Review
Played on: Xbox 360 & Xbox Series X
Released: 2008
Prior to Fallout 3, I'd never played anything in the series, therefore I had little knowledge about what it was about. With mainstream gaming leaning heavily towards post-apocalyptic settings at the time, an excellent set of trailers for Fallout 3 caught my eye. I somehow was not expecting it to be a first-person experience.
My idea of Fallout prior to this had been PC-centric strategy titles viewed in an isometric view from above, appealing to a more hardcore audience. Seeing everything from a first-person view in the trailer, depicting how it was to exit a vault and wander into the wasteland really caught my attention.
I bought Fallout 3 on launch, mesmerised by the trailers and hoping it would be able to do everything it promised on such a scale. Back then I hadn't played that many open world titles and I still hadn't experienced Bethesda Softworks' Elder Scrolls Oblivion.
Fast forward to recent years and I've been playing a lot of the Obsidian sequel Fallout New Vegas, built on the same engine and gameplay as Fallout 3. Curious to relive some of that old Fallout 3 magic, I decided to revisit an old save of it on my Xbox Series X.
Let's take a step back to reminiscent why I love this title!
There's no prior knowledge needed to play Fallout 3 from the earlier titles in the series. The setting is mostly the same; the world falls into atomic war after the 1950s, which developed itself technically a lot further than it actually did, and you wake up exactly two hundred years later in a vault. These vaults were built by the US Government to shelter society, at least the ones lucky enough to pay for them, and keep humanity alive under the surface of the earth until it was safe to return up top again.
Thus, everything is bombed to a wasteland on the surface. Although some buildings stand there's vast amount of desert. Everything stuck in a 1950s style, albeit with modern aspect like autonomous robots, nuclear cars and laser weapons. This visual style was what really hooked me to begin playing Fallout 3!
It all begins with playable segments of your characters life growing up in a Vault, from waking up as a baby in a cot, through being a small child with a birthday party on the vault, to training with a BB gun, receiving your Pip-boy and finally being old enough to leave and wander into the ruthless anarchy on the surface. A necessity as your dad, a renowned scientist has just up and left the vault one day without telling anyone.
This depiction of growing up, then leaving a safe haven with one single clue to find your dad in the vastness of a wasteland, made a massive impact on me playing it for the first. One of the first buildings you discover and enter, throws you straight into the harsh reality of the world on the surface; it's full of crazy looters trying to kill you. Leaving an inexperienced player afraid and shocked by how ruthless this game can be.
This is the genius of Fallout in general; there's nobody here to save you, everyone wants to survive and get whatever resources you may have. Seeing enemies, ghouls and monsters in the distance, require a decision; kill them for loot and experience points, or keep your distance and walk by.
Building your character up through levelling is key to survival, putting experience points into perks for guns, melee, bartering, speech or maybe sneaking to go stealthily about. There is a ton of possibilities on the level tree but unlike the Elder Scrolls titles, points need to be added up front rather than giving you experience for using the actual skills.
On paper it's a blend of a shooter and RPG, but as you wander deep into underground tunnels and vaults full of ghouls and other hideous radioactive creatures it surprisingly becomes a survival horror experience. And an intense one at that.
Just entering a seemingly abandoned and dark building, then suddenly hearing noises of something moving about is, to put it mildly, scary. Limited ammo and healing, combined with ruthless enemies attacking, not forgetting that you may have wandered into a high-level area which your characters is far from levelled up to stand a chance.
To give the player a significant upper hand in combat there's a system called V.A.T.S. Accessed through the press of a button, utilising your armband Pip-boy device, it will slow down gameplay to a crawl. Allowing you to focus on various limbs on enemies and use a set amount of hit points on one or many of them and then pressing action. Resulting in great damage taken on the selected limbs.
Your aim here is usually to go for the weak points like a head, but helmets and accuracy from a distance hamper your chances of damage, reflected in a hit percentage on each limb. Shooting an arm off an enemy, rather than just go for the head, might keep it from firing back in prolonged battles with tougher enemies.
It's a really entering combat system with hilarious, dynamically generated, slow-motion sequences of your enemy receiving damage in a violent manner and overly gory manner.
In addition, there's the bulk of RPG at play; tons of character interactions, dialogue options and choices where the moral choice of being good or evil comes into play. All your resources, level management, apparel, supplies and ammo, as well as information about quests you've required, and a map is accessed on you Pip-boy. This device pauses the game and brings up a vintage green screen to navigate it all though. At first, it seems a little daunting, but this device becomes second nature and is a massive upgrade to the menu system in Oblivion.
Playing on an Xbox Series X, it takes benefits from the backwards compatibility boosts. We see the original 720p@30fps image quality increased to 4K@60fps, with a 16xAF added for keeping clarity to textures in the many distant wasteland views. Collected it brings out the 2008 visuals at their best and less rough than back on the 360. The increased framerate reduces the slower feel of the first person. Also load times are significantly cut on modern hardware compared to on the 360 and PS3.
Some will complain that it belongs in the gritty, yellow and brown era, but this is an example of title that excelled at it. This isn't a world full of colour, hope and happiness, it's about depicting a hostile and dystopian landscape post-nuclear war. With dynamic lighting, weather and night cycles, it builds an incredible atmosphere and a beauty for something as horrendous as a nuked wasteland. There's a joy of spotting a building standing out in the desert-like horizon, far into the distance, and walking there.
On the surface it might visually look simple, even in comparison with titles from its day, but once you settle in you begin appreciating how much work has been put into the finer detail. Sure, there are corridors, objects and buildings that are repeated, but there's so much atmosphere in all that 1950s design and worn out exterior and interior environments. Not only is it amazing to explore, it's also creepy as hell once you go below the surface.
In addition, the music score works perfectly to build tension and fear. Should you want to tune in to some 50s jazz or just a news radio just to break the dystopian mood though, your Pip-boy has you covered with a built-in radio! Crossing the wasteland even changes which radio stations you have access to.
There are plenty of weapons to aid you against enemies, be it handguns, rifles, shotguns or brutal melee ones. Weapons wear out over time too, same as Oblivion, requiring you to either have them fixed at a merchant or use experience points to become skilled at doing so yourself. If you have two identical weapons you can combine them into one that's restored, it's a skill I found extremely helpful.
In addition, there's valuables, healing and scrap materials to either use, sell or craft new items, ammo and strength boosts from. Just be careful not to throw anything down your throat through; pills can make you addicted and dirty food and water will increase your rads, which in turn gives you radiations sickness.
Many factors to consider, but a familiar gameplay design for hardcore RPG players. With a gunplay and first person it might not seem like a typical RPG, however this is just a different take than a setting in the Middle Ages but make no mistake there's all the elements of the genre to delve into.
Replaying for different outcomes of choices and dialogues, or delving into the expansive DLC additions, will combined give you tens and tens of hours of entertainment. But it brings me to a weak factor; the main story playtime. My first playthrough was indeed a far shorter experience as I went mainly for the main quests, thus you can finish it all by 15 hours. In addition, like other Bethesda Softworks main stories; it ends on a rather brief and low-key note.
However, during replays, I discovered that the true experience of any Fallout, or Elder Scrolls title for that matter, is to explore and explore even more. It's about wandering in a direction on the map, discovering hideouts, vaults or towns. Then doing side quests and small stories to fill a rich experience and lore. This is where it serves the meat on the bone and what makes it an amazing game.
Sure, the gunplay is on the simplistic side with no iron sights and a questionable hit detection and the third person view is a joke, but once you begin cleverly utilising the V.A.T.S. system; slowing time, choosing which limbs to attack, it becomes strategic with more typical role playing combat. Plus, I never tire of seeing those creatures blow up in gory slow-motion!
As I've been replaying recently, I've been reminded of how much I love this title. With the added benefit of 60fps and higher resolution, it holds up to make a believable and intriguing world to explore. The beauty lies in the detail and the eerie atmosphere it gradually builds as you play.
Just remember to explore, that's where the magic of Bethesda Softworks design lies; the side quests are just as interesting as the main ones and sometimes offer entirely unrelated stories that offer a surprising level of depth, giving you the whole picture of what happened!
Fallout 3 masterfully combines exploring and tense, tactical gun fights with being horrified, scared, fascinated and curious. Gritting your teeth together to survive shootouts with limited ammo, resources and health items makes it feel like survival horror. During your journey of the harsh, brutal and ruthless wasteland I was, and still am, completely fascinated. Easily one of my top ten gaming moments of all time.
