View from the Vault Part: Fallout 3 Impressions Part 1

I think I have already sufficiently established myself as a curmudgeon on many topics but certainly regarding PC gaming: I have railed for years about the impact of consoles on PC gaming (Deus Ex: Invisible War), complain about the state of games that are obvious ports when they do arrive (Oblivion), complain about the generification of genres that has occurred as consoles have led the charge to mainstreaming (again Oblivion), and so on.  So I am a perfect candidate for someone to come out and rant about how the newly released Fallout 3 is nothing but ‘Oblivion with guns’ and rant and froth about the history of the franchise and the purity of the RPG genre and … well, just come on in and see …

Suffice it to say that there will be things in here that would easily be called ‘spoilers’, so if you want to experience the gain untainted, avert your eyes now.  That said, my goal isn’t to go into deep details but rather give general thoughts as I progress.

First and foremost: anyone who denies that Fallout 3 *IS* ‘Oblivion with guns’ is either lying to you or themselves.  At the same time, anyone who claims that ‘Oblivion with guns’ is all that Fallout 3 has to offer is being similarly dishonest.  And finally, as for the ultimate debate – is this the Fallout 3 that fans have been waiting for a decade to get their hands on – that will have to wait for a while before I’m ready to answer that fully.

Well, perhaps not entirely – because let’s face it, there are some fairly diametrically opposed visions of what folks wanted in any game called Fallout 3.  Some folks are on-board due to Oblivion – and these are generally console gamers with limited knowledge of the Fallout franchise and certainly no vested interest in maintaining the traditions of 1997 and 1998.  Then there are those for whom any game that is not presented in isometric view with a fully turn-based system is not a Fallout game.  Finally, there are those for whom the role-playing, writing, dark humor, and overall depth is what continues to set the original Fallout games from just about any other game ever released.

So let me clear something up – if you are an Oblivion fan and are buying this on the PS3 or XBOX360 after finishing up Dead Space and months of multiplayer Call of Duty 4, you will be very happy for a very long time.  If you are a ‘Fallout purist’ who rails about the ‘loss of Van Buren’ (Van Buren was the code name for the original Fallout 3 project a decade ago) and is hoping that Bethesda has built in some way of getting the perspective and turn-based feel just right to recreate the classic Fallout games … look elsewhere.  This is not the game you are looking for.

That leaves those who are willing to be flexible about the perspective, the balance of real-time and turn-based, but are absolutely insistent that success includes maintaining the top-notch writing and depth that the originals had, as well as the dark humor that remains perhaps the best ever in any video game.  I count myself in that group – I love action games as well as turn-based games, first-person and isometric alike.  But from the start I have been doubtful that the same folks who made the console action game with RPG-lite elements called Oblivion could produce such a game.

So far I am having a blast … but see loads of problems and issues, many carried over from Oblivion.

The opening sequences are tremendous – rather than just dumping you as a fully formed adult into the midst of an ongoing situation, you are stepped from birth to adulthood through a series of interactive vignettes that engage you at different points of your life.  You learn about various characters and feel like you are really part of your own history.  The immersive factor of doing this – paired up with the subtle performance of Liam Neeson as your father – is tremendous.

The game goes through the usual set of ‘introducing you to the way the game works’ steps, from VATS (the turn-based combat system) to the PIP-Boy 3000 (basically your entire interface) to a whole classroom session to help you pick your first level perks.  You learn how choices you make can have consequences, but it remains to be seen whether there is any sort of ‘Witcher-like’ reach in terms of choice & consequence … I highly doubt it.

Eventually you will leave the Vault and get a few choices and several low-level practice encounters along the way.  Then just before you exit the vault you have the opportunity to completely redo all of your choices before starting out in the world.  As a curmudgeonly old-time RPG gamer I scoff at such things, because it flies in the face of choice and consequence … but in general I applaud the way it is done: you are early enough that it isn’t game-breaking, but have experienced enough that you can see if you have made some errant choices that you’d like to redo.

Out in the wasteland after leaving the Vault, you see two things: the post-nuclear vision of Washington DC, replete with metal hulking carcasses of buses and airplanes and who knows what else; you also see more proof of the fact that we are still looking at the Oblivion engine here (actually the tunnel exiting the Vault could have been from Oblivion!)

Your first stop – after you hopefully take a while to just wander the landscape for fun – is MegaTon, the town built around an unexploded atomic bomb featured in so many screenshots and previews.  In MegaTon you start the usual RPG-town cycle: go in, find out the general details from someone near the entry, get the lay of the land, and go get quests and trade items.  Taking my time talking to everyone in MegaTon I started to see the strength and weakness of Bethesda at work:  this is clearly deeper and funnier and more satisfying than Oblivion, but just as clearly not up to the level of the original Fallout games.

Once you get enough quests and trade enough items, it is time to head back to the Wasteland.  This is where the real action begins: soon you will be meeting up with many more dangerous enemies than the RadRoaches of the Vault, and occasionally meeting them in groups.  You can try to outgun them in standard FPS mode, but since your targeting is based on skills as well as aim, and since the FPS system is at best ‘clunky’, you will quickly find yourself dropping into the VATS system more often than not.  VATS allows you to pause the action and target individual body areas of an enemy and displays the to-hit percentages.  You stack a number of actions which take up Action Points, but since action points regenerate very quickly you just stack the actions and confirm and watch your enemy die and then repeat with the next enemy until they are all dead.  Sadly the VATS system doesn’t allow you to distribute actions among all enemies within range, which limits the tactical options during combat.

So you finish off some enemies and pick up a cool new weapon, so how do you select that nifty new shotgun?  Is it by pressing ‘3’ or another number like in most games?  How about scrolling the mouse-wheel?  Nope – welcome to console-vania, where you have to press TAB and then click your way through a multi-page interface to do just about anything from changing weapons and armor to looking at a map to reviewing quests and information.  Yes, you get used to it quickly; yes, it is worse than Oblivion; and yes, I find it highly annoying.  There are ways to get around these limitations, but it is pretty clear that the game was designed with the lowest common denominator of console controllers in mind in terms of that setup.

But getting hung up on that just isn’t worth the effort … what is worth the effort is getting some more hours in with this flawed gem of a game.  And that is exactly what I plan to do tonight.  And then report back to all of you!

No Responses to “View from the Vault Part: Fallout 3 Impressions Part 1”

  1. Perhaps on the PC version you can’t select between multiple targets within range in a given expenditure of AP in a VATS session, but you most certainly can on 360.

    Also, PC purism is a false complaint.

  2. You can also select multiple VATS targets on the PS3. I suggest you carefully read the PC control list again. 🙂 Further, as a long-time PC “purist” who recently purchased a PS3, I find the interface extremely useable. Also, on the PS3, you can hotkey up to eight different weapons, apparel or Aid items. I would be surprised if the PC couldn’t do the same.

  3. Yes, I spent some time reading the manual while Obama was on last night … amazingly there was info right there. It is a really nicely done manual! Rarity these days, and definitely in the spirit of the original manuals I still have. When it wasn’t something I noted in the initial tutorial or the options menu I assumed it wasn’t there.

    I don’t want to get muddled into the whole PC vs. console thing, as what I was trying to say is that my historical tendency of being a PC curmudgeon should have primed me to be a frothy NMA type, but I consider the ‘consolitis’ effects to be very minor niggles, not serious complaints.

    But make no mistake, I *still* consider having to take 3 actions to see a map to be a basic design flaw – and one that reflects the console-centric choices Bethesda made. If I am playing a RPG and can’t hit I to see inventory, C to see character info, M to see the map, and Q/J/L to see my quests, then something is wrong with the core interface design.

  4. I’ve never played any of the other Fallout games, but I am extremely interested in playing Fallout 3. I even went as far as ordering it from Amazon (for my 360) – it’s sitting unopened in my office as I type this. I was looking forward to getting into this tonight after work, but I’m concerned by the mixed user reviews I have read. As the father of a two year old I don’t get much gaming time. I typically have to play games that I can get into for 20-40 minutes, save, and then put down. I am a big fan of FPS games as well as strategy games so I figure I might like this. I’ve never played Oblivion. Suggestions??

  5. It’s a Role Playing Game (or, as close to an RPG as any pre-programmed simulation can come). What that essentially means is lots of talking. It’s also a “sandbox” game, which means lots of aimless wandering to see what’s what. What this means for you is you won’t get very far in your brief interludes; fortunately, the game has a save-anywhere system, so you can stop at any point. You don’t have to worry about getting to the next save station or coming back at the last checkpoint and other similar holdovers from the old days of gaming. Now, as to whether or not you’ll LIKE Fallout 3…it’s not truly an FPS, even though it is (best) played in first-person perspective. There’s not nearly as much combat as a shooter; and, like I said, you’ll be doing a lot of yapping with the locals to pick up quests and continue your adventures. And, while there is a strategic element in the combat (and in how you grow your character) it definitely is not a strategy game. I would suggest giving it a week. If you don’t like it, sign up for Goozex (www.goozex.com) and trade it for something you do like.

  6. I agree with PapaGamer on this. I have put ~15 or so hours into it now, and it is a really wonderful experience. But you have to be looking for the sort of experience it offers – it is a RPG first and foremost, with quests and chatting folks up and going back and forth and so on. It has a shooter-like feel, with the ability to real-time use your weapons in combat as well as the stop-action VATS system. But as a FPS it is pretty weak in terms of combat mechanics. The level-up system is very different from most action-RPG’s, but offers much from the original Fallout games.

    It is a demanding game that can take (some say) 100 hours if you take time to stick your nose into every place you find (and you should). It allows save everywhere and has a nice quest system so you can remember what you were doing.

    But that sort of time-demand isn’t for everyone … I am more open to it in the last few years as my kids have gotten older, but it was much harder a decade ago when the original games came out.

  7. Thanks for the great feedback. Fallout 3 definitely sounds like it could be my kind of game…if I had more time on my hands. It seems like all I have time for now are games like COD4, Halo 3, and Gears. Fun games, but pretty much mindless entertainment. In the future, I’ll have plenty of time to devote to games like this but for now priority #1 is spending time with my little girl. Thanks again.

  8. I have to say I’m a curmudgeon myself when it comes to rpg’s, Telengard and The Bard’s Tale were my favorite games while I was young, but I’m not so sure that it’s consoles that are to blame for the dumbing down of rpgs (Fable, Oblivion, Mass Effect, etc). There are several complex and challenging rpgs on PS/PS2 for example. I think its more of a mass market approach to the genre that is behind games like Fallout 3 and Oblivion, not so much a ‘generification’ because of the popularity of the console. Unfortunately it seems that console rpgs either have spikey haired emo kids as the characters and we have to sit through hours of cut-scenes or we have oversimplified sandbox style rpgs with hours of spoken dialog to sit through.

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