Hello Again, Review Time, For A Stunner of A Game!…..
A baby’s cry is the first thing you hear as you enter the game, a masked figure stands infront of you, and you can see a womans leg to your left, after choosing a name, and completing the gene re-production program to see how your character looks in the future, you are taken from the room. Yes thats right you have just been born!
A short loading screen appears and suddenly it is a year later, this is where you learn the basics of movement and object interaction. You live in an underground safe haven known as Vault 101, you are living here to escape the dangers of the post nuclear appocolyptic Wahington DC which is now known as “Capital Wasteland”.
A short while later you are thrown into your 10th Birthday party where you recieve your Pip-Boy 3000, you learn about interacting with other characters and how selecting different speech options determines your leniency towards having a Good or Evil character, you recieve a BB gun from your father and are taken into a small room where you come across your first enemy and learn the basics of shooting and the V.A.T.S system (Vault-Tec Assisted Targetting System).
After the party you find yourself in your father’s office now aged 16 and ready to take your G.O.A.T test (Generalized Occupational Aptitude Test) This is a clever way to determine your characters initial preffered skills.
When you finish the test you return to your father’s office to see a final cutscene, after which you find yourself aged 19 and at the begining of your Fallout journey!
Now aged 19 you awake to find your friend Amata stading infront of you, she informs you that your father has escaped from Vault 101 and offers assistance in your following him.
When you finnally reach the exit to Vault 101 and manage to escape you get a final chance to edit your characters Name, Appearance, and Basic Skills etc before you continue.
Upon emerging from Valut 101 you are greeted by the glorious sight of the Capital Wasteland, now you can really see the reason to its name!
(Not the first thing you see upon leaving Vault 101, this is just an example of Capital Wasteland!)
The now broken empty space in which the old Washington DC existed is in front of you, and you find yourself in a small predicament… What do I do now?!
(A very similar situation you found yourself in at the begining of, if you played another of Bethesda’s marvelous creations, Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion)
This game is huge, you can stand on the top of the tallest cliff, or tower and say to yourself “Wherever I look, as far as my eye can see, I can travel there”! Your Pip-Boy 3000 is going to be your best friend during your journey through Fallout 3 as it is your menu screen, your health/status/skills screen, it contains information on everything you have done during your game and it contains information on all of the weapons and items you are carrying, it even has its own light to brighen up dark places for you, but most importantly it is your map of and guide to the Capital Wasteland!
With an abundance of main story and side quests to get through there is a huge amount of play time. Personally I completed all of the quests in just over 55 hours over a week, this included doing everything required for the 1000 gamerpoint score after gaining all of the achievements (Listed at the end of the review!)
During your journeys throughout the Capital Wasteland you will discover many locations spread across the map, these locations are then listed on your Pip-Boy map for future reference and you can then “Fast Travel” to them, rather than having to run everywhere.
Throughout the map you will encounter a wide variety of characters some good, some bad and some that simply want to kill you! Good characters are mainly found within settlements and cities, and offer trade and Quests, Neutral characters who dont say anything to you but wont attack you are usually Wasteland Settlers and Ghouls, Ghouls are people that became mutated by the radiation but did not die. (They look to me like their skin is inside out) Ghouls live for a lot longer than normal humans and there are normal Ghouls some of which you can talk to and there are the nasty kind “Feral ghouls”, these guys have been affected by radiation to much and have lost their minds thereby becoming violent and wont think twice about attacking you!
(Feral Ghoul under fire from a Mini-Gun)
Bad characters like Raiders and Mercenaries are usually found randomly throughout the Wasteland and will always offer a fight.
Then you will come across a wide variety of creatures all mutated due to the excess in nuclear radiation lingering around. A few of these include Yao Guai which are ravenous bear like creatures that lunge towards you to attack. Death claws remind me a little bit of Velociraptors, they run on two legs towards you and strike with with huge claws, which usually knocks your head clean off if your at a low level, or dont have power armour!
Other characters you meet along your travels can become followers of yours and will folow you around and aid you in fighting, I will let you discover them for yourself but one name I will mention is Fawkes! If you meet this character you WANT them as a follower! You can also find a dog called Dogmeat.
(Come here Boy!)
Fighting plays the biggest part in this game, as you will always find something to attack while either exploring or carrying out Quests. There are a large variety of weapons to be used from pistols to plasma rifles, power fists to frag mines, all of which are very usefull! You will know if something is attacking you as the background music will change, either that or you will visually see an attack/attacker approaching! You can fight melee or use weapons, and you can manually attack, aim shoot etc, or you can use the very usefull V.A.T.S system (Mentioned above) This targetting system pauses the battle and displays the enemies in front of you, you can choose an enemy to attack with the right analog stick. When you have chosen your target you can then choose a body part to attack, each body part has a percentage over it which is the percent chance you have of hitting that body part. Once you have chosen what to attack you then accept your command and a scene will play of your character firing at/attacking the chosen body part(s). This system however has its flaw in that it requires AP points to be used, although these regenerate at a fair pace you more often than not will find your self fighting and finishing off enemies manually, while your AP recharges. (Until you reach level 20 when a perk becomes available to instantly restore lost AP points in V.A.T.S. IF you get a kill)
(At [95%] Pigeon thinks a body shot is on the cards!!)
Fallout 3 has a brilliant story line to follow which has a fixed basis but some methods and paths you take can alter how you get to the end, for instance talking to certain people may leave some quests un-needed if you find out certain information etc. The game does have many different endings however determined by your games actions, your characters Karma leniency and doing different (optional) side quests can also affect the ending!
This game comes highly recommended by myself and by everyone ive spoken to about it! The only bad word I can say about it is that it did eventually come to an end!
So finnally all in all I have to give Fallout 3 – 10 out of 10.
The Game is yet another piece of Bethesda magnificence, these guys can do it all! From Oblivion’s swords and horses, to Fallout 3’s Guns and Ghouls! Bring on The Fallout 4
Peace & Love To All
- Pigeon
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Fallout 3 Downloadable Content!!
The first official downloadable content, Operation: Anchorage, will be available exclusively for the Xbox 360 and Games for Windows in January, and more downloadable content is set to come in February and March. You can check out more details about the DLC below.
Operation: Anchorage - Enter a military simulation and fight in one of the greatest battles of the Fallout universe – the liberation of Anchorage, Alaska from its Chinese Communist invaders. An action-packed battle scheduled for release in January.
The Pitt – Journey to the industrial raider town called The Pitt, located in the remains of Pittsburgh. Choose your side. Scheduled for release in February.
Broken Steel - Join the ranks of the Brotherhood of Steel and rid the Capital Wasteland of the Enclave remnants once and for all. Continues the adventure past the main quest. Scheduled for release in March.
(Information From HERE)
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*Tips and Hints*
Quest Completion: - If you are aiming to gain all of the achievements then it is very importnant that you do so before completeing the last Quest. The final Quest is found in the Citadel and is activated by talking to Sentinel Lyons, the Quest is called “Take it Back” When you reach this Quest Sentinel Lyons will ask you if you are ready to make the final assault on the “Jefferson Memorial” You should say you are NOT yet ready to end the conversation! I suggest you make a separate save in which you can simply return staight back to the Citadel when you are ready to continue the Quest. Then carry on exploring and gaining all of the other achievements you require, leaving “Take it Back” until last!
Perks:- Try to think logically about your perks upon levelling up. Try to think which perks work best for your gameplay style and characters current statistics. Three perks I highly recommend you select as soon as they become available are the…
”Educated” perk in which each level of Educated will add +2 skill points when you gain a new experience level”
“Strong Back” perk which lets gives you a higher encumberment rating so you can carry more items!
“Here and Now” perk which immediately grants an additional experience level, complete with all the advantages that brings. (Best used as a quick boost to gain the Karma Level Achievements!)
Experience Achievements: - As you play through the game whatever you do will affect your leniency towards a good, neutral or evil character this is known as your characters Karma. Some of the achievements require you to reach character experience levels at certain Karma levels i.e. you must reach levels 8, 14 and 20 with Good, Neutral and Evil Karma. Do to this realistically you will need to play through the game 3 times following the respective Karmatic lenience. If however you dont want to play through 3 times, but stil want the achievements then you should follow this little guide!
I suggest you play through with a Good character on your first run through! Upon reaching the levels just before the ones you need for the achievements i.e. 7, 13 and 19 you should save your game into a separate slot from your main game. Then if you are a Good character then simply continue your game as you are (Whilst leaving the other save game separate!) Then when you reach the respective level you will get the achievement. Then Save your main game slot and re-load your other save game. Then go on a human killing spree and just generally be Evil! When you get to Neutral Karma save your game to yet another slot and leave that as it is then continue on your killing spree untill you reach Evil Karma, upon doing so simply level up to get your Evil achievement, then load your Neutral Karma save game and level up to gain that achievement, you should then have all 3 for the level you need. Finnally load your Main save game again and continue playing until you reach the next required level! Hope this helps!
Very Easy Experience: - This is not a glitch or a cheat I suppose its a semi defect within the game. To use this method you need to get to “Big Town” which is shown on this map…
Upon arrival you are greeted by a wary guard choose nice safe speech options and he will let you in, I mean dont be threatening or nasty! You then need to speak to a girl called “Bittercup” I think she prefers night time so simply wait a few hours by pressing your back button (Xbox version obviously) until night. She tends be be creeping around! When you find her I suggest you save incase it doesnt work then you can just re-load and try agin but you need to speak to her and choose positive speech options then make sure the last one you say is…
“No, I’m not seeing anyone.”
You then need to speak to another character in Big Town called “Pappy” and use this speech option…
[Speech 100%] So, you came here with Bittercup, right?” Whenever you say this line, you’ll earn 7 XP
You will then gain experience for it. But wait when you finish using the said speech option you will notice you can say it again, and again, and yes again, over and over for unlimited experience! The one thing though is that you wil have a percentage rating listed infront of the speech option, this determines how likely you are to succeed in saying it. But if even if you fail you can still say it again! Hope this helps! This is best used in conjuction with the guide above to simply boost your level to gain the achievements, then just re-load your game and no one will ever know!
MAKE SURE you do the above experience booster BEFORE you do the Quest in Big Town other wise the said speech options become unavailable!!
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(Achievement Information from xbox360achievements.org)
(Nissan Skyline GT-R vs. Porsche 911)
(Highspeed pursuit with a Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution)
(Sprayin’ Flames ‘n’ Takin’ Names!)
(All four instruments in play! Lead Guitar, Drums, Bass Guitar & Microphone [At the top])
(A song in mid creation!)
(Yes that is me before you ask I had to dress up in this for work lol!!)
)
(A busy Giant carrying out his Lumberjack duties)
(Snow covered tree tops and pathways during a Kefling Winter time.)
(A happy group of players dancing with their Kefling followers.)
lol
