The most honest review there is. Read it.
Many fanboys of the Fallout series, as fanboys always do, cried and cried about the release of Fallout 3 as a Bethesda game, fearing they had forsaken the dark humor and intrigue of the franchise by reworking it into a first person action RPG. Oddly enough now that the game has been out almost a year (and supported infinitely more successfully than Oblivion and Morrowind ever were not only by fan content but by Bethesda themselves) the naysayers are all but gone. Fallout 3 is easily the most violent, vicious, hilarious, profane and addicting game to grace old-school gamers since GTA destroyed the video game world and rebuilt it in it's own image at the beginning of the decade.
That having been said, there are some noticeable drawbacks to the game that others on GameSpot and around the world have likely mentioned. The game is definitely somewhat glitchy, much more than Oblivion ever was, though the 1.5 patch has eliminated pretty much every bug that isn't caused by custom content on the PC version. I myself had to completely restart the game on PC because I had used a few mods the first time and they eventually completely broke my game, so I had to reinstall and restart. Neither setback was a big deal - this is my third time playing through. I played the game on 360 when it first came out for hours on end on a 1080p projector with surround sound (oh...so amazing). Also, the game play *can* get repetitive and stale after you have completed the storyline and quests, at which point just as in Oblivion, the game becomes a matter of exploring everything and having all the money ever, and then in true GTA fashion, though it is more true in ES4, a game I have always referred to as Grand Theft Equus (if you don't get the joke, I don't know what to tell you. Learn something), it becomes more importantly a matter of how many guards/cops can I get away with killing/crimes can I get away with for how long before I am killed or forced into jail and I lose a ton of stats and items. However, this is managed somewhat well because even after you have done everything ever, even exploring the entire map is a quest for Reilly's Rangers, after the completion of which you can rest assured that you've done everything ever (assuming you have) and you can replay the game in a different manner.
As with Oblivion, my quarrels aren't necessarily with the physical game play as with a lot of elements of the game itself. Just like in Oblivion, the main quest in Fallout is WAY too succinct. The first time I played on Xbox I beat the game immediately and I was quite unhappy that it ended permanently after that. Fortunately Broken Steel changed everything and I didn't get it for PC until after the first three DLCs had come out (with two more on the way set to waste many more of my waking hours). Another thing that irks me about the game is that there aren't repercussions for your wrongdoings - negative and positive karma are meaningless. They were meaningless before Broken Steel and now with BS, you can instantly revert your Karma with a perk. On top of that, there is no need to be strictly good, because if you give aqua pura or purified water to enough hobos, or just keep killing bad guys, your karma goes back to 1000 anyway.
Unfortunately another problem I have with the game is that at certain times it becomes way too easy. If you stack the right skills and perks, murdering the wasteland becomes a matter of clicking VATS, or rather, the win button. Granted that at level 30 or even level 20 a Deathclaw or a king mirelurk can easily own you before you even see them, the game is still stupidly easy at this point when you have companions. Companions bring up another point. In Oblivion companions served basically as pack mules, and often weren't too handy in a fight. Similarly, the companions in Fallout are kind of useless (other than killing everything for you) and frequently run in the way in VATS. I've almost killed fawkes so many times with the alien blaster, it's stupid. You still can't change their weapons either, though you can change armor for some of them. Charon was in Tesla Armor in my game and when I went in the Holy Light basement, he got destroyed by the Champion of Light before I even turned around to see it happen practically, a lot of good that 2000 caps did me.
My other problems with the game are somewhat idiosyncratic, though I have heard agreement with them. For one thing, merchants in this game are hands down, without a doubt craptastic. They only have so many caps, unless you literally buy their inventory, their money only regenerates every few days, and they always have the same amount of it. Additionally, any item worth any money is ALWAYS worth more money than they have to offer you, which negates the usefulness of the repair skill entirely when it comes to mercantilism, leaving it good only for keeping your stuff in shape. Also, as I will mention later about people giving you items, holy crap is it too easy to get items. I played a lot of godmode so I could carry infinite items to sell, so I had 170 stimpacks that I didn't use, but heres the thing: I literally got 200 stimpacks in less time than it took me to get the first 170 from the Brotherood Outcasts STRICTLY from giving them tesla armor. And Tesla Armor is in infinite supply in the game, as are fingers and talon combat armor (if your Karma is 1000). Thirteen stimpacks per tesla suit. Wow. However, despite the economics in the game appearing craptastic, it's much easier to get rich in this game than it was in Oblivion. I suppose that's due to the fact that unlike Oblivion you can aim and kill most everything in one hit, then proceed to sell their crap, whereas in ES4 you had to work for your kill (funnily enough anything in this game that's difficult to kill doesn't actually drop anything worth picking up. Example : Nukalurk, Mirelurk, Super mutant overlord, mirelurk king, super mutant behemoth, deathclaw)
Another problem I have is the weapon selection methods. Due to the fact that FO3 is on the Gamebryo engine, it's limited to the same constraints and pitfalls suffered by Oblivion, notably the RPG style pip-boy menu. What irks me about is the fact that you can only equip one weapon at a time, meaning if you want to toss a grenade or a mine, you have to pull up the pipboy, switch weapons, then pull out the weapon, at which point throwing a nuka grenade is going to practically kill you as well as the enemy, if not kill you for certain. I hope Black Isle Studios or Bethesda themselves implement a more shooter-style inventory for your equipped weapons in the next two games.
My last problem with the game is very minor and irrelevant to most people. I feel like characters are very 2 dimensional in the game. You help them out and they are thankful and then for the most part they couldn't care less, with the exception of the people in Megaton who constantly give you gifts. Even so, you don't get any respect in the wasteland. I mean...Don't you tools understand that I could have blown your city up and not cared at all? The only reason Megaton exists is because I want your caps and experience points, fools, so respect me. The same goes to all of the citizens of DC - you save their lives repeatedly and for it you are told to piss off. I also think it kind of sucks that your character is like an asexual, stoic, gun with a face, as was the case in GTA3. You get hit on and you can't do anything about it, and the only sex you can have is with a whore. Doesn't saving the world entitle you to sleeping with someone who at least does it for free? Sometimes it just feels because of things like that that the game world isn't thoroughly immersive. Just a minor example: Rothchild asks you to give him sensors and cameras to rebuild Liberty Prime, but no matter how many you give him, there is never any progress made on the robot: it only serves to make you rich. That and the fact that it's so desolate - California has at least 700,000 survivors. This is the capital of our nation, a population of 5 million. While it may not be as much as So-Cals 10+ million, shouldn't we at least get something like 350,000 survivors? Or did more bombs get dropped on D.C because it's the capital? Also one more dumb thing that I personally don't like: I really wish Three Dog had more to say about you. It's not that I'm so narcissistic, but if he's going to talk about me, he needs to do it a lot, not for 2 seconds every now and then in between the surprisingly addictive 40s music.
Despite these drawbacks, Fallout 3 is still the cursingest, funniest, sex, drugs, and forties-musicingest action RPG available to-date (unless you live in countries like Australia) and although it's not incredibly innovative, it gave the Fallout series a much-needed (arguable) boost to keep it fresh in our minds, and introduce it to gaming noobs around the world. I look forward to Point Lookout, Mothership Zeta, New Vegas and Fallout 4 very eagerly.
Many fanboys of the Fallout series, as fanboys always do, cried and cried about the release of Fallout 3 as a Bethesda game, fearing they had forsaken the dark humor and intrigue of the franchise by reworking it into a first person action RPG. Oddly enough now that the game has been out almost a year (and supported infinitely more successfully than Oblivion and Morrowind ever were not only by fan content but by Bethesda themselves) the naysayers are all but gone. Fallout 3 is easily the most violent, vicious, hilarious, profane and addicting game to grace old-school gamers since GTA destroyed the video game world and rebuilt it in it's own image at the beginning of the decade.
That having been said, there are some noticeable drawbacks to the game that others on GameSpot and around the world have likely mentioned. The game is definitely somewhat glitchy, much more than Oblivion ever was, though the 1.5 patch has eliminated pretty much every bug that isn't caused by custom content on the PC version. I myself had to completely restart the game on PC because I had used a few mods the first time and they eventually completely broke my game, so I had to reinstall and restart. Neither setback was a big deal - this is my third time playing through. I played the game on 360 when it first came out for hours on end on a 1080p projector with surround sound (oh...so amazing). Also, the game play *can* get repetitive and stale after you have completed the storyline and quests, at which point just as in Oblivion, the game becomes a matter of exploring everything and having all the money ever, and then in true GTA fashion, though it is more true in ES4, a game I have always referred to as Grand Theft Equus (if you don't get the joke, I don't know what to tell you. Learn something), it becomes more importantly a matter of how many guards/cops can I get away with killing/crimes can I get away with for how long before I am killed or forced into jail and I lose a ton of stats and items. However, this is managed somewhat well because even after you have done everything ever, even exploring the entire map is a quest for Reilly's Rangers, after the completion of which you can rest assured that you've done everything ever (assuming you have) and you can replay the game in a different manner.
As with Oblivion, my quarrels aren't necessarily with the physical game play as with a lot of elements of the game itself. Just like in Oblivion, the main quest in Fallout is WAY too succinct. The first time I played on Xbox I beat the game immediately and I was quite unhappy that it ended permanently after that. Fortunately Broken Steel changed everything and I didn't get it for PC until after the first three DLCs had come out (with two more on the way set to waste many more of my waking hours). Another thing that irks me about the game is that there aren't repercussions for your wrongdoings - negative and positive karma are meaningless. They were meaningless before Broken Steel and now with BS, you can instantly revert your Karma with a perk. On top of that, there is no need to be strictly good, because if you give aqua pura or purified water to enough hobos, or just keep killing bad guys, your karma goes back to 1000 anyway.
Unfortunately another problem I have with the game is that at certain times it becomes way too easy. If you stack the right skills and perks, murdering the wasteland becomes a matter of clicking VATS, or rather, the win button. Granted that at level 30 or even level 20 a Deathclaw or a king mirelurk can easily own you before you even see them, the game is still stupidly easy at this point when you have companions. Companions bring up another point. In Oblivion companions served basically as pack mules, and often weren't too handy in a fight. Similarly, the companions in Fallout are kind of useless (other than killing everything for you) and frequently run in the way in VATS. I've almost killed fawkes so many times with the alien blaster, it's stupid. You still can't change their weapons either, though you can change armor for some of them. Charon was in Tesla Armor in my game and when I went in the Holy Light basement, he got destroyed by the Champion of Light before I even turned around to see it happen practically, a lot of good that 2000 caps did me.
My other problems with the game are somewhat idiosyncratic, though I have heard agreement with them. For one thing, merchants in this game are hands down, without a doubt craptastic. They only have so many caps, unless you literally buy their inventory, their money only regenerates every few days, and they always have the same amount of it. Additionally, any item worth any money is ALWAYS worth more money than they have to offer you, which negates the usefulness of the repair skill entirely when it comes to mercantilism, leaving it good only for keeping your stuff in shape.
Another problem I have is the weapon selection methods. Due to the fact that FO3 is on the Gamebryo engine, it's limited to the same constraints and pitfalls suffered by Oblivion, notably the RPG style pip-boy menu. What irks me about is the fact that you can only equip one weapon at a time, meaning if you want to toss a grenade or a mine, you have to pull up the pipboy, switch weapons, then pull out the weapon, at which point throwing a nuka grenade is going to practically kill you as well as the enemy, if not kill you for certain. I hope Black Isle Studios or Bethesda themselves implement a more shooter-style inventory for your equipped weapons in the next two games.
My last problem with the game is very minor and irrelevant to most people. I feel like characters are very 2 dimensional in the game. You help them out and they are thankful and then for the most part they couldn't care less, with the exception of the people in Megaton who constantly give you gifts. Even so, you don't get any respect in the wasteland. I mean...Don't you tools understand that I could have blown your city up and not cared at all? The only reason Megaton exists is because I want your caps and experience points, fools, so respect me. The same goes to all of the citizens of DC - you save their lives repeatedly and for it you are told to piss off. I also think it kind of sucks that your character is like an asexual, stoic, gun with a face, as was the case in GTA3. You get hit on and you can't do anything about it, and the only sex you can have is with a whore. Doesn't saving the world entitle you to sleeping with someone who at least does it for free? Sometimes it just feels because of things like that that the game world isn't thoroughly immersive. That and the fact that it's so desolate - California has at least 700,000 survivors. This is the capital of our nation, a population of 5 million. While it may not be as much as So-Cals 10+ million, shouldn't we at least get something like 350,000 survivors? Or did more bombs get dropped on D.C because it's the capital?
Despite these drawbacks, Fallout 3 is still the cursingest, funniest, sex, drugs, and big-bandingest action RPG available to-date (unless you live in countries like Australia) and although it's not incredibly innovative, it gave the Fallout series a much-needed (arguable) boost to keep it fresh in our minds, and introduce it to gaming noobs around the world. I look forward to Point Lookout, Mothership Zeta, New Vegas and Fallout 4 very eagerly.