Fallout 3: One Week in the Wasteland

Article by Travis Meacham.

We're not yet ready for a full review of Fallout 3 but after a week in the Capital City Wasteland we wanted to share our thoughts on how things are going and put apprehensive Fallout fans at ease.

http://www.tomsgames.com/us/2008/11/06/fallout3_week1/

I am OK with this version of Fallout.. (I still think that the originals were better)... The 1st person view and the whole FPS thing is bearable. But the big letdown for me is the level 20 experience cap.
I am pretty much exploring the whole map. But unfortunately it seems to me that this style of gameplay was not in Bethesda's mind. I do have feeling that the game was dumbed down a little bit for the "A.D.D." console player that wants to finish the game as fast as possible and move on to another one.
The level 20 cap pretty much kills the experience for me. Bethsoft should've either slowed down the experience gain per done deed/kill or set the level cap to 30 or so. I know that maybe with some DLC the level cap might be moved.. but my character is lvl 20 already and I don't even have half of the map explored. Now I don't even want to go exploring anymore. I guess I am just going to barrel thru the main storyline at this point and get it over with. What a shame.

Yeah, they definitely should have set a higher level cap. I'm going to keep an eye open for a mod that fixes that.

To Foe,

There are team mates in here mate, just look harder.

I've been put off by a number of things in the game mechanics, but all in all it is turning out to be a very good game. Their designers and writers have done an amazing job. Users are already starting to come up with fun mods and I think that will really make this an excellent game as time progresses.

As far as teammates go you're probably better off without them. I've found them to be a bit on the suicidal side. For me it was more frustrating to play with them than without them.

I'm hoping Bethesda will follow up with some patches. There are lots of dumb little bugs and for some reason I experience a fair number of crashes on exit and entrance to the game. Aside from that it looks like most of the things in the game that might annoy you are modable. If you're too slow you can fix that. If you want real names/images on items you can do that. Don't like the stats on something they can be changed etc.

Gotta go find Dogmeat, reloaded a save just before getting to the Brotherhood of Steel's Citadel (Pentagon). I got Fawkes and his trusty minigun, Power Armor (I got Tesla armor, but needs repairs). Doing the side quests now, took me 10 or so hours to get through the main story (character level 12).

The only thing i'd change, would be add those motorbikes as drivable vehicles. At least there's fast travel.

So much funner than Far Cry 2 imo. They dropped the ball when it came to actually making the game. Great engine though.. look at those clouds..

I had found the guy in Megaton and when I replay the game with a lower karma I will try him out. Otherwise thanks for the heads up I will go looking for them.

Foe

Just goes to show that you can build a good game on an average engine. Crysis shows you can build a bad game on a good engine (as far as effects and such go).

Need more Fallouts....

It was probably a matter of fun vs. management on Fawkes. I mean trying to keep him in ammo would be ridiculous. OMG a molerat that I can easily kill with 10mm ammo or melee. Lets unload my gatling laser on it. You'd practically have to keep him empty on ammo and only trade him stuff in battle with something you need help on. Though I don't know when that would be given the nearly unlimited supply of ammo for the plasma rifles at that point.

I can't imagine Bethesda not releasing expansions. They've made a pile of money on the game and all they'll have to do is set some people to making new areas, items, and story to keep milking that cash cow. Seems foolish not to.

Well...

**** might be a spoiler****

By expansion I've meant that given the storyline I do not think that Bethsoft would release something that would continue it...


****

They will probably release some small DLC just like Oblivion...

As far as Fawkes goes, and as a matter of fact all of the companion characters, it would be great if you could specify which weapon the character can use or at least specify the weapon class (heavy / energy / small). This way you could do ammo management and would not run into a "gatling laser vs molerat" type scenarios.
Right now you get to choose only ranged/up close weapons...

God I'm loving this game. However I do have a couple of minor complaints so far.

1. party members are a bit too.... gung ho... If I have my weapon put away I wish they would just go passive, that would fix a lot of it.

2. The downtown area is unholy hell to navigate... I really wish they hadn't felt the need to do that. It took me most of a day to figure out how to get to the bloody tepid sewers.

3. The local maps are pretty useless in multitiered areas. I wish there was a way to zoom down/up on it and only see the current floor.

4. The level cap is way too low for an obsessive completionist. Thankfully there are mods to address that.

5. Certain unique weapons and armors cannot be repaired beyond around 50% because there is no similar equipment to break down for it and the vendors really suck at repairing.

Again, I consider all of these complaints to be fairly minor and nit picky and have just been having an absolute blast with this game.