As a long time Fallout Fan I somehow feel the arrogant need to have my say before the inevitable deluge of Impressions and reviews, so here I go...
I've been with the series from the beginning, I mean the real beginning, I was excited when I read about in my friends PCGamer mags, I loved the demo to death, I devoured the first entry and #2 is one of my favorite games of all time. I played (but did not love) Tactics and thankfully dodged Brotherhood of Steel entirely and have been an avid followed of No Mutants Allowed. Hence I was VERY excited when I heard that one of my favorite developers Bethesda (I played Daggerfall and Arena way before Morrowind and Oblivion came out, HA!) had picked up the franchise. Recently this excitement turned to reservation as I worried over one of my favorite franchises being handled by someone not of the original crew but developer diaries and the shear passion of Bethesda has given me hope.
Now, after 10 or so years of waiting I finally have the product and was able to spend a good 5 hours with the beast and I was both elated and slightly disapointed. This is first and foremost a "Bethesda Game" and lacks the Black Isle feel in every way possible. This is not however 100% bad, Bethesda has taken this game and made it their own, for better or worse.
I shall start with my outright negatives. I hate the color pallete and the overt realism. Bethesda unfortunately lack the sardonic and satirical eye that permeated the first two entires and has given us a game drenched in realistic apocalypticism and brown. Oh hell is this game brown, and slightly green and very very red. I am disapointed in this respect as I would have preferred a more sundrenched wasteland akin to what I had seen in the previous games, but this may have something to do with the shift in setting, from The West Coast to The Capital Wastes of DC. As well this game lacks the catchy tunes of the original, replacing it with desolate quietness. This hurt the game for me as I never played Fallout for a realisitic nuclear wasteland experience, I played it because I loved PA Fiction and because it was a fun (and funny) game. Thankfully however, this is the only true problem I have noticed with the game.
Now on to the pros. For one, Fallout 3 posesses the most immersive and entertaining character creation/tutorial sequence I have ever seen, following your life in the vault from your birth to your adult life when you escape into the wasteland. This was what I expected from Fallout, plenty of satire, great retrofuturism and some really fun dialogue choices. As well Bethesda have removed some of the clunkier aspects of the Special System, they grant you more skill points and a perk every level, allowing you to design your character more as you will. Additionally Bethesda has taken my favorite aspect of Oblivion, the utter usefullness of every skill in the game, and translated it well to a Sci-Fi setting. As well they have done a smashing job with the combat, and Fallout 3 now has my favorite Real Time Combat System out of any RPG (and this game IS an RPG, and it is NOT just Oblivion with guns). My only gripe is that when you take action with VATS the slowdown scenes take a split second too long to end, allowing some enemies to get good hits in on you before you have a chance to evade. But this is nitpicking.
Story/Dialogue wise this feels much more like Fallout than Oblivion, which is a definate plus. You have traditional dialogue trees rather than that lame speak game from Oblivion and many of your dialogue choices are appropriate to the feel of the first two games. The story starts off with a bang, but I haven't progressed that far as of yet.
One bug I noticed was a strange graphical glitch which occured when I accidentally panned my view too fast, as the display splintered into graphical shards and I needed to reload, thankfully this hasn't happened again.
Anyway in closing, Fallout 3 feels like the best possible sequel we could have gotten from Bethesda, unfortunately they didn't go as high above themselves as I would have hoped. However I have a feeling that Fallout 4 will "feel" like the game its supposed to, as I will have gotten used to the new realistic direction and brown color pallete at that point. Other than those few, I have no complaints, play the game, it's brilliant, not perfect, but brilliant none the less.
I've been with the series from the beginning, I mean the real beginning, I was excited when I read about in my friends PCGamer mags, I loved the demo to death, I devoured the first entry and #2 is one of my favorite games of all time. I played (but did not love) Tactics and thankfully dodged Brotherhood of Steel entirely and have been an avid followed of No Mutants Allowed. Hence I was VERY excited when I heard that one of my favorite developers Bethesda (I played Daggerfall and Arena way before Morrowind and Oblivion came out, HA!) had picked up the franchise. Recently this excitement turned to reservation as I worried over one of my favorite franchises being handled by someone not of the original crew but developer diaries and the shear passion of Bethesda has given me hope.
Now, after 10 or so years of waiting I finally have the product and was able to spend a good 5 hours with the beast and I was both elated and slightly disapointed. This is first and foremost a "Bethesda Game" and lacks the Black Isle feel in every way possible. This is not however 100% bad, Bethesda has taken this game and made it their own, for better or worse.
I shall start with my outright negatives. I hate the color pallete and the overt realism. Bethesda unfortunately lack the sardonic and satirical eye that permeated the first two entires and has given us a game drenched in realistic apocalypticism and brown. Oh hell is this game brown, and slightly green and very very red. I am disapointed in this respect as I would have preferred a more sundrenched wasteland akin to what I had seen in the previous games, but this may have something to do with the shift in setting, from The West Coast to The Capital Wastes of DC. As well this game lacks the catchy tunes of the original, replacing it with desolate quietness. This hurt the game for me as I never played Fallout for a realisitic nuclear wasteland experience, I played it because I loved PA Fiction and because it was a fun (and funny) game. Thankfully however, this is the only true problem I have noticed with the game.
Now on to the pros. For one, Fallout 3 posesses the most immersive and entertaining character creation/tutorial sequence I have ever seen, following your life in the vault from your birth to your adult life when you escape into the wasteland. This was what I expected from Fallout, plenty of satire, great retrofuturism and some really fun dialogue choices. As well Bethesda have removed some of the clunkier aspects of the Special System, they grant you more skill points and a perk every level, allowing you to design your character more as you will. Additionally Bethesda has taken my favorite aspect of Oblivion, the utter usefullness of every skill in the game, and translated it well to a Sci-Fi setting. As well they have done a smashing job with the combat, and Fallout 3 now has my favorite Real Time Combat System out of any RPG (and this game IS an RPG, and it is NOT just Oblivion with guns). My only gripe is that when you take action with VATS the slowdown scenes take a split second too long to end, allowing some enemies to get good hits in on you before you have a chance to evade. But this is nitpicking.
Story/Dialogue wise this feels much more like Fallout than Oblivion, which is a definate plus. You have traditional dialogue trees rather than that lame speak game from Oblivion and many of your dialogue choices are appropriate to the feel of the first two games. The story starts off with a bang, but I haven't progressed that far as of yet.
One bug I noticed was a strange graphical glitch which occured when I accidentally panned my view too fast, as the display splintered into graphical shards and I needed to reload, thankfully this hasn't happened again.
Anyway in closing, Fallout 3 feels like the best possible sequel we could have gotten from Bethesda, unfortunately they didn't go as high above themselves as I would have hoped. However I have a feeling that Fallout 4 will "feel" like the game its supposed to, as I will have gotten used to the new realistic direction and brown color pallete at that point. Other than those few, I have no complaints, play the game, it's brilliant, not perfect, but brilliant none the less.
