Fallout 3 First Impressions

[newc0253]

this ain't your grandfather's fallout!

 

... but that's because i'm guessing your grandfather is at least 70 or 80 and they didn't make fallout until 1997.

 

p.s. my copy is about to be delivered but the general tone of all the reviews so far seem consistent with what i expected: despite the doomsayers, Bethesda managed to get it about 70%-80% right.

 

i'm not expecting FO3 to be as great story-wise or writing-wise as Fallouts 1 or 2 but i'm really looking forward to this nonetheless...

[Aristes]

I hope the Vault and supporting characters come back for the ending of the game. (you marry Amata or somthin depending on your actions)

 

I dunno, I was supposed to save this old lady from a bunch of roaches, I went in bat swinging, and hit her in the noggin killing her in one blow, not intentionally, I guess I should have used the aiming system. After that the grease haired rocker outside, her son, who recruited me for this particular quest, seemed to be permanently stuck in a loop, going, 'hurry shes right inside there, hurry shes right inside there, hurry shes right inside there'.

 

I decided it would be best to put him out of his misery. All in all I don't think they would be happy to see me.

 

I don't suppose that tutorial stuff counts as a spoiler? I mean, it's right out the gate.

 

Anyhow, I always like to play a smart, wise-cracking, science type. So, while I was tempted to shoot the young tough in the head, I decided to try to convince him to take care of his alcoholic mom himself. One of the things I don't like is that the speechcraft options show you your chances right off the bat. I see it a lot lately, but I've never liked it. Anyhow, I failed on a couple of check, so finally I convinced him to take my bb gun and go kill the roaches around his mom. He was quite happy and gave me his leather jacket. I got my bb gun back, looted roach meet (tastes a bit like lobster), and scored to ol' lady's vodka. All of that was quite nice. Of course, I would have done it just as fast by killing everyone and looting corpses, but Butch is a waste of bb gun ammo. I'm still wondering what this karma does in the game. It's probably in the manual, but since I downloaded the game, I'd have to look for it on my system.

[thepixiesrock]

God dammit Hurly, we were supposed to stay strong together. I can't afford to buy this game after just buying Fable 2 last week. Crap, I'm going to probably go buy it today or something. ****

[Hurlshort]

God dammit Hurly, we were supposed to stay strong together. I can't afford to buy this game after just buying Fable 2 last week. Crap, I'm going to probably go buy it today or something. ****

 

Best Buy credit card for teh win. Sorry pixies. It's worth it.

[Lare Kikkeli]

Alright so pro's and cons:

 

 

Pro:

VATS is hilarious and completely awesome. This is how you make a turnbased FPS.

They've almost nailed the Fallout feel, but it's close enough to be a pro. It's maybe a bit too, i dunno, dramatic as where the original Fallouts were cynical and laconic. Even the intro with Ron Perlman was kind of cheesy.

Art direction is top notch.

 

Con:

Animations are horrible.

Dialog has been very uninspiring so far. Not ES bad, but nothing to brag about either.

Dodgy design decisions like unkillable NPC's (I beat my dad & the assistant up, crippled their heads (?) so they fell unconscious, and they weren't even mad at me).

 

This is based on the tutorial alone. Despite the cons I'm still enjoying myself more than any RPG since, well, Fallout 2.

[Gorgon]

It does play like a bethesta game, with the notable difference that the combat makes more sense. The quests don't hold your hand quite as much either. I took one that looked like a standard mule contract, turns out the employers' family had been murdered, I return to take a rest in town, and now the employer is dead, all I have are a few clues to killers whereabouts, not at any of those spots though. I'm halfway wondering if it's a bug.

 

The minigames are hard. I mean they are obviously stat based, but the lockpicking appears completely random. No way to tell if you are doing the right thing or not, either it works or the pick breaks.

 

I suppose you get more clues with a higher hacking skill, so far I haven't been successful once.

[Aristes]

I don't like the way stats are so intrusive. I really don't like the fact that the game tells you that something is a speechcraft test and then gives you a % chance to succeed. I would rather have verbal clues and I would rather sometimes have those clues be misleading. For example, I think I'm really convincing this guy, but it turns out that I had missed my speecraft role only to find out at an unfortunate time. That battle was fought and lost a long time ago, though, so I can't really say it's a problem with FO3.

 

One thing that strikes me, and this is complete irony, is the use of profanity. I have yet to encounter one use of profanity that feels natural in the game. Turns out, there is a lot of cusses cussingness in this game. The way it's written into the dialogue is okay, I guess, but the voice acting delivery just doesn't cut it.

 

Now, there are two kinds of cussers in my experience. Some folks cuss as part of normal speech. They've grown up around folks who use profanity as regular part of speech, and it's no different and no worse that folks who use Valley Girl placeholder words (like, ya know, when they add 'like' to every sentence) or BillnTed speak (Duude, you know who I mean). That's f'n awesome is profanity, but it's not particularly profane.

 

The other swearer is guy who uses profanity to express anger. I'm the second type. Generally, if I use anything beyond Disney profanity (Damn it, I don't count hell or damn) then I'm pissed and I'm letting you know how pissed I am by f'n telling you, b!t@h. Motherf'r!

 

The problem is, the folks delivering the lines don't use them either way. They don't seem comfortable with them. I'm sure the actors cuss up a storm, but the voiceover characters sound uncomfortable. I thought it was kind of cute for the 10 year old girl to sound that way, but not the adults.

 

When Stahl says something like, "Sure, I have all f'n day to stand here and tell you about the town. Go ahead." He sounds mildly peevish, but the f'n words don't sound either casual or angry. If I'd delivered that line, it would have sounded a lot more aggressive.

 

The best person for swearing so far is Jericho, since he use the word @$$hole the way I say it when I'm angry. Which is to place the emphasis on the word 'hole.' As in, "What the f*** is your problem, @**hole?" Even then, it more or less sounds like he's trying to be insulting rather than actually being angry.

 

The dialogue is the usual. One moment someone's angry and the next their okay. That's pretty common in these computer games, although I thought Jericho's dialogue wasn't so bad. At least I had to make a speech check to get him to stop calling me an @**hole every other sentence.

 

That's the other thing, if I'm so angry at someone that I'm calling him a name every other second, we're either parting or in immanent danger of resorting to violence.

 

The dialogue is not stellar, but the voice over work is downright mediocre. Now, that's not so bad. Generally, the voice over work for Bioware and Obsidian games has been good. I remember some points in NWN2 when I just thought the voice over work was horrible. I've rarely encountered a game where the voice over work didn't fail its speech check for some character or another. So, it's not so bad.

Edited October 30, 2008 by Aristes

[Bokishi]

And Bok my favorite little Hutt until now needs to be banned. Whats with the ****ing huge pictures?????????????? Holy ****ing ****!

 

Don't tell me you're still on dial up

[Wombat]

I guess I have gathered enough info.

 

I stick to my initial plan: I'm probably going to buy this game but not now. The game seems to be O.K. but my experience from past Bethesda works tells me not to buy it immediately. FO3 seems to be popular enough and I'd like to wait for designers and mods to remove some nuisances. I think mods are the advantage of PC version and I'd like to make full use of it.

 

Thanks to everyone who posted information here. It helped a lot.

[Calax]

I guess I have gathered enough info.

 

I stick to my initial plan: I'm probably going to buy this game but not now. The game seems to be O.K. but my experience from past Bethesda works tells me not to buy it immediately. FO3 seems to be popular enough and I'd like to wait for designers and mods to remove some nuisances. I think mods are the advantage of PC version and I'd like to make full use of it.

 

Thanks to everyone who posted information here. It helped a lot.

I'll probably get the PC version somewhere down the line so that I can play around with mods.

[Arkan]

I don't know how people are thinking this game is too easy. I'm playing on hard, and I'm dying all the time just trying to finish some quests from the first town (not IN the first town, mind you).

 

So far my biggest gripe is that there are TOO MANY encounters in the wasteland. It's supposed to be barren and desolate, but after falling back, strafing, and dodging many raider bullets, I find myself in a NEST of supermutants (at level 4). If I manage to survive THAT encounter, I have no ammo and only a sledgehammer to my name. What happens then? Another encounter with raiders.

 

I understand the wastes are a dangerous place, but god damn.

 

It could be that I'm not used to VATS yet (I like the system a lot, and it shows that turn based FPS IS possible), or I've built a gimped character that tries to be good at too many things, namely sneak, science, speech being tags, and putting points in lockpick and repair. I guess that's not going to work in FO3.

[Calax]

from what the 460 pg guide says (it's fn' huge!) Repair is probably the most critical ability you have because it allows you to mcguyver weapons out of trash once you find plans ( the artbooks shows somthing like a sword attached to a gas pack to provide flames... thats right a flaming F'n sword)

[Maria Caliban]

It does play like a bethesta game, with the notable difference that the combat makes more sense. The quests don't hold your hand quite as much either. I took one that looked like a standard mule contract, turns out the employers' family had been murdered, I return to take a rest in town, and now the employer is dead, all I have are a few clues to killers whereabouts, not at any of those spots though. I'm halfway wondering if it's a bug.

 

Lucy West wants you to give a letter to her family?

Edited October 31, 2008 by Maria Caliban

[Calax]

you have to go into the subway system pretty deep to find the missing family member.

[Lare Kikkeli]

I don't know how people are thinking this game is too easy. I'm playing on hard, and I'm dying all the time just trying to finish some quests from the first town (not IN the first town, mind you).

 

So far my biggest gripe is that there are TOO MANY encounters in the wasteland. It's supposed to be barren and desolate, but after falling back, strafing, and dodging many raider bullets, I find myself in a NEST of supermutants (at level 4). If I manage to survive THAT encounter, I have no ammo and only a sledgehammer to my name. What happens then? Another encounter with raiders.

 

I understand the wastes are a dangerous place, but god damn.

 

It could be that I'm not used to VATS yet (I like the system a lot, and it shows that turn based FPS IS possible), or I've built a gimped character that tries to be good at too many things, namely sneak, science, speech being tags, and putting points in lockpick and repair. I guess that's not going to work in FO3.

 

I don't think it's really possible to gimp your char, unless you like take 1 in every stat and never raise any combat skills. And use VATS. Seriously. It makes the game soooo much easier in the beginning. I'm playing hard, and I had no trouble wiping out the old elementary or the supermarket only using the first gun you get. I'm thinking about cranking up the difficulty since it's been so easy.

[Tel Aviv]

So... I bought it. Had to suffer the indignity of the ID check though! Jerks...

[newc0253]

okay. my very initial first impressions, having done the tutorial and spent a night in the wastelands:

 

Fallout 3 feels like Fallout.

 

as expected, it isn't as well-written as the first two but it still feels of a piece with them. if i can draw any kind of crude analogy with tv, this is what Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles is to the first two Terminator movies. some people hate the latter but not me.

 

stuff i like:

 

the look - visually, Bethesda have nailed this. the Vault? the blasted wasteland? the wreckage of a 50s futuristic world? it feels like the Fallout world in 3D. yes, the visuals share certain resemblances with Oblivion (given the engine, how could it not?) and no doubt this will give some Bethesda-haters all the pretext they need to declare it a failure, but i reckon most Fallout fans will appreciate the attention to detail and cute allusions to the previous games (e.g.

the mention in the overseer's computer to Vault 101's lack of a GECK

).

 

the tone - feels about right so far. the tutorial was a little cheesy but that's easy enough to forgive. in some ways, the cheese helps to set up the contrast with the transition to the wasteland, which is handled incredibly well: you leave the Vault at sunset, and as your eyes gradually adjust to the glare, you see a ruined DC stretch out before you (although, honestly? given the number of nukes that would have hit downtown Washington in a nuclear exchange, i don't expect the dome of the Capitol to have survived...). the creepiest moment so far was

entering the Springvale school to find dismembered corpses everywhere.

. i also like that i spend most of my time hoarding ammo, caps and a variety of guns, just like in the original.

 

the graphics - great. the wasteland looks incredible and this is where Bethesda's wide-open exploration approach to setting comes to the fore. one of the best things about Oblivion was looking to the horizon and wondering what lay there and it's the sheer opportunity for exploration that has me most interested.

 

VATS - very good way to recreate the turn-based feel. also love the slo mo.

 

the Pipboy 3000 - spot on.

 

stuff i don't:

 

the writing - actually, let me start off with the good. first of all, the writing doesn't suck. it's actually above average for most CRPGs and - by the standards of games like Oblivion or Morrowind - it comes as a major relief to discover that Bethesda can actually write perfectly decent NPC interactions with actual dialogue and proper characterisation, instead of the cookie-cutter NPCs and yellow pages approach to conversation that you get in any of the Elder Scrolls games. the main problem is that 'perfectly decent' just about describes the entire range of writing so far: i haven't encountered any bad writing so far, and i've enjoyed the jokes and the swearing and the discovery of a Bethesda game with more than two actual characters but i can't say that i've encountered any great writing yet either. Perlman's opening into straight away highlights Bethesda's main weakness: the intro is their first (and presumably best) foot forward but it's forgettable stuff by comparison with the intros to Fallouts 1 & 2. the problem isn't that Bethesda are terrible writers, it's that they just can't write as well as the folk at Interplay/Black Isle could. i'm happy to keep giving them opportunities to wow me and it's very early days with the stories and subplots so far, but my expectations are suitably trimmed.

[Killian Kalthorne]

Well, if Bethesda works at it I am sure the writing will improve over time. I expect Fallout 4 and Elder Scrolls V to have better writing than their predecessors.

[Arkan]

I don't know how people are thinking this game is too easy. I'm playing on hard, and I'm dying all the time just trying to finish some quests from the first town (not IN the first town, mind you).

 

So far my biggest gripe is that there are TOO MANY encounters in the wasteland. It's supposed to be barren and desolate, but after falling back, strafing, and dodging many raider bullets, I find myself in a NEST of supermutants (at level 4). If I manage to survive THAT encounter, I have no ammo and only a sledgehammer to my name. What happens then? Another encounter with raiders.

 

I understand the wastes are a dangerous place, but god damn.

 

It could be that I'm not used to VATS yet (I like the system a lot, and it shows that turn based FPS IS possible), or I've built a gimped character that tries to be good at too many things, namely sneak, science, speech being tags, and putting points in lockpick and repair. I guess that's not going to work in FO3.

 

I don't think it's really possible to gimp your char, unless you like take 1 in every stat and never raise any combat skills. And use VATS. Seriously. It makes the game soooo much easier in the beginning. I'm playing hard, and I had no trouble wiping out the old elementary or the supermarket only using the first gun you get. I'm thinking about cranking up the difficulty since it's been so easy.

 

 

That's the thing. I went through the school pretty easily. I snuck most of the time, which was very effective, just open VATS aim for the head, head, head. Watch "bullet time" and then head asplode. That's hard to do in the wastes.

 

My problem with VATS is that it seems only good for the first attack. After that, it's hard to get back into without sitting there hitting 'V' and getting pounded. Am I supposed to just dodge after that? Plus when I get back into VATS I have a lot fewer actions points. I'm thinking of becoming a jet/chem addict!

Edited October 31, 2008 by Arkan

[Jaesun]

Here is an example of "intelligence" check in Fallout 3*:

 

"I'M TWO DOG! I FIGHT THE POWER WITH MY RADIO STATION! AWOOO!!!"

 

1 [iNTELLIGENCE] Aha, so you fight the power with the power of radio?!!

2 What is a radio?

3 AWOO!!!

4 Get to the point!

 

That's what intelligence is, repeating what the guy just said to you. Showing that you pay attention.

 

AMAZING!

 

* Courtesy of Andy Messiah.

[GreasyDogMeat]

Really enjoying myself with F3 so far. HUGE improvement over Oblivion and about the best a Fallout fan could hope for after Fallout: BOS brought the series to it's knees.

 

Still very early in the game. Doing the research quests for Moira and looking for the surviving family member of Lucy West, if there is one. (BTW thanks for advice about searching the DEEP sewers. I'm guessing I'll need to bring along some rad-x.)

 

I was initially bummed about the change to some of the stats, but most of it makes sense or is an acceptable loss. Melding Doctor and First Aid skills together to form the Medicine skill makes sense. Combining Sneak + Steal and Traps + Throwing into the same skill makes a little less sense but still works. The gambling and Outdoorsman skills have both been removed. I don't mind the removal of gambling, though I do hope there is some gambling at some point in Fallout 3 with the outcomes associated with luck. I personally wish Bethesda had implemented random encounters when using fast travel and that the outdoorsman skill still existed to influence those encounters. Only skill change I'm disappointed in.

 

Dialogue varies, but is another huge improvement over Oblivion. People have a lot more to say and the player has a lot more dialogue options and skill based choices. After a quest for Moira investigating an abandoned super mart I had two bonus responses, one based on intelligence and another on endurance. The endurance response netted me a special 'food purifier' which cleans food of some of the radiation. Biggest disappointment is lack of emotion for certain events. I've seen the outcome of no less than 3 children losing their parents and in all 3 cases the children are about as ho-hum as a kid can be losing their parents. This may be a case of trying to show the harshness of life in the wasteland but it still is awkward. Then again, one of the three was actually in the vault so .

 

I know some people have complained about it, but I love the danger of wandering the wasteland. Things can sometimes pop out with a scare. On the way to the super mart I mentioned earlier, a mole rat jumped from behind a rock and scared the crap out of me. I also LOVE the traps in this game. Certain every day objects are mined and can go off when approaching.

Walked up to a baby carriage with a baby crying. Look in to see a robotic baby. Split second later I say "oh... crap" KABOOM! followed by raiders coming out to ambush me.

 

 

One thing I wish this game had was an in-game journal you could write notes in. There are some minor quests that don't get journal entries and it can be very easy to forget about them if you get sidetracked with one of the big quests. A few examples of minor quests involve fixing water pipe leaks in Megaton, finding pure water for a beggar and locating scrap metal for a guy in town.

 

Overall the pros have outweighed the cons so far.

Edited October 31, 2008 by GreasyDogMeat

[Lare Kikkeli]

That's the thing. I went through the school pretty easily. I snuck most of the time, which was very effective, just open VATS aim for the head, head, head. Watch "bullet time" and then head asplode. That's hard to do in the wastes.

 

My problem with VATS is that it seems only good for the first attack. After that, it's hard to get back into without sitting there hitting 'V' and getting pounded. Am I supposed to just dodge after that? Plus when I get back into VATS I have a lot fewer actions points. I'm thinking of becoming a jet/chem addict!

 

What I do is thay I start with VATS, then either take/run for cover and wait for my APs to come back or if I have enough ammo just shoot at the enemies in real time. I think it's actually a pretty "realistic" take on combat; you take a few well aimed shots and either wait for a new opening or just blast away, hoping that the bullets hit. Don't know if the combat will stay interesting later on though.

 

Use cover and higher ground to your advatage (I killed like 5 fire ants from a building roof with the hunting rifle, they just ran around in panic).

 

My only complaint about the combat is the relatively weak weapons and the abundance of action points. No one should take 5 bullets to the head and survive. But I guess making the weapons stronger would mess up the balance of real time combat. We'll see what people come up with when Beth releases the modding tools.

[skuld1]

My only complaint about the combat is the relatively weak weapons and the abundance of action points. No one should take 5 bullets to the head and survive. But I guess making the weapons stronger would mess up the balance of real time combat. We'll see what people come up with when Beth releases the modding tools.

 

 

Perhaps they wanted to keep that old Fallout flavor...

 

<player makes targeted shot to eyes>

<BANG>

<A slaver was hit in the eyes for no damage>

 

...

[Gorgon]

That would include you not being able to take a bullet in the brain and survive, and involve a lot of reloading. The combat is too easy on Normal though, no question about it. Haven't tried hard.

 

Although I came out spitting bile about the game, I still played it for 8 hours last night. That's a good indication that it doesn't suck as much as I thought initially.

 

It's better than Oblivion I agree. You could do worse if you were looking for an RPG shooter.

Edited October 31, 2008 by Gorgon

[Gorgon]

I don't play with any points in mele, but can you sneak up on people and take them down silently with sneak attacks. I only found one silenced gun so far, and it was so weak I tossed it. I have a pretty high sneak skill, 50 or so, and I find it hard getting very close to targets, in any case you usually wouldn't want to get close to a ghoul, or to a group of enemies, smarter to stay with some cover.

 

I have to say I don't miss indoor maps, or an exhaustive lengthy journal that you don't read anyway. I think you can place markers with text, tried it by accident, forgot how to.

Edited October 31, 2008 by Gorgon