Fallout 3: Pretty lively for a wasteland

What makes an RPG great?  There's a million and a half answers to this question, some would say the characters and the story, others would say the setting, some would say mechnics, some would say none of these.  The question gets even trickier when you throw in the difference between western and Japanese RPGs.  There's no one right answer although I would argue that there are a few wrong ones, but to avoid a fight I won't mention those here.

I've always had a slightly different view on what makes an RPG great.  In my opinion, it's how much it ruins your life.

Kind of like this guy

Now I don't mean to say that RPGs have legitimately ruined my life, far from it, they stand alone on the top pedestal as my favorite genre by leaps and bounds.  What I mean by "ruin your life" is I'm writing this at 6:30 in the morning and I have stuff to do tomorrow, fucking Fallout...

Sticking power is what makes RPGs great.  It's kind of a cop-out answer, I know.  "You made us pick asshole and then made us look like ignorant fucks because the right answer wasn't there!"  Easy there killer, I'll explain.  I'm writing this post at 6:30 in the morning because I said to myself, "Hey, you should tie up some loose ends on quests and write a blog post about it."  And I said, "Wow that sounds like a good idea, let's see, the next on the list is go to a riverboat?  I don't remember that being in the game."  And 7 hours later I have most of one of the DLC's done because I suck at time management.

There was no point in there where I wanted it to end, I wasn't getting tired playing it, I wanted to see more.  This is a culmination of a lot of things.  Mechanics, settings, writing, characterization of NPCs and of course the lure of the next level.  I've played Fallout 3 before, multiple times, but this time was no different, I just get lost in the splendor of it all, and that's a great RPG.

Such a charming game

Fallout 3 was my first experience with the Fallout universe which generally means I'm predisposed to liking it more than New Vegas, and I do.  The consensus seems to be that people who didn't play Fallout 1 or 2 like Fallout 3 better and people who did play Fallout 1 & 2 tend to like New Vegas better.  I've been told it has to do with New Vegas capturing more of the spirit of the originals and 3 being more "gritty" in it's setting and writing.  But no matter how you cut it, Fallout 3 is one of the best western RPGs ever made, and I make this statement with no question in my mind.

After I explain the differences in the beginning of the story I swear I'll stop making comparisons between 3 and NV so stop writing that angry comment and hold your hate until the end. 

Fallout 3 has you beginning in a Vault, a giant nuclear fallout shelter constructed to ensure the survival of the human race in case of a nuclear war (SPOILER: A nuclear war happens).  You have been kept here all your life and it's all you know, then events beyond your control throws you out into the wasteland with an incredibly open ended objective and you have to figure everything out on your own, it's nicely done.

New Vegas starts with you getting shot in the head, because you're a courier and apparently someone wants what you have.  You then wake up in a nearby town and have to track down the guy who shot you (which seems like a terrible idea) in a very, "Oh where could he possibly have gone, maybe that giant glowing place over there?" type of obvious storytelling.  And the game never addresses your life before you getting shot in the head, ever.  No one recognizes you, you basically just blipped into existence to get shot in the head, it's a little odd.

Ready?

Mechanically, the game is solid and should be a template for future games in the genre.  The game gives you tons of choices in how you want to play.  Don't like FPS?  We'll handle the shooting in a pseudo turn based system.  Don't like turn-based combat?  No problem, the game holds up fine as a pure FPS.  Want to carry around a giant minigun and mow down hordes of enemies while wearing a suit of powered armor?  Awesome, we got you covered.  Want to sneak around and use a gun that nails peoples limbs to walls?  No problem, have fun.  Now do you want a normal gun or a laser gun?  Or maybe you'd like some grenades?  Or perhaps a flaming sword or a weapon made of the severed hands or your enemies?

It's all just waiting there for you and the game doesn't penalize any particular play style, they're all equally viable, they want you to do what you want to do.

The setting is one of Fallout's most engaging points.  I've never seen a game world feel so alive and so dead at the same time.  Exploring is by far the best part of the game.  You might be running somewhere and see a unexplored location pop up on your compass and 2 hours later you've cleared out a radar station of raiders, found a new quest, completed it, and have a new weapon and a stylish hat to show for it

Maybe you'll wander into the capitol rotunda

The game does very little hand holding.  You can wander anywhere from the word go and you'll learn very quickly that you probably shouldn't have taken a pot shot at some weird looking thing called a "Deathclaw"

Oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck.

You have to learn what's dangerous, what works, what's to be avoided, you are the Lone Wanderer.

I have a bad feeling about this...

The game is not without faults, however.  It is a wide open, sandbox game, so it comes with it's share of glitches.

Collision fail

Pretty sure his face and arms should be the same color

Amazing floating merchant

But all the ones I've encountered were more funny than anything else.  None of the quests messed up on me and none of them really upset me.

The game's main storyline also falls rather flat.  It's rather short, only taking a few hours if that's all you do.  And be warned, unless you have the Broken Steel DLC installed, you do not get to continue your game after the final mission is complete.  But I feel that this is okay.  I'm not sure it was intentional or not, but the lack of focus on the main questline lets you focus on a much more interesting story, your own.  The main story of the game, in my opinion is all of your interactions in the world.  The random quests you find, the random things you find, it's all part of your story.  One in which you actually develop from a terrified vault dweller to a master of the wastes.

If you haven't played Fallout 3, I would highly recommend picking it up.  It's one of the best experiences in my gaming career and every time I start it up again it sucks me back in, there's just nothing else like it.  I'm currently 43 hours into this play through and I'm not done.  The world is out there, waiting to be explored.

Kind of showing off

One in a million shot