i'm surprise to hear praise on Fallout 3 coming from RPG Codex's review (chefe) and some of its members..

Ok, here goes…

I have been playing Fallout 3 for a couple of days now, solved some quests, done some progress on the main story and gotten used to the game.

The Good
I remember when I was playing Gothic and I found it difficult to compare the game with something else, so I compared it with Fallout. Why? The free-roaming experience was rare back then. I loved the kind of game that allows you to create a character then go out to explore the world your way, getting by through the unique skills of yours. Well, Fallout 3 is probably the best free-roaming RPG in a long time and it really does the thing proper. Unlike Oblivion I am actually trying to explore the various places I see because most of them actually feels unique. I find exploration fun, and that's a thumbs up to Bethesda.

I also like the radio. It's a small but nice touch. Sometimes I just have to stay up for awhile and listen to the latest announcement, and it does mimic what I am doing in the game, quests I solved, my behavior etc. And being able to listen to old songs is another nice touch. I miss the unique kind of music that the first two games had though.

I actually found the V.A.T.S. system kinda useful. It's an unique take on the FPS+RPG thing. I thought I would play the game like an FPS, but instead I am using V.A.T.S all the time.

There are games that are simply nice but simple, that provide a brief experience and little extras. Then there are those games that are worked through and keeps surpising you. F3 seem to belong to the second type.

The Bad
So far I found the dialogue to be predictable and the story havn't gave me "woah, I hadn't expected that" kind of experience yet. Bethesda really need to hire a good writer for their next game. I think they can afford it… It's a tremendous improvement over Oblivion though so they are heading into the right direction.

I am mising a party. I know that you can hire companions but I haven't found one yet. I will have to get back on that point.

So far I havn't felt that my stats matter that much. I have a character with 9 charisma, 9 luck, and started out with very low strength and endurance and mid-range agility/perception. I do not have any trouble winning fights but I do not see much of extra dialogue where my high charisma makes a difference. I like that they actually are using their skill system in dialogue, it just could have been done better. With Biowares dump in Mass Effect and Jade Empire, I have felt that properly made skill systems have been missing out recently, so I am hopeful bethesda will keep on trying.

The overhyped radiation system haven't really felt important so far. I have swimmed around in radiated water without reaching a high rad, and with the medical station in my home I just clean out whatever radiation I got once in awhile. I always stack up on stimpacks and I have a decent med rating so I do not need to eat radiated food.

The Ugly
I find it hard to call out anything really bad with the game, even if I am trying to be nitpicky. The worst in Fallout 3 is "average". Maybe I will discover something to hate later on. It's a worked through game with no obvious glitches or holes in it.


In general I found Fallout 3 to be one of the better RPG in years. If that means that the game is good or if I am starved for decent RPG's, I cannot tell.

I am woundering whatever it would sell much less if it was not called fallout ?

If they didn't call it fallout they'd not have all of these people complaining because it is not a turn-based isometric RPG.

On the other hand they'd not get nearly as much hype I guess ?

Originally Posted by GothicGothicness
If they didn't call it fallout they'd not have all of these people complaining because it is not a turn-based isometric RPG.

The resultant loss in sales based on all of that is likely rounding error compared to those who bought the game solely on the fact that you could have bloody and gore decapitations in slow motion.

Originally Posted by GothicGothicness
I am woundering whatever it would sell much less if it was not called fallout ?

"Woundering" ? Interesting new word … *noted*

I tend to use more and more urban english these days.

The resultant loss in sales based on all of that is likely rounding error compared to those who bought the game solely on the fact that you could have bloody and gore decapitations in slow motion.

Hmm, I thought about it much. I really think Beth calculated very carefully and realised the hype generated from naming it "Fallout" would make them have a bigger sells increase than the IP costed them. I think we will see more and more IP's treated in this way.

I changed my opinion please count

"An Excellent Game" -1
"Good" +1

After had played it for 15 hours, I would vote "An Excellent Game ", but after 25 Hours, im down to "Good".

My problem is that the "good looking" wasteland, loos its charm after a while, as you dont see any new screenery as you move forward in the game.

What kind of resolutions & PCs are you running it? Do you get smooth framerates?

I have winxp c2d 2,4 @ ~ 3,0Ghz, 4GB mem and 8800GTS640 but Im having doubts whether it could run the game atleast in 40FPS on 1920x1080 on max detail. I want to buy a new graphics card but Im still waiting for the new 4870x2 models to do it.

Originally Posted by Phonix
After had played it for 15 hours, I would vote "An Excellent Game ", but after 25 Hours, im down to "Good".

I find that to be true for most games. Usually the downwards curve starts earlier though.

I have a rig similar to yours although not quite as fast (Athlon 64 X2 4800+, 8800GTS320). FO3 runs on it flawlessly at (near?) maximum detail… but, I run it at a fairly low resolution (1280 x 960, IIRC).

However, this lets me use quite high AA levels: IMO the end result looks better than many games I do or can run at maximum rez. I certainly don't feel any pressure to upgrade my rig for this particular game.

I have AMD 4000+ 8800gts (640mb) and 3gig of ram and I run it on high as default and it ran on high on my 3800+ but it burnt out which I discovered was the source of my crashes with Fallout 3.

Originally Posted by Dasale
Ha ok I understand what you mean. Well trying Sacred 2 demo disgusted me, I won't buy any Russian video game or music production until a long time and I'll wait much more patches before trying a copy, and I agree Colonization is an interesting approach, Civ4 has been the best of the series with Civ1 on Mac, in fact I already bought too Colonization and not yet played.

Hmm… isn't King's Bounty done by a russian company? And it is very very good.

Sacred 2 was developed by germans not russians.

Voted "Good". As already mentioned, the animation, writings (story) and dialogs requiring the most attention for improvement.

The FPS perspective implementation feels okay, including weapon handing, though not as good as many real first person action games. The music, sound effect, weapon, quest & questing, and weather system are either acceptable or above average. One thing that did pretty well is the game world design, littered many items you could collect, sale or use.

My level 8 character, specialized in Lock pick, speech, small guns.

I've written my opinion here, if anyone's interested.

well, it's a nice game even though the dialog does suck… and the sheriff in the first town was stupid… I mean "lead the way sheriff"?! yeah right, what wasteland did he grow up in?

at any rate the only big complaint I have against bethesda is those annoying mini games in lockpicks and hacking, I mean why can't I roll on those? it's just stupid to waste time on these things!, and also why did the first location I checked out on my own had laser pistols?! and lots and lost of energy cells are just laying around?!, what kind of a place is this?!

I beat the game. I found it okay. It just felt like a dumbed down version of fallout. "Tag" was a pretty useless skill now. The combat was pretty lame since you can hit anything if you are close enough to it. And there were no critical failures. And teh ending was dumb since you cant get the mutant to do it for you, saying it was his time for glory or whatever.

still playing, the main quest is kinda short so i'm off to explore the wastelands. quite fun too with the slow-mo replay when shooting with VATS.

Being a rabid fan of the original Fallout games, you can probably take my opinion with a grain of salt

Anyways, my first hour or so of the game pretty much sums up my feelings: I rushed through the tedious birthing and grow up phase… seriously, someone needs to sit down with Bethesda and let them down as easy as possible that the whole "SUPER INTUITIVE CHARACTER CREATION!!!!!!!" is lame, tired, and TEDIOUS. Thank God they at least make a save when you exit the vault so you can create a character from it.

Anyways, I wonder around for a bit and tripped over a bunch of food and other crap which I mindlessly picked up. Got to Megaton and the sheriff babbles for a minute and tries hard at being tough. Then my character starts asking about a bomb? What bomb? The game hadn't introduced the bomb yet, but regardless my character simply knew… he also knew that bottle caps were the accepted form of currency in The Wasteland. Talk about immersion…

So rather then bore you (are you still reading?) with other little nitpicking I'll just sum things up: I ran around, killed stuff, and sold bent tin cans and other crap to people who, for some reason bought it. Then I got to a part of the game I guess I wasn't suppose to be at and my character basically advanced the main quest way beyond what it was suppose to be at and of course he simply knew about all kinds of events that I didn't even play. Around this time I decided this isn't a Fallout game and I uninstalled. At least I didn't pay for it…

Originally Posted by lanux128
still playing, the main quest is kinda short so i'm off to explore the wastelands. quite fun too with the slow-mo replay when shooting with VATS.

Could you continue playing after the main quest ended?