Fallout 3 is the first game I’ve been determined to play through to some sort of ending since BioShock, and unlike BioShock, this game is not a six-hour venture that even I can knock off in a week. Oh no. Bethesda makes video games like Oppenheimer makes bombs: glorious, expansive, and filled with a lifetime of pain for the consumers. Fallout 3 will be taking me straight through Halloween, right through Thanksgiving and into Christmas, and but for the grace of God do I not succumb to the dismal horrors presented every second in the Wasteland.
I can’t even adequately explain how depressing this game is, so let’s start off as to whether or not it’s fucking awesome. Here’s a quick Fallout 3 FAQ:
Q: Is Fallout 3, the third Fallout game, completely fucking awe-
A: IMMA ADDICTED TO STIMS
Q: …
A: I have a negATIVE ONE TO INT AND CHAR WHOops
Q: … Can you attach a screenshot that shows some of the —
A: STIMS
That screenshot doesn’t even do the combat system justice. Bethseda have outdone themselves with the thing they are calling “V.A.T.S.” — essentially, you enter this mode to target some of the freaks in the Wasteland, and then the game adopts a sort of slow motion, pseudocinematronic delight of the camera, to show what should be the absolute horrors of war, but what instead comes off as the greatest combat engine that’s ever existed.
I can’t even write straight right now. I’m just filled with all the cool things in this game – how you can detonate a nuclear weapon in one of the cities, how this is the first game where “repairing” a weapon doesn’t make me want to get the game disc in a state where it itself needs to be “repaired,” how one time my player was shooting a Raider in the chest with an assault rifle, and she JUMPED IN THE AIR to get the angle right as she unloaded a burst of weaponry into the poor bastard.
I’ve purchased Wasteland, Fallout 1, Fallout 2, the Brotherhood of Steel games and so on and so forth, but the most fun I’ve ever had was actually with the original (Wasteland). I actually think that it is just as true to Wasteland as it is (or isn’t, according to many of the posters at No Mutants Allowed) to Fallout. the VATS system really does seem to translate the original turn-based combat of Wasteland… and I love it.
Really, the nice little details in this game have me hooked. The unit of currency is bottle caps. There is a healing object in the game called Nuka Cola. If you drink some cola… a bottle cap is added to your inventory. I just love that someone thought of that, went, “a-ha!” and they were able to put it into the game.
The intro to Fallout 3 is terrible, but once you get past that, it really does pick up. The graphics are drop-dead gorgeous, and it has a perfect balance of ammo, money and enemies. They also resisted the monster closet issue that plagued Doom 3 – when you secure an area in Fallout 3, it seems to stay secure.
I do apologize for not updating my website the last week… but honestly, this is where I was.