Difficulty:

Just Right

Time Spent:

100 or More Hours

The Bottom Line:

"Mixed reactions"

I play a lot of games. In fact I have played hundreds of games in the 20 years I have been gaming across many systems in various genres and currently own over 260 titles though I've played more. I am not saying this to gloat, I simply want to make a point that all those titles combined have given me far less bugs, glitches and crashes than Fallout 3. It is by far the biggest technical mess I have ever encountered, I had constant crashing making certain parts of the game almost unplayable, got stuck in walls, floors, had quests glitch out, a main quest trophy not unlock, constant slowdown, had my main characters body vanish leaving a floating weapon and head etc.

The sad thing is that despite the game being pretty fun and really quite addictive the main thing I will remember looking back at it, even now is the complete lack of quality control.

Technical disaster aside Fallout 3 is an engrossing RPG. I have never played any of the original Fallout titles though I gather 3 is set 30 years after Fallout 2. You play a Vault Dweller hiding out in a Vault tech shelter hiding out after nuclear war, when your father leaves the vault you leave chasing after him into the post apocalyptic wasteland that was once Washington DC.

Fallout 3 is completely open world so although there is a main story line in chasing your father and unraveling his secrets, 90% of your time will be spent exploring the vast wasteland and completing many side quests scattered around make shift towns. There are literally dozens of hours available here doing seemingly nothing due to the sheer size of the wasteland and the things to see.

During your exploration your character will of course be assaulted by various enemies from human bandits to mutated scorpions. Combat can be either first of third person though the third person mode is more of a gimmick that just doesn't work comfortably. There are various weapons to use depending on how you choose to build your character, from using heavy weapons like mini guns, to close combat weapons like swords and hammers.

Most weapons are generally scavenged from the wasteland, either dead enemies, looting buildings or bought from the occasional trader. Weapons all break unless repaired and normally when first found they aren't in great condition. You can repair them yourself if you have invested in the repair skill or get a trader to do it. Once leveled up enough it is almost never an issue but it's a nice way of balancing your weapons at first.

There is one aspect of Fallout 3 that really makes combat more than just a shooter called the V.A.T.S system. It allows you to temporarily pause time, select certain body parts, sometimes on multiple enemies then let rip in slow motion for crazy damage. Each limb has it's own level of health so deal enough damage in V.A.T.S and limbs get blown off or heads explode with eyeballs flying through the air in cinematic style. It's fantastic and allows players to pause the game and tactically plan everything when outnumbered.

Last thing I feel really worth mentioning is that leveling up was actually exciting to me. The variety of perks to choose from is actually excellent affecting a variety of things from weapon skills, lock picking, conversation charisma, lock picking, weapon repair, V.A.T.S etc. Despite being largely a first person shooter it is still very much an RPG and simply put, I liked it.

Artistically Fallout 3 is actually pretty good, it has a sort of retro futurism so there are laser rifles and robots yet cars, clothes and music are all torn straight from the 50's. Pip boy the vault tech's mascot is simply everywhere with different art for every perk you choose, most are fairly humorous. Sadly the rest of the visuals aren't as impressive, they are passable but perhaps due to the scale aren't incredibly detailed and tend to reuse assets all over the place. That in itself is understandable the colour palate though maybe not so much. Do you like grey and brown? You will love Fallout 3. I perfectly understand it is meant to be a post apocalyptic wasteland but there is a distinct lack of colour variety.

To get the platinum I spent maybe 130 hours running around and there was areas of the map I still hadn't explored so it's certainly value for money. The wasteland is huge with plenty of landmarks to explore, characters to talk to and quests to complete.

So it boils down to this really, if you can stand the crazy amount of bugs, glitches, crashing and various shades of brown then you will love Fallout 3. Despite it's flaws the game is incredibly addictive, V.A.T.S and leveling are fantastic and there are very few games like it around. It's hard to recommend but also hard not to.

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+ V.A.T.S is an excellent combat aid.
+ Leveling up has lots of options.
+ Game is simply massive with tons to do and see.

- Buggiest game I will ever play.
- Grey, brown, grey, brown.