Despite a few bumps, Fallout 3 is still an outstanding game with a gorgeously creepy atmosphere full of opportunities
The game begins with one of the best opening cutscenes ever. It's something that you have to see to believe. It then goes into a prologue read by actor Ron Perlman (Hellboy) that describes the nuclear war and the story of Vault 101, one of the many shelters provided during the nuclear holocaust. 101 is special however because this was the one vault that never managed to open, and thus the inhabitants were trapped inside and have taken shelter from the Capital Wasteland for centuries. The playable sections start with your character's birth, in which you get to fully design your character. The customization is pretty deep is gives you complete control over every little aspect of him/her. During this scene, your mother dies as your rushed out of the hospital room and then cuts through three different eras of your character's life as your raised by your father. And finally when you've turned nineteen years old, you find out that your father has somehow escaped from Vault 101, and of course you follow him and that's where the game truly begins. You then have the open Capital Wasteland to explore at your own will. The atmosphere of this ruined post-nuclear world is stunning and just the massive scope of everything is a marvel to take-in, and there's nothing more suspenseful than actually wandering around the wasteland because any horrifying creature could come out of anywhere at any given time. And one of the faults of Fallout 3 is that the combat is a little too hard even with the addition of the V.A.T.S. system, which is basically a tighter version of the Dead Eye system from Red Dead Redemption. There are literally endless possibilities in this world and I doubt I've even seen half of what the Capital Wasteland has to offer. And unlike me, if you're not a fan of the story, then you don't necessarily have to follow it. There's so much to do in this world that it's really easy to get distracted from the plot, it's just stunning how Bethesda has managed to create a living and breathing world in just one video game.
Now that I've tackled the story and free roaming, I get to talk about the game's combat and weapons. This is where the game is really hit or miss. The combat is always intense, it doesn't matter if you're in a shootout with a pair of Wasteland Raiders or if you're forced into a showdown with a giant worker ant while your armed with only a baseball bat, the combat is very intense, and when fighting the horrific wildlife of the wastes, most of the time it's gonna be pretty scary. The downside to Fallout 3's combat is that all of the enemies are really tough to take down. The only easy opponents are the radroaches which are almost always a shot/hit kill. Everyone and everything else eats up a lot of ammo unless you give him a couple of good blows to the head. But they were nice enough to give us explosive weapons like rocket launchers, frag grenades, flamerthrowers, and my personal favorite, the Fat Man, a launcher that fires miniature nukes. But ammo is always low and hard to come by with these kinds of weapons, so always use your explosives wisely. The combat would be near impossible if it weren't for the V.A.T.S. targeting system which I described earlier.
And now for the little details of the game, some of which take it down a couple of notches, other make it all the better. First a couple of negatives, some of the graphics are a little clunky, and as a whole the game looks a little cartoonish, but this doesn't really affect the overall experience. It can also be a little bit laggy at points but that isn't too annoying either. The voice acting isn't as good as it should be either. Now some positives, this game has a great soundtrack, which you can access through tuning into the Galazy New Radio station. The entire soundtrack is pre-rock n' roll era music from the 1940's which really adds to the game's tone. The game also succeeds in giving you a constant feeling of uncertainty, especially while wandering through the wasteland, because any random thing could happen at any given time. And this is important in any sandbox game or RPG because you're supposed to care about this character that you've created. All of the the people that you meet on your adventures are interesting, with dozens and dozens of different personalities for you to interact with.
So as a whole, Fallout 3 is a tremendous and groundbreaking game in the field of both RPG's and sandbox games. And while it's not perfect, it's still a great game that anyone can find entertainment in.