Fallout 3 Review (X360)

Pathfinding

One final aspect of the gameplay that needs to be addressed is navigation and simply moving around the world. Out on the wastes, you can generally take a straight path to where you are going but you’ll occasionally have to go around a cliff or some contaminated water or something. In the city, however, getting around is much more difficult because of fallen buildings that block your path so you have to use subway tunnels to get from one area to the next. This is, quite frankly, confusing as hell. One of your very first missions is to get to a radio station and then the next one is to get to the Washington Monument, but actually finding these places takes a lot of trial and error and wandering around lost. You do have a minimap, but it has a limited range so your objective is usually way off the radar and you can’t see how to get there. It makes you really appreciate the glowing map line from another recently release game, Fable II, to be honest. It also brings up the question of why the heck can’t we just climb over the rubble? You can climb ¾ of the way up the side of a building before the game stops you. I know if I was trying to survive I’d be climbing over stuff rather than going through creepy tunnels. You do eventually figure out how to get around, though, and from there things are generally okay. Also, once you discover a location you can instantly warp to it from the map screen, so after the initial frustration of the tunnels you don’t spend much time in them. It sure makes the beginning of the game kind of a pain in the butt, though.

You Are S.P.E.C.I.A.L.

The final piece of the game design puzzle that ties everything together is the character building and leveling up system. The 45-minute or so introductory section is actually all about building your character. You start as a baby and literally grow up into whatever character you want. You assign points to strength, perception, endurance, charisma, intelligence, agility, and luck (S.P.E.C.I.A.L.) that all have an impact on what you can do. You also assign points each time you level up to things such as barter, big guns, lockpick, medicine, sneak, and more. You also earn special upgrades called perks each time you level up. Perks let you do things like learn more from books you find, make it so animals won’t attack you, leave your enemies in a bloody mess, or even let you feed on the corpses of enemies and much more. Unlike Oblivion which leveled you up when you used your given skills enough, Fallout 3 uses a more traditional experience system where each enemy and quest you do is worth XP and when your each a certain number you level up. All of this combines to create an amazingly satisfying experience where your character is truly tailored to how you want to play. And the perks are just plain cool.

The game is very overwhelming at first as you are dumped into a world full of danger with no real direction on what to do. But once you get into it a few hours and start leveling up and figuring out how everything works, Fallout 3 is a very rewarding experience.

Graphics and Sound

Graphically, Fallout 3 is an incredibly sharp looking game. The wasteland looks pretty much like you’d imagine with collapsed freeways, destroyed buildings, abandoned cars, and rubble strewn everywhere. Washington D.C. is also a very interesting place in the game since you can go to all of the real world monuments and locations and seeing everything in such a state of destruction is pretty surreal. Characters also look very good, and don’t suffer from ugly face syndrome like Oblivion. Enemies also look fairly good, but their animation is pretty limited. The overall 50’s retro-futuristic art style is also very well done. One thing that needs to be said about the graphics overall is that the color palate consists almost exclusively of gray and brown. The only color is the bright yellow super mutants. Now, it is certainly appropriate since this is a nuclear wasteland after all, but it is rather breathtaking in its ugliness rather than its beauty.

The sound is very good all around. The dialogue is very well done and there is a ton of it. As you explore the wasteland you also pick up radio signals that you can listen to as long as you are in range. These radio broadcasts change with different news updates and things as you play through the game, which is very cool.

Bottom Line

All in all, Fallout 3 is an amazing game that is among the very best you’ll find on the Xbox 360. It tells a great story in an amazingly cool setting that is completely different from just about any other game out there. It presents moral choices that actually make you think. It gives you a different perspective on survival. And it does it all with some of the most satisfying, but undeniably unorthodox, combat around. There are hiccups here and there, but nothing that means you shouldn’t play the game. Fallout 3 is just a solid game in almost all aspects and it is highly recommended.

I suppose I should also add that this is actually my first experience with Fallout. I’m not much of a PC gamer and never spent much time with the first games. I can’t say how the humor and story and game world in Fallout 3 is in relation to those games. But I can say that from an unbiased, non-nostalgia clouded view, Fallout 3 is a great game all by itself and you don’t need prior knowledge of the series to appreciate it.