Fallout 3 reviews round-up #38

[Per]

ZTGameDomain, 9.5.<blockquote>Not only does this shortage lead to some tense moments of gameplay, I also found it adding another unexpected wrinkle to the gameplay. I found that constantly being short on Bottlecaps (currency in Fallout 3), Stimpacks, food, or drinkable water made the moral decisions in the game even more difficult. It's easy to tell someone offering you 100 caps for a job "That's alright, keep it. I just want to help". It makes you feel all warm and fuzzy inside. That is until you realize that you're 98 caps short of the money you need to repair your favorite weapon or purchase much needed supplies. The weight of that sacrifice starts to push a little harder than you're used to.</blockquote>games xtreme, 9.5.<blockquote>Now finally I’ve been able to sink in some serious quality time with the game and I can report that Fallout 3, for me, was a huge success and is a massive open-ended beautifully crafted first/3rd person rpg with atomic levels of atmosphere and an almost insane level of detail.</blockquote>The UberReview blog.<blockquote>I have put in a few solid sessions on Fallout 3 over the past week and I have to say that the game is a rare treat. It has a gripping storyline, great visuals and the morality twist makes for a very interesting change from the norm.</blockquote>Games On Net, 4/5.<blockquote>Knowing that turn based combat is not very palatable to the masses, Bethesda has opted to take combat in a new direction. Players can fight in real time, but I advise that you don’t, because it’s bloody awful; enemies move around like headless chickens, so it’s difficult to get a shot in, the hitboxing is all over the place, and the enemies just don’t seem to react to being shot. It really just feels like Oblivion with a gun. Fortunately, combat is complimented by the Vault-Tec Assisted Targeting system (or VATS).</blockquote>Forever Geek, 9/10.<blockquote>Whichever system you buy Fallout 3 on, believe the hype. I never normally say that, but this is truly an epic game in a number of ways…ranging from the many ways in which you can choose how to play the game all the way through to the superb atmosphere provided throughout.</blockquote>Fun or Frustration? blog, with a separate spoilery plot review.<blockquote>And so your character is stuck making a stupid binary decision, and all the while you’re staring at the game in utter disbelief, wondering why the most sensible option was explicitly left out. As a result, instead of an emotionally charged, dramatic ending, the immersion of the game is lost as you swear at the in-game characters for being locked into a ridiculous, easily-defused situation simply by virtue of bad plot design. Which means that, for an otherwise enjoyable game, the endgame is wholly unsatisfying and does not measure up to the caliber of the other gameplay elements.</blockquote>theGUE video review is a bit drawly but has a couple of funny moments.<blockquote>There's one particular place I don't want to ruin for anybody that hasn't played the game yet, but you find this Amazonian woman, so not only did the human race survive, but the Amazonians did as well, which is nice, means, you know, more diversity, you know, for, ah, you know, parties?</blockquote>

 

[Ixyroth]

It's definitely a good idea to reserve judgement until one actually finishes the game. The whole sequence of events at the end dropped my opinion of the game from simply mediocre to bad.

 

[Leon]

I agree, the ending of the main quest was simply wretched.

 

[Rainstorm]

From the "Fun or frustration" blog:
"I decided to pick up a copy of the original Fallout game from gog.com. And, I have to say, if you like retro isometric graphics, as well as the feeling that comes from completely failing at a game over and over and over, then this is the game for you. Honestly, it kind of felt like a game where you walk down the street, and the game throws spitballs at you for the first couple of blocks. And then, when you decide to turn the corner and venture somewhere new, the game drops an anvil on your head. In fact, no matter what scenario or setting I use, it always ends up the same - my character, in a desert, being slowly surrounded and hacked to death by radioactive isometric praying mantises."

This doesn't remind me of the first time I played FO, I got it as a coverdisc on a gaming magazine and being the person I am I was looking for a good game in the RPG genre. (at the time a genre I hadn't found a good game within, I'm still looking for a good strategy game to make me think that it' a genre I'll always stay away from, which I did with cRPG's 'til I found FO)

I was frustrated with the "Level" sign on my screen, thinking to myself "Yes, I know I have levelled up, remove the stupid sign" and played on and beat the game.
The next time I played it and saw the level sign again I got a bit mad and managed to press the "char" button and realized that I had completely missed that you got some points to spend on your character, to make it better and more customized.

Sure, it took a bunch of reloads to finish the first game but it was still beatable with my original char and the only improvement made to it was what the game gave out on levelling, which in my book really shows just how great the game was and just how it - apart from other "RPG's" - allows you to play the game as a character rather than hunt for XP and making your char. into some form of cartoon version of a hero, some form of Hulk or Superman.