If Fallout 3 could be summed up in one word, it would be "disappointing". Give me room to use MORE than one, and... well, you'll get this review!
Fallout 3 is a game that many people have been waiting to get their grimy paws on for over a decade. Yes, a decade. Eat that, Duke Nukem Forever! (Alright, those fans have been, and are STILL waiting even longer...) From being put on hold due to budget cuts, to being indefinitely ceased when the entire group of programmers behind it got shut down, several years back, many a Fallout fan has held out hope that some day, one day, the third in the trilogy would appear!
But before I go any further, let's be clear on Fallout 3's place in the series. It is NOT the 3rd game, by any means, whatsoever. After Fallout 1 and 2, fans were treated to another game that took a different, strategic approach, set in the Fallout universe: Fallout Tactics. This was an awesome game, but it lacked much of the fantastic RPG elements, such as dialog choices, sandbox-type quest arrangement, and it was almost entirely linear, from start to finish. Despite that, Fallout Tactics was, in my opinion, a great game to play. And still is! Following that might be the greatest shame in all of the Fallout franchise: Brotherhood of Steel. This last-gen console RPG (and it was "RPG" in name ONLY) was rife with flaws, lousy gimmicks, and suffered from extremely low replay value. In addition to that, hardcore fans would seethe in rage at the innumerable attacks on Fallout canon, making it horrible to play, experience, or even read about!
In the ashes of Brotherhood of Steel, 4 years later, comes Fallout 3! In the wake of such a tragic bombshell, this title has ONLY room to improve. So, from that perspective, this game has done nothing short of fulfilling the emptiness in our souls that many of us Fallout fans were left with, after BOS. But that's if you compare it to the LAST Fallout game. With it's title, Fallout 3, comes certain expectations to live up to. For starters, most won't consider the 2 Fallout titles that came between it, and it's sequential predecessors. They'll just think about 1 and 2. Well, rightfully so, it IS Fallout 3 after all!
Fallout 3 arrives on the scene, following in an epic series, set in a surreal, dark, yet morbidly-humorous backdrop of an environment, where your choices mattered and came back to haunt you later on. At the very least, Bethesda TRIED to replicate these features. And in some cases, they did well to preserve the old Fallout charm. Where they failed, however, lies in the very gameplay mechanics that they touted were so magnificent! With the inclusion of eating/drinking radiated food to restore health, Bethesda wanted to instill in the players a sort of "weight" to their desicions. "Patch myself up a little here and there, but get a small dose of radiation in the process?" Not knowing what lies ahead, many would make that painful choice much quicker than you'd expect. In fact, TOO quick. At the start of the experience, you WILL weigh your choices. You WILL stop and consider your rad count versus your HP, and which seems more pressing. You WILL feel bad (or, if you're that sort of sick bastard, delighted!) when you receive a deduction to your karma score. But in very short time, all that wears thin, and all that's left is a shallow experience, with a few, negligible quirks here and there.
The game never manages to arrive at any point that I could describe as "challenging". For hardcore players, "challenging" isn't enough, they want, crave- nay, they NEED "HARD". I would have said that "Impossible Mode" on Dead Space was a slight exaggeration in naming, but that it was a fun challenge, regardless. With only 3 difficulty settings to choose from, "Hard" difficulty in Fallout 3 never offered any challenge above the previous 2. During my first playthrough of the game, I believed that my choice in armor was among the many painful choices I'd have to make. Unlike Fallout 1 or 2, armor gives your character various skill boosts, here and there. A jumpsuit might enhance your repair skill slightly, while a pre-war business suit would enhance your charismatic sway over people. But wear these out in the field in the heat of battle? Surely not! But then again, by the end of the game, you actually take into consideration the stats that certain armor offers OVER it's damage resistance. Case in point, Power Armor. When I had to choose between a combat armor with good damage resistance, and excellent stats for a sniper (more chance to critical, and more action points, anyone?) and Power Armor, the classic Fallout icon, which (for once) gave me a deduction to my agility in order to reward me for enhancing my strength, I bitterly chose to stick with my combat armor. The choice was hard, but I stuck by my decision... Well, it WAS hard, at first.
In very short order, I found myself (to quote Yahtzee) "swimming in meds", so my choices had no weight, nor consequences to them, at all! I had thousands of caps to pay any doctor to rid me of any chemical addiction, and dozens, if not hundreds, of said drugs, meds, and anti-rad chems to pump myself full of at the drop of a hat, whenever I needed it. By my third playthrough, I decided to go crazy, and I stripped my level 3 character naked, and ran about Megaton, wrecking utter havoc and malevolence, as I proceeded to systematically eradicate the citizens of the town, with my bare hands! I managed to take out the town sheriff with his assault rifle with relative ease, and my slaughter was cut short ONLY when the town's ex-raider citizen (and potential companion of yours) filled me full of holes quicker than I could heal myself away, while remaining practically invulnerable to my efforts. Besides this ONE character's intervention, my massacre of Megaton went almost flawlessly! And once more, I did it with my freaking hands! NAKED!
Hard? Fallout 3 is anything BUT...
