Fallout 3: Game of the Year Edition

The past couple of weeks, I've been playing through Fallot 3, Bethesda's insanely popular Action RPG game set in the atomic wasteland of Washington D.C. I picked up The Game of the Year edition a few weeks ago, and it has really impressed me; as I'm not the biggest fan of Role Playing Games.
As I've only finished the main story quests and side quests, I won't be touching on the DLC, but if it's more of the same, it's not a bad thing.

STORY
Players take the role of "The Lone Wanderer", a man or woman who grows up in Vault 101, one of many large scale bomb shelters used during and after the nuclear war of 2077. The player character is born around 200 years later, and after the playing through the characters birth and pre-teen years, the father of your character flees the vault, leaving you to follow him and fend for yourself in the "Capital Wasteland".
The majority of the game follows the players character travelling through the wasteland and doing various quests for the lands various characters. The main story of Fallout 3 is well written, with various paths to follow in that story.

PRESENTATION
While Fallout 3 isn't the most beautiful game around, it does have an aesthetic appeal to it, featuring a landscape with a lot of character behind it. Many characters you meet have interesting looks to them, but many more look like cut and copy duplicates of others found in various settlements. The same applies for many of the character voices, although the completely unique voices of characters like your Father, Moira and Moriarty are all high quality and memorable.
The dialogue is pretty awesome on the most part, with a lot of choice being provided for players to use when conversing with NPC's.

The music used in Fallout 3 has a fittingly retro feel that goes along with the theme of the wasteland; a world stuck in the 50's in all but technology. This, along with the unique 50s style set pieces really help create a real personality for the land in which you are let loose.
But again, the graphics could use a bit of a touch up. Not a huge complaint, and it isn't gunna bring down my opinion on this title.

GAMEPLAY
At first glance, Fallout 3 plays like a First Person Shooter with RPG elements, and on the most part, that's exactly what it can be described as (although the camera can be switched from 1st to 3rd person).
The controls are easy to understand, with many of the controls being similar to a first person shooter, save for the V.A.T.S (Vault Assisted Targeting System), which allows players to place their shots with deadly efficiency while gameplay is paused.

The RPG elements f Fallout 3 determine how good your character is at certain tasks, such as hacking, lockpicking or which type of weapons the "Lone Wanderer" specializes in. Also open to customization are the weapons and outfits that players can equip, each with their own different stats and perks.

Quests are given by NPC's, and often have multiple ways of completion. Alot of the time these range from Choirboy to Insane Asshole, but there are often occasions where the choices are not black or white, but grey. Many endings result in new equipment for the character, so a lot of thought should go into how your character acts.

Enemy AI isn't really anything groundbreaking. More often than not, all enemies will charge you, regardless of the weapon they possess, and do not run for cover. This doesn't allow for much of a tactical approach to combat, but the V.A.T.S Targeting System makes up for that, with the ability to cripple limbs; resulting in a corresponding disadvantage. This can include the loss of mobility from crippling the legs, or the inability to wield a weapon after crippling the arms.

Bugs in a game aren't normally a huge problem for me, but a lot of the bugs in Fallout 3 are recurring, or just too huge to ignore. Constant frame rate issues have plagued me during my time with the game, as well as glaring issues like having to glitch through a wall into the untextured "Abyss" to find an NPC who hasn't spawned in the game map. It's things like this that should have been fixed or patched by the time a game of the year edition has been released.

REPLAYABILITY
One of the advantages a game has by offering a moral choice system is that players can often play through a game more than once, and earn different abilities, equipment or quest endings thanks to the different actions. Fallout 3 offers 3 paths, good, evil and neutral; each with their corresponding trophies or achievements to earn. In addition, there are many collectible bobble heads to find; as well as various unmarked quests and locations to find.
If you happen to acquire the G.O.T.Y edition, there are also 5 Downloadable content packs to play through; Operation: Anchorage, The Pitt, Broken Steel, Point Lookout and Mothership Zeta; all adding more weapons, environments and a lot more character to the fallout world.

OVERVIEW
This game is a must try for anyone with a PC or a next gen console, even if you aren't into the RPGs. It has enough character and charm to ensnare any gamer, as well as some cool game mechanics like V.A.T.S. However, glaring development issues such as disappearing "essential" NPCs are almost a deal breaker, but if you can get past them, its a game you wont forget. Also, in the game of the year edition, theres all the additional content. For free! You know yo love free stuff.

Come back to the site next week for a review of a new game. Hopefully. Or It'll be sometime during the following week as I may be away from my computer. Anyway, until next time, take care. Also, FEEEEEEEEEDBAAAAAAAAAAAACK! Please?