Tuesday, April 28, 2009

Fallout 3

I was ready to hate Fallout 3.

I'm not a fan of sandbox games. As an adult gamer with a toddler and a day job, I have a limited amount of time on my hands. I played Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion for a few days before I threw it down in disgust, aggravated by the lack of plot direction, frustrated by all the constraints placed on me by polite society (don't even think about stealing a wooden plate!), and bored by the long walks it took for my character to get anywhere. Yes, Elder Scrolls is a hugely immersive game, but I don't have time to be that immersive.

Fallout 3 starts with you being born. It's at that point you determine your gender and, as a toddler, you learn about your SPECIAL (an acronym for your character's attributes) abilities. How many games let you walk around a playpen as a toddler while teaching you the fundamentals of the game at the same time?

You continue as a pre-teen, dealing with all the difficulties of life in the Vault, a fallout shelter to protect you from the nuclear war raging outside. As the outside world intrudes, it becomes clear that all is not as it seems. Your scientist father disappears and it's up to you to leave the safety of the Vault and find dear old dad.

Nuclear war struck in the 1950s, locking the outside world in retro-future state. Ray guns, Robby-the-Robot style automatons, and cars with fins dominate the landscape. But it is a broken, shattered landscape littered with the detritus of humanity's failed hopes and dreams. And it is here where you will find everything from post-apocalyptic preachers, cannibalistic ghouls, super-mutants, and a whole pile of Mad Max-style survivalists.

There are still the annoying holdovers from Elder Scrolls – you can't just take things without consequences. And you do get tired from all that walking, of which there's a lot of walking to do. But for some reason, this is all less aggravating than Elder Scrolls.

Part of it has to do with the sheer depth of the game. Fallout's blend of post-apocalyptic with retro-future creates a unique setting that makes you want to explore the game. From your grainy PIPBoy 2000 to the Mohawks of the wasteland raiders, to the cheery 1950s-style manuals and billboards, Fallout 3 is an immersive experience.

Like BioShock, there are multiple means of overcoming a challenge. You can be stealthy. You can reprogram robots to do your work for you. You can be a charmer, smooth-talking your way out of difficult quests. Or you can just bash stuff over the head with a baseball bat.

Unlike all the promises made in Mass Effect, Fallout 3 actually delivers. The pausing system for combat actually makes sense (it's called VATS), and yet you can still shoot an enemy's head off from a distance without using VATS. The world is large enough to make getting lost at night a terrifying prospect, but not so imposing that you can't make it to a safe place to rest. And there are plenty of quests to keep you busy.

I'm still not a fan of sandbox games. But Fallout 3's so good, I'll make an exception.

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