The changes made (in comparison to Fallout 1 / 2) did provide a fresh approach to the series.

User Rating: 8.5 | Fallout 3 PC
Gameplay: 8
Graphics: 8
Sounds: 8
Value: 10
Tilt: 8
Actual score: 8.4

Fallout 3 – the game I never thought to see the light of day. Well that's a really bad pun however it did have a dubious history; the many stop / starts that it was almost deemed as vapourware. Nevertheless, Bethesda bought the rights to this game and after many flak of 'It looks like Oblivion with guns' (and I was one of them) and 'what…not isometric?' it actually turned out a decent game because of its strong elements for choices. And the changes made were actually for the better to introduce this game to the modern market.

To those who haven't experienced any of the Fallouts, Fallout 3 is deemed as a role playing game (RPG) where you create a character of your choice by using a variety of stats, then venture off into the world. So it's all about how you play your character as there are no set templates. So you can be as good or evil as possible – the choice is yours to make. And this forms the bases of this game. Of course there's a main plot to go by however, what you do to achieve this goal is purely up to you. There is no right / wrong answer and that what makes this game truly marvellous.

And because the choices you've made will have a roll on effect. That is, the game's world will chance over the course of time. Note that sentence as when I first started out this game, playing out the intro was one of the best I have ever seen. It literally starts when your mother giving birth to you and throughout this intro, you play out your childhood until you reach adulthood. Naturally this part teaches you the basics of the game (including some controversial choices) and once this part ends, sets the tone for your character.

Yet, once outside of the vault, things tumble down like a lead balloon very quickly. The game is a true open world and sadly, you have no real direction where to go by. I guess it's good in some ways however, me being a wanderer of 'oh look, there's a dog with a fluffy tail', I couldn't locate the first town without being owned many times. As I wander off in no man's land, I eventually located the 'my first town' some two hours later.

Yet still the game feels very empty. I'm not talking about there's nothing to do (as there's plenty) however I'm referring to my character, my purpose in life etc. Other words, I really didn't care for anything – just click on the next available choice. Yet, developers Bethesda did indeed wave its magical wand and because of the choice / consequences, I can imagine in the background, the game is making 'calculations' of my chosen path – slowly weaving its magic.

Now that's the beauty of this game and what truly made it shine – you have absolutely no real idea what the world's is going to react to your choices and because there's no right / wrong answer, I was surprised with a couple of choices I have made early on that resulted in dire consequences. Not dire as in 'game over', dire as in 'I didn't mean to do that'. This was around the 10hrs mark where I started to see the fruits of my labour.

To prove this point, I created another character to see if the game plays differently. And to my surprise, it played out very different – almost felt like a new game. So the morale of this story is to be patient, play it like you want to play, sit back and watch how the story evolves. Also, you can check out the game's achievements as there's very little of those good / neutral / evil achievements yet many 'quests completion' ones.

Speaking of which, Fallout 3 has tonnes of quests. Of course you have the main one however if you decide to wander off a little, you get to experience the wastelands in its fullest glory. Every location, whether it is a lousy broken down tower to a vibrant settlement, has a story to tell. And these stories are not just 'we are here because we like the fish', these are well thought out stories of people (and others) surviving the wastelands; stories of what exactly happened after the nuclear event of 2077 (and prior). So what we have here is a world (or to be precise, the area around Washington D.C.) rich with history. And even better, you don't have to travel hours to locate one as, even though the entire location is quite small, it's condensed with activities.

To control your character is somewhat decent as most keys are customisable. The interface is a little clumsy for my liking though as the vast majority of controls is in your pipboy – a device that's strapped on your wrist that was given to you on your birthday. Again, I get the idea of being 'realistic' however it gets a little annoying after a while when I need to refer to the pipboy to look at the map / swap weapons / heal yourself and so forth. Yes, the keys can be customised however it wasn't explained well enough. But granted, it was written in the manual.

Visually, it's quite nice. As Three Dogs, one of the many radio broadcaster's states 'it's a massive depressing sea of brown'. This is very true however it is after all, it is the wasteland. Everything does feel depressive with lots of trash however I wouldn't go and say it's 'detailed'. Detailed as, you can identify the item however not so much of that minute stuff like cracks within cracks, smashed glass etc. At times, it looks like a canvas painted to look like a wall, but not exactly a wall.

Yet, what's with the character's movement as this is actually feels hopeless. It feels heavy, clumsy and floaty all at the same time. Heavy as in I feel my character weights a million tonnes; clumsy as in I get stuck many times and need to reload the game just to escape. And I never thought jumping is so hard to do. And floaty as in, it seems like my character runs in 'grids' – that is, if I take a step forward, my character seem to 'slide' one grid forward. Combine this with jumping, and you will have a nightmare scaling some areas.

The sound quality is also a mixed bag. Granted the musical scores are all great – dramatic feel for those intense moments and sombre for exploration, for instance. The voice acting though, whilst thankfully everyone speaks to you (as opposed to a 'wall of text' so to speak), they need more actors. You can almost say 'hey, didn't I heard your voice before?' many times over. Also, in some of the more dramatic events, they still sound monotone. A little more 'oomph' would be more appropriate to make these events more memorable I say.

A major concern before the release of Fallout 3 was combat. Of course, this plays an important part of the game however to the 'traditionalist' (I was one of them) wanted turned based and others wanted real time. Bethesda again waived its magic wand and provided them both. Real times involve point the gun and shoot – that's it. I didn't like this one bit as mentioned before, the character moves in 'grid' like fashion, so my precision was next to hopeless. Being 'floaty' whilst strafing was nothing more than a joke.

Thankfully the 'turned based' corrected this. Known as the Vault Tech Targeting System (VATS for short), once 'activated', your enemies will display percentages throughout their body. So aiming for the head will be considerably harder than aiming for the body, for instance. So naturally, aiming for head will kill your opponent much quicker than, say, aiming for the body. So as you can imagine, it's heavily based on your character's stats. Also, VATS have certain action points so once exhausted, you cannot use it until it regenerates (however there is a perk that can 'correct' this).

VATS was my preferred mode of combat as it allows me to target certain parts of the body (like smashing their legs forcing them to limp or shoot the weapon out of their hand so they are weapon less). So this places the 'tactics' into 'tactical combat'. Also you get to view your kills in spectacular fashion as nothing is sweeter punching a mutant's head clean off or watch them explode into a gooey mess. I think I used VATS easily 90% of the time and, as my good friend said 'nothing beats a shotgun in the face'.

Fallout 3 is a definite welcome to the Fallout franchise. I have to admit, I was extremely dubious at first when I read's Bethesda's plans for Fallout 3 was, as it's no longer isometric and not a true turn based game. However the changes made did provide a fresh approach to this series. Thankfully, it didn't entirely feel like 'Oblivion with guns' due to VATS however if you can get passed those clumsy, grid like controls, it's certainly an enjoyable game. Rich with history and obviously tonnes of love poured into this game, I enjoyed my romp in the 'Capital Wasteland' known as Washington D.C.