Fallout 3 takes what we love about shooters and RPGs, and creates a unique and riveting experience.
I'm going to tell you now, nuclear war isn't pretty, and no other game reveals it better than Fallout 3. Fallout 3 takes place in an alternate universe where two of the world's greatest nations, United States and China, engage in a war filled with blood, mayhem, and more blood. At the height of the war China decides to resort to nuclear weapons, and Washington D.C. becomes a lifeless, barren wasteland. But enough about them, the main focus of Fallout 3's plot is about you, the player.
When the bombs fall, when everything turns to chaos, where will you be? In an underground vault of course. As a child who was born in a vault, you have all your life necessities spread out in front of you. Why you've got an endless supply of food, plenty of fresh clean water, a childhood girlfriend to make you feel better, and of course an annoying snobbish bully. What more could you ask for? Unfortunately all heck breaks loose when your father, your only family, decides to *gasp* leave the vault. Confused, angered, and threatened you decide to follow in your father's footsteps to see why in the world he would do such a thing. This is where your "adventure" begins……
Fallout 3 is a first person shooter, but that's not all it is, it's also a……get this…. an RPG! You will spend most of your time adventuring through the D.C. wasteland, completing missions, saving innocent civilians, uncovering hidden treasures, defending yourself from a variety of monstrosities, and killing people who you just don't fancy, whoops did I just say that? Scratch that last part. After killing an enemy or completing a mission you earn experience points. With enough experience points you can level up and select one perk you wish to use at your disposal. The perks vary from increasing your health to increasing the amount of damage you can do with a weapon.
In the wasteland there is one universal rule to follow: kill or be killed. Luckily for you Fallout 3 utilizes something called the V.A.T.S targeting system. With V.A.T.S you can stop time and select which body parts you want to sever with your weapon, after you've made your selection your character will aim for whichever body part you selected and attempt to shoot/cut it off – what makes it even better is that it's done in slow motion. You don't necessarily have to use V.A.T.S you can simply just shoot your opponent; however, watching an enemy's head get blown off in real time isn't as cool as seeing an enemy's head get blown off in slow motion. But in the end it all depends on the player's preferences.
Fallout 3 is an incredibly huge game, and when I say huge I mean super gigantically enormously HUGE! Don't be so surprised if you find yourself exploring one part of a level and an hour later you're still looking around. This is the beauty of the game. Fallout 3 grants the player absolute freedom, you can do anything you want whenever you want. If you want to go explore that old abandoned bicycle depot go for it, if you want to shoot a mutated cow in the udder then by all means shoot that udder!
Fallout 3 is an ugly game, and when I say ugly I mean beautifully ugly (this is a compliment in case you're wondering). It perfectly depicts of what the world might be like if a nuclear war had actually occurred. The environments are absolutely breath taking as well as terrifying. The people at Bethesda certainly know how to immerse the player into the game with their open world levels. But beauty only runs skin deep, if you look closely at a person with perfect skin you may find pores, a scratch, a pimple, or in this case…..a wart. Where am I going with this you ask? Well keep reading…..
As I played Fallout 3 I began to realize that there were a lot sound failures, frame rate problems, glitches, and texture popping. Overall it wasn't a terrible problem; it was pretty bad, but not enough to make one drop the controller in a furious outbreak. However, one of the most dramatic parts in the game (I will not state it, avoiding spoilers) was absolutely consumed by all the problems I mentioned before. This was a real heart breaker for me, here I am, at one of the most pivotal moments in the game, and I can't even enjoy it because the game is having problems, no that's not right.
Overall: Fallout 3 is a splendid game; it somehow combines what we love about first person shooters and RPGs to create a unique and riveting experience. If you can get pass some of the technical issues the game contains, you will find yourself scouring the wasteland for countless hours. Say goodbye to your loved ones….