Fallout 3 first impressions
It’s finally here. Fallout 3, the sequel I (and many others) have been awaiting for nearly a decade. In fact, it has even been four years since Fallout 3 was officially announced.
While I have only barely scratched the surface of this game, it is telling that I found it quite difficult to tear myself away long enough to write this mini review. Like every high profile title these days, Fallout 3 has received pretty much nothing but glowing praise from the mainstream gaming press. Unlike many of those other titles, it is looking like Fallout 3 may deserve it.
Here are a few of the things I have found notable so far:
- Quest design is damn good. I haven’t really gone anywhere with the main quest yet, but I have done a couple of the larger side quests. Both have been very well written and engaging. They have been a mix of exploration, dialog, combat, and a tad of puzzle solving.
- Dialog options are vastly greater than in Oblivion. This game has a ton of dialog - I have spent a significant fraction of my time so far just talking to people. You tend to have several interesting responses to choose from in most situations, as well.
- VATS is a lot of fun. The much vaunted VATS combat system is actually pretty cool. Not only is it useful for carefully planning out tougher encounters, it is also quite cinematic. Watching heads get blown off and then roll down hills has never been so much fun.
- Real time combat is fine, but not amazing. It does feel very fast and somewhat hard to control. In the end, it just not of the same quality as a good shooter. I personally don’t have a problem with this. Fallout 3 is not a shooter, and if you want to experience some fun combat, just make use of VATS.
- Visuals are great. Graphics quality is very high and everything looks just like it should. If I had one word to describe the game’s visuals, it would be “immersive”.
- The game does not hold your hand nearly as much as Oblivion. It is hard to find a good balance between hand holding and being frustratingly non-specific. So far, I have found Fallout 3 to do this exceptionally well.
While my impressions are pretty much strictly positive so far, your mileage could vary. Note that I (obviously) loved the original Fallout games, and also had quite a good time with Oblivion. I ultimately spent an inordinate amount of time working with mods for Oblivion to fix various flaws. Many of these were not all that apparent until I had spent quite a bit of time with the game. So, while my first impressions have been good, I am not completely sold on Fallout 3 yet.
October 30th, 2008 at 7:53 pm
I’ve heard the combat gets really repetitive over time. It’s hard to do well in real time, yet VATS enables millions of headshots without any problem at all.
Oblivion was major fail to me. The idea of Oblivion was great but the game itself was mediocre at best. Shame. I could never get into it enough to advance past about level 8 (with a decent character whose stats I was watching). I’m worried about the same kind of thing happening to FO3.
October 31st, 2008 at 8:28 am
This is a possibility, I suppose. So far, for me at least, the thrill of blowing enemies into little chunks has not gotten old. Probably more importantly, this game is much less combat oriented than Oblivion. Many quests do not require much of it, and often in quests it is merely a distraction from the real task at hand. I haven’t found this to be a chore though, because it is quick and often very amusing to watch.
November 2nd, 2008 at 9:26 pm
Seeing as how I just completed Far Cry 2, I’m wondering — should Fallout 3 be my next game, or should I try out Dead Space, or maybe something else? I kind of don’t want to duplicate coverage here, but at the same time, I don’t want to miss out on an awesome game.
November 3rd, 2008 at 7:05 pm
Any further thoughts on the game?
Given that it’s not laden with DRM (according to Bethesda’s blog), I’m thinking about getting it at some point. However, if it’s 80% Oblivion with 20% Fallout flair like some reviews I’ve seen, I don’t much see the point.
Oblivion’s problem made the game was simply unplayable and beyond repetitive. Even when I did get 50 mods running to fix its problems, there were still issues with many of its systems. Lock picking? Broken. Thievery? Broken. Conversing? Broken. Voice acting? Broken. Atmosphere and immersion? Shattered to a million bits in far too many places.
It was a good idea but simply not fun enough to warrant play. I’d like to find out that FO3 isn’t the same way.
November 3rd, 2008 at 9:58 pm
Grokmoo will publish further impressions as soon as he’s able to drag himself away from the game. He’s actually playing at this very moment.