Fallout 3 Review

[tmeacham]

Review by Travis Meacham.

Fallout 3 evolves the series from its 2D, turn-based, isometric roots into a beautifully-rendered, 3D, pseudo real-time, first-person RPG. Find out if Fallout 3 is a worthy successor to the old games or just a shallow rip-off exploiting a known name.

http://www.tomsgames.com/us/2008/11/19/fallout3_review/

 

[SnareSpectre]

Very good review. I agree with pretty much everything you had to say about the game, including the final score, and I'm glad you shot all the slave-owners, because I was tempted to do that but didn't know whether it would cut off quests that I could complete in the future. Also, I was comparing it to Bioshock the whole time I played it, despite it being 40 times better than Bioshock in my opinion. I've yet to go back and play through the game as an evil jerk, though, because after 42 hours of exploring everything and doing EVERY single side-quest, I'm so sick of the game I won't be able to play it again for another few weeks!

 

[Mad_Cow20]

I think it is a great game with so much fun stuff to do! I just wish I had more time to play it...

I did not know there was a "party" system, where to we find peolpe to party up with??

 

[Foe]

I have made most of my comments in the preliminary review but these are my new thoughts.

1) I found the ending rather disappointing. In the old games there would be a little bit of dialog describing how each of the side quests played out after you had finished them. Thus giving you and option to go back and do the opposite and get a whole different narrated outcome. It was a part of my motivation to try and finish a number of side quests and when and if I replay it that motivation wont be there the second time round.

2) Secondly, there was little value in the big guns or energy weapons skills. Those weapons tended to come later and weren’t any more deadly than the Chinese assault rifle. I didn’t like this play balance choice. In the original game if you went up against a super mutant carrying a minigun with anything less than power armour and a powerful weapon of your own, you were toast. Here you could win that battle with a hunting rifle and leather armour.

2) Thirdly, the concept of a super mutant was watered down. In the original game conventional small arms were all but useless in taking down a super mutant. I didn’t mind that they aren’t the total tanks that they once were. However, I view this as a neutral and necessary concession as the weapons are all so equal.

As before the game is great and any RPG fan should own it.
Foe

 

[emp]

I agree wholeheartedly with you This game is absolutely awesome and I love it.

On another note, when is the Left 4 Dead review coming? I assume Rob took it upon himself to personally review that one. Looking forward to read that and expecting at the very least a 9.5 score (if not a 10).

 

[robwright]

I agree wholeheartedly with you This game is absolutely awesome and I love it.

On another note, when is the Left 4 Dead review coming? I assume Rob took it upon himself to personally review that one. Looking forward to read that and expecting at the very least a 9.5 score (if not a 10).

Damn you, EMP, that's salt in my wound.

I'm leaving the country tomorrow for an extended vacation in a far off land, and I sadly did not have time to review Left 4 Dead and give it proper play time and consideration. Thus, I'm leaving it in Travis' hands, as I did with Fallout 3 (which I still have not played). I'm going to have a lot of "work" to do when I get back....

 

[emp]

AW that's too bad, but I can tell you that Left 4 Dead is nothing like I expected.... It's more

If you've been hooked to TF2, you've got something serious coming your way when you get back.. hehehehe.

I was wondering if you guys had given any thought about running dedicated TF2 and/or L4D servers?

 

[infornography42]

I'd have given FO3 a bit higher than a 9.0, but not quite a 10. Too many niggling details that bother me. Probably around a 9.5 though.

The ending is a let down, the party members are a bit too gung ho and get themselves killed too easily, The downtown ruins are a pain in the butt to navigate, Power armor, energy weapons, and Big guns are a bit too tame, hell I still contend that the combat shotgun is the best weapon in the game (unless you count unique variants, then I would give it to the Terrible Shotgun ;-)), and of course the restrictive level cap.

Most of these complaints can be easily addressed with a few mods and the game is very much mod friendly so they aren't as big of a detraction as they would otherwise be.

 

[infornography42]

Damn you, EMP, that's salt in my wound.

I'm leaving the country tomorrow for an extended vacation in a far off land, and I sadly did not have time to review Left 4 Dead and give it proper play time and consideration. Thus, I'm leaving it in Travis' hands, as I did with Fallout 3 (which I still have not played). I'm going to have a lot of "work" to do when I get back....

Now that is some work I could really get into. At least you have some great things to look forward to.

 

[dieseldre2k]

damn rob, Fallout 3 AND L4D?! u sure ur going to be ok after alllll that work? i almost feel sorry for u...

/sarcasm

 

[San Pedro]

Damn you, EMP, that's salt in my wound.

I'm leaving the country tomorrow for an extended vacation in a far off land, and I sadly did not have time to review Left 4 Dead and give it proper play time and consideration. Thus, I'm leaving it in Travis' hands, as I did with Fallout 3 (which I still have not played). I'm going to have a lot of "work" to do when I get back....

Where you going?

I'm off on an "extended vacation" to Japan on the 28th. . .

Oh yeah, there are some mods already out that let you go up to level 30 or 40. I don't have a link but I read about it somewhere, should be easy to search for. I'm planning on using it because I'm approaching that level 20 pretty quickly.

 

[Ananan]

You couldn't remember any plot details from the earlier Fallouts? Seriously?

 

[engrpiman]

I agree that the level cap needs to go. I also feel that the ending sucks; I finished the game and then reloaded a quicksave so I could continue playing. Also having only one NPC follow you is lame. In fallout 2 you could have at least 3.

Also if you think that the NPCs die to easily just get Fawks to follow you around . He can take down anyone with out fail. it sometimes cool to fall off a ledge and have Fawks run around and clear out an entire city.

 

[infornography42]

Fawkes is awesome.

 

[ImajorI]

Loved the game. Wish you had to work more quests to reach the end. So so about the end.
Playing a second time as an evil guy with big guns & unarmed. Unarmed looks cool in vats. Very fun game, but wish the main story was a bit longer.

 

[ninjahedge]

I have not played through 100%, but i can agree with a lot here.

"Niggling" complaints would be the way the game assigns importance to certain graphical items based on your hardware. Since when is seeing people BEFORE they can shoot at you unimportant?

I had to go in and put that sucker up to max so invisible people weren't shooting at me anymore!!!

Also, things like insta-heal for sleeping for an hour, or easy propensity for addiction even though you have only taken a few pills over a course of gameplay weeks....

One thing that would be handy would be entire outfit binding rather than one at a time. Going in and swapping out to lab coat before taking a stimpak and then swapping back is a bit tedious. Hitting "6" or even "Shift-6" would be neat to swap from stealth to combat.

Some might say this would be unrealistic, but any more so than being able to pause the game, repair all your weapons and armor, inject yourself a dozen times with health, change clothes, change weapons, and even have dinner WHILE IN COMBAT?

I am not saying I do not like that, as I have used it a few times, but I have always felt guilty doing so. Like killing a bunch of outlanders and taking a 1 hour nap on their abandoned bed to be completely healed.....


As was mentioned, 3D maps would be handy, or at least the ability to scroll through different levels on the PiP.... Sometimes I have gotten lost trying to find that last door, only to find out it wasn't the last door, it was one of the first that I just happened to get underneath close to the "end" of the board!

I thought the inability to try to "convince" people later on once your level has increased to be frustrating (say you try to getthat one guy off of Jet in Megaton, and yuo fail. Now you have the wig thing on, the naughty nightwear, and your speech skill is 50 points higher. Maybe there should be a penalty for trying again, but you should at least get a second chance!).


Oh, I may be an idiot, but is there a flashlight on this game? I have hit a bunch of keys but nothing seems to happen (I don't think I saw it in controls). Going through a corridor that has been abandoned for 200 years (but still has working electric lights, BTW) gets frustrating when you can't see into a corner!!!!

One last nit. Although I like the personal choice of being able to level up whatever I want, I think that is a bit limited. I think that Oblivion had it right. If I ran, I got more endurance. If I fought with a sword, my swordsmanship got better. The more I lockpicked, the better that got.

If I wanted to take up cooking, I could take a class, and pay someone to get better!

But spending a level sneaking up on people and whacking them with a flaming sword (how did I sneak up with that??!?) and being able to level up my "barter" skill just does not seem to make any sense!

Maybe they should give you a few points to do what you want with them, but the rest should be automatic. SPECIAL skills and other things should be chosen (you choose "daddy's boy" because it is not DIRECTLY linked to anything you would be doing in the game, it is what you persue in your "free time" or whatever....). Some may not liek this, but I would like the fact that using my shotgun and repairing it would make me better at both shotgun and repair!



Anyway, I would rate it in the 8-10 range myself, dependong on what you were asking about. I think it is a great game, and hard to decide on whether to play it, or L4D some nights! I think it has more staying power than L4D, that's for sure!!!!


And if somoene could find that 20+ level mod (does it work for STEAM versions?) I would REALLY appreciate that, being at level 19½ now!!!!

 

[Flakes]

flashlight - press and hold tab (its not that good but it does light the area)

weapons - you can assign weapons to numbers, go into pip-boy and press and hold a number then click the weapon you want to assign (works for armour too i think)

leveling - i disagree here, i think oblivion leveling was awful, fallouts is better.

second chance at persuasion - you can get a skill that will give you a second chance only available at level 20.

 

[infornography42]

I hated the leveling system in Oblivion, that was actually my biggest complaint with it. If I wanted to improve my spell casting I would have to walk around town constantly spamming heal or night vision or something. It was tedious and stupid. Abstracting it out to just assigning points is much MUCH better. More realistic, no, but much more fun.

And really, how much realism do you want in your post apocalyptic first person RPG with giant supermutants, power armor, 200 year old Salisbury steaks and portable mini nuke launchers? The fat man and exploding cars are absurd abortions of science.

As for mods, there are plenty and I don't see why they wouldn't work with the Steam version.

Try this site
http://www.fallout3nexus.com/downloads/categories.php

 

[crockdaddy]

I found the leveling system in Oblivion to be interesting but I think I like the more structured system in FO3 better. Like many here I dislike the LV 20 Cap. I hit LV 20 around hour 40 in the game. Once I topped out .... I was like what now ... so I followed the main quest and finished the game.

I had quite a bit of trouble deciding on which abilities to choose. I know this for certain, never again will I ignore Melee skills lol. I did not feel like there was enough differentiating between Energy Weapons and other weapons from a usefulness standpoint until the end when I got a plasma rifle. By then it was too late from a point allocation stand point. Furthermore, I found I had goofed up my point allocation early in the game by spreading my skill points too far and not specializing enough. Still, I loved the game and am looking forward to the many expansions I am sure will become availabe.


Like the others, I am now playing L4D!!!! If you only buy two games this year make it FO3 and L4D (wish I could take back CoD V).