A fantastic RPG/FPS hybrid that entertains from start to finish
Now onto fallout 3. To be honest, all the pre-release hate had affected me, and i was not very excited about this game. i bought it after it's relatively warm reception, thinking i might have been wrong. And oh, how i was wrong. Fallout 3 is probably the second best game i have played this year, coming very, very close to Mass Effect, my favorite game of the year.
I must say, i was not expecting a lot from the story aspect of this game, and to be honest, i was a little disappointed in this aspect of the game. It was at least original, but it lacked depth, and didn't draw me in as much as other games in this genre have. luckily, it had a fantastic atmosphere, and really allowed the player to do as he wishes. Total freedom of play, and to a point attitude, really add to the overall quality of the game, and bring variation in what could have been a repetitive game.
Visually, this game was artistically amazing, but technically lacking. While the landscapes were suprisingly varied, ranging from desolate, open, rocky terrain to the middle of a urban ruin. Unfortunately, all of this fantastic terrain is rendered in low resolution textures, with limited shadowing and pratically non existent parallax and bump mapping (i played on ultra high settings with 4xAA and 1280x1024 res). still, this is nitpicking, and does little to detract from the overall experience in this game.
The voice acting was vastly improved from Fallout 3's spiritual predecessor, Oblivion, but still, the character models were rather stiff in the way they went about doing, well, everything. The combat could have been rather bland, but VATS saves this. I'm sure anyone reading this already knows what vats is, so i won't go into a description. Overall, this game is much better than the sum of it's parts, and should be played by shooter and rpg fans alike.