Difficulty:

Hard

Time Spent:

10 Hours or Less

The Bottom Line:

"Total letdown"

Positive
+ A huge open desolate wasteland to explore without any restrictions
+ Rich visuals, picturing the destroyed States
+ A substantial variety of weapons and armors to use
+ The ability to pick up any item is simply exhilarating

Negative
- Completely unspectacular and unsatisfying combat
- The map is completely useless

Fallout 3 is a journey in a desolated wasteland in which the player has the freedom to explore the game world and make his own decisions. Back in 2008, these kinds of options were rare and such variety was unseen in a video game. When I first played Fallout 3 on the PC, high system requirements made it impossible to play Fallout 3 further. Years later, Fallout 3 is my second PS3 game, and it is almost what I had thought it was; a completely unsatisfying, occasionally frustrating but an unforgettable journey in this lonely world.

It is the year 2277, in a post-nuclear destroyed world populated with destroyed cities and mutated creatures. It is not a hospitable world. The freedom of choice of Fallout 3 starts from the beginning of the story, from the moment you are born. You choose your name, gender and how you will be looking in the future, and the initial hour or so follows your up-bringing along with your caring father till the day you leave the Vault where you have lived all your life in search for your father. The experience in Fallout 3 will vary from player to player, depending on the choses they make throughout the game, but the main story is interesting and incredibly open, allowing you to place at your own pace; whether you just want to randomly discover forgotten places, take a few side-quests, continue he main story or just kill a few bad guys, it is all up to you. The morale system allows you to be either a good or a bad guy, depending on your actions and dialogue choses. If you kill citizens, you gain bad karma. If you help, you gain good karma. It is as simple as that.

Fallout 3 is not a standard first-person shooter. It is a first-person shooter mixed with RPG elements, something similar to Oblivion between the lines. And that is Fallout 3's curse. The shooting is poor and ultimately not engaging at all compared to big-budget shooters. The shooting lacks any form of impact and power with most weapons. It is sometimes hit-and-miss and it is only the V.A.T.S. system that gives the combat some flavor. With this system, you can target specific enemy body parts as time stops, and shoot automatically. This is partly the only engaging part about standard shooting in Fallout 3, allowing some good angles about the bullets piercing the enemy. Though it sometimes feel as if the V.A.T.S. system is chopping up the pace. This is also hit-and-miss. The melee on the other hand is more effective, but still not a replacement for the broken gunplay. Despite the variety of guns available, most lack punch, and about half of the enemies you will encounter will come at you, making melee more effective.

Looting is what Fallout 3 does best. It is the ultimate satisfaction to enter some random building and take everything in sight, from a worthless empty bottle of wine to some valuable (and scarce) ammo. This is something most FPS lack, entering a room just for the sake of progressing through that room. Fallout 3 is different. You can also pick loot off dead enemies, including taking the enemy's clothing. The exploration is immense, as all the Capital Wasteland is open from the moment you step out of Vault 101. What you do is entirely up to you and there are a ton of lost locations scattered throughout the map waiting for you to discover. This kind of freedom gives variety to Fallout 3, allowing players to play at their own pace. Subsequently, this may lead to some unbalanced enemy encounters. Strong enemies will intrude on the fun of free exploration in certain locations, and the weak gunplay ensures most tough encounters are not so much fun to deal with. The map does not help in any way either. Due to how it is, it is difficult to see ways to go through all the rubble, leaving you stuck more often than not. There is no quick traveling to new locations, so it is a lot of walking. The game uses a leveling up system to improve your current skills and perks, making you think at what you want to excel at. You also increase your ability to pickpocket, better use of melee and such and the many quests scattered around help you increase your states, aside from being fun diversions.

The game uses the pip-boy menu as a game menu. When you were 10, this was given you as a member of the Vault. You can control the amount of items you have (where you can carry more when you increase your strength), view map and seeing your states. The pip-boy's activation stops the game, like a normal menu, allowing you to quickly change weapons. The scarcity of ammo, especially in the beginning may force you to use more melee than you want to. To boot, there are no damage indicators, making it a hassle to track who is shooting from where, and some enemies can successfully blend (not on purpose though) in the environment. Count in the fact that you will be fighting mutated cockroaches, mutated rats and other sort of ugly creatures.

The vision of destroyed cities and disastrous landscapes are no strangers to first-person shooters, but Fallout 3 successfully uses this aspect in creating an enormous, lonely world. The vast majority of the people you will meet reside in towns and consequence to that you meet very few people outside these. Most of the time you will travel on foot, occasionally discovering a new location that varies in level design. While a bit outdated in 2012, Fallout 3 looks great for its age. As for the sound part, it is rather mixed. Sound effects are rather below average especially for a shooter, and the soundtrack comes off as nothing special. Though the game is fully voiced, and that is some good voice acting.

Admittedly, Fallout 3 puts a lot of good ideas together. The setting and moral choices are excellent, but the game falls down to its knees in execution. As part first-person shooter and an RPG, the game fails whereas the likes of The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion (though not a shooter) had succeeded. The V.A.T.S. system is too random and inefficient to make up for the shooting, but the amount of loot and exploration certainly shed some light of hope on Fallout 3, albeit this is certainly not a game you would recommend to just about anyone.

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Graphics = 8.1
Quite great looking even today. The atmosphere of the desolate wasteland resounds all throughout the game. Some ugly and dated facial expressions.

Sound = 7.3
Disappointing sound effects for a shooter, the rest is good though.

Presentation = 6.5
Some bugs, rare freezing and other technical issues. It is a big game so it is to be expected. It has a ton of good ideas.

Gameplay = 6.2
As a first-person shooter, Fallout 3 is a poor one. The fact that you can loot just about anything, not to mention the variety of it and the amount of options when you level. The moral choices and freedom as well. The map is still awful though.

Story = 7.5
Interesting main story and side quests. Still the setting is most remarkable. The freedom you are given is pretty cool, but you may encounter many enemies you cannot handle.

Recommendation = Low
I hate Fallout 3; I don't want to see Fallout 3 ever again in my life nor another Fallout game. This is not Oblivion with guns; this is an underdeveloped and frustrating shooter.


OVERALL = 68 / 100
Hate me or love me, Fallout 3 is not for everyone and it is so far the worst game I have played on the PS3. Fallout 3's incapability to make the shooting fun makes it an extremely unfulfilling experience

(anyone who has an idea how i can enjoy this game, feel free to tell me)