Fallout 3

Fallout 3 has been sitting there on my shelf for the better part of half a year now. Given it was my one week break, I decided to install and play it. My only regret is that I never got round to doing it earlier. It is a marvelous game, superbly detailed, full of a vast number of different characters, quests and locations, in a very original and powerfully realized world.

For those of you unfamiliar with the Fallout series, it is set in a post nuclear apocalyptic America and involves the struggles of the remnants of humanity to survive in the resulting nuclear wasteland. Some humans survived by seeking shelter in specially created underground Vaults, thus escaping the nuclear Armageddon. Your character grew up in a Vault, but the disappearance of your father under mysterious circumstances forces you to leave the Vault and enter the wastelands to search for him.

Fallout 3 itself is set in the ruins of Washington D.C and its surrounding environs. It provides an enormous environment in which to explore. If you were to focus just on completing the main elements of the central storyline, you would only be skimming the surface of what Fallout 3 has to offer. Part of the strength of the game is its almost endless multitude of random quests and locations. You do get a fantastic thrill fighting an enormous supermutant behemoth in the rotunda of the Capitol building, or clearing the Lincoln memorial of slavers, or even visiting the White House (though you won't be able to get in the front gate).

The game was so good that after I finished it the first time, I immediately began the game again, so as to have the chance to explore some of the other side quests and locations that I missed out on the first time round. The narrative depth of the Fallout 3 universe is truly amazing, with wonderful bits of background and threads of individual stories left behind for the intrepid explorer in the form of notes, or holo-recordings. These provide many little windows to the past and what transpired after the nuclear bombs fell.

Gameplay wise, Fallout 3 is a very interesting amalgamation between a First Person Shooter (FPS), and a Role Playing Game (RPG). Combat wise, it has completed the transition initiated by Fallout: The Brotherhood of Steel from the turn-based combat system of the first two Fallout games, to a more conventional shooter. However, it ingeniously incorporates a form of turn based combat by including a VAT system, allowing the playing to slow down combat and target specific body parts subject to them using up 'action points' that have to then be replenished.

Admittedly, slow motion combat is hardly new to computer games, but Fallout 3's system enables players to target specific body parts. Shoot out the legs and your enemies will end up limping. Shoot at their arms and they might drop that rocket launcher that is causing your so much grief. The overall combat system is simple and effective.

At its heart though, Fallout 3 is an RPG. Typical of the genre, your character advances based on experience points that he earns, thus gaining skills and additional perks. Skills are affected by basic stats (Strength, Perception, Endurance, Charisma, Intelligence and Luck respectively) chosen at start. Unlike previous Fallout games where perks were chosen at the start of the game (with a maximum of two selections possible), and provided both advantages and disadvantages, in Fallout 3 the player got to choose a new perk each time he leveled up and perks were always advantageous.

There were a wide assortment of perks to choose from, ranging from those that were combat based, or those that were speech, or skill related. The more random and interesting ones included Bloody Mess - causing enemies to die in the most spectacularly messy way possible and Mysterious Stranger, in which a random trench coat wearing person mysteriously comes to assist you on occasion in the midst of VAT combat.

So, overall, Fallout 3 was a truly fantastic game. My only regret was not being able to spend sufficient time fully exploring every nook and cranny of the gaming universe, and the fact that leveling up maxed out at Level 20. It is definitely a game that is worth revisiting again, just to discover more of its richly detailed universe.