Fallout 3

By Bethesda Softworks

Genre: RPG/First-person shooter

Players: 1

Rating: Mature (17+)

Downloadable Content: Available, 1 pack released so far, out of 3 planned

Distribution Model: Retail or over the content delivery system Steam; interfaced with Microsoft’s Games for Windows – LIVE

Release Date: October 31, 2008

Though released at the end of October last year, Bethesda Softworks’s most recent game, Fallout 3, still captures my interest and fires my senses with excitement. Why would it still have this effect on me after so long? Why have so many others, as well, sung this game’s praises? Well, Bethesda’s developers, artists and story makers have decided to ask a question, one that, since the mid-70s if not earlier, has enthralled mankind with its intrigue, danger and possibilities:

How would you survive in a world ravaged by nuclear devastation? Would you become a psychopath, blasting everything that moves, or a diplomat, more disposed to talking your way out of (and into) situations? Or maybe you’d prefer a combination of both?

Furthermore, how would you tackle these problems in a period firmly in the future of the 22^nd and 23^rd centuries, though rooted in the past? At every corner, references to Forties and Fifties pop culture catch your eye, and your ears are filled with sweet jumping jazz, boisterous big band and sentimental slow dance tunes. And in the ruins in which you search and do battle, echoes of the long-dead past still linger, speaking of the paranoia, of the Red Scare as it existed in the Fifties.

That’s exactly the scenario that is presented in the series of games started in the late 90s and continued to this day, Fallout. The first two games didn’t give too much visual detail by today’s standards, but it did give us a sprawling, open world to explore (though in the case of the first game, we were under a time limit through most of the game). I’m not too familiar with these two installments, nor with the two released earlier this decade which are not considered part of the official series, Fallout Tactics and Brotherhood of Steel.

I am, however, quite familiar with the latest in the series, simply called Fallout 3. While the first two games were set on the west coast in what used to be known as California, this third game takes place in our nation’s capital, Washington D. C., and the surrounding regions; this large expanse of hard, brown dirt and cracked, useless asphalt is called the Capital Wasteland.

Here are seen relics as they existed when the bombs fell in 2077: sprawling underground Vaults, built ostensibly to keep people safe in the event of a nuclear holocaust, but each one hiding its own sinister purpose, wait for you to explore them. Burnt-out hulks of fusion-powered cars, still volatile in their disrepair, and ruined buildings, still standing after two hundred years, beckon you with twisting hallways, powerful adversaries and the promise of more valuable, powerful loot. And the people you meet in your travels, sometimes paranoid, sometimes helpful, sometimes delusional, keep you company as you journey among the various settlements.

However, before you even see the massive world that awaits you, you live in a much smaller world, and you are led to believe that it is the only one you’ll ever see.

As a young person (you may select either male or female), having grown up in, and seemingly destined to die in Vault 101, no doubt you’ve led a sheltered life. As a baby, you choose your S.P.E.C.I.A.L. attributes, those that determine most directly how you interact with the world, and how it interacts with you. These attributes are:

• Strength,
• Perception,
• Endurance,
• Charisma,
• Intelligence,
• Agility, and
• Luck.

When you’re ten, you have a birthday party and are presented with the tool which allows you to access information about the world and the items you’re given, the Pip-Boy 3000. This also proves the key to several important plot points and even changes appearance in one pivotal scenario, though of course I won’t ruin that here.

When you’re 16, you take the G.O.A.T., or Generalized Occupational Aptitude Test, which determines the job you’ll take in the Vault when you grow up. Depending on your actions so far in the game (there are several minor moral choices to make up to this point) and your test results, you may be given several different occupations, but the real purpose of the G.O.A.T. scenario is to let you manipulate your starting Skills, which are two dozen areas of aptitude from gun handling to computer hacking to speaking skills, which let you further interact with the world.

When you’re 19, you and the Vault at large receive a massive shock when your father, so supportive and loving through your formative years, suddenly leaves the Vault, and the Overseer, the haughty, unscrupulous leader of the Vault, declares martial law in an effort to find and capture you before you can escape to locate him, which is your ultimate objective. Amata, the Overseer’s daughter, your friend from birth, helps you through this area by offering a weapon, but you may choose to let her keep it in case she may need it more.

She’s sorely tempted to use that weapon when she’s captured by one of the Overseer’s lackeys and beaten under the Overseer’s supervision, to try to get her to divulge information about you. But she holds her tongue and you break in just in time to let her escape. You may either kill the Overseer (which of course earns you everlasting enmity from Amata), or let him live, both decisions further setting the moral stage for your activities through the game.

[Here, I shall digress for a moment to discuss a relevant topic. Karma is a principle quite popular in Eastern religions, the belief that if you do good things, good things will happen to you, and if you do bad things, similarly, bad things will result. This concept has also been quoted as responsible for events in our everyday lives.

The concept of Karma in Fallout 3 (as I can only speak for this installment) applies to how you treat those you meet who are not instantly out to kill you. If you treat them well, talk to them civilly and do not steal from them or their homes, your Karma will remain neutral. If you free captives in the wasteland, if you give clean water to those who need it (more on water in a bit), if you take the high moral road on quests or missions you are given, you will gain Karma. And, if you kill captives or citizens who do not try to kill you, or if you take the lower moral road, you will lose Karma.

Your Karma determines how the citizenry of the Wasteland view you, in several ways. Those groups who would not attack you under ordinary circumstances will, depending on your Karma, open fire on sight. A certain person whose voice you hear throughout most of the game will praise or curse your activities, depending on how your Karma flows and how you complete missions. And a great deal of replay value is added to the game, if you are comfortable with playing the alignment opposite to your natural affinity.]

After you get the password to unlock the Overseer’s secret escape route, you leave the vault, but not before some encouraging (or rightfully malicious) words from Amata at the Vault’s massive door. The bright sunlight of the open wasteland almost blinds you after spending your whole life under artificial lighting, but your vision soon clears.

From this point you may follow your own path, either traveling to the nearby settlement of Megaton, named after the undetonated atomic bomb around which the town is built, or travel simply anywhere in the massive Capital Wasteland, only a quarter of which contains the ruins of Downtown D.C.

You’ll face many enemies, from simple, poorly armed Raiders, to hardened mercenaries to so-called Super Mutants to rabid dogs to zombie-like ghouls, to name a few. You may take them on in the normal first-person shooter manner, or you may use V.A.T.S., the Vault-Tec Assisted Targeting system, which stops time and allows you to target limbs, torso or head to cripple your enemies further or kill them outright much faster.

About food and water: If you have more reliable means of restoring your health, use that instead. Apparently, these hold their radiation very well over the past two hundred years, and you may temporarily lose some of your attributes if you get too irradiated. Some radiation is necessary, because every food item that survives is glowing like a figurative Christmas tree as well, and unlike Stimpaks which restore health in greater amounts, is much more common. Clean water bottles are also available, but rare, and people may ask for them.

As you can see, the decisions you can make in the game and the detail of the environments make this game truly immersive and addictive; you can spend hours, even days’ worth of gameplay, without even taking on the first mission. But I recommend you take steps to clear up the signal of a certain beleaguered radio station before you get too far away from the D.C. Ruins. I’ll say no more.

Graphics: 10 out of 10. The environments look pretty enough (even in their blasted, ruined state), but there is enough variety to provide a fresh view of things no matter where you go. And, with the addition of recent Downloadable Content, the variety becomes even greater.

Sound: 10 out of 10. Sound effects are crisp, clear and loud when it comes to the weapons, environmental effects come often and have an eerie effect at times; the voice acting is good, though many different NPCs (Non-Player Characters) appear to have the same voice at times; but the crowning achievement of this game, the real reason I give this a 10 out of 10, is the music selection. Just select Galaxy News Radio from your Pip-Boy’s radio station list and you’ll hear what I mean. Beautiful, peppy, sentimental tunes from the late 40s and 50s, though perhaps a bit fuzzy? I’m sure you’ll find a way to fix that.

Controls: 10 out of 10 for both PC and Xbox 360. Like most games for the PC, Fallout 3 allows you to remap your controls. You may have to get used to holding certain keys for alternate functions, but that eventually works as well as pressing another key. The Xbox 360 controls are also quite intuitive, and don’t take very long to get used to, either.

Gameplay: 10 out of 10. With the several large cities/towns to explore, dozens (or hundreds) of other smaller locations to scout and loot, thousands of humans and creatures to kill if you wish, and several large moral choices to make, you won’t find yourself bored while playing this game for a long time.

Replay: 9 out of 10. A game like this inevitably ends, as it’s possible that a player can explore every last location in the game and complete every scenario. Plus, in the original game, the ending of the game is closed, as whatever decision you make (again, no spoilers here!) results in a drop to the main menu after it’s over. However, with the DLC (Downloadable Content) available for all, and hundreds of user-created modifications (or mods) available for PC, you might just be able to add my missing one to my Replay score after all.

OVERALL (not averaged): 10 out of 10. You shouldn’t miss this game if you can at all play it; it’s probably the best game of its type out now. It uses the same technology as the previous game by Bethesda, Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, though modified, so like that one, it’s definitely a beautiful, open-world RPG which almost never ends.<–>