One of my first ever articles on Destructoid was about how I found Fallout 3 impossible to get into even after multiple attempts and restarts. It an era rife with frustration and sadness. I can’t bear to speak of it much more.

Fast forward to early 2010. I’m older now, wiser, more mature. Actually I’m pretty sure none of those things (while true) have any bearing on what I’m about to say. In 2010 I fell in with Fallout 3. Oh yes terrible puns; I went there.


Power armor is sexy

I don’t know what it was about this play through but somehow I made it past the points where I had stopped previously and finished the game. Once I got a better gun than the starting 10mm pistol and the BB gun things really started to open up. I didn’t explore every single location and I didn’t do lots of the smaller quests of the “Bring me any scrap metal you find” variety. However I did reach level 20 and I finished all of the “trophied” sidequests.


At least that stupid guy worshipping the bomb will finally shut up. Fucker.

Even though I generally enjoyed my play through Fallout wasn’t without its faults which I’m sure people have talked about before, but it’s my turn now.

Story. The story itself was fine. I enjoyed finding out about my dad’s hidden past and making Project Purity a reality. My biggest complaint (again real shocker here) is the length. The sidequests took up more of my time than the main story. Bethesda did such a good job creating the world of the Capital Wasteland but the story barely takes you anywhere. If you only went to the locations dictated by the story, you’d barely explore a fraction of the games total locations. I wished that I actually had a reason other than my own desire for adventure to journey out into the Wasteland and discover some of these other places. It’s interesting when you discover these other “secondary” places and you find that there are little tidbits, hints, and notes about why that place is important, but it’s not enough. I want actual story there not just notes in a computer terminal. The audio logs in Bioshock worked so well because the game’s main story could stand up so well on its own. Both elements worked in tandem whereas in Fallout they felt rather disparate.

Combat. I don’t really have a problem with V.A.T.S. I used it from time to time, but I really got annoyed when I tried to play the game a little more like a FPS. When my targeting reticule is centered on a target and I still miss because internally the game didn’t “roll the proper value for a hit” is incredibly frustrating. I understand that this was supposed to be more like an RPG but it just didn’t work.
Now onto something I thought the game did right (kind of). The map. When you look at the local map on your Pip-Boy entrances and exits are clearly marked with where they lead to. I consider this a necessity. I wish other games like Borderlands had something like this. I don’t remember where every single door leads and I want the game to help me out.

Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed Fallout 3 a lot. So much so that I bought the “Broken Steel” DLC to extend the main story and up the level cap. As of yesterday I beat the main quest part of Broken Steel (which was okay – still not great but definitely not entirely fleshed out) but I still want to hit the level cap.

All of this has made me very interested in Fallout: New Vegas, a game which previously I probably would have ignored. Well done Bethesda.