From Bottleneck.org
Fallout 3
This website seems to be rapidly turning into a gaming blog, but none the less, here are my thoughts on Fallout 3, which I recently finished.
I wasn't sure how much I'd enjoy this game. I tend to get bored of the lack of direction in large, open-world games, and I was worried that I'd spend a bunch of time wandering around and not achieving anything, then get bored and frustrated, and at the very least look for a walkthrough.
That didn't happen. The game puts you in a starting position that very quickly allows you to start discovering locations and the main and major quests. I particularly liked the fact that you quickly collect a variety of quests which you can then tackle as time, ability and convenience allowed, or according to how interested you are in any particular storyline.
The interactions with the non player characters are fairly rich and widespread throughout the game. My only criticism of this is that it means you have to talk to everyone in order to make sure you're not missing something, and that can get a little tiresome after a while.
Fallout 3 won the title of Game of the Year, and I could see why from the outset. The game is incredibly playable, and the map is fairly densely populated with high quality locations. The game also pulls off its post-apocalyptic (think Mad Max) atomsphere very well, supported by a fairly believable back story. The quests in the main game are varied, engaging, and have multiple routes to outcome, which in turn will affect what quests and options are available to you elsewhere in the game.
In terms of the main game, my only criticism might be that the main and major side quests don't really begin to touch the full range of locations on the map, leaving a lot of arbitrary exploration to be done. I'm sure that many people would see this as an advantage, but I'd have prefered to have touched on most of the locations as I worked through the game.
The version I bought was the Game of the Year Edition, which includes all of the official add-ons and downloadable content. I'll mention them below in the order in which I played them, which it turns out was neither the order in which they were released, nor the best order in which to play them.
Despite the gripes I might mention in this article, the game is worth every penny of the money you'll spend on it, and I can think of few games I'd put in the same league as this.
Broken Steel
Broken Steel is a major add-on, and continues the main quest storyline from where it ended in the original game. The quests in this pack are very much in keeping with the original game, and the whole thing feels very much like a natural extension. The level cap is raised from 20 to 30, with associated perks, so you feel rewarded for continuing to strive even through the side quests and general fights.
It would have been nice if, as in the original game, this add-on had easily dragged you across the path of a number of additional major and side quests, giving you more freedom in what you did and when. As it was, the whole thing felt a little like it was on rails. This is a very minor criticism, though, and not one I was particularly aware of when I was playing it.
I would also have liked it if the level cap had been left open-ended, since there are plenty of perks you will not have achieved by level 30. I can imagine, however, that Bethesda might have wanted to leave some room for further expansion in future.
Point Lookout
This is definitely not the first add-on to do, it's actually quite tough. A lot of new terrain is added, which would require some hefty exploration if you like that sort of thing. The story, however, doesn't really cover much of the terrain and you're unlikely to stumble across any side-quests without some independant exploration. The main quest does seem to be somewhat on rails - do A, then do B, then do C, then you're done. Again, it would have been nice to be given a range of objectives that could be tackled at any time.
My main issue with this add-on was that the enemies were artificially tough. Having spent quite some time blasting away at a baddie with a major weapon, and almost being killed by him in the process, I was keen to find out what sort of incredible armour and weaponry he had? Leather armour and a knife. The toughness of the characters seemed to have been unrealistically inflated in order to provide a challenge. That annoyed me a bit, I'd rather they'd given some reason for the toughness (incredible armour, or just a different type of bad guy maybe?)
Operation: Anchorage
I rather enjoyed this add-on. It takes you out of the post-apocalyptic wasteland theme of the main game, but maintains a good thematic link by being set during the time of the war that caused the devastation (or, more correctly, in a simulation of that war). You're given a limited set of weaponry and armour in this simulation, which means you can no longer rely on your Power Armour and Gatling Laser to blast you through the level. This is a much better way of providing a challenging level than the approach used in Point Lookout, and is a technique that's used in a similar way to good effect in The Pitt.
This add-on is basically an on-the-rails sneak-and-shoot in style, so is very different from the open world style of the main game. I enjoyed it, all be it that it didn't feel much like a part of the main game storyline. If I were playing again, I'd probably try to get this add-on done early.
The Pitt
This add-on takes place on an entirely separate map, with its own plot and set of quests and side quests. It feels very much like the rest of Fallout 3 in style, and provides a fair challenge. Your weapons and armour are removed from you at the start of the add-on, and you won't get them back until you're a good way through it. This means you have to remember how to fight properly, instead of just blasting away. This add-on could almost be a mini-game in its own right, with the same Fallout 3 mechanics. If I were playing again, this would probably be the first add-on I'd complete after the main game.
Mothership Zeta
I can't for the life of me imagine what possessed anyone to put an add-on set in an alien space ship into Fallout 3. It's completely out of place to my mind. That aside, the add-on is basically a run-on-rails shooter. The first few aliens you encounter are trivial to kill, after which you recover you equipment, and find that the rest of the aliens are hard as nails. The plot is mundane, there's only one path through the add-on, and it's nothing more than a way to build up experience points, if you've not hit the cap already. If I were to play the game again, I'd either do this early for levelling, or I'd not bother at all.