Thoughts on Fallout 3

[TheMarvell]

I admit it, I'm a late comer to the highly praised Fallout 3. But I wanted to wait for the game of the year edition. Anyways, being as spoiler free as possible, I wanted to address some thoughts I had on the game.

First of all, it's a great game. No doubt about that. It's huge, tons to do, it's fun. Great value for your money.

But I'm finding it ever-so-slightly overrated.

Maybe I'm just going about the game world the wrong way, but it seems like with every quest I go on, it's the same set up. Getting from point A to point B almost always requires you to go through some creepy, dark abandoned subway tunnel. And each subway tunnel has the exact same lay out. With a game world so massive, why are so many quests, at least towards the beginning anyways, set up this way? Keep in mind, I've only done about 11 or 12 quests total, and with the main one, I'm currently on Scientific Pursuits. I guess I just don't understand why they didn't use the outside wastelands more in traveling. I hate going through the subway tunnels constantly because of how repetitive they are, and how annoyingly dark they are. Even with the pip-boy flashlight on. It's even worse in the water. Don't get me wrong, the game is fun, but I'm surprised people haven't complained more about this. Unless it changes drastically later on in the game.

Also, sometimes it does feel too open for it's own good. I love exploring, but most of the time I just find the same junk.

anyways, just wanted to get that off my chest. Does anyone else feel this way? Any tips or suggestions?

[Courtnall6]

Fantastic game. I originally bought it for my PS3 but sold it and picked up the PC version. Soooo many mods out there that make this awesome game even better.

Ya...due the the city being destroyed and collapsed buildings everywhere...most of the A to B traveling in the downtown area is through metro tunnels. It didn't really bother me having to go through them. I never use my Pipboy light down there...you're just asking to get swarmed by ghouls then!

High lockpick and science skills are a must. You'll come across alot of locked crates and doors..also plenty of cpu terminals that will make things easier if you can hack them. Focus on 5-6 skills...don't spread your skill points over everything. They won't get high enough to be really effective. The Animal Friendly perk is quite useful to take. It'll will save you a lot of hassle while exploring the open wastelend.

There's a lot to see and do in the Wasteland...explore everywhere! I still haven't seen it all!

[Zippo]

Make sure not to do the main quest too fast. You can burn through that sucker pretty quick if you focus solely on it. Either that, or do 2 playthroughs (one for the main quest, one for exploration).

I agree that there are a lot of A to B in the tunnel missions, especially near the downtown, but if you go off exploring to some of the more far-flung places, you can pick up some pretty interesting quests.

Lockpick and science skills are where it's at, and try to stay away from putting too many skill points into big guns. I find having a higher skill in small arms is the most effective, and even with a low skill in big guns, a mini nuke is going to be pretty devastating.

[Tortuga]

I finished the game (on 360) back in the spring and sold it.  I recently picked up the GOTY edition to play the extras.  Although I still love the game for it's atmosphere, depth and story there are some QoL issues that are bugging me.

-I hate the save game mechanic.  It's an exploring game, but you're punished if you get caught up in exploring and forget to save.  Last night I lost 30-45 minutes of fighting/looting/progressing because I didn't zone and I got killed in a fight just as I reached my destination.  That's a pain in the rear.

-After playing Borderlands, the movement and shooter part of it feels sluggish and not as smooth.

-Because of level scaling, some enemies in later parts of the game (I'm in Point Lookout right now) are unrealistically tough.  These guys have no armour and lousy weapons and it takes forever to kill them, yet they can tear through my Brotherhood armor (from finishing Anchorage) with no problem.

There are a few other gripes, but I don't want to seem as though I don't like the game.  I wouldn't have re-bought it if I didn't   I'm just hoping to finish it soon, as I also have GTA: Episodes, more Borderlands (DLC coming this week!) and Assassin's Creed 2 to play.

[lugaru]

The point lookout enemies where created with too much health, one way or another. They where worried (justified) that everyone was going to go there with their high level characters instead of a low level new one... people love doing EVERYTHING with one character instead of plotting different paths with different dudes.

I loved the game and modded a lot for it, but since my computer died I have had no chance to play anything. Cant wait to jump back in and see how much progress was made while I was gone.

[TheMarvell]

One thing I love, and hate, about the game is how much there is to do. It's great value for your money. But sometimes it feels like a single player MMO, where it can take 3 or 4 hours just to do ONE quest. I love a good length when playing my $60 games, but sometimes it gets grating when what should be a short, sweet, and simple quest is drawn out a lot longer than it should.

Like Tortuga, I don't want to complain too much about the game to make it seem like I don't like it. It's a great game and I understand the hype. But sometimes it seems like people forget the games issues. Most of the gripes are forgiving since the positives outweigh the negatives, but the negative aspects shouldn't be ignored either. Having to constantly go through the subway tunnels with the exact same layouts actually makes me not want to play it sometimes. But I'll try to do some more exploring and discovering.

and where can I get a good armor set with some good stat boosts? I'm currently using Megatons sheriff's duster, mainly because of how it looks and that it gives +5 to small arms. But it has crap for defense. Also, I've been focusing mainly on small arms, lock picking, computer science, and speech, with a few thrown into health and explosives on occasion.

[Uncle Yuan]

I think it's a great game and I had a ball playing it.  I do only play it on XBox, so I am missing out on all those mods, but I bought two of the expansion packs and really, really enjoyed them.  Still haven't hit the new level cap, though.

The armor that I eventually stuck with was the Riley's Rangers armor, which gave a chunk of action points and a +1 Luck, and could be repaired with Talon Co armor.  There was another good medium weight armor that I ran across in one of the expansion packs, but was kind of "6 of one" so I didn't take it.

[bredon7777]

This is why I NEVER play an RPG without a guidebook. I'm too afraid I'll miss a quest, and there are too many games for me to replay one from the beginning.

Its perfectly possible with books, and the expansion that raises the level cap to 30 to max out all your skills at 100%. That said, concentrate first on Lockpick, Science, Medicine and Small arms.

The Riley's ranger armor is great, especially given that you can repair it like Uncle Yuan says- until you get into the Broken Steel bits and then you can find better armor. Though I generally carry around 150-200 stimpacks at a given time, just to be safe.

[Uncle Yuan]

My character was a great sneaker/sniper, so I didn't generally want the real heavy armor.  I like the Enclave helmets - as long as I remember to take them off when dealing with folks.

[lugaru]

This is why I NEVER play an RPG without a guidebook. I'm too afraid I'll miss a quest, and there are too many games for me to replay one from the beginning.

That is my problem with game designers and to some extent gamers these days... I would love it if games where more conductive to not knowing what you are doing, making mistakes and carving a path with each character instead of players having to become the master of every guild, every faction, every skill and every storyline with one character.

[daerdevil]

Lots of hype, but I have to say this is probably one of my favorite games of all time.  The Metro tunnels are a bit of a hassle, but I'm not sure there's a whole lot more that would have made them more interesting...Metro tunnels are basically just straight lines w/ no scenery.  Plus, once you get to the different locations downtown you can fast travel back (yeah, it's cheap, but saves me a lot of time).  Now for anything outside the city, slogging it out on foot is the best.  There's so much to explore and random sights to see.  I have spent many hours just wandering around exploring.

I thought the missions were varied enough, and there's plenty of them.  Sure, the early missions aren't too exciting, but the side quests start taking on a life of their own.  You're probably burnt out on that "Wasteland Survival Guide", but maybe my mission standards are low.

My main complaint is the lack of peaceful or creative solutions.  The original Fallout games incorporated ways to resolve quests without resorting to always resorting to violence, so you could role play a fast talker or politician type.  FO3 just seems to be a little to limited in this regard.  Plus, the lack of consequences for low SPECIAL stats makes things like charisma throwaways.  For those that played a low Intelligence character in the originals know what I'm talking about.

The other complaint, is that there's not always a whole lot of consequences for your actions, unless having Three Dog trash you on the radio is a big deal to you.

I just keep coming back to this game.

[TheMarvell]

just posting another update on my thoughts.

I felt pretty engrossed when the game first started, and even in the beginning quests of the wasteland. But for some reason at this point in time in the game, I'm getting somewhat bored. I don't really know why. It could be because there are other new games released that I'm much more interested in (Assassin's Creed 2, and pretty soon there'll be Mass Effect 2), but I think one of the bigger drawbacks for me is the lack of any truly memorable characters. So far, the only characters I liked or remember are your father, Lucas Sims, and that android in Rivet City. With the lack of characters I like or remember, it's hard for a game to truly engross me, despite it's awesome game world. I'm also finding it better to be played in small doses than long hours, as one side quest alone can take a couple of hours to finish (both a good and bad thing, imo. I hate feeling like I've played for hours and only accomplished minimal tasks. One of the reasons why I quit World of Warcraft).

I haven't invested in sneaking at all. Is this recommended? I can usually sneak up on one guy but once he's dead everyone else knows I'm there, so I figured there isn't much point.

It's a great game, but it's not pulling me in and engrossing me as much as I had hoped. I took a break from playing it and started playing GTA Lost & Damned, and that game hooked me in almost immediately.

[Uncle Yuan]

I totally built my character to be a sneaky head-shotting sniper and I loved it.  Take the perks for increased head shot targeting and increased criticals, and of course lots of stealth.  Between the named sniper rifle for long distance and plasma rifle for closer work there was almost nothing I couldn't take out with a single run through the VATS.

[bredon7777]

Actually, low charisma gets you higher prices and less items from merchants.  Not much of a consequence, true, but a consequence nonetheless.