Blogs that make you go "hmm".
Aidil Omar, 4/5.<blockquote>It’s so easy peasy flicking the switch and watch the horizon burn in a colossal mushroom cloud. This is what sets apart this massively brilliant RPG game from the rest of its kind. The karma system makes the game interesting and sets the tone how you achieve your objectives by the game’s end.
Fallout 3 is the best RPG the genre has to offer, it should not be missed, come hell or high water.</blockquote>Pixelration, A.<blockquote>There's way, way more content in Fallout 3 than there was in Bethesda's last effort. What really sells this content isn't that there so much of it, but instead the way its presented. Each "dungeon," whether it's a town, a lone cabin in the mountains, an abandoned subway, a diner, whatever, has its own little story. These stories add a tremendous amount of variety to the gameplay, and variety, kids, really is the spice of life.
What doesn't help the often stale dialogue are the uninspired characters. At hour 10, everything is fine, come hour 20, you've heard nearly every voice in the game, and seen a majority of the faces too. Somebody buy these developers one of those nifty voice-altering gizmos. Add on to that the hilariously out-dated animations, and you've got a recipe for mediocrity.
All that said, Fallout 3 is an incredible piece of work. The sheer size of the game, the variety of the places you explore, of the sub-narrative ascribed to each locale, is astounding.</blockquote>Jumping in Pools, 8/10.<blockquote>As a fan of both Fallout 1 and 2, I was nervous to see whether or not this game followed properly in their footsteps. I am glad to say, yes...or at least until the end of the game, yes. Unfortunately, this game is fantastic with a terrible ending.
So how does Fallout 3 follow in its predecessor's footsteps? As before, there is Karma, Perks, leveling up, etc. But most important are the choices you can make in this game: your choices actually affect gameplay and outcomes of people and settlements. The choices and quests are plentiful, the "speech" ability is excellently executed, and the environment is large and lush.</blockquote>PlayRealm.<blockquote>I feel obligated to write a few lines about all of the wonderful things that Bethesda perfected in Fallout 3. I’m going to try to rush through this is the least verbose way possible. V.A.T.S is a ton of fun, and adds an incredibly entertaining twist to combat. Dialogue options have been greatly improved since Oblivion, there are a ton of great lines, I really give the writing staff props for coming up with so much interesting dialogue and so many interesting characters. Speaking of dialogue, those who have played Oblivion might remember that you would constantly run into a couple of characters with the same voice. This has been completely eliminated, the larger collection of voice actors has really created an extremely cinematic experience. And to top it all off, I think I can objectively say this is probably the most realistic game I’ve yet to play.</blockquote>Musings of a Muse.<blockquote>While the person is still given several dialogue lines to choose, each one resulting in a different outcome, in many situations the player is given a speech game, where he has a choice of choosing a pivotal line which will somehow convince the opposing party to agree with the player, or grant the player access to town, or perform something beneficial to the player etc. The percentage of success is related to his Speech skills, and once the player fails the test he can’t repeat it anymore, and will have to resort to other methods to get his way. Still there are some incidents where I felt that the NPC being convinced simply by one line the player said is pretty far-fetched.
In conclusion, Fallout 3 is an enjoyable game, ruined by its mediocre ending and numerous freezing issues. Once the latter is settled by hopefully a patch, I will agree with conviction that it deserves to be one of the best games of the year alongside GTA IV, MGS4, LBP and Team Fortress 2.</blockquote>Ben Medler.<blockquote>There were two things about the story I was disappointed about. First, my companions were just walking turrets. Companions in the game follow you around and help you in battle. But considering it has been five years since the first Knights of the Old Republic game came out (which had full storylines around their companion characters), I think companion characters need to be more than just an extra gun. Especially for games that try to have in-depth story. For instance I was a good character so I picked up a Brotherhood knight along the way. She never said anything during conversations, weighing in with her so called honorable conscience. I could out-right kill someone and she wouldn’t do a dame thing, even help. Plus no NPC seemed to noticed that I was dragging a full fledge BoS knight with me. It defiantly did not stop me from getting into Paradise Falls, a slaver camp. I paid the guy 500 caps (money) and he let two fully armed individuals dressed in Power armor just walk right in. I mean how much does it take for the game to check if the player has a companion that is opposite the faction that I am dealing with?</blockquote>Leveling Down, A.<blockquote>Fallout 3 is in every sense of the word, a role-playing game. It’s not a role-playing game that has come to be associated with Final Fantasy and Dragon Warrior but rather, a game where you get to choose a specific role for your character and play that role throughout the game. I consider Fallout 3 to be more an adventure game first and foremost, with minor RPG elements. You can honestly just play through the game looking for rifles and shooting at enemies, and not even really worry about the stats and Perks you want to assign your character.
Fallout 3 deserves my 2008 game of the year award because it succeeds most in what it tried to do compared to all of the other games released this year.</blockquote>Curtis's Games, 8.5/10.<blockquote>The first thing that really popped out were the stunning visuals when looking at the landscape. You could see to the horizon, everything had realistic values and shadows. The visuals were very stylized, everything had a derelict feeling, perfect in keeping with the story. Bright colors were used sparingly which accentuated the feeling of depression that was present in nearly every character in every town. This made the game feel deep and helped me connect to the NPCs, which is important in a single player RPG.
As nice as the visual landscapes were, the NPCs did not look nearly as good. The textures were flat, and the characters had almost no shadowing effects. There are only a handful of faces, so the same people would pop up in every town with different clothes, and even the clothes were a little disappointing. There was almost no variety, and even the different types looked almost identical.
The story line is really the best part of the game.</blockquote>
Aidil Omar, 4/5.<blockquote>It’s so easy peasy flicking the switch and watch the horizon burn in a colossal mushroom cloud. This is what sets apart this massively brilliant RPG game from the rest of its kind. The karma system makes the game interesting and sets the tone how you achieve your objectives by the game’s end.
Fallout 3 is the best RPG the genre has to offer, it should not be missed, come hell or high water.</blockquote>Pixelration, A.<blockquote>There's way, way more content in Fallout 3 than there was in Bethesda's last effort. What really sells this content isn't that there so much of it, but instead the way its presented. Each "dungeon," whether it's a town, a lone cabin in the mountains, an abandoned subway, a diner, whatever, has its own little story. These stories add a tremendous amount of variety to the gameplay, and variety, kids, really is the spice of life.
What doesn't help the often stale dialogue are the uninspired characters. At hour 10, everything is fine, come hour 20, you've heard nearly every voice in the game, and seen a majority of the faces too. Somebody buy these developers one of those nifty voice-altering gizmos. Add on to that the hilariously out-dated animations, and you've got a recipe for mediocrity.
All that said, Fallout 3 is an incredible piece of work. The sheer size of the game, the variety of the places you explore, of the sub-narrative ascribed to each locale, is astounding.</blockquote>Jumping in Pools, 8/10.<blockquote>As a fan of both Fallout 1 and 2, I was nervous to see whether or not this game followed properly in their footsteps. I am glad to say, yes...or at least until the end of the game, yes. Unfortunately, this game is fantastic with a terrible ending.
So how does Fallout 3 follow in its predecessor's footsteps? As before, there is Karma, Perks, leveling up, etc. But most important are the choices you can make in this game: your choices actually affect gameplay and outcomes of people and settlements. The choices and quests are plentiful, the "speech" ability is excellently executed, and the environment is large and lush.</blockquote>PlayRealm.<blockquote>I feel obligated to write a few lines about all of the wonderful things that Bethesda perfected in Fallout 3. I’m going to try to rush through this is the least verbose way possible. V.A.T.S is a ton of fun, and adds an incredibly entertaining twist to combat. Dialogue options have been greatly improved since Oblivion, there are a ton of great lines, I really give the writing staff props for coming up with so much interesting dialogue and so many interesting characters. Speaking of dialogue, those who have played Oblivion might remember that you would constantly run into a couple of characters with the same voice. This has been completely eliminated, the larger collection of voice actors has really created an extremely cinematic experience. And to top it all off, I think I can objectively say this is probably the most realistic game I’ve yet to play.</blockquote>Musings of a Muse.<blockquote>While the person is still given several dialogue lines to choose, each one resulting in a different outcome, in many situations the player is given a speech game, where he has a choice of choosing a pivotal line which will somehow convince the opposing party to agree with the player, or grant the player access to town, or perform something beneficial to the player etc. The percentage of success is related to his Speech skills, and once the player fails the test he can’t repeat it anymore, and will have to resort to other methods to get his way. Still there are some incidents where I felt that the NPC being convinced simply by one line the player said is pretty far-fetched.
In conclusion, Fallout 3 is an enjoyable game, ruined by its mediocre ending and numerous freezing issues. Once the latter is settled by hopefully a patch, I will agree with conviction that it deserves to be one of the best games of the year alongside GTA IV, MGS4, LBP and Team Fortress 2.</blockquote>Ben Medler.<blockquote>There were two things about the story I was disappointed about. First, my companions were just walking turrets. Companions in the game follow you around and help you in battle. But considering it has been five years since the first Knights of the Old Republic game came out (which had full storylines around their companion characters), I think companion characters need to be more than just an extra gun. Especially for games that try to have in-depth story. For instance I was a good character so I picked up a Brotherhood knight along the way. She never said anything during conversations, weighing in with her so called honorable conscience. I could out-right kill someone and she wouldn’t do a dame thing, even help. Plus no NPC seemed to noticed that I was dragging a full fledge BoS knight with me. It defiantly did not stop me from getting into Paradise Falls, a slaver camp. I paid the guy 500 caps (money) and he let two fully armed individuals dressed in Power armor just walk right in. I mean how much does it take for the game to check if the player has a companion that is opposite the faction that I am dealing with?</blockquote>Leveling Down, A.<blockquote>Fallout 3 is in every sense of the word, a role-playing game. It’s not a role-playing game that has come to be associated with Final Fantasy and Dragon Warrior but rather, a game where you get to choose a specific role for your character and play that role throughout the game. I consider Fallout 3 to be more an adventure game first and foremost, with minor RPG elements. You can honestly just play through the game looking for rifles and shooting at enemies, and not even really worry about the stats and Perks you want to assign your character.
Fallout 3 deserves my 2008 game of the year award because it succeeds most in what it tried to do compared to all of the other games released this year.</blockquote>Curtis's Games, 8.5/10.<blockquote>The first thing that really popped out were the stunning visuals when looking at the landscape. You could see to the horizon, everything had realistic values and shadows. The visuals were very stylized, everything had a derelict feeling, perfect in keeping with the story. Bright colors were used sparingly which accentuated the feeling of depression that was present in nearly every character in every town. This made the game feel deep and helped me connect to the NPCs, which is important in a single player RPG.
As nice as the visual landscapes were, the NPCs did not look nearly as good. The textures were flat, and the characters had almost no shadowing effects. There are only a handful of faces, so the same people would pop up in every town with different clothes, and even the clothes were a little disappointing. There was almost no variety, and even the different types looked almost identical.
The story line is really the best part of the game.</blockquote>