Note I will use OG Fallout to refer to the original Fallout game by Interplay
I remember when I first purchased Oblivion and started browsing the Oblivion General Discussion forum on the official Bethesda site. I quickly noticed that there were numerous hate threads about how Oblivion was a hideous abomination of a game. The sheer vitriol and bile contained in those posts was incredible. You'd think that Bethesda had released Daikatana, as opposed to the game of the year. So naturally, when it was announced that Bethesda was working on a Fallout 3, the shit hit the fan. The Oblivion haters were suddenly joined by the rabid old school Fallout fans, fearful that the franchise would be desecrated and ruined. Everyone feared that Fallout 3 would be nothing more than a heavily modded “Oblivion with guns”.
As a quick aside to anyone who has been living in an underground cave with no contact with the outside world, the original two games, Fallout and Fallout 2, are critically acclaimed RPGs beloved by nerds everywhere. They take place in a post apocalyptic world that was nearly annihilated by a nuclear war in 2077. A few humans manage to take refuge in the Vaults, which are essentially shelters in an underground cave with no contact with the outside world. In OG Fallout, the year is 2161 and you are one of these lucky Vault dwellers living in Vault 13. Unfortunately for you, you are tasked with finding a replacement for the Vault’s water purification chip, which has broken. As you emerge into the outside world, you find that humanity has managed to survive despite the nuclear fallout. Although you ultimately succeed in finding a replacement chip, you are permanently kicked out of the Vault as a reward, and forced to roam the desert that is is Southern California. Fallout 2 picks up the story 80 years later in Northern California, telling the story of the Chosen One, the direct descendant of the original Vault dweller. Fallout 3, on the other hand, takes place in the year 2277, and the protagonist is from Vault 101, which is located all the way over on the east coast, near Washington DC.
Adding to this east coast west coast rivalry is the tone of the games’ respective settings. In the OG fallout, the humans were well on their way in the process of rebuilding civilization. People had jobs, hobbies, and homes and lived in large cities with farms, stores, casinos, and bars. In Fallout 3, the settlements are few and far between, ranging from the bustling city of Megaton, to the occasional wastelander holed up in some irradiated, burned down shack barely eking out an existence.
Housing values have gone down since the nuclear war
Outside these living areas is a grim and hopeless no man's land where its every man/mutant/ghoul fends for himself. Desolation, despair and decay are the norm. Probably the best way to describe the difference in the two games is that Fallout 3 closely resembles a post apocalyptic world set a few years after a nuclear Armageddon, whereas OG Fallout is that same post apocalyptic world a few decades later. Ironic, considering that storyline wise, the situation is the exact opposite.
If land were emo, this is what it'd look like
Before I continue, I want to take this moment to confess that I only just recently beat OG Fallout. This was after I had beaten Fallout 3. I know, I know, talk about putting the cart before the horse. Even worse, I haven’t even played Fallout 2 yet. Its somewhere on my queue of classic-awesome-games-that-I-know-I-should-play-but-haven't-gotten-around-to-yet-because-i'm-a-horrible person. So I have not grown up with these games in the same way that I did with say, Doom, Civilization, or Warcraft. Naturally I don't have any strong opinions about whether or not Bethesda has produced a game that has lived up to its legendary legacy. My off the cuff reaction is that the game seems to be pretty faithful to the originals. At the very least, they got the names of the monsters, weapons, and items right. Deathclaws, radscorpions, ghouls, supermutants, the Brotherhood of Steel, their buddies in the Enclave, mentats, buffout, pip boy, the G.E.C.K and more all grace this game. Hell, everything is rendered correctly as well. In fact, power armor has never looked so good!
Although many things have remained the same, just as many have changed. The biggest difference of course, is the switch to a first person 3d view (there is a third person view too, but its garbage and not really worth mentioning). I’ve always been a die hard fan of the old school side scrollers and their overhead RPG counterparts. I am saddened by the death of them, but at the same time, there is no denying the powerful feeling of immersion that can be achieved with a first person view. Fallout 3 is an excellent example of this. The game world is epic in scope and breathtaking in its beauty. Nothing captures this better than the moment you first step out of the Vault and your eyes adjust to the sunlight. A barren yet majestic wasteland greets you. Everything is still and silent, save for the lonely howl of the wind. I remember being awestruck and trembling with excitement at the prospect of exploring everything the game had to offer.
The game does not disappoint in this regard. In addition to familiar D.C. landmarks such as the Lincoln Memorial, the White House, and the Washington monument, scattered throughout the land are little vignettes that give a window into the lives of those who lived before the nuclear apocalypse, and insight into the lives of those who currently roam the wasteland.
Here is just one such moment captured in time. At least they died spooning.
It is a treat just to discover them. Many do not give any reward to the player aside from a good story. One of the most emotionally moving encounters I had involved a distress signal that I encountered on my wanders across the wasteland. The signal was weak and I could barely make out the message. A man and his family had taken refuge in a drainage chamber, and his boy was very sick and needed medical attention. It took a bit of trail and error trying to home in on the source of the signal, but I finally found the drainage chamber. Inside were two rooms. In the first room were two adult skeletons, some rotten food, miscellaneous supplies, and some childrens toys scattered about the floor. In the other room was the radio transmitter that was playing the distress signal on loop. The scene was as subtle as it was touching. It was nothing more than a collection of various items, and yet it told a powerful and moving story. It also leaves an open ended mystery that may never be resolved. Why was there no body of the child found by the parents? What happened to the kid? Did he manage to make it out alive? Was he eaten by super mutants? Judging by the posts of other members on the Bethesda forums, it appears that this scene made an equally strong impression on a number of other players as well. Encounters such as this one are scattered throughout the capital wasteland and are a real treat to discover.
Familiar landmarks in DC that need no introduction
There are many more such places to discover, too many to mention, but as a fan of HP Lovecraft, I feel I must make special mention of the Dunwich building. It is essentially a tribute to one of the greatest horror authors of all time. Fans of Lovecraft will immediately recognize the name of the building from the short story, the Dunwich Horror. Inside the ruins of this abandoned and derelict building are a set of holotapes which tell the story of a man named Jamie. Jamie is trying to find his father, who went insane and abandoned him after obtaining a strange black leather bound book (the Necronomicon by the mad Arab Abdul Alhazred). Each new holotape is nestled deeper within the ruins of the building and contain the increasingly incoherent ramblings of a madman. The light grows dimmer the further in you venture. It’s a subtle change that I didn’t even realize until I noticed that everything was almost pitch dark. Along the way, doors open by themselves, objects move on their own accord, a flashback reveals the past, a legion of feral ghouls attack you, and references to Lovecraft’s mythos are scattered throughout. Unfortunately, you don’t get to fight any elder gods. The whole thing brings to mind one of Oblivion’s quests, Hackdirt, which was yet another homage to Lovecraft (Shadow over Innsmouth). Delightful gems such as the Dunwich building are just waiting to be discovered in one’s wanders across the wasteland.
This brings me one of my biggest gripes about the game – fast travel. Many angry people complained long and hard about this “feature” from Oblivion. To many of us, it detracts from the gameplay. Fast travel is disruptive, and makes it so that you don’t have to experience and explore all that the world has to offer. You can simply skip it. It also makes things considerably easier. Low on health and ammo and deep in hostile territory? No problem! Simply teleport back to the safety of town! Gone are the tough decisions to make about when or if one should turn back, what equipment to jettison to free up space for loot, and how best to ration remaining ammos and supplies. Countless PC RPGs have done better fast travel systems. OG Fallout let you fast travel, but the further you travelled, the greater the likelihood of a random encounter. I see no reason why Fallout 3 did not choose this simple implementation. Most, if not all, Oblivion haters blame Bethesda for pandering to the lowest common denominator, namely console gamers. They accuse Bethesda of dumbing things down for the legions of stupid kids whose ADHD was so bad that they needed the ability to instantly teleport anywhere on the map. These aren’t my words, mind you, I’m simply paraphrasing some of the hate filled interwebz posts I’ve encountered. That isn’t to say that I don’t agree with their assertions. It’s a real shame, considering that the journey in itself is an adventure and a challenge. Why did Bethesda take such great pains to make such a wonderful world to explore when the simple click of an XBOX 360 controller bypasses all of it?
However, Bethesda does manage to get a number of things right. It really does appear the Bethesda has taken a lot of criticism to heart. Probably the number one complaint about Oblivion, one shared by both fans and haters alike, is the broken level scaling system. This system essentially punished players for leveling up. In Fallout 3, these complaints have been addressed. Although the level scaling system still exists, it has been toned down quite significantly. No longer do enemies gain extra hitpoints, better equipment, and deal more damage when you level up. When you reach level 20, there will be little that can stand in your way. Neither will you face weak monsters at level 1, allowing you to just waltz in and complete any quest. Certain areas of the game will be significantly more challenging than others and are best avoided until you are stronger. No longer are dungeons randomly populated by enemies and loot based on your level, making every area feel like it’s the same level with just a different layout.
Subways are the new dungeons in this game:
One unfortunate aspect of city exploration is that a lot of sections in DC are blocked off by rubble, which "force" players to explore areas via connecting subways. It constrains the otherwise open exploration:
Every location will have a distinct set of monsters and loot – some will even have unique weapons. Sure, there is some level scaling, but not enough to remove the desire to explore or to stop your heart from pounding with the nervous anticipation of entering a tough area.
The open ended nature of the gameplay is another one of the key strengths of Bethesda games. You have considerable leeway in the design of your own character, controlling everything from the physical appearance to his/her actions. If you want to play a fat black psychotic serial killer who butchers people with a combat knife and then cannibalizes victims, you can! Here, Bethesda had a chance to address a lot of the criticisms by Oblivion haters. Many felt Oblivion had far too many linear quests that only offered one possible “solution”. In the mage guild quests for example, you had to destroy the necromancers. Joining them was out of the question. Morrowind on the other hand, had quests which allowed the player to choose sides, and/or resolve things through diplomatic means. Fallout 3 represents a return to this freedom. Are you a goody two shoes? You can join the Abolitionist movement and eradicate the slavers. Or, if your alignment is more lawful evil, you can help capture escaped slaves and find and destroy the Abolitionist hideout. Or if you are just plain chaotic evil, you can kill everything in sight. This is but one of the many choices you get to make as you deal death and diplomacy across the wasteland.
Fortunately, you get plenty of chances to engage in the latter. Speechcraft and charisma, while ultimately no replacement for a good gun at your side, factor into many of your quests. Gone also is the stupid and asinine speechcraft minigame from Oblivion. Instead, dialogs with NPCs will occasionally present you with the option to pass some speechcraft checks, succeed, and you will have successfully negotiated a peaceful solution, haggled for better pay, or convinced somebody to give up some information. Many encounters in the wasteland however, involve enemies attacking you on sight, which leaves you no opportunity to employ your charisma. Its unfortunate, but then again, it reflect the situation of a post apocalyptic world: People who are tough enough to survive are often going to end up being violent psychopaths (hi raiders!)
The main quest slowly unfolds across multiple missions that involve tracking down your father who has escaped from the Vault. The game literally starts with you being born. Ewwww. The intro is part character creation and part tutorial, and in this way mirrors the intro for Oblivion. In fact, they are so similar that both feature highly paid voice actors who disappear after the opening: Liam Nielson plays your father in Fallout 3, whereas Patrick Stewart plays the emperor in Oblivion. I’m partial to the whole Bethesda style of openings. On the one hand, certain sections felt long and tedious. On the other hand it did give me a chance to “grow up” in the Vault, someething that OG Fallout did not do. I grew a slight emotional attachment to some of the Vault characters. Unfortunately, these relationships are severed, as the intro ends with you escaping from the Vault. Sure, you get to return later on in the game, but it’s only for a short while. As with the rest of the game, the main quest is open ended. Whether or not you even want to pursue the main quest is completely up to you, and you are free to do it at your own pace. Unfortunately, Bethesda gives the player a little too much leeway here, as it is entirely possible to accidentally large portions of the main storyline by running into the right NPC or stumbling across the right location. The Brotherhood of Steel and the Enclave both play a huge role in the main quest storyline arc. For those who have never played the original games, the Brotherhood are the “good” guys, and the Enclave are the “bad” guys, but of course its not so simple. While you can’t join forces with the Enclave, you can help them achieve one of their goals, the “purification” of all mutants from the wasteland (purification means exactly what you think it does). This is a slight improvement over Oblivion, where even offering to assist the main villain of the game, Mehrunes Dagon, is an impossibility. Likewise in Morrowind, a game hailed by many as offering the player more choice, helping the main villain, Dagoth Ur, is simply not an option. The ending to Fallout 3 however, is probably one of the games weakest points, and many people felt underwhelmed. After an awesome super duper epic battle where you fight alongside a giant 40 foot robot named Liberty Prime who shouts classic catchphrases such as “COMMUNISM IS DEAD” and “COMMUNISM IS THE VERY DEFINITION OF FAILURE”...
Yeah, this is every bit as amazing as it looks.
You then engage in a wimpy boss fight, engage in some dialogue, and listen to a few seconds of narration. And then its all over. Reactions to the end, including mine, involved a combination of the interweb expressions: “LOL”, “WTF”, “BBQ”, and “!!!111”. It was a bit anticlimactic, IMHO. Bethesda RPGs usually allow you to continue playing after the main quest is complete. In Fallout 3, the game ends once you beat it, period. This is because you die at the end of the game. There are some endings that don’t involve your death, but even then, the game still ends. Of course, as mentioned previously, you are free to ignore the main quest. The world is your sandbox, and you are free to play, and kill in it.
Naturally, the combat system has been drastically altered, by necessity of the switch from 2D to 3D. In an attempt to emulate the turn based combat system of the first two Fallout games, Fallout 3 introduces the Vault Assisted Targetting System. The same sound that is played when you enter combat in OG fallout is also played when you enter VATS. The idea is similar to that of the original: At any point in time you can freeze the action, and spend a limited number of action points with which to target various body parts on your enemies. Once action points are spent, they slowly regenerate when you exit VATs and return to normal real time combat. The body part targetting system does involve some amount of tactics, tactics that mirror those of the original: Head shots deal a lot more damage, but you have a lower chance to hit. This is in contrast to the torso, which is easy to hit, but does less damage. When an opponents arm is crippled, their aim is worsened and they drop their weapon. When a leg is crippled, they move much more slowly. This is helpful when chasing down pesky bad guys who try and flee.
Boom headshot
The implementation has a few minor issues. One noticeable problem is that it was obviously designed for consoles, as switching targets cannot be done via mouse click, but rather requires a keyboard press. You cannot target body parts with meelee attacks, which takes a lot of the fun out of playing a meelee character. Accessing the inventory does not require any action points, taking away a lot of the tactical depth of the first two Fallout games, where trying to heal yourself with a stimpack while a deathclaw is mauling your face off cost you precious action points that could have otherwise been spent putting some distance between the two of you. Also, you can’t shoot a guy in the balls, something that you could do in the original. This is unfortunate because every time you target a specific body part in VATs, the camera pans out and shows the results of your attacks in slow motion; it would have been nice to see a raider doubled over in pain, shrieking shrilly as he grabs what remains of his manhood.
Its also important to note that this “chance to hit” mechanic in VATs also applies to the real time combat; An element of error is introduced when aiming. This is so that the game feels more like an RPG and less like an FPS. The higher your skill in the firearm you are using, the less likely your bullets are to stray from your crosshairs. In Morrowind, this resulted in ridiculous situations where despite hitting a person with a sword, no damage would be dealt because the combat system determined that the attack had "missed". This "chance to hit" mechanic was removed in Oblivion, and again reintroduced in Fallout 3, with much better results. It affects only ranged weapons and the disconnect is not nearly as jarring.
In the end, the flexibility of being able to play the game as an FPS (albeit with hidden behind the scenes dice rolls), and then switching into what is essentially bullet time as needed, creates opportunities for many tactical encounters. It rewards the players for not going in guns blazing, but rather being able to plan ahead and switch between the two modes as needed. A common tactic is to lay mines at chokepoints, and then engage the enemy at a distance, ducking behind cover to recover action points, and using the mines to prevent flanking maneuvers from bad guys. This hybrid system is well implemented enough to make up for any shortcomings. Slow motion kills and rag doll physics is a combination that will never get old. I don’t think I will ever get tired of slamming my power fist into an Enclave soldier and watching his broken body fly into a nearby wall.
In case you ever need the help, you can recruit an NPC who will join you. Which NPCs will join is based on your alignment. You can equip, heal, and give them suggestions on their tactics. Its kind of like the OG Fallout, except you can only have one follower (you can get one additional follower, a pet dog named Dogmeat, who is from the OG Fallout). NPCs run into the same pathing issues that have plagued computer games forever, but luckily they “teleport” next to you after being separated for a while. I found that based on which NPC I picked, I didn’t have to do too much babysitting. Such is the A.I. in this game. It isn’t bad but it isn’t spectacular either. Its merely okay. I swear that I’d occasionally notice teams of bad guys working together, with ranged units taking cover and laying down suppressing fire, while their meelee units flanked me. This happens so infrequently though that I could just be imaging the whole thing. I am behind on my sleep. And of course, every so often the A.I. will do horrifically stupid things. I remember one particular battle in the ruins of the White House. A huge free for all involving the Enclave, the Talon company mercenaries, and a Behemoth was going down. I decided to simply wait it out and kill off the survivors. My idiotic follower, Star Paladin Cross, decides it’s a good idea to run in guns blazing. She died almost instantaneously. Luckily, you can bring up the console using "~" and enter in a code to make certain NPCs invincible, which certainly takes the headache out of that. Playing on console and can't bring up the console command line? Too bad, should have gone with the superior PC gaming platform.
The character design system has been streamlined. Many people would argue that it was horribly butchered. Many perks, skills and traits from the originals have been dropped. Even more blasphemous, perks and traits were merged. To cater to noobs, perks are granted at every level up instead of every three levels. Worse, the Intense training perk allows you to raise any one of your S.P.E.C.I.A.L. attributes by 1.
But is it really so bad? People are upset, so the argument goes, because your initial S.P.E.C.I.A.L. (strength, perception, endurance, charisma, intelligence, agility, luck) attribute allocation is meaningless, since its so easy to raise those stats later. The player is not forced to make any difficult decisions about whether or not he wants to play a nerdy (8 intelligence) loser (2 strength and 1 charisma), or vice versa. In other words, the system makes it too easy to make a godlike character without forcing the player to make any serious tradeoffs. Now I understand the complaint, and it has merit, but having min maxed the fuck out of OG Fallout, I found it relatively easy to make a godlike character in that game as well. I set my charisma to 1 which freed up a whole bunch of points, picked the gifted trait, and upgraded my stats at the brotherhood. Presto, I had a badass character. I didn’t need to make any difficult sacrifices except for charisma, which has traditionally been the most expendable attribute for min/maxers ever since Gary Gygax invented D&D. Likewise, the argument that getting a perk every level removes any difficult decision making regarding which perks to take is also rendered irrelevant once you realize that in OG fallout, most perks were completely useless. So at the end of the day, while Fallout 3 might make things a little easier, its not nearly as bad as people make it. Really, it maintains the status quo.
At the end of the day, Fallout 3 is an incredible game. Haters will be haters, and some people will never be satisfied. A quick glance at the Bethesda forums confirms this. Of course, as we all know, the interweb is serious business. Every ancient generation thinks the current generation is going to hell in a handbasket, and long for a return to the good old days. This phenomenon is magnified 100x on the Internets.
This about sums it up
Personally, I don’t think PC games are getting better or worse. Its almost silly to argue either way. What cannot be argued though, is that things are changing. Fallout 3 represents a huge change to the franchise. It has been a huge success, is fun to play, and introduces the classics to fresh blood. Hell, an old gamer like me finally got around to playing Fallout as a result of immensely enjoying the third installment in the series. A quick look at the top selling games on sites like gog.com which sell classic games confirms that I am not alone. So while the bitter old fans can slit their wrists and spew bile all day long, they cannot deny the positive impact Fallout 3 has made on their beloved franchise.
