Journey into the waste…

You know a game is good when you watch the end cut scene with a feeling of victory and a pang of sadness because the experience is ending. You know a game is really good when you start thinking about playing it again and how you could play it differently before the cut scene is over. That’s how it was for me with Fallout 3. Of course, I’m a fanboy of the series. I played Wasteland in 1990 in its splendid 16 color EGA. I frequented Interplay’s message board in ‘97 lapping up news of the first Fallout’s development. Needless to say I played Fallout 1 and 2. (I did skip Fallout: Tactics.) A decade has passed between Fallout 2 and 3. This time around I didn’t pay much attention to its forums, interviews and previews other than to hear a few grumbles that it had become a first person shooter and the player would be able to use a mini-nuke weapon. As I started, I felt a bit wary that this was going to be the ruin of the series rather than the rebirth.

In the Fallout world, technology progressed more or less how it was predicted to in the 1950s. While the game takes place in the future all the style is 50s modernism. The technology generally is nuclear based, which helps explain why this is post-apocalyptic. A company called Vault-Tec built giant underground bunkers in case of nuclear holocaust and you 200 years post-war are the descendant of vault dwellers and living comfortably underground. Unfortunately you’ll soon find yourself a victim of circumstance topside out in the wasteland.

Fallout 3 uses the character attribute system developed for Fallout 1 and 2 called S.P.E.C.I.A.L. (Strength, Perception, Endurance, Charisma, Intelligence, Agility, and Luck). Each attribute is valued on a ten point scale. During character creation each starts at 5 points and you are given an additional 5 points to distribute. Your character also has skills ranked 0 to 100. These skills include things like small guns, big guns, repair, lock picking, science, speech, etc. They are initially set based on the S.P.E.C.I.A.L. values and you are given additional points to distribute. Each time the player surpasses a threshold of experience points gained by completing quests, picking locks, disarming traps, killing enemies, etc you level up. This grants additional skill points to distribute and a perk. Perks modify attributes and/or grant unique abilities. Skills can also be increased by reading certain books scattered about the wasteland. Additional perks are sometimes awarded for completing quests. Certain items and apparel impact your skills and S.P.E.C.I.A.L attributes. These attributes and skill points impact the game in numerous ways, for example with strength you can carry more, luck boosts the chance you’ll do critical damage in combat, some dialog options require you have certain attribute or skill levels etc. It’s a satisfyingly complex system allowing you to tailor your character to a play style be it bruiser, sneaker, diplomat or shooter.

The game world is the area in and around Washington DC referred to in game as “Capital Wasteland”. It is huge. You are free to roam the country side, though your progress may be impeded by rubble or hilly terrain. You’ll also run into random encounters such as friendly trade caravans, or hostile raiders. There are well over a hundred of location to enter ranging in size from one room shop ruins to the extensive labyrinths of sewer and metro tunnels. Once you have visited a location it is marked on your map and you can fast travel to it. Fast travelling takes you right there without any encounters, but doing so will prevent you from discovering more locations. There are several key towns where survivors have aggregated. And it seems like practically everyone in them has a side quest for you. Realistically the NPCs have personal schedules, unrealistically their dialog doesn’t change to reflect where you find them, for example a shop keeper still says “Welcome to my store” when they’re at the town bar. And occasionally I had a hard time finding someone and wished I could ask someone if they’ve seen them. There are a whole lot of places to be explored and scavenged. The player is sufficiently rewarded for exploring non-essential locales as they often contain terminals and notes revealing the history of the area, fun surprises, books to increase your skills, or at the very least weapons and ammo. Though occasionally I found items that felt out of place such as caps, the currency of the wasteland, in safes presumably locked since pre-war.  If you feel like an explorer at heart but your reality doesn’t offer the opportunity this is the game to dull your ache.

The previous two Fallout games used turn based combat. Each turn the player would get a number of action points based on their agility. Action points were spent on shooting, running, reloading etc. When attacking the player could spend more action points to perform an aimed shot, targeting a specific limb. Fallout 3 is a first person shooter but it manages to blend in the original turn based action point/targeting concept by introducing V.A.T.S. (Vault-Tec Assisted Targeting System). During combat you can switch on V.A.T.S to pause the action allowing you to select an enemy and target a limb. You spend action points to queue up your shots then exit V.A.T.S. and watch them play out in bullet time. You do more damage and have a greater chance of dealing a critical hit when using V.A.T.S. Critically hitting limbs has strategic advantages, for instance hitting their arm may cause them to drop their weapon. V.A.T.S. is a great system though normal combat outside of it seems a bit sluggish and weak to the point where it would be disappointing to try and play it as a straight FPS.

This being an RPG, items of course play a big role. Your character is able to wear clothing and headwear and attack with a weapon. You can carry different types and swap whenever you want. The damage resistance of apparel and the effectiveness of weapons are based on their condition. Weapons and apparel quickly wear out through use, but can be repaired either with some repair skill and a similar item for spare parts, or by paying a merchant. In addition to damage resistance, apparel can also affect your other skills and attributes. There’s a wide variety of weapons to choose from. And if you acquire schematics you’ll be able to build your own improvised weapons using parts like lawn mower blades, sensor modules, paint guns, surgical tubing and the like. There are various drugs in the game which have short term positive effects on your attributes, but lead to the longer term negative consequences of addiction. As in most games food restores health points, though consuming it increases your radiation level. And there are of course additional quest specific items.

Hacking and lock picking are handled through mini-games. To attempt either your science (for hacking) or lock picking skill must meet the requisite level. The computers are green screen mainframe dumb terminals that may provide information, control security turrets or open doors and safes. While hacking you see a hex editor view of the password file. You get four chances to select the right password. After each failed attempt it indicates the number of letters that were correct. Using that information you can logically determine the password. A failed hack attempt leaves the computer locked unless you find the password. For lock picking, you use a bobby pin as the pick which you must position correctly to be able to turn the lock with your tension wrench. If you’re bobby pin isn’t correctly positioned it will bend or break. Bobby pins are a fairly rare commodity so you have to be careful. Both mini-games are unique and feel appropriately analogous to the activity.

I could continue on about the PIP Boy 3000, bobble heads, Nuka-Cola, radiation poisoning, etc but if you’ve gotten this far and like what you hear go buy the game. I will caution that I did run into some bugs mostly slow frame rates or lock ups, but nothing that broke any quests. That and it became my obsession for four weeks months and I still want to try out a few things…

Rating: A