Fallout 3

I'm really enjoying this game, in fact I haven't played Wizard 101 since I got it...of course that wasn't that long ago :P

I've restarted my game a couple of times, the first time after I discovered V.A.T.S. and realized it could save me ammunition versus shooting in FPS mode and missing. Then I reloaded again when I wanted to kill a certain quest giver. He's a bad guy (well, that's relative, really ;) who disappears after you help him, or defy him, but you can also kill him if you squeal on him, but if you do turn him in you need a quick trigger finger or good people will die. Thank heavens for Quick-saves and reloads because I wasn't fast enough the first time...or the next few times, either :P

That's the big difference between an MMO-RPG and an offline SP-RPG (or story-driven SP-FPS, what ever you want to call it). In an MMO any choices you make are, for the most part, permanent for your character...unless you want to reroll. My Main in WoW got screwed out of a lot of things, which was shame, because I loved playing him so he was often the first Toon to do things. And because of that he was also the Guinea Pig, meaning he was the guy from which I learned what not to do.

The Timbermaw Furbolg in the tunnel between Felwood and Winterspring? Grind Rep with them to at least Unfriendly before setting foot inside. It doesn't take long, maybe half an hour doing two grinding quests and you're there. Do NOT fight your way through because it just makes it so much harder later when you've either got to fight your way back, or spend money to fly back, and forth, and back, and forth. Yeah, I fought my way through...a couple of times. Took me freaking forever to get back in the Timbermaw's good books.

Now if WoW were offline SP-RGP you'd just reload. You might lose an hour of progress but it's soooo much better than the alternative.

Of course if it were an offline SP-RPG you'd probably never have the thousands of hours invested into your Toon that most of us ended up with. By the way, a thousand hours isn't long, it's just 40 days /played.

So I restarted/rerolled my FO3 "Toon" a couple of times and after the second or third time, I saved my Toon at the exit to Vault 101 which, oddly enough, is where you get a final chance to change everything about your character. You've already assigned points to your Stats, and chosen your Skills/Perks, you've done the Intro/Tutorial but now, before you set foot into the Big, Bad Wasteworld...do you want to change anything about your Toon...and they do mean anything. You get one last chance to change not just your Stats but your physical appearance, including your gender! So I saved a game there meaning now when I "reroll" I don't need to do the Tutorial again, not unless I really, really want to.

The controls are standard WASD FPS controls so if you've played any FPS in the last 10 years you should have very little trouble getting around. Hitting TAB opens your PIPBoy which also Pauses the game. That's something which makes Liz very happy and she's probably not the only spouse...not that I have more than one spouse...other people's spouses, they're probably happy their SO is finally playing a game with a Pause button.

The PIPBoy is where you change weapons, armor, medicate/heal yourself, etc. You can keep track of your current quests in it, track the objective/destination for a quest, view your Map, etc. Because it completely fills your screen it's by necessity that the game also Pauses when you access your PIPBoy, otherwise Mobs would be chewing on your head while you're looking at your Map.

Back in the game combat occurs, for the most part, in Real Time, although Bullet Time is used for some of the flashier kills. You can choose to play FO3 as an FPS, or you can take advantage of V.A.T.S., the Vault-Tec Assisted Targeting System. This means Combat gets paused while you choose your targets. You start combat with a certain number of Action Points (depending on a few factors, your Stats, length of time since last Combat, etc) and you basically choose which opponent (if more than one) to shoot at, and which body part to target. Certain Mobs are more heavily armored in certain areas, so while you might have an excellent chance of shooting a RadScorption's Carapace, you won't do as much damage to it as if you targeted its legs, which are naturally harder to hit.

V.A.T.S. has its good points, and its bad points. It allows you to stop/pause combat while you think things through, which is good you're a more mature gamer (like me) where your reactions might be a little slower than when you were half your age (even if you won't admit it to yourself, or anyone else ;) It's also very good if a Mob ambushes you. Spin to face it, hit V (to engage V.A.T.S. of course), pick your target, maybe select it a couple of times if you have sufficient Action Points, then hit A (or is it E) to Accept your choice, leave V.A.T.S. and resume combat. Now you don't need to do anything until your Toon has completed doing what you told it to...which is where the bad part of V.A.T.S. kicks in.

You just told your Toon to shoot the Mob four times in the head. As he begins firing the camera view changes, and here are two Mobs behind your target, with Assault Rifles, that they've got aimed right at you. Your first shot to your target's head is a good one, it does a lot of damage and he's stunned, so your second shot finishes him off. Queue the almost obligatory slow-mo death sequence as your target's head flies off (yes, body parts are easily separated from their owners during combat) and his body cartwheels through the air and down the adjacent stairwell.

Meanwhile...his two buddies are shooting the hell out of you and there's not a damn thing you can do about it, not until the game gives you back control of your Toon. Before that happens, let's just watch that body slide down the last couple of stairs, shall we? Ok, now, where were we? Oh, you're getting shot. And you're low on health. Oh dear.

Good part of FO3? Hit TAB to bring up your PIPBoy and shoot yourself up with a couple of Stimpacks. Get that Health Bar back up to a more...healthier level. Much better. Your 10mm Pistol is good for taking out a single bad guy, but you've got two guys shooting at you now. Break out the Combat Shotgun. TAB out of your PIPBoy and resume combat, in real time. You're almost back at full health again so you can take a second to line up your shot and KA-BLAM! The second bad guy loses his head after taking a load of double-ought to the face. Unlike the first guy's death which occurred in V.A.T.S., this second guy doesn't get the honor of a slow-mo bullet time death. Now it's just one guy left so...you hit V again. Hellooooo V.A.T.S. and refreshingly slow combat where you have all the time in the world to plan your moves. Close range, guy in front of you in an open corridor. Got to be a shotgun blast to the face...again >:)

It's a Critical Hit, and because it happened in V.A.T.S., there's that slow-mo death sequence that sometimes produces the most hilarious of death scenes. Seriously. Sometimes they're so over the top they're beyond belief. Last night I shot a Raider on a bridge above me. The best shot I had, according to the percentages shown by V.A.T.S., was targeting his left leg, so I did. All three rounds from my Hunting Rifle hit the Raider in the leg, the last one tore his leg off. No, he didn't hop around on his good leg before collapsing in a heap. The game engine decided to toss him into the air, and he practically cartwheeled across a gap in the bridge which, if the guy was 6-feet tall, was a 10' wide gap. He almost made it all the way across, too :D

Speaking of the physics engine FO3's has really impressed me, on more than one occasion.

I had a stupid Raider charge me. I know he was stupid because he was bringing a Pool Cue to a Gun Fight. I dropped him with a couple of rounds from my Hunting Rifle, and he dropped the Pool Cue. We were on the side of a hill and his Pool Cue hit the ground and began rolling down hill. It rolled all the way down to the bottom of the hill then continued on for a bit before finally losing all momentum.

Another Raider lost his head after losing a gun fight with me (it's amazing how poorly heads and limbs are attached in this game) and I watched bemused as his head rolled away from its body before coming to a stop in a ditch.

Then there was a Centaur (not your typical mythical half-man/half-horse critter, something a lot uglier) spitting at me, or tossing body parts, or doing god knows what, but it was engaging me at extreme range by spitting/throwing "something" at me. I pulled out my Sniper Rifle and fired off the last few .308 rounds I had. I hit it a couple of times but not enough to kill it, so I switched to my Hunting Rifle (chambered for .32, not .308) and...the Centaur disintegrated. WTF? I stared in surprise, wondering just what the hell had happened, and that's when the truck behind the Centaur exploded. I ducked, literally (me, not my toon) as the hood of the truck flew across the river and bounced past my toon. I still don't know what happened to the Centaur, whether there'd been an initial, smaller explosion from the truck that I hadn't seen, which finished it off, or if it somehow self-destructed, setting fire to the truck, which caused the explosion. It doesn't matter, the Centaur was dead and I was alive.

Now, is the game worth $50? Which is what I paid for it (that's what you get buying newly released games). I'd say so. Sure, it may not keep my interest as much as WoW or Wrath would, but for them, I'd still be paying to play every month (or every 6 months in my case). Even when I'm done with it, there'll probably be a time in the future when I'll pull it back out and play it some more. Good value for money, in my books.

There's also a large Modding community, who are constantly coming up with changes to the game. Different graphics, different specs for the weapons, etc. So there's a lot of after-market support. If you've an aversion to paying full price for games, then wait for the price to drop. It will come down sooner or later. If you don't mind paying $50 for a game, and you like quasi-Role Playing games with guns, bombs, explosions, and detachable body parts, you'll probably enjoy Fallout 3.

It's very easy to get into, can be played for 5 to 10 minutes, or an hour or two, and paused at will when the wife calls. It may not be Fallout 1 & 2 done as an FPS, but it's still (IMO) a fun game. No, I'm not offering you a money back guarantee if you don't like it. By now you should already know if you'd like it ;)