It's actually a lot better than I'd thought it would be.

Honestly, I think that may just be more a matter of real world geography than game design. Maybe it's just common perception to somone from the eastern United States (I live in south-western Pennsylvania, only about a 6-7 hour drive from DC), but I did spend a year traveling out west and I can say that eastern US is more densely populated than the west. It just followed the natural progression of local settlement starting back with the original 13 colonies. Therefore, it wouldn't be too much of a stretch to anticipate that more locations in close proximity remained settleable in the east than the west after the war when everyone came back up above ground. I don't know whether that was Bethesda's original intention or not. But to me, it does make more sense regardless of whether it feels more "wasteland-ish" or not.

Anyway, I was at my brother's place today when he revealed to me that he had just bought a PS3 and Fallout 3. After only playing it for a day, he said it easily ranks as one of his top 3 games of all time. That's a lot coming from him, since we were both hardcore into Fallout 1 and 2 when there were released back in the day. He wanted me to take it for a spin, but I sternly held my ground and vowed not to touch the game until I was holding my own copy in my hands and sitting in front of my own PC with a good 3-4 hours to dive right into it. I settled for a readthrough of the instruction booklet, or Vaultec Handbook vol. 3, and I'll admit some of new perks (Cannibal and Mr. Sandman) look pretty wicked. It's on my Christmas list and I'm frothing at the mouth in anticipation.

 

I found out I could pickpocket explosives into people's inventories today.


It was amazing.

 

Honestly I tried to hate it, but I couldn't. While still weak as a Fallout installment, it easily shits on everything Beth has done before.

Some of its features were very annoying, and particularly its ending was terrible, however.

Maybe I'll say more after several playthroughs *shrug*

 

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/zero-punctuation/420-Fallout-3

Yahtzee's review. Worth a look. (I have a soft spot for this guy's work, I won't deny it.)

 

Charon won't do it, either.

 

I attempted a second play through, but had a real problem keeping Charon and Dogmeat in line. They'd get stuck somewhere, and then I'd fast travel across the wasteland leaving them behind. I lost Dogmeat once and eventually just wrote him off, only to have him suddenly and unexpectedly reappear many hours later. Then it was both Charon and Dogmeat, and I probably would have finished the game before they ever showed back up. It also really bothered me that, if I didn't get first blood on an enemy and they killed him I didn't get any XP, or that if I was trying to quietly sneak through a danger zone, they would still engage the enemies, either getting me spotted or getting themselves killed. There were one or two quests that I couldn't finish because I must have bypassed a trigger somewhere along the way, thereby breaking the script. There were way too many locations that had no discernible quest associated with them. The Republic of Dave was about the biggest waste of a map waypoint ever conceived, and was one of many locations that seemed half-baked, intriguing at first glance but disappointing upon thorough exploration. In 9 conversations out of 10, the speech skill is completely worthless. Weapons degrade much too quickly, especially the sniper rifle. I can't get married and pimp my wife for a few extra caps. That is all... for now.

 

Anyone else hear about the new expansions Beth is already whipping up? The one is called The Pitt (or something like that) and takes place in Pittsburgh, which stokes the shit out of me since I'm from Pittsburgh and we never get anything cool written about the city. The other has something to do with Steel and continues the Brotherhood storyline. They're supposed to be available to PC and 360 players, but no confirmation on PS3 players.

 

Whelp, I've officially lost any mild desire I've ever had to play this game. Back to Star Ocean for me. (I may wind up reviewing First Departure on here, for the sheer fact that I have nice things to say about voice acting for the first time since, well, ever.)

 

I was standing outside the Fallout store sheepishly wondering if I could go in without having played the first two and wondering if I could run the game pretty or not, when Left 4 Dead jumped on me from a neighboring rooftop, hit me over the head with mallet made of awesome and told me to use my $50 to buy Dr Pepper. I have no regrets.

 

I recieved it from my brother as a birthday gift a couple days ago. Looks like I won't have to wait till Christmas now.

I've only been able to play in 1 hour increments here and there for grand total of about 6 or 7 hours in, but I do like it so far. Does it "feel" like Fallout? No. I'm with Japes in that it reminds more of Vampire: Bloodlines in the gameplay and dialogue system. I'll even go further to say there are touches of Arcanum throughout with the schematics and collectable junk you come across. Ironically, though, it feels more like Bethesda bought the rights to Mad Max and tried making a follow up to the movie trilogy. That might sound strange considering the Mad Max influence on the Fallout franchise.

I'm a little disappointed in the music so far. Fallout music was one of the most defining features of the old franchise and I was hoping against all hope that Beth would've used some of the older, more recognizable tracks in 3. As it is, 3's soundtrack sounds like Fallout 1's score and Oblivion's got drunk, had sex, and 9 months later this is what we get. Some of the tracks have fucking horn sections in them. Wft? Luckily, Beth's games have always been very user-friendly when it comes to customizing the soundtrack, so that's just a minor annoyance.

From what I read all over the tubes, VATS has been either hit or miss with the fans. I have to say I'm in the "hit" camp. Maybe it's because of my refusal to exploit or condemn it, but I think it works well given the FP genre of the game. And even though you can't target enemies with melee weapons, nothing's more satisfying than watching your character come down on across the back of a cowering whore with a Louisville Slugger in slowmo.

I will say that I agree with Vorak in that the begining character creation process is utterly boring as hell. I have no interest in what my character's childhood was like or who bullied him throughout his teenage years. I don't want any moral influence from my character's father to be a "good boy" if I want to RP a tough-as-nails, slaver asshole in later levels. The old Fallouts let you start a new game, roll up a character, and then through you into the game world. The hand-holding in 3 was just stupid and pointlessly drawn out.

So that's my initial impression. Overall, I'm very entertained by it. We'll see if it's a different tune come the end of the game.

 

I've been trying to be as evil as I possibly can for my third character. It's actually really hard, I've destroyed two major areas through quests, and a third because I picked the option to try to get Big Town to bow to me.

 

From the looks of things, Fallout 3 is going to follow a moral format similar to most RPGs and one that annoys the piss out of me. I like the choice to play a good or evil character. But what I hate is games make one side more accesible than others. With most, if you want to follow and complete the main quest, you're forced to do so as a morally good character. If you choose to play an evil one, being "evil" is reduced to killing innocent NPCs and stealing shit to lower your alignment. Rarely does a decision in a quest make you evil, and that's if said decision even lets you advance the plot of the quest, with the only other non-good option being to just fuck off and ignore the quest. I'm only a little further in 3, but I've come across enough plot branches to anticipate that this is the same case. Weak. At least the other points of the game are still fun.

 

I scoured the Fallout wiki after my second run of the game, and there actually ARE a large variety of ways to complete quests evilly.

Especially the Tenpenny tower quest with the ghouls, wherein no matter what you do, something horrible happens.

Spoiler

Android quest, Megaton, Tenpenny Tower, Wasteland Survival Guide (to a lesser extent), Blood Ties, and Shoot 'Em In the Head all have ways to complete them evilly. Many of the quests that initially end up seing benevolent will let you pull them into neutrality, such as making the 'mayor' of Big Town give you the caps from the town's medical supply as payment.

Stealing and killing innocents is still a surefire way to do it, though. The problem is, there are relatively few innocents in this game who aren't surrounded by other innocents, who will cause a chain reaction and alienate the town. I managed to kill Mayor Simms without anyone noticing once, though.

 

Please take a look at this interview if you haven't already.

 

If anything, I find the exploding midget glitch to be hilarious.

 

I'm expecting that to happen within the first week they release the GECK. Child-mongering, VATS targeting with melee weapons, and groin shots are top-o-the-list.