Fallout 3 Reviews

A total of five new reviews of Bethesda's Fallout 3 have surfaced over the past couple of weeks. The first is at VG Chartz with a score of 8.3/10:
The game is pretty lengthy, which is excellent. You can choose to rush through the main story (which in itself is quite short) if you wish, but you're unlikely to want to do that. The main sub-quests really work alongside the main quest, enhancing the story and revealing more about life before and after the war. Then there are the minor sub-quests, which result in much smaller rewards and tend to focus on more minor storylines, like particular relationships between characters within a town. These more minor quests don't impact on the main story, and don't really add anything to the overarching plot, but they're there if you want the extra challenge. A lot of your time will probably be spent travelling from one location to another, or fast-travelling back to town mid-journey in order to offload all the items you've acquired. The amount you can store in your inventory is quite large compared to your more traditional action games, but given that the journey between locations can be quite lengthy, the amount you can carry quickly becomes an issue, even after you've got the perk which allows you to carry more.

The second is at Zero's Gaming Place with no score:
Playing for a longer time is right I finished this game in 88 hours, but there is a reason for that. The main reason it took me that long to finish the game is because I went for 100% completion and even with me doing that I was having fun doing it all. The main story will only take about 10 hours if you really want to play it fast but the wasteland is a huge place and I decided to explore the whole thing and find all kinds of neat places and the extra missions. I haven't played a RPG like this before where it mixes a couple of genres like first person shooting with RPG, I liked being able to stop gameplay, point and shoot at a certain point on your enemies body whether its the arm so it can drop it's weapon or the legs so it can not run as fast. The graphics on this game are great but sometimes the game did slow down on me I guess it was trying to load a bunch of things at the same time, this also happened when I would start talking to people but I didn't mind it that much since it only did that every now and then. There are many ways anyone can play this game and can end up different than anyone else playing the game too. If you guys are looking for a great RPG to play with a lot of things to do, check out this game and you won't be disappointed.

The third is at PopMatters with a score of 9/10:
All things considered, Fallout 3 is probably the best game released in 2008. I don't think it quite deserves the unqualified, hyperbolic praise heaped on it by the majority of the games press, but it ought to be acknowledged for the lofty achievement it represents. It would be hard to imagine a video game released with more skepticism and preconceived judgment aimed at it than the sequel to one of the most beloved and fiercely defended RPGs (Fallout 1&2) in history. That this game silenced almost all its skeptics (I was one of them) may be its most remarkable achievement of all.

The fourth is at The Wargamer with no score:
It ran stable with only one CTD (crash to desktop) in 25 hours, ironically after I applied the second patch released from Bethesda. Otherwise Fallout 3 was rock solid and a joy to play, suspending my disbelief, sometimes horrifying, and sometimes hilarious. It is an all-around great RPG experience. Worth the wait, this new Fallout 3 is not Van Buren, granted, but it delighted me, a long time Fallout and Wasteland fan, and is a truly fleshed-out inheritor of this great gaming franchise. It does the series proud and points it in several great new directions for newcomers to enjoy too.

And the fifth is also at The Wargamer, though this time it's not quite as favorable:
The hallmark of every RPG is making choices. In Fallout 1 there was a side-quest where the source of (Iguana-on-a-stick) was discovered. The quest choices let the character decide between revealing the truth about where the meat came from or helping the supplier keep his source confidential. Either way XP was rewarded. Being good' or '˜bad' had no real effect on continuing the story. In Fallout 3 that choice doesn't exist. For example, in Vault 101 the only choice when dealing with the Overseer is to avoid him or kill him. Wouldn't it have been interesting to have the option of working for him to track the character's father down? In Megaton the choice is to blow it up and loose access to most of the beginning quests or turn in the bad guy (or kill him of course). But why couldn't you do something in between? Unfortunately that wasn't an option presented. Oddly enough even if the bad guy is turned in and he kills the sheriff the story isn't compromised. The 10 year old son of the sheriff takes over the job. Let's think about that for a second. In the post nuclear environment of the capital wasteland a ten year old will be the sheriff of the only real town there is surrounded by raiders, wild critters, mercenaries, and other things that mean civilization no good. Ya, right. Doesn't pass the smell test. If I didn't know better I'd say that two different quest designers realized they produced a dead end to the story and instead of fixing one of the quests they made a bad patch. Oh wait, I don't know better.