It rules. Simple.
Lets look at it this way. All the negative possibilities are usually summed up with: "It's just going to be Oblivion with guns". Well, while Oblivion isn't that bad a game, I quite like it, in fact, this game is NOT Oblivion with guns. Oh no. It's Morrowind with guns.
And I LOVE Morrowind. Why is this analogy more appropriate? Simple. First off, there is a large focus on chances of hitting - whereas in Oblivion it's a 100% guaranteed hit if you put the cursor on the target. Mostly.
It's also a lot more in-depth than Oblivion. I only noticed it just now, but one character in Megaton (first city, and my base of ops/retreat atm), was walking past another. He said "Hi Jericho, how's it going?". Seems simple enough, at first. Read the sentence again. What does it have, that Oblivion's voiced dialog doesn't? The name. Characters in Oblivion can't tell each other apart, or so it seems. They can in Fallout 3.
Options. Going down one road can close the possibility of another. Just like in Morrowind, where you couldn't join all 3 great houses, you can't save Megaton and blow it up.
Difficulty. You can die. Unlike Oblivion, (let's assume un-modded, with the difficulty slider at normal, here) where you can just walk into any situation and expect to win (damn level-scaling), you actually can die.
For example, I was exploring a place called "Hamilton's Hideout". Few Radscorpions, nothing much. Except for the couple of raiders at the end. One had a baseball bat. The other...a combat shotgun. I was sneaking. I couldn't get into the room without going through some light, and getting spotted, so I tried to VATS the shotgun dude in the head (on my second try, because his shotgun fucking pwned me in 3 shots). Didn't work. Not only was there a reasonable chance of missing, hitting him in the head wasn't killing him fast enough. What to do? Earlier in the hideout, I'd found a bottlecap mine. Muahaha. Place mine. Shoot guy in head once with the laser pistol. Run away. Sure, I took a bit of shrapnel in the back from his shotgun. But it killed both of them. Ran right into it. Blew the guy's leg off.
So, while the game is not impossible, there ARE things that can waste you. Excellent, it's actually a near-perfect balance. So far. The one thing I did notice, which makes me a bit sad - the first time I quit (gasp, yes, I did quit sad.gif), I massacred Megaton. For fun, you understand. The second time, just before I came to write this, my keyboard was running out of battery - so I decided to wipe out Megaton quickly and then quit. Didn't work quite so well. Apparently, the residents had done some stealth levelling while I was away killing raiders. You see, I'd leveled up. Now, I had to actually use some frag mines to take them out - otherwise they were too powerful. I just hope this has it's limits. Because I really don't want to have the same problem when I'm on level 20.
Other than that, so far so good.
The dialog options are great. Some are quite comedic, although I haven't seen much that is too typical "Fallout" yet. I'm sure it's in there. It was quite funny listening to the kid in Grayditch saying "Fuckin' Ants" though. tongue.gif
Combat is smooth, VATS is hugely useful - I wouldn't recommend playing without it. One minor fear I had held - that the guns would be super-accurate when not in VATS, was allayed quickly. You still have plenty of shots miss if you're not in VATS. smile.gif
Melee...is perhaps a tad underpowered. So far. I've only tried a swtichblade, pool cue, knife, combat knife, and a sledgehammer. I haven't got anything really good in that department so far.
Armor. Not quite the variety I was hoping for. Considering I don't like half the raider armor, I'm still wearing the basic leather armor. It saddens me that there is a shortage in this department. It could have been really well done - the devs didn't go for modular, they did it as one-piece suits with only the helmet/hat being separate. If it was mix 'n' match, then I would have been one happy bunny.
Weapons are awesome. They feel realistic enough, and, as I said, you still don't always hit if you're not in VATS. I've tried a .44 scoped revolver, a 10mm pistol, a combat shotgun, a sawed off shotgun, a hunting rifle (win), a laser pistol, a missile launcher, a chinese assault rifle (basically an AK-47) and a normal assault rifle (G3). All of them feel great. There is nothing quite like getting the perfect headshot on a lower level raider, killing them with one bullet. Their head goes flying off too.
(much as that makes me look sadistic).
VATS probably feels a lot better than normal shooting. It's just my preference. The shots are louder, reflecting the concentration on the moment, with extra noises being drowned out. It looks great. Though I would have appreciated a groin shot. tongue.gif
It looks great as well. I'm running it on Ultra High with my screen's max resolution. Better than Oblivion. Hell, it almost looks better than Crysis. Now - don't get all worked up over that last statement. If Fallout tried to do lush jungles and trees, it would fail. It's merely that it's easier to make a wasteland look really amazing, and high quality, than it is to make a forest look real.
Quests are good so far. Sadly, I've only really met "good" people - except for Mr Burke. Which makes it harder to play an evil character, when all the quests you get are along the lines of "deliver this letter to my family", or "can you go save this person". Of course, I've only been playing for 4 hours, and I've only done like 5 or 6 quests! So I expect this to pick up as well.
One of the best things about this game - ammo is not plentiful. Far from it. You have to weigh every shot. If you are looking at a raider hiding in a shell of a building, anything less than 40% chance to hit on the body, or 30% on the head, and you're wasting precious ammo. You're not going to him. Certainly not more than once. So you need to get a better position. All the while he's pinging you from his position. I expect as I level further, this will become less of an issue - but it's still amazing how every time I'm thinking "how much ammo do I have left" - EVERY SINGLE SHOT. It's the same with health. Stimpacks are the single greatest item that I just can't get enough of. Restoring 40 HP each use, or repairing a crippled limb (
), these things are life. And they cost around 30 bottle caps a hit - that's a lot. Bloody rare in the wastes too.
I haven't noticed radiation. When I go my first couple of rad points, I was like "hoshit!". Then I checked my rad meter. It takes 200 rads to get radiation sickness. It takes 1000 to kill you. I've been playing for four hours total - and I don't even have 200 yet. No RadX, no RadAway. Drinking from fountains, eating bloatfly meat - all of this gives you rads. But only about 2 or 4 at a time. That's not a lot. Considering the water is restoring between 5 and 10 HP. It's a good trade off, as I can get full health back, and not even have rad sickness! Mind you, this was a delicate balancing act - I can tell. If they made it too large a part, it would have simply been annoying. So it's probably about as good as it could be.
Hmm...I think that covers everything so far. I could go into more detail...but I'll save that.
Oh - one last thing. It auto saves at the vault exit. Do you know why this is huge? No? It's the equivalent of the sewer exit in Oblivion. Here, you can change any decisions about your character! So they learned that lesson. (I was kicking myself, as I hadn't saved there). tongue.gif
Because the Vault opening sequence is about twice the length of the sewer.
tl;dr:
It's win. Pure win. Buy it. Or I'll have to kill you. Seriously. Game of the Year. Easy. If anything else gets it...I will be shocked beyond belief. I will stop taking the magazine's/site's/establishment's opinion on anything seriously.
The ratings around the web have been good. I'd probably give it about a 9.8/10. Maybe more. I'll get back to you later, when I've played some more. smile.gif
Obdigore 
Trouble, on Oct 31 2008, 08:41 AM, said:
I finished the Survival guide too. 
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