Impressions: Fallout 3 |
 Just like Oblivion before it Fallout 3 contains a massive world to explore with 100's of locations to discover. I haven't even touched the main quest yet, in fact I accidentally moved the main quest forward without even completing the first part of it. I have completed about seven major side-quests. I say major because there are three type of quests in Fallout 3: the MAIN quest, the major named side-quest and minor side quests. The Main quest pushes the story forward, the major named side-quests are cool side stories or adventures that have multiple solutions and minor side-quests are tiny missions that you take part in... like becoming a scavenger and selling the junk you find to certain people for caps. Or even delivering a package to a person after finding the delivery man's last message on his dead body. These minor quests aren't obvious you just have to explore to find them. You'll probably never run out things to do before you finish the main quest, which like I said I haven't even touched because I love to explore. Exploring found me quite a few things, lots of XP (I am currently right on the verge of level 14), lots of loot (mostly ammo) and I even came across Dogmeat, the game's resident dog friend. I was pretty excited about having a companion on this adventure, but it turns out Dogmeat is kind of like the dog in Fable II, he doesn't do much except attack and find you stuff... except he seems like he might be able to die, which isn't something I want on my conscience. So I just told him to stay put in my Megaton house. I won't tell you where I found him because I think you are supposed to discover him on your own. I also discovered a creepy old vault where it seems they where trying out some strange hallucinogenic gas. That was a pretty cool little adventure. And Fallout 3 is full of those, they may not have a lot of story to them, but you are supposed to draw your own conclusions. The weapons are neat, but the combat mostly boils down to getting as close as possible and use VATS to get headshots. Sure you have limited AP, but it regenerates very fast, so after a bit of manual fire you can use VATS again less than a minute later. Though you will never getting tired of watching the VATS cut scenes, they are kind of like the chainsaw in Gears of War you just can't look away, especially that one where you watch the bullet leave your gun and fly through the air and into your enemies head, exploding it. Anyway, I have been loving what I have played so far, but there are a few things that I am not so sure I like. First thing is the hit squads, if you are a very good or very evil person you will have a price on your head and rarely this squad of 4 people will show up to take you out. I have only seen them twice in 30 hours, but I'd be afraid for the person who is low on healing items, low on health, walks out the door of a building to the sight of four armed mercs. Second, Dogmeat is disappointing, mostly because I don't want to risk getting him killed. Finally, the player character movement both first and third person is really awkward. In first person my character walks so fast that he skips down steep flights of stairs... But the game looks amazing, plays great and has tons to see and do, so that little stuff doesn't hurt the game too much. I can't say when I will have finished article for Fallout 3 because at the rate I am going it might be another 30 hours before I get around to starting the main quest. I will probably have Gears of War 2 coverage starting next week as well as Call of Duty: World at War so there should be stuff to write about for the next few weeks. The Mysterious Stranger perk is awesome. Loading Complete! |
POSTED ON NOVEMBER 4, 2008 |
