absolutely adored, but believe me it was. Fallout 3 is definitely in contention for the best single-player experience I’ve ever had. I hold off on making those kind of determinations to let time be the judge, but I can’t remember the last time I was so enthralled by a game. The degree of choice, and how much the game seemed to adapt and twist based on my choices, was mind-boggling. It truly felt like this was a little adventure created just for me, and now on my second play through the game I’m seeing how important those choices are. A town that was a major focal point my first time through is now a heaping pile of rubble in my 2nd game. All those characters I interacted with in my first adventure are now dead and I’ll never see them again. Before I destroyed the town, however, I snuck in the night before, killed everyone in their sleep and stole all the town’s medical supplies. I mean, why not? They were all going to be melted in 12 hours anyway. It’s this level of choice, this degree of freedom, which puts Bethesda games leaps and bounds beyond their competition, and from what I can remember it’s been taken even further since Oblivion. In Fallout 3 you can be the saviour of humanity, the bringer of death for all life on the planet, or you can fall somewhere in-between. It’s really up to you.
Another thing I can say about the story, the main plotline, anyway, is that it moves at a very nice pace. It seems as if each step progressed faster than you’d expect for a video game, but that’s because most video games plod along at a terribly slow pace. Each step of the plot took less time than I expected, less jerking me around, and was interesting and unexpected. If the main plotline was all there was to this game it would be a fine title in its own right, but the fact that there is so much left to explore is fascinating.
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Graphics
Very nice-looking game, docked only slightly for some slowdown and because I'm not a fan of minor details like grass and bushes filling in as you move.
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9.5 |
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Sound
Excellent use of sound in this game, especially in terms of listening for footsteps in surround-sound. I found the gunshot effects to be disproportionately loud, though, compared to the rest of the effects.
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9.5 |
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Gameplay
The V.A.T.S. system is probably one of the most exciting developments I've seen in a game. It provides what is unquestionably the most cinematic battles ever seen in an RPG. Melee combat needs a lot of work, though, and is nowhere near as effective as it should be.
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8.5 |
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Originality
When you compare Fallout 3 to every other RPG out there, it is incredibly original, but not enough has changed since Oblivion to give this game a soaring Originality score.
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8.5 |
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Interface
Awesome inventory and store management system. I love how when bartering you have a running balance between yourself and the store owner while you offer items for sale and select items to buy. The map really should have been more 3D, though, and an escape dialog option should always be present by pressing B. A better method of fast weapon selection would have been preferred to that horrendous DPAD as well.
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8.5 |
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Fun
It's been a long time since I've been this enthralled with a game, playing it for 6-8 hours straight at a time, usually until I cannot keep my eyes open any longer. Easily in contention for best game of 2008.
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10.0 |
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Lasting Appeal
I will play this game over and over again, will buy every piece of downloadable story content they serve up, and will pop it in from time to time just to run around.
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10.0 |
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Overall
I can’t recommend Fallout 3 enough. I am 30 hours into it, have barely started, and my interest has not waned one bit. When you think about how this game is no more expensive than other games with one tenth the playtime it really makes one reconsider where they are spending their gaming dollars.
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9.2 |
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