You may like it, you may dislike it, but you can't turn a blind eye to Fallout 3..
On the other hand, Fallout3 is an important game. One of the most talked about games of the past few months, a GOTY candidate, a widely
popular game, and I have spend almost 150 hours on it, the longest time I have spend on a single game to date and I have partly enjoyed playing it so I guess I owe Fallout3 a review indeed. There are mixed reactions on this game, some loved it and some found it doesn't deserve the hype but no one could overlook it.
It all happens on planet earth, two hundred years after the nuclear war which has destroyed the world in the 1950s. We play a character who was born in a bunker located near the ruins of Washington D.C. Your mom died giving birth to you and your dad left the bunker for an unknown destination and you are willing to follow him and find him and join him.
The story is based on Fallout series, a very popular RPG ISO graphics games. I doubt people would have played this game to this extend, if it did not carry the Fallout title.
Fallout 3 is categorized under rpg but can be called a mixed genre. It cetainly has rpg elements as well as lot of shooting and killing plus brutality and blood and gore. Though not really enough of either. A shooter fan will find the fighting no real challenge. After you have passed a couple of levels, there are way too easy to defeat. All throughout the game, a ghastly deformed creature jumps you, a poor guys which had not the privilege of being born and raised in a bunker like you had. Though most these creatures are too easy to defeat. It is really absurd how you can knock off a super mutant with a couple of beats!
You will be able to find a couple of followers later in game, way too late because at that point you are strong enough and armed enough to take care of all the enemies by yourself.
There are a lot of really cool weapons you can use in this game, or make them yourself, depending your skills or the enemy you want to get rid of.I liked the energy weapons the best. Though melee weapons were also quit nice. The weaponery altogether were really varied and exciting.
This is supposed to be an rpg game so it does consist of the usual inventory and creating your character, giving him/her peaks and skills and things. You could choose your character to be an intelligent sensible charming person or just a run&gun man. Though either way the character has no depth and no soul anyway. Throughout the game you feel you are controlling a dummy or a robot instead of a human being.You can't really like/dislike your character because he/she is awfully flat and bloodless. A couple side characters, although also mostly colorless too are more interesting than the protagonist.( for example Moira in Megaton)
Though you can't hear yourself talk, voice acting is a plus point in Fallout. Most voice actors talk realistic and some dialogs are fun( Moira again).
The environments and the atmosphere looks appealing and gives you a good feel of a post nuclear world.I liked the 50s style posters and cars, the radio playing old songs and all but after a few levels it becomes extremely repetitive and monotonous.
Though the Fallout world ( the wasteland ) is huge, there are just a few surroundings which wouldn't resemble the rest, and I discovered one single green environment only.
There are very few wow factors, unexpected scenes, or happening and fresh ideas in this game and the main quest is rather unsatisfactory, side quests being more involving and interesting and they add a bit of diversity to the otherwise monotonous game.
In general playing Fallout may not be an overwhelming experience but it is definitely worth playing, especially for Sci-Fi fans who would like to experience struggling and survival in a post nuclear world which according to Fallout3 won't not be as hard as one imagines;)