Fallout 3

Author: Joe Martin
Published: 29th October 2008
Comments (73) Stumble

Emotional Fallout

Your father's escape naturally throws a spanner into the day to day workings of the vault and, in true Bethesda tradition, the introduction sequences to the game are both tutorial and an exercise in interactive storytelling.

It's like the opening to Oblivion, except not as linear. There are mini-sidequests and choices to make here which can effect the relationships your character will have later, impact your skills and decide who lives and dies for the rest of the game. Unlike in Oblivion where the Emperor and his men are all protected too, you can slaughter a lot of vault dwellers if you want – though certain characters will get knocked out instead of dying.

Escaping the vault will be a very familiar sensation to anyone who's ever played Oblivion past the tutorial sequence too. It's that same blinding HDR effect as you step into the sunlight and the same overwhelming feeling of possibility. You gain a level, choose a perk, and have to face the fact that you suddenly have more options than a hot chocolate factory.

Failout 3 Fallout 3 - Gameplay

There are problems here though in that, unlike Oblivion or Morrowind, you literally have no idea where to begin. Your father has left you a note saying that he's fine and doesn't want you to follow him, and since he's only been on screen for about three minutes there's no emotional connection to make you disagree with this sentiment. Plus, you don't really have any clues of where to start.

Honestly, if we'd had a choice we'd have said to hell with chasing down Daddy and we'd have stayed inside to mess with the delicately balanced regime of the vault. It's a shame you have to discard the terribly interesting microcosm so quickly.

Fortunately, things do start to pick up again and we were happy to find that the world we had to traverse was a lot more exciting than anything we'd seen in Oblivion. There's no endless, rolling forests – there's just a believable, collapsed wasteland punctuated by bloatflies, mutants and vagrants. And men with laser miniguns - it's here that the VATS combat system comes into play.

VATS, or Vault Assisted Targeting System if you prefer, is a power-up mode which attempts to bring the turn-based mechanic of the original games to the new game and which lets you pause the game, target specific parts of your enemies and cue up a series of attacks. It's the easiest way to score quick take-downs and super-gory kills, though it does feel a bit over-powered at times. Even with only average perception and a 10mm pistol you can still take an enemy's head clear off in one hit if you don't mind getting close enough to see the spray mist your monitor. Yum.

Failout 3 Fallout 3 - Gameplay

The VATS system isn't free to use though. Using attacks in VATS mode costs you action points, the amount of which you have is directly tied to your agility stat. Of course, if you want to stand a chance of hitting something then you'll still need to have a decently high perception stat too, so it's a classic RPG balancing act. Where do you want to focus your abilities?

One thing that helps make the levelling system feel more fun is the addition of a perks system, which lets you choose special perks and abilities as you level up. The perks themselves range from simple bonuses and stat increases to more involved and inventive things too, such as 'Black Widow', which lets women do more damage against men as well as unlocking new dialogue options.

The perks system isn't new though - it was one of the most popular features in the first games too, but Bethesda has chosen to combine it with the traits system from the earlier titles instead of just porting it as-is. The result is that you get perks much more regularly, which is great, and that there's a lot more perks to choose from too, which is even better. Each perk has a different set of requirements too, so the replayability is really expanded if you fancy playing through again with a different character style.

Disappointingly though this ethic isn't carried over to the dialogue system too - you can have the lowest intelligence and charisma in the world, but you'll still get the same dialogue choices for the most part, though special options may change slightly.

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