Video Gaming Review (PS3):
Fallout 3: The Complete Review
An exclusive TheHorrorDrunx.com game review
By
Doug Ezell
It is predicted that in the year 2012 the world as we know it will suffer such a
cataclysmic natural event that only a minute lot of people will survive and have to rebuild society. Except in the case of Fallout 3, that cataclysmic event is
induced by struggling world powers itching to press that little red button in the year 2077. That's a relief, so we now know we have at least a couple more
generations to go before we actually go. The world is nuked to hell-and-back on one grim day in the far future in
a war that lasts only a mere 2 hours. And that's it, the planet Earth looks like a monstrous dustbuddy from space and everyone and everything is killed off
by either the blast(s) or the immense amount of residual radiation from it all. Luckily, for that minute lot, a company named Vault-Tec saw the worst coming
beforehand and constructed little hideaways called - what else? - 'VAULTS' for those willing to pay a nominal fee could seek shelter within in the case
that Kim Jong-Il's midget great grandson threw a bitch fit and got all trigger happy. 200 years later is where Fallout 3 actually kicks off. In the year
2277, you'll finally be able to bust out of the underground cage you've spent your whole life in and go about your way in the retro-futuristic, post
apocalyptic Wasteland that is Washington D.C. to look for your Old Man who decided he wanted to see the world without your ass.
Fallout 3 comes from the acclaimed developer Bethesda Softworks, known for creating games like
The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion and the recently released, WET. From the get go you'll be able to create and build up your character however you see fit
such as selecting your gender, hair color, and name and then work your way to building up your skills like lockpicking, medicine, and small arms proficiency;
there are 13 skills to promote. You'll also be using a system referred to as S.P.E.C.I.A.L. which stands for: Strength, Perception, Endurance, Charisma,
Intelligence, Agility, and Luck making 7 attributes all together. The thing with your skills and S.P.E.C.I.A.L. is that you'll never be able to max out all
of them, so it's wise to test out what you use the most and what you like using and then prioritize, although the game itself does a very good job of
describing each one individually. If your skills and S.P.E.C.I.A.L. are your meat and 'taters then your perks you obtain that are the spice to it all. Most
perks you'll be able to pick out of a pot as you level up, but there are some special ones that can only be acquired by completing certain quests.
You'll quickly realize the importance of your Pip-Boy 3000, an arm mounted computer that acts as the central interface for just about everything you need
in-game. All your inventory screens, quests, stats, maps, etc. are managed through this nifty little device; you can even listen to the radio through it. The
experience mechanic in-game is the same as any other: you kill stuff, you gain XP; you complete a quest, you gain XP; you con some poor NPC, you gain XP;
noticing a trend here? Anything you do gains your character XP, it's just what you're willing to do and how far you're willing to take it that
dictates what XP you'll get and how fast you'll progress as a character. Then there's a Karma teeter-totter that's pretty self-explanatory. You
do bad things; you're treated as the douche bag that was dropped by Satan's mistress. You do good things; you are worshipped as the walking, breathing
messiah himself: Brian Boitano.
Fallout 3 is HUGE. There is so much to do in the way of quests and just straight up
freelancing: looting abandoned buildings or even entire cities and killing anything or anyone that you deem sucks. There are so many locales to visit as well;
with well over 100 marked locations (just in the base game, that doesn't even include the add-ons) you will kill a lot of time just wandering. You can
visit historic landmarks in the Downtown D.C. area like the Lincoln Memorial and National Museum of History or head out to the boonies and raid National Guard
armories and even locate other Vaults in the area. Other than quests and locations directly related to the main storyline, you can tackle them in any order you
please. You could even max out your character's stats and do all the side quests before you tackle the main quest; this is a true sandbox game. The story
is actually one of the best I've seen of any video game, very well scripted and very entrancing. It starts in the Vault you live in, Vault 101, when your
dad comes up missing one day and you have to break out to find him. The rest of the story is too great to not discover on your own so that's all you'll
get out of me. Your actions truly make an impact in each quest and ultimately the Wasteland as a whole. My controller dropped as my jaw did a few times at some
of the story's more critical moments, and there was that little snicker of gloating I'd get at some points as well; very good execution and pretty
emotional. And for as big as Fallout 3 is, it's amazing how great the visuals are and how well polished it is; looks outstanding. 
Now time for the action; Fallout 3 may be an RPG but that doesn't mean
it's deprived of decent action. Actually, it has some of the most diverse and immersive gameplay in the sense that it could hold its own if stripped of all
RPG-like elements and touted strictly as a shooter. Yeah, it's good. You'll engage in dialogue trees that take a good amount of investigation and
cunning on your part. Hacking computers and picking locks aren't just mini-games to take up space, they're actually played out to be fun and really
require a little bit of skill. Being able to barter with merchants all over the map will enhance your inventory with the items you need and let you sell the
items that are useless to you. Yes, there is a currency in post apocalyptia: bottle caps. And then there's the combat. There are too many fun ways to
mutilate enemies, whether you torch 'em, blow 'em up, shoot 'em in the face, shank 'em, snipe 'em, disintegrate 'em, [literally] nail
'em, beat 'em, and even nuke 'em. There's no end to it, I'm sweating profusely right now just thinking about turning some Super Mutant into
a scattered mess of body parts in a pool of blood from hacking him with a fire axe. I like to emphasize on all the blood that disperses from some poor sap when
you actually turn them into a corpse by dismemberment; dirty and satisfying. One of the coolest tools you'll be able to utilize is the 'Vault-Tec
Assisted Targeting System,' or V.A.T.S. which allows you to approach any combat situation with a more tactical advantage and enables you to target an
enemy's body parts individually. If you want to keep an enemy from fleeing, take out the legs; disarm them of any weapon, take out the arm; quickly
neutralize the situation altogether, take your aggression out on their face. Some long-time fans of Fallout will feel a stroke of nostalgia with some familiar
items and characters from previous games in the franchise as they return for this run. The return of The Brotherhood of Steel, The Enclave, the G.E.C.K., and
even your best friend, Dogmeat all make appearances this time around.
Now the reason why this is titled 'Fallout 3: The Complete Review' is simple:
there's downloadable content for the game. There are five DLC packs in all: Broken Steel, Operation: Anchorage, The
Pitt, Point Lookout, and Mothership Zeta. Granted, Fallout 3 was released in October 2008 and the DLC was
intended to be Xbox 360 and PC exclusive content being originally released in January 2009 but all five packes are now available for download on Playstation 3
as of October 8, 2009. Each add-on grants you about 4-6 hours of extra game time plus a bunch of new trophies to be earned. Here's the rundown of each
one.
Broken Steel
This is the one DLC pack that requires you to complete the main storyline in the base game in order to play. Broken Steel takes place immediately after the final main story quest and has you further aiding The Brotherhood of Steel in the never-ending war against the corrupt Enclave. The journey you embark on in this add-on is epic itself as it throws you into much larger scale battles. But you'll even further appreciate this one for being able to max out your character at level 30, whereas the base game only let you go as far as level 20. With that comes more perks and more points to progress your skills along with some extra kickass weapons and armor and even new enemies thrown into the mix. Broken Steel is a great kickoff for the add-on library.
Operation: Anchorage
The Outcast Brotherhood now requires your help to gain entry into a maximum security armory that is only accessible through completing a
combat simulator. Since you're the only one with a Pip-Boy 3000, it's all up to you to dive head first into a war simulation that was meant to train
soldiers for the Liberation of Anchorage against the Red Army of China taking place some time before the nukes started going off. A sneaking mission that
eventually turns to heavy combat and the chance to actually command a Special Forces squad against an army all add a new layer of gameplay. All this
accompanied by some new armor and weapons make a well rounded add-on.
The Pitt
Fallout 3 is a post apocalyptic world of complete lawlessness and with that people do what the hell they want. That includes a lot of people in the business of profiting from slavery. You will travel to Pittsburgh to answer the call of a slave in distress and infiltrate The Pitt to save his people. To do that though, you must become a slave yourself and work your way up the food chain to eventually liberating an entire race of slaves. The concept reminded me of Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome.You'll get the chance at a couple cool perks and new armor, but the best thing is the awesome new assault rifle (outfitted with a silencer and scope) you can obtain if you're willing to go the extra mile. The Pitt was one of my favorite add-ons because it is the embodiment of what a post apocalyptic world should feel like.
Point Lookout
Think Resident Evil bent over and raped by those inbred swine from The Hills Have Eyes. You step off the boat into a heavily fogged and abandoned carnival and first given the task to - guess what? - investigate a mysterious mansion. There's really no pertinent story with traveling to Point Lookout or in the place itself, you go there simply because it's just there. This place gives the most eerie atmosphere of the entire Fallout 3 world. You're in a huge swamp, which never seems to get any sun, crawling with extremely aggressive, creepy locals and ghouls. More new weapons and perks but not much at all in the way of new armor, but then again you're in the most primitive area of the game. You'll get plenty of XP by merely exploring the area and can even get a Trophy (PS3) for finding all the locations. This add-on was extremely fun because of the creepy atmosphere/foes and the amount of time I was able to suck out of it.
Mothership Zeta
You get some garbled radio transmission and decide it's a good idea to investigate the origin of it only to find a crashed UFO. A bright blue light and a dissection later, you wake up in a holding cell of a space ship and start your escape. Story? Other than just escape and survival, I really couldn't find one. There are, however, a plethora of comical abduction audio recordings scattered throughout the ship that documented the capture of countless individuals that were the sad victims of the same blue light you came across (finding them all gets you another Trophy). There's no absence of any cool perks or armor, although you'll nearly have completed the pack to obtain them. The most fun comes from being able to utilize the awesome, yet retro, alien weaponry and blasting away big headed extraterrestrials. If you're trying to decide which order to download the DLC packs, I would recommend Broken Steel first and hold off on Mothership Zeta for last and fill the center with whatever add-ons appeal to you more.
Fallout 3 won numerous Game of Year Awards in 2008 and for good reason, it
was done big and it was done right. After completing numerous playthroughs all with different approaches, I found myself still wanting more. My last
playthrough clocked in at almost 90 hours with the DLC included. Now you can get Fallout 3: Game of Year Edition which includes the base game and all five DLC
packs on a single disc at the price of a regular released disc-based game of $59.99 or pick up the original Fallout 3 at around $44.99 and then pay $9.99 for
each DLC pack. One thing that I must point out about actually downloading the add-ons is that my Playstation 3 was more prone to freezing up in-game. So goes
the famous RPG slogan: 'save early and save often.' I'm not sure if this issue was directly from the add-ons themselves or if the latest
Playstation update factored in at all; or if this is only an issue with the Playstation 3 software and not a problem with Xbox 360 or PC. Regardless, this is
one of the most rewarding experiences in post apocalyptic games and in this generation of gaming alone.
"My name is Doug Ezell and I am a Horror Drunx"
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