Fallout 3

The third game in the Fallout series, Fallout 3 is a singleplayer action RPG set in a post-apocalyptic Washington DC. Combining the horrific insanity of the Cold War era theory of mutually assured destruction gone terribly wrong, with the kitschy naivety of American 1950s nuclear propaganda, Fallout 3 will satisfy both players familiar with the popular first two games in its series as well as those coming to the franchise for the first time.

• jamie January 30, 2010 360

  ****

  An amazing game, very addictive and the openness of the game play makes it very re-playable. The expansion packs add a whole new dynamic to the game and serve as a good distraction at times from the main storyline. My only problem is that it takes so long to travel anywhere on foot, a vehicle or two would be nice.
  
  Overall, a very god game, I highly recommend it!
  

• Gary Martin October 26, 2009 360

  ****

  After playing on Fallout 3 it can only make you respect Bethesda Game Studios for producing another action role playing classic after their highly acclaimed Elder Scrolls series. You begin the game in Vault 101, a nuclear fallout shelter in the middle of Washington DC. You play as your own created character from birth. You begin your life in the vault and grow up living the vault life not knowing any different. This is until your father (voiced fantastically by Liam Neeson) decides to leave the vault on his own accord for a mysterious reason. Your aim is to find your father in the abandoned nuclear wastelands which are crawling with dangerous mutants with and civilians trying to survive. The world is huge and is fully open to explore and go where you want to go. The game produces all you would expect from a Role Playing game, although instead of the usual swords and shields from The Elder Scrolls series they have decided to swap it this time round opting for more projectile weapons adding the prospect of a third person or first person shooter. The game also provides an excellent story to create the back bone of the game. There is a total of 50hrs+. It doesn't really have many problems and the sound and graphics are beautiful to only add more positives. 9.5/10

• Matthew Harris May 17, 2009 360

  ****

  Story: Fallout 3 tells the tale of a world set 200 years after a nuclear fallout. You play the role of a young vault-dweller, born deep within a shelter designed to keep inhabitants alive and safe from the post-apocalyptic world outside. As you flash-forward, catching glimpses of yourself growing up, you have the ability to shape the world around you with important choices and multiple-choice dialogues with the other inhabitants. When you find yourself as a fully grown adult, a life-changing event takes place that will send you on a journey to the outside world for the first time. While giving nothing away, I will say the story is immensely engaging to the player, as they get to shape the character they are playing.
  
  Graphics: Fallout 3 pays a great deal of attention to detail, from the environments to the people and creatures you will encounter. Everything has a polished look to it. This is one of the prettiest games out for Xbox 360, no doubt about it, and most people will agree that it is amazing to have these great graphics, as well as a good storyline and expansive environment to explore.
  
  Gameplay: Gameplay can take place in either 3rd or 1st person, granting the player the choice to switch at will. Exploration and combat is a key feature of the game, but the player can chose exactly how he/she goes about this. For instance, will he/she be a long-range fighter, or will they like to get their hands dirty by fist-fighting every enemy? Accompanying the engaging real-time combat is the VATS system. This unprecedented feature allows the user to pause the combat and select the body part they wish to attack, relying on the accuracy stat the user can build up. While fallout 3 can almost be called an adventure game, it is also an RPG at its core, allowing the user to level up, spend experience points and buy weapons and armour for their character along the way. The amount of customisation will astound most players, letting them choose the sex of the character, their base statistics, as well as hair colour, hair style and fine details of the face. Another key feature is the perk system, which allows the user to pick a "perk" each level that can affect a number of aspects of the game, from accuracy with certain weapons to making enemies explode when shot. The "karma" system is also present in fallout 3, which dictates how evil or good the character is based on their actions and conversations with others. Being good or evil, or even neutral, can have benefits and downsides for the player, and can even affect the main storyline and ending of the game.
  
  Replay ability: With the amount of customisation available to the user, they may find themselves playing the game several times over to try out many different styles of play.
  
  Overall: I would give this game 9/10 as the only downside present are the loading times, which can reach up to 10 seconds. All in all, it is a very enjoyable experience and easily the best RPG out for the 360. If you liked Oblivion, get this game!

• Joe Stevens March 10, 2009 PS3

  ****

  Right, Fallout 3, where shall I begin? Perhaps by saying that this has got to be the most detailed, gruesome, enthralling and ambitious singleplayer videogame that I have ever played.
  
  The game's story begins with you being born into Vault101 and greeted by your in game Father (fantastically voiced by Liam Neeson) who gives you the opportunity to customize your character's appearance and attributes. Your appearance is edited by your in-game Father giving you a machine that shows you what you will look like once you have grown. Your attributes are altered from a baby book called S.P.E.C.I.A.L which you find in your baby pen. These are great examples of how the game makes you feel a bond between your character and yourself by never taking you out of the experience with game menus as such. You soon grow up (within about 15mins of more customization options) and are awoken on your birthday in which you are given a PipBoy300, your personal computer which is strapped to your wrist. Your PipBoy is fundamental in all activities you partake in outside of your sheltered Vault. You heal, set quest markers, choose weapons, customize weapons and much more all from the screen of your PipBoy300.
  
  I won't spoil the story so I will give you a very vague story outline. Once you are born you go through about 1hr of game time in your Vault and then your Father mysteriously disappears from the Vault and there is a major riot in your residence. You then escape the vault, as you are under suspicion in helping your Father escape, and enter the magnificent world of Fallout 3's wasteland. From here you pretty much have complete free will over what you want to do next. You can investigate the wondrous wasteland environment, search for fellow wastelanders, look for safety, find food and much more. You have complete freedom over deciding to follow the main storyline, or just wondering the desolate post-apocalyptic Washington environment. The main storyline should take you approximately 20hrs to complete, but this is by no means the end of your fun. You can choose, like I did, to search for a fantastic array of side missions which can change your in game karma level (what people think of you). For example there are missions which involve finding various inhabitants of the capital wasteland and enslaving them, this would give you negative karma, or missions such as finding an old woman's violin and returning it to her (this may sound boring but is fantastic fun when the violin is in a vault full of mutated creatures and booby traps) which would give you positive karma. Karma does have repercussions in the game, such as players with bad karma will be hunted by self appointed law enforcers and players with good karma will be hunted by the evil equivalent of law enforcement Talon Company Mercenaries. There are literally just too many side missions to mention in this review. They really give you the sense of immersion and make you feel as though you are living in a real world, full of deception, pain, satisfaction and meaning. This is where Fallout 3 really shines as a title and truly stands out from the midst of other role playing games currently available on next generation consoles. A very small piece of advice, yet extremely important, is to save regularly. This is because once you complete the game the game ends and does not let you continue from where you left off. A very big problem with a very simple solution, so do not let this put you off buying the game.
  
  Now on to the gameplay of Fallout 3. To be honest, Fallout 3 does not have the best shooting mechanics there are, however it realises this and does not try to be played like a Call of Duty game. To help with this slight problem Bethesda have created the almost perfect solution for it called the V.A.T.S system. V.A.T.S is an automatic aiming system, accessed with a push of a button. Simply put, it pauses time, lets you target a specific body part, and then shoots at it automatically (not always hitting though). You only have a certain amount of action points to spend in VATS which helps prevent the game from becoming a breeze, but it never gets old seeing someone's head get blown off in a pile of bloody goo, and best of all, in slow motion :).
  
  Finally onto the graphics of Fallout 3. Up close, I don't think that Fallout 3 is the best looking game available, especially when compared to the likes of Killzone 2 and Gears of War 2. Some textures are low res and the face models and animations aren't very impressive. However I would still give Fallout 3 a low 9 out of 10 due to the sheer scope and scale of the world and how detailed and realistic the buildings and environment is in the game. You can stand at the top of a tower and literally see for miles around you of destroyed Washington. It is simply breathtaking for a game to be able to do this when so many games fail miserably at giving you the impression of a large scale environment.
  
  Fallout 3 has its fair share of problems, some poor character models and average shooting (not including the VATS system) but it delivers on nearly all other levels. You really have to play this game to realise the sheer scale of the world and how much effort has been put in to each side mission and conversation. I would recommend Fallout 3 to any serious gamer who is looking for a deep and immersive game with adult themes. The story is not for the light hearted and the combat truly is gruesome. With that said I would give Fallout3 9.2 / 10.
  

• Andy Atkinson December 30, 2008 360

  ****

  You start off in a vault as a child and from there you begin your journey. There are lots of customization options in fallout, which will affect the way in which you play the game. Choices that are made early on, with your skill etc, will make a big impact on your experience.
  Fallout 3 makes you feel like a part of it's world from the beginning, you feel as though the decisions you make will affect the other people in the game and the way that they see you. In terms of graphics the draw distance in D.C is staggering, when you first exit the vault and see the wastelands you will think "wow!", however some close up textures aren't up to scratch by today's standards, however, its easy to look past this. The gameplay is one of its best features, the FPS element of this game is fiddly and you're going to want to be using VATS as much as you can, VATS (Vault-tex Assisted Targetting System) is one of the most addictive and interesting gameplay mechanic's this year. You choose the body part you want to aim for and depending on the percentage of hit and your skills, you will hit or miss.
  The story is one you're going to want to experience, and outside of the story there's so much of Washington D.C to experience and numerous side-quest. Finally, what's even more promising is that once you've been and enjoyed all that Fallout 3 has to offer (and trust me that's alot) you can if you want decide to purchase the 360 and PC exclusive DLC due early 2009.
  
  Graphics: 9
  Gameplay: 10
  Story: 9
  Sound: 10
  Lifespan: 10

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