Overview
Now if you’re like me and have just put down Fallout 1 and 2 after finally waiting, in great anticipation for Fallout 3, then you might have been a bit upset and picked up Fallout 2 again, because it's a lot different from its predecessor.
However, those of you who persevered, and gave the game an hour of your valuable time, would know that Bethesda game studios are on to a great thing.
Review
Game Plot
Fallout 3 takes place in 2277, which is 36 years later than its predecessor, fallout 2, and 200 years after the nuclear war, which decimated the games world. Unlike the 2nd in the series, you start out in vault 101, which is based in Washington D.C. You take your usual adventure, but with the option of man’s best friend, a dog aptly called "Dog Meat". This may be your companion through the game, or you may choose to leave him to roam solely, whoever, Dog Meat, does die, and cannot be replaced, so be careful!
Gameplay
The game play has changed significantly to suit the platform. Now you do not have to wait your turn to kill that bandit who has been on your trail since you started to find the "Garden of Eden kit." Instead you can fire away, quite literally too. You start with a pistol, which, to be honest is like a tooth pick in comparison to some weapons which you will get later on.
Like every "big adventure," you need land, and a motive. You start out looking for your father whose gone AWOL. And then you stand in awe, in your living room admiring the graphics as they mould you into the TV and have you leering forward into the set top, trying to entice you into the world that took "TOO!" long to make. Honestly, there is just too much land to roam around, and around every up-turned road, seems to be a mole rat still lingering, waiting to be killed.
Do not worry though – don't let the game’s large capacity put you off, because there are many things to do whilst you travel. Like Fallout 2, there are loads of perks and skills, to spend those hard earned experience points on. Once you pick up your "vault dwellers, survival guide", it’s kind of hard to put it back down - not because it is full of useful knowledge about the world - just because it has over 70 perks and skills to develop.
Now, if it’s stealth that takes your fancy, you might want to build up thief, lock-pick and sneak first. Mainly because in every village there is always something that needs to be "acquired," and also it is a faster way to built up your inventory. However, that is just one of many completely versatile options to take as the variety is practically endless. The hours of fun I had playing this, makes you, go back over it, with a finer tooth-comb, until you have to scratch ever orifice (if you meet Nova, your know what I mean!).
A key element of the game that gives it that extra bit of speciality from the other games, is that fact that it is so big, and oh, I mention that the game is "just so darn big" right.
With the limitless freedom now expressed, it is easy to say that you can wonder around in either 1st or 3rd person, with the choice of good or evil and blast your enemies away with the "cinematic combat presentation". It’s fun just to watch yay enemies get killed, over and over! The Cert is 18 and states that it contains "very strong bloody violence and gore" and they’re not wrong. Also let me make it clear, whilst playing this game in a darkened room, it has the ability to have you on the edge of your seat, I literally found it hard to relax (not for the faint hearted).
Fallout 3 has differed from its predecessors but has done us proud. We bare the game superbly on our shelves at home, to pick up again, even when we have completed it (which is rare, in its own right). Nevertheless, its action packed, fast paced, bibliology of dialogue, array of guns and other weapons and cinematic view.
Fallout 3: Factfile
It is a shame Interplay evidently filed for bankruptcy, before seeing Fallout 3 on release. However, Bethesda game studios, bought the games licence to develop and it might have been the correct thing to do. Since they torn and stripped the game to its bare bones, and re-written the whole Fallout Handbook, (and with the help of Liam Neeson and Ron Perlman as Narrators), the games got a head start in remaining at the top. For all you Fallout fanatics check out Black Isle Studios, free fallout 3 release - which is very much like fallout 2? It is hard to argue that Fallout 3's new look is better, and that a 4th will mean global game domination?
Gaj-it Verdict:
Graphics: 9/10
Gameplay: 9/10
Features: 9/10
Value: 8/10
Total 9/10
Watch out for those Zombies!