Review: Fallout 3

Still catching up. This one will be hard to find the negatives because I was overwhelming pleased with this game...

The positive three, the negative two.


The Positive
(1) Excellent Story-- If you know me, and if you know this blog, you know the story is the centerpiece of a solid game. I can appreciate a game like Tetris, but to me what separates a game like Fallout 3 from Tetris is the story. It has an immersive quality that allows the player to "read" a game and, yes, at times learn (saith James Paul Gee).

On the story side, Fallout 3 does excellent. The back story is intriguing and the main plot is gripping. And yet, there are number of side plots and the ability to self-explore. Here's a brief overview of the story:

Fallout 3 takes place in a post-apocalyptic, atompunk, retro-futurist Washington D.C., northeast Virginia and parts of Maryland in the year 2277 after a world war over resources which ended in nuclear holocaust in 2077. The player character (PC) lives with their widower father, James (voiced by Liam Neeson), in Vault 101 (one of several fallout shelters in the D.C. area). One day, the PC wakes up to find that James has left the Vault and ventured into the Capital Wasteland, as the area in and around D.C. is now known. The Vault Overseer becomes suspicious and orders his men to kill the PC, forcing the player to go out into the Capital Wasteland where he/she must follow James' trail and learn why he left. Along the way, the player will encounter various factions, including the Brotherhood of Steel, a techno-religious organization with roots in the U.S. military from the American West Coast, the Outcasts, a group of Brotherhood of Steel exiles, and the Enclave, the elitist and genocidal remnants of the U.S. government.

(2) Realistic Environment-- The creation of a sort of alternate reality, '50 DC is ingenious. From the metro stops, to the posters on the wall, there's a sense of reality to the world. One of the more fun parts of the game, as a person who lives in Washington DC, is seeing how different areas of the city are portrayed. The National Mall is of course very well done (complete with the stop at Smithsonian) and Georgetown is just plan creepy. My wife and drove through Georgetown shortly after playing the game and recognized many of the buildings on Wisconsin.

(3) The Side-Quests-- Many times the side quests in a game feel tacked on and irrelevant, but in this game side-quests originally available or available through downloadable content helped unveil more of the back story to world. (With the possible exception of the alien one).

The Negative:
(1) The Violence-- Normally I'm not too sensitive to violence, but this was a case in which the violence really affected me. I was a fan of Oblivion (Bethesda Games' previous big hit), but there really is a difference between sword violence and gun violence. Maybe it's the fact that instead of killing mainly goblins and ogres, you're killing humans (err...decaying humans) in Fallout--but whatever the reason the violence felt REAL. I found it hard to stomach. As soon as I could, I found an electric sword and alien rifle. It makes the violence a bit less real, and for me, a bit more enjoyable. Go alien rifles!

(2) The Bugs-- The game froze up on me quite a few times. This was also a problem I enjoyed with Oblivion. For whatever reason, Bethesda Games struggles with bugs and there's nothing worse than working through a quest only to lose everything because the game froze.

Shortly before the game's release, IGN posted a review of the game citing numerous bugs and crashes in the PlayStation 3 release. The game also contained a flaw causing the game to freeze and the screen to blur when friends signed out of and into the PlayStation Network. The IGN review was edited shortly thereafter, removing all references to the PS3 version's flaws, causing controversy in the PlayStation communities. In reviewing the PlayStation 3 Game of the Year edition, reviewers found that most flaws remained, citing occasional freezes, several animation and scripting issues, and other flaws requiring a restart of the game. Even IGN recursively cited flaws with the original release, as well as the Game of the Year edition, calling it "a fantastic game", but warning players to "be aware that you might have to deal with some crashes and bugs.

Overall it's a great play and frankly one of the best games I've played in years.
Grade: A-