Slightly off topic:
Malebolgia, is Fallout 3 good then - I don't just mean visually pleasing but has it the same gritty charm and seems like a good addition to the series or is it less fun (no talking cows and similar silly little things)? Can't play it on my pc, but it would be nice knowing it's worth buying once I can afford a new pc (whenever that will be).
Yeah, it is fantastic! I think I have been playing it for about 60 hours now and I still haven't finished it. So it is HUGE, bigger than both Fallout 1 or 2. It has so many locations to discover. It takes loads of time. I have been playing so long because I want to discover all locations before ending it.
It has many cool (and wacky) characters and locations. For instance, yesterday I visited "The Republic of Dave" where ...Dave rules a small community with his weird rules and laws. And yesterday I also met two hilarious "super heros" that battled each other: AntAgonizer (pun intended) and The Mechanizer. Basically they are two loons who battle each other, one in the name of nature and one in the name of the machines. Both look rediculous and say the supidest things but it really has that Fallout feeling.
The whole feel and looks of the world just matches with the first two games so well. You often find small villages of ruined houses, like in the first games. It also has many underground missions and of course zillions of crates, boxes and trunks to search (I have spent God knows how many hours searching them...thankfully FO3 shows if a crate is empty). In addition it has a lot of small touches that are so nice. For instance, somewhere in the beginning I found a house where two skeletons lay embraced in each other's arms with a pistol laying next to the bed. Just wow. It does nothing for the game (except giving you another gun
) but it adds a lot.
The next point in my short comparison is the new way of combat. Combat is both continuous 1st person/3rd person action and timed action. You can opt to fire away in real-time which is handy for long range sniping and fullauto action against some buggers but you can also activate the V.A.T.S. system to make an aimed shot (which basically is the same as in the previous Fallouts). The VATS is handy for its high chance of criticals, doing headshots and it looks totally awesome. The disadvantage is that you won't do a lot of shots and it is slow, so you'll get hurt a lot. I think the new way of doing combat is a big step forwards. Of course the turn-base action in the previous games had it charms, it was soooooooo slow. Especially if you were having mass combats in towns (like in Fallout 1 in the village where you can turbo-boost your plasma rifle and it then gets hit by the enemy. That takes ages to complete!). The new way of doing combat makes sure you can go through combats quite quickly and move on. It feels better and more slick to me.
There are a LOT of weapons in this game and many are known favorites for hardcore Fallout gamers (weeeeee! The Alien Blaster returns!). The fact that you can repair the weapons, find ones in better conmdition, find named versions (which are insanely good) all add to the whole collector mania. Once you'll get your own house it is nice to hoard stuff, like I did in the original one with my buddy Ian (in fallout 1 your buddies had no weight limit so he became my cargo space
).
The final thing to mention are the side-quests and the RPG part. Like before there are soooo many side quests to do, both good and evil. And like in the previous games it is perfectly possible to be a real SoaB. I have seen many options of doing some missions in the most evil way possible, which I will really do the next time I play the game. For instance, in the first town in the game, Megaton you have the option of disarming the nuclear bomb which lies at the center of town OR to explode it. Exploding it will really kill your Karma and also scraps a lot of quests and weapon options you can have in the game. But hell yeah...I will surely do that the next time
.
In addition, the Perks are great and characterful without being gamebreaking. Leveling up is a lot of fun and keeps you wanting to continue the game.
Conclusion: best game I have played in a loooong time (together with Crysis). I was looking more forward to Far Cry 2, but technical issues and a rather repetitive gameplay shoved that one aside. Fallout 3 plays like a charm, feels logical and easy to master with no hard controls, has that old 50's and typical Fallout look with that grittyness, has many hours of gameplay with loads of quests and characters. Pure awesomeness.
