Sorry it’s been so long since my last post. I was sidetracked by a combination of midterms, a research paper, and an immediate addiction to Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim (which I will eventually write about). Looks like it’s time for me to talk about the game that got me into the Fallout series: Fallout 3.
This was the first numbered game in the Fallout series to not be developed by Black Isle Studios or be published by Interplay. Black Isle had folded years before, but not before starting work on their own version of Fallout 3, code-named Van Buren, as well as releasing a demo. This was very different from the Fallout 3 that most people have played in virtually every way, but a lot of the story content was repurposed for Fallout: New Vegas later on. The Fallout 3 that came out in 2008 was made by Bethesda, who are also known for producing the Elder Scrolls series, with Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion being one of the most hyped games to come out around the launch of the Xbox 360. This meant that this Fallout would be very different: instead of being a turn-based game where stats were everything and the player had total freedom, Fallout 3 was a real-time game where stats were everything and the player had total freedom.
Wait, that actually sounds pretty similar. A better way to put it would be that the first two Fallout games looked like this:
While Fallout 3 looked like this:
Yes, many complained that Fallout had turned into another FPS. Fortunately, that was absolutely false. If anything, it was more like Oblivion with guns, which is valid because they took many gameplay mechanics from Oblivion and mixed with old Fallout mechanics. It even runs on the same engine as Oblivion, but looks much better.
The story was also fairly different from previous Fallout games. For starters, it didn’t take place on the West Coast anymore: the whole game took place within Washington D.C. and the surrounding area, including Arlington, Virginia. Your character lived in Vault 101 his entire life, but is forced to flee to the Wasteland outside when his father James (who is voiced by Liam Neeson) has left the Vault, with your character taking the blame from the very controlling Vault Overseer. You end up running into all the old Fallout mainstays during your journey to find your father, including the Super Mutants (who have become even more stupid than in the first game, if that’s possible), the Ghouls (with Feral Ghouls being among the most common enemies in the game), and the Brotherhood of Steel. Naturally, the Enclave joins in as the villainous faction again, being led by the mysterious and oddly affable President John Henry Eden, who is voiced by Malcolm McDowell, better known as Alex from A Clockwork Orange. Yes, I know that it’s odd that they hired a British guy to voice the American President, but Heroes was still big back then, and McDowell had a big role on that show, so Bethesda took advantage of it.
So how does Fallout 3 differ from the previous games, besides looking more like a standard console FPS? Well, Bethesda brought in the item repair system from the Elder Scrolls, but changed things around a bit. Instead of having to use repair hammers to fix items, you just needed to find another of that item and use that up to repair the other item. There were also unique versions of certain weapons and armour, which were generally better than their non-unique counterparts and could be repaired with those common items too. You could use a third-person perspective instead of first-person, but it was useless beyond just looking at your character, since aiming became very difficult. Bethesda compensated for the loss of the turn-based combat by creating the VATS system. VATS (short for Vault-Tec Assisted Targeting System) used the Action Points of the old Fallout games, but did things a bit differently. By pushing a button, time would stop, and your viewpoint would zoom in on an enemy, with different body parts available for selection. Each body part had a different hit rate and would suffer different effects if crippled. You just picked whatever parts you wanted until you knew the enemy would run out of health or you ran out of Action Points, hit the confirm button, and watched the action. Alternatively, you could just shoot manually, but that was boring.
Above: A player who is either getting ready to shoot a Super Mutant or preparing to get his brains splattered by a sledgehammer from the future wielded by a giant yellow moron. With a tire for a shoulder pad.
A lot of old Fallout elements were kept, too. SPECIAL was still around, as were skills, though skills like Outdoorsman and Gambling were taken out. Perks were reworked to fit in with the gameplay changes, and you would get them every level instead of every third level. This meant that by level 20 (the highest level in the base game), you could be a walking tank, especially if you picked up power armour.
The main question is, however, if Fallout 3 is any good. I would have to say that it’s still a very good game, but doesn’t hold up as much when compared to Fallout: New Vegas, which made a lot of improvements. Fallout 3 was a very buggy game, even after patches, and there isn’t much to make it feel really connected to the older Fallout games. Though, considering that many people who bought Fallout 3 had never played the first two, that probably would have been for the best. The main story isn’t that well-written either, and the ending is just plain terrible unless you have the Broken Steel DLC installed. The Brotherhood of Steel is kind of meh here, too: while they’re more likable in this game because they try to help people in Washington, they also come off as more bland, since part of the appeal from before is that they were incredible jackasses who only cared about preserving technology.
There is fortunately quite a bit of good stuff here, too. Wandering through the DC ruins is a real pleasure, and a lot of the landmarks, including the Metro tunnels, are really accurate to their real-life counterparts. You also have an in-game radio that plays old tunes like “I Don’t Want to Set the World on Fire” and “Maybe.” Killing groups of Super Mutants becomes even more fun when you have “Butcher Pete” playing in the background. While most of the companions are bland, Fawkes the Super Mutant, Sergeant RL-3 (who is a Mister Gutsy robot), and Dogmeat are great to have along with you, mostly by virtue of them being incredibly tough and hard-hitting. All the guns are satisfying to use. The two best elements, however, are Liberty Prime and the Fat Man.
The Fat Man is a very special weapon. It fires explosives, but not any regular explosives. It shoots miniature nuclear warheads.
That’s right, the game gives you a man-portable nuclear catapult. Sure, the warheads are really rare, but what other games can boast about letting the player shoot enemies with nukes?
Liberty Prime, on the other hand, is not a usable weapon. He is, in my opinion, the best NPC in the Fallout series. Why? He’s a giant robot that looks like Gort from The Day The Earth Stood Still that shouts out anti-Communist slogans while praising America. He also has laser eyes and throws Fat Man warheads like footballs. Behold:
The best thing to ever happen in Fallout
The only bad thing I can say about Liberty Prime is that he only moves around to kick Enclave ass in the final quest of the game, and can bug out sometimes, forcing you to load your last save again.
Overall, Fallout 3 is great, but after playing New Vegas, it just feels kind of dated.
Tune in next time, when I’ll talk about the DLC for Fallout 3.
Also, please leave comments for me. Constructive criticism is always appreciated.
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