Fallout 3 Review

As part of my ongoing Fallout 3 commentary, here's a review.

Fallout 3 is a good game, but only for people in the right mindset.

If you're looking for instant FPS action, in the mode of Halo or Call of Duty, this is the wrong game. This game is about Roleplaying. You can win much of the game without shooting, although shooting is often the easiest way to get through a situation. There are lots of options with dialogue and choices that effect the game world. In fact, a completionist would have a difficult time with this game, since it offers so many options, many of which are decisions that cannot be reversed, that it could take dozens of replays to get all the possible major quest differences.

Exploration can be a blessing or a curse, depending on your attitude. There are so many places scattered on the map, you can explore without a goal for hours. If you like the feeling of being alone with your dog as you walk across a wasteland, only hearing distant noises, then it will work. If you just wish games would just get you to the next city or fight, then this may drive you insane.

Visually, it's a great improvement above predecessors like Oblivion. Bethesda's terrain has improved enormously since Morrowind. Where aritificial barriers to the horizon were everywhere, now we can stand on a high point and see beautiful scenery, if you have the processing power for it.

There's good writing and humour. Although many of your dialogue options have little to no effect, it's still nice to be able to cuss out the people who irritate you. For a game with this level of language and violence, (heads explode regularly, and if you get the Bloody Mess Perk, [which I don't recommend] entire bodies exploding into disgustingly explicit gibs becomes the default death) the sexuality is extremely tame. There's a woman who is apparently a prostitute, assuming prostitutes sleep in a bed while you sleep in the same bed. There's another prostitute that "services" NPC's, and that's it. The ethical code that doesn't mind brutal murder and cannibalism but cannot accept consensual sex is a strange product of our times.

For the rating proper, I turn to the Ron Perlman system, of course.

The narrator is Ron Perlman. He only speaks at the beginning and end of the game, and he does a fine job, despite the stupidness of the ending.

2/5 Ron Perlmans