Fallout 3: Game of the Year Edition

(For full transparency, this is a tidied-up version of my original review) The main story of Fallout 3 is like a poor rehash of Fallout 1 and 2. A civilization needs water, so you go off to find a McGuffin to solve the problem. Along the way, you end up fighting against mutated animals, raiders, mutants, and soldiers in power armor. From what I know about the original Fallout (as well as some information I read in the Fallout Bible), the main factions of Fallout 3 should not be in DC. In fact, it is stated by the leader of one of the factions that they abandoned DC specifically to avoid being nuked. The quests are pretty bad. Go to the quest location, shoot the enemies, and pick up the item that the giant glowing arrow is pointing to. It feels more like Borderlands than Fallout. Yes, there are some exceptions, like Power of the Atom and Wasteland Survival Guide, but those quests take place moments after leaving the tutorial area, and said quests also don't make sense in this setting. How is it that no one has written a survival guide in two centuries since the Great War? Why would you build your town around the very thing that ended your entire civilization? I suppose you could argue that the vaults in this area only opened fairly recently, but I couldn't find any information in the game that supports this idea. It is incredibly sad to see what little care Bethesda had for the setting, which is strange because this game is often praised for how atmospheric and immersive the setting is. How is a two-hundred-year-old irradiated desert where nothing grows and no one produces anything immersive? Since nothing grows, nothing should be alive. Did Bethesda forget what the FEV did to plant life, or did they simply not research the original games enough? I could only recommend Fallout 3 to someone who wanted a Fallout-themed looter shooter, but then I thought the fans were pretty clear they didn't want that after the backlash from Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel.

Even Fallout Tactics has more in common with Fallout 1 & 2 than this short stupid FPS. Just because you add exp to a FPS game it doesn't make it RPG. This is just another bad FPS game that takes beloved classic name to cash on it (like all new tomb riders).

FIVE STARS and the subject line says "horrible"?! I'll keep it short: Get this and New Vegas, download Tale of Two Wastelands. While installing, keep the balances introduced by New Vegas. The game (now a mod) then launches from FNV. Then mod everything else to your liking. Congratulations, your head-canon just got a lot wider, plus your arsenal from FO3 can now be carried over to FNV! Playing this standalone? Nah. The story is lackluster at best, the dialogue is poorly written, the animations are... horrid, and everything else is an unbalanced mess. If you can't fix the story, might as well let FNV's base mechanics and mod enhancements take over.

The infamous steam version actually is a better version than this since that one actually fuctions correctly.

Compared to others in the series (Fallout 1, 2 and New Vegas) this game is complete shite. It's writing is so minimal and unrealistic to the point of constant frustration. Most of the sidequests aren't very special and there are a total of 19 actual side quests (there being unmarked ones but they are more collectible tasks rather than quests. Some of the sidequests are okay, however, I will use One example of a side quest to explain why this whole game is garbage. The power of the Atom: This quest is the choice whether or not to destroy an entire town of regular down to earth individuals. Are you fucking kidding me, that is the stupidest thing ever I have ever heard. If you choose to blow up the town, you get a slightly nicer house, and more money, however, you get bad karma, if you disarm the bomb, you get good karma and a shitty house, with less money. First I will discuss the Karma system. In a game like Fable, an objective karma system works where if you do bad things you are bad, and you grow horns and people won't like you and the objective karma also works because it is an unrealistic fantasy game where you shoot fireballs out of your hand. However, Fallout as a realistic post-apocalyptic RPG doesn't work with this. Considering the first two games had very trying moral questions, I will give an example of this of course. There is a town called Junktown, there is a sheriff, and he's a nice guy and he thinks that the local casino owner sent someone to kill him because the casino owner wants to commit crimes and get rid of the restrictions and let his business grow. Upon seeing the casino owner on this issue you can choose to side with the casino owner or bug his office and get him arrested. Essentially the choice is, do you want to do something that is more lawful or, do you want to kill the sheriff, so the casino owner can grow his business and town can prosper further. The one here, is "DO YOU WANT TO BLOW UP TOWN" It's so idiotic. Just walk around.