Fallout 3

28 Oct 2008

Xbox 360 PC (Microsoft Windows) PlayStation 3
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8.9 rating
1936 want
7087 played
480 playing
178 reviews
Developer
Bethesda Game Studios
Publisher
Bethesda Softworks

Tags

Time to beat

Main story icon

Main story

22h 7m
Main story and extras icon

Main story + extras

47h 30m
100% completion icon

100% completion

121h 30m
Based on 25 answers
Summary

Fallout 3 from the creators of the award-winning Oblivion, featuring one of the most realized game worlds ever created. Create any kind of character you want and explore the open wastes of post-apocalyptic Washington D.C. Every minute is a fight for survival as you encounter Super Mutants, Ghouls, Raiders and other dangers of the Wasteland. Prepare for the future. The third game in the Fallout series, Fallout 3 is a singleplayer action role-playing game (RPG) set in a post-apocalyptic Washington DC. Combining the horrific insanity of the Cold War era theory of mutually assured destruction gone terribly wrong, with the kitschy naivety of American 1950s nuclear propaganda, Fallout 3 will satisfy both players familiar with the popular first two games in its series as well as those coming to the franchise for the first time.

I've long written off the Fallout series for some reason. I'm a huge Elder Scrolls nut, but Bethesda's take on Fallout never piqued me for some reason. I tried Fallout 4 back when it launched, and bounced right off of it almost immediately, and never really looked back. Recently, I decided to give the franchise another shake, and opted to ignore all the fanboys that claim that New Vegas is the only good one. Fallout 3 seems to be almost entirely dismissed for some reason, despite being responsible for creating every single foundational system and mechanic found in New Vegas. This is a big reason why I chose to start with Bethesda's first entry, a sequel to and substantial reimagining of the classic CRPG franchise. Man, I miss when Bethesda used to make actual RPGs. There's attributes, skills, and perks that all affect unique character statistics and leveling in meaningful ways. I actually had to thoughtfully consider my build, as the level cap of lvl20 made it impossible to be a jack of all trades. Also, speech/charisma aren't the only things that affect dialogue—skill checks can be performed by a variety of skills to determine the outcome of conversations (like having a high medicine skill can add new opportunities when speaking to a doctor). These RPG systems are far and away the my favorite aspect of the entire game, and I'm unsure why Bethesda continues to strip away this depth with each subsequent release. Gunplay isn't great, but is remedied by Fallout 3's most unique feature: VATS. I was very skeptical at first, thinking that it was nothing more than a glorified aimbot—but I was wrong. VATS adds an ATB-esque layer to combat, switching from real-time to almost turnbased—with increased critical hit chances in exchange for AP. This mechanic takes a variety of statistics into account while allowing you to freeze time and select individual limbs of an opponent. Each limb will have different percentage chances to land, as well as having unique damage values. Each of these can also be crippled—like a damaged head lowering perception, or crippled arms lowering accuracy or even disarming weapons entirely. Fallout 3 needed another layer to its combat to make up for the lack of The Elder Scrolls signature magic, and VATS does the job wonderfully. Not only is it a great homage to the original series' turnbased roots, it saves the game from being just another point-and-shoot FPS. Fallout 3 has some cool extraneous systems like hacking (which is literally just Wordle btw), and a great evolution of the lockpicking minigame from previous Elder Scrolls games—but lacks many of the signature systems from its sister franchise. There are no meaningful replacements to alchemy, spellcrafting, or enchanting. There's a decent workbench mechanic that allows you to craft junk into new weapons, but it isn't enough to fill the gap left by these other great systems. I did like the repair system though, allowing you to merge similar weapons together to improve their durability. It made finding duplicate weapons/gear in the field still feel rewarding, but durability suffers the same issue it did in Oblivion (decreasing your damage as your durability lowers, but not showing you what the max damage potential is—making it nearly impossible to compare weapons). There's some amazing new survival mechanics too: like addiction and radiation. Overusing drugs or alcohol will result in your character depending on them, even suffering withdrawals if abstaining for too long. It's great, and makes me think twice before drinking 16 bottles of wine in 0.05 milliseconds just to clear up some inventory space. Radiation, on the other hand, is omnipresent. It's impossible to avoid radiation out there in the post-nuclear wasteland, even in the food and water. Failing to manage your radiation poisoning can lead to substantial debuffs of various attributes, and can even kill you. It's a cool system that adds a new dimension to exploration as well, with avoiding radioactive hotspots becoming a necessity w—*I have way more to say, but this is the character limit :(
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03 Feb 2024
Positives: Great Gameplay. Amazing and deep storytelling, the different ways you can finish specific quests is mind-blowing. Graphics are good for the time. Sound design is amazing and helps you get immersed into the game. The world is very deep and grabbed my attention.

Negatives: There can be some glitching when it comes to the textures and environments, it becomes very distracting some times. The Karma system doesn't have as much weight on Gameplay and story as it should. The pacing of the story starts slow at first and then speeds up too fast toward the end.

Fallout 3 is an amazing open world experience that has become one of the best Bethesda video games I have ever played.
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22 Jan 2023
I really can't get into this franchise. I played this a bit and never wanna play it again, idk what people see in this franchise.
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11 Feb 2024
I love fallout 3 pls can i play every day
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19 Jan 2024
With Borken Steel DLC

Liked:

- Satisfying gameplay (although it shows its age)
- Great dialogs
- Interesting decision making
- VATS gimmick is awesome
- Very interesting quests and stories
- Fun and addictive until the end
- Well done open world
- Great atmosphere and universe
- Very interesting rpg mechanics, like the SPECIAL points and Perks
- Dog companion!!

Disliked:

- It shows its age
- Cannot teleport from insider places
- Too empty world
- Some encounters or situations are too unrealistic (not convincible)
- Some places you have to go are hard to find even marked on the map
- Too OP companion that basically cannot die (Fawkes)
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02 Sep 2024
Best intro ever. GTA V who? This is great. There's even a mission that's just one big reference to the movie Them! I love this.. so much. Right up there with New Vegas. Yes, that is Liam Neeson.
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20 Jul 2024
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