Keepalive / Review: Fallout 3

written by Blain Newport on Sunday, July 12, 2009

According to Steam, I've poured 68.4 hours into Fallout 3 in nine days. Basically, it's an eight hour a day job I enjoy going to seven days a week. I didn't even think that was possible.

Why do I enjoy it so much?

I like shooting stuff. Sure, there are better shooters. But Fallout 3 still does it well.

I like sneaking around. While many games make stealth a pain, Fallout 3 makes it powerful, possibly even overpowered, which I enjoy. Power corrupts, after all. :)

I like exploring. Bethesda's been building giant worlds to explore for over fifteen years. Long time readers will remember that I loved the crazy stuff that happened in Oblivion. But Fallout 3 feels miles beyond that. Oblivion was mostly just wandering and fighting. But whereas Oblivion would have evil pixie cave number twelve, Fallout 3 has uniquely named gas stations and factories and raider bases: the places feel like places. Sure, they still reuse a lot of architecture. But it'd be impossible to make a game on this scale otherwise.

And honestly, I don't care about the architecture because the meat of the exploration is so much tastier. And I'm not just talking about the how the stealth, combat, leveling system, and game stability are all vastly improved over Oblivion.

The variety of the quests also feels a lot better. I feel like I have more options. I can tackle objectives in different orders. Sometimes I find a captive and have never been where they came from. Sometimes I skip large chunks of the main quest line by pure chance. Sometimes I find clues to long running mysteries in the most unlikely locations. I have a sense that wherever I go, I'll be in the middle of something interesting. It's not perfect. Dialog trees often fail to give me the exact choice I'd want. But I don't mind it too much because the game's delivered often enough that I'm willing to put up with it / see where it leads.

And there is still so much to see. There are cities I haven't been to. There are unmarked random points of interest in the middle of nowhere. I'm sure I'll get bored before I see it all. But I expect to go back to Fallout 3 for a long time.

I almost feel like a bad man for only paying $25 for it. But luckily there are downloadable expansions with new missions and areas to explore. So I can pay more! :)


Obviously, this game is getting a five

out of five.


But remember, that's just me. If you don't like shooting stuff, this is not your game. If you don't like managing ammo and having to fix weapons and armor that degrade, this is not your game. If you don't like extreme violence, this is not your game. If you don't like bleak, gray settings, this is not your game. If you can't stand a world where every human in it is one of the same eight or nine voice actors, and they're not even doing different voices / accents to disguise it, this is not your game.

But none of these are deal breakers for me, and I'm still waiting to get bored with it at almost seventy hours in. They always seem to find some twist on the concept that makes every narrative feel different. And there are so many stashes to find and mysteries to solve. I'm in awe of what they've accomplished in Fallout 3. It's OCD paradise.