Although I was a big fan of the first two Fallout games, I hadn’t really been following the news on the release of Fallout 3. I had kind of given up hope on seeing a great new Fallout, just like I’d given up on seeing a new entry in the Jagged Alliances franchise.

Then I started seeing ads for Fallout 3, and I knew I had to go pick it up. I did just that as soon as it was released in the US, and boy was I pleased.

First Impressions of the Game

Graphics. The game looks pretty impressive, especially when you’re watching people die. I love the critical strike animations, when heads get blown off or people get goo-ified by an energy weapon.

The best part is that all the pretty effects aren’t too hardware intensive. I’m not running an uber gaming machine here. I picked up a cheap desktop at Bestbuy over the summer (AMD Phenom 8400 Triple Core, 3gb RAM, $700 w/ 19″ LCD Monitor) and threw in a cheapish video card (nVidia GeForce 8600 GT, $100). It’s not a junker PC, but it’s certainly not top notch. It was more than enough to play WoW on, but now I’m pleasantly surprised to find out that it can handle some newer games as well.

Game World. When you first start exploring, the map seems like it might be kind of small. I remember thinking at one point, “Don’t I ever get to leave the Capital Wasteland?”

By the end, though, I realized just how big it is. Although fast traveling between parts that you’ve discovered make the map seem small, there’s a lot to see. After my first run through the game, my character was level 19 (with 20 being the max) and I probably only explored a quarter to a half of the map. There was plenty of other stuff for me to go out and explore.

Plot Line. The game had a decent plot, but this was one point that left me a bit disappointed. The beginning of the game is very open ended. You can run around, do what you want, complete side quests, etc.

However, once you get to a certain point in the main plot line, it feels like you’re being forced into a linear plot progression. The other characters not-so-gently suggest that you complete each quest just as you finish the previous one, and before you know it the game is over. The pacing seemed off, and if I had known I was getting to the very end I would have taken it slower and done some more exploring.

Combat. I’ve got mixed feelings about the combat system. I love VATS, but there’s something strange about being able to jump back and forth between turn-based and real-time combat.

For example, if you duck behind a corner, you can wait for an enemy to come around, go to VATS, and blow his head off before he knows what hit him. You could also run around the corner, go to VATS, and probably blow his head off before he gets one or two shots off.

It also seems odd that you can exhaust all of your action points, keep on firing in real time, and eventually end up with full action points again.

Along the same lines, using items in your inventory (stimpaks, food, changing gear) should take some time and/or action points. If you’ve got a sufficient number of stimpaks, you can tear up a camp of baddies without any tactics at all. Run in Rambo style, keep shooting and stimpak-ing until everything is dead.

The Final Verdict – Is It Worth It?

Definitely. I was disappointed in a few things (the pacing of the later part of the plot, parts of the combat system), but overall it is a fantastic game.

As soon as I booted it up, I was enthralled. I was sucked in for a week or so, and before I knew it I had logged around 30 hours and finished the game once. I’m looking forward to giving it a second run through, but this time I’ll probably take it slower – both in terms of game time and real time.