Fallout 3

• Positives

All of it

• Cons

None of it

Not my favorite in the series but its still fantastic

Greetings, If you are reading this review I'd like to thank you, Keep in mind this is the only review I have ever written so I hope that illustrates how much I enjoy this game, Fallout 3 is an amazing experience, It has fun combat mechanics, There is so much to explore, I have been playing it since it's initial release in 2008, It is well written and I won't say anything about the plot as I do not want to ruin anything, The game has decent graphics (Yes I understand that the game is old but I play it on PC) Unfortunately as it is a Bethesda game it does crash on occasion and the in game radio on your pipboy in the game doesn't quite work right but even still it is an amazing game, Which I still play to this day. I have logged around 350 hours on this game, And that's just on my current PC! I have played it on my previous PC and xbox 360 for hundreds of hours more, So please take my word for it and play this game, It will absolutely be worth your time, Just remember to save often. I would like to thank you for taking the time to read this and I promise if you give this game a chance you will not regret it friends, Cheers!

I'm not going to re-write the previous reviews about Fallout 3,you can basically read them yourself,by now the game is a solid year old.I am just going to say that Fallout 3 is one of the best games of all time,period. This is a complete virtual world,although nuked and destroyed,it is fun just wondering,exploring,collecting,buying,stealing or killing everything you see.Your karma will diside your future,just like real life! The graphics are amazing.Thevoice actors like Liam Neeson and Malcolm Mcdowell are superb.The game is a masterpiece on all fronts. Bethesda did a great job with this game and i really hope they make a fourth game!

Fallout 3 is a game that set a high standard for Fallout New Vegas and Fallout 4. Even though it may have been surpassed by the games following it, Fallout 3 is without a doubt a gem in a time where games like this weren't very common. This game has an incredible Karma system and an ending with actual weight. This is what the game excels in. You get to be whoever you want to be in this world, with the Karma system, you will lose Karma for dishonorable or evil actions and gain Karma for morally good actions. This paired with the factions and the ending make for a lot of replay value. A negative would be the actual gameplay. You are over reliant on VATS. This style of shooting is annoying at times and was improved in later games for good reason. Another issue for me is the lack of weapon customization on top of a durability system that feels cheap for a loot based game. Despite some problems, Fallout 3 lead to some incredible games on top of being incredible itself. This game is definitely worth going back to.

Hard to believe that I didn't even hear of this game when it came out and it was only a colleague telling me it was "my thing" that made me aware of it. I had thought about it but all the stories of the many bugs put me off and I had also heard people describe the game as "walking through an empty landscape for 30 minutes". Eventually, over two years after release, I got it and wondered what the fuss was as I had to take baby steps to learn controls and design a character I didn't care about or even know if I would stick with – this feeling only lasted a short time because the story gets moving, the action starts, ramifications of decisions are felt and it is not long before you are out in the open, facing a massive landscape and with an entirely blank map.

The first town you enter is a potted summary of the entire game. You have characters in there that progress the main story but you have more characters that have side quests that you can do. These side quests not only get you out exploring the world but also earn you money and experience which you need to build up your character to be better equipped for the wide world. The main story is quite linear and your decisions and actions in it will only vary it so much – this was fine by me as I didn't want to feel I was missing out on loads by taking a certain path (missing out on a friend or a specific weapon is OK). I guess it must be possible to rush the quest and, although you'll be poorly equipped throughout, it might be possible to ignore the wider world and just push on this one path. To do so would be a mistake though because there are a very strong collection of side-quests – some of which involve you going to one maybe two places, others (such as the Wilderness Survival Guide) take you to loads of places and defy the term "side" quest by taking many hours to complete. Or, if specific quests don't take your fancy, you can simply head out into the wild where the many, many places awaiting you include abandoned drive-in cinemas or complex buildings overrun by mutants or human gangs. Of course many of these places will also produce side-quests for you to do so it is very easy to suddenly find yourself struggling to decide what to do next as your options are so vast.

The game play is varied and enjoyable. The exploring, trading and building up a character's skill makes for a great RPG feel without ever becoming a chore or really detailed pain. The use of dialogue choices and the range of ways to interact with people also makes it interesting – you can kill almost anyone you want, be rude, be polite, be helpful or be unhelpful, you can ask questions or simply ignore people; all of them will have ramifications (however minor). The FPS aspect is not as good as dedicated shooters, but the VATS system is good and free-firing is reasonably good. The key thing is that all of these aspects are combined and mixed well so that you never feel like you are totally in a RPG or totally in a FPS etc and it is surprising how well they all work together to pull you in. The lock-picking and terminal hacking annoyed me at first but soon I "got" them and enjoyed using logic and skill to do them.

The design of the game is also key outside of game-play. The idea of an alternative world frozen in the 1950's and then destroyed by nuclear war sounds daft but yet it works wonderfully because whether it is music, iconic items or the way people speak, the "All-American" feel of it contrasts really well with the reality of the wasteland; the adverts looked cool but the whole game captures this and uses it very well. The soundtrack in particular is great. Not quite as great is the voice acting. The characters are pretty well designed but the acting for the majority of them is only so-so. Most surprisingly the "big ticket" names don't have much to do and I was surprised by the lack of impact of Neeson; McDowell didn't have too much more time but he added more I felt. The incidental voices are disappointing since many characters are given identical voices and phrases and personally I would have liked them to have simply given me more voices in the minor characters.

This is a minor gripe though because I genuinely love the game. The stories of "walking through nothing" didn't come true because the fast-travel is possible once you discover a place and exploring is part of the fun. The bugs didn't affect me too badly – although I saved regularly just in case. My console froze a handful of times and one side-quest bugged out on me but otherwise it was perfect. The graphics are a little dated perhaps but they still look great and the world is well designed and engaging. The ending of the game is poor – I'm not a fan of how Red Dead did it, but at least it let you continue to explore after "the end" – at least Broken Steel will change this for me.

Overall Fallout 3 is as good as I had heard. It mixes talking with fighting, exploring with trading, a roughly linear story with consequences and overall produces a really great game. Like many others I found that it easily gave me over 100 hours of playing time – and, more importantly, I enjoyed them all.