Fallout 3 (PS3)

Let us go, through certain half deserted streets
10/28/2008 5:25 PM | 0 Comments | Page 3 of 3

HURRY UP PLEASE ITS TIME

It's a hassle messing around with the terrible Pip-Boy 3000 to manage your weapons, examine your map, or check your radiation level. The clunky dialogue trees are painfully old-school and crammed into too-small windows posted beneath talking heads. Mass Effect's cinematic conversations would have helped a lot, but even then, clicking through dialogue killed so much of the world-building. Conversations are like commercial interruptions. "And now, a series of one-line messages from your NPC. Stay tuned! The game will be right back!"

On the PlayStation 3, the visuals are good, but not quite as good as they are on the PC at higher resolutions. Also, if any game could have benefited from an install on the hard drive, it's Fallout 3, which has to load whenever you change locations. These loads are enough of a nuisance that it's disappointing Bethesda didn't take advantage of the PlayStation's install option for some of the assets. As for the lack of Trophies, it's hardly worth complaining about considering how underwhelming the Achievements are on the Xbox 360 version.

Decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse

There are a few lapses of logic, most of which are gameplay concessions. But strange holes in the final set piece will make some choices feel hollow when they should have been satisfying payoffs (has an "evil" arc ever seemed like such a common-sense and even noble thing to do?). The story ends with an obligatory and derivative twist, followed by a big action sequence that you could literally see coming down Fifth Avenue, followed by The Choice. You know The Choice. It's that last bit that determines which cinematic you'll get. Be sure to save before you make The Choice, so that you can see the other cinematic. (Or at least bits of the other cinematic.) Fallout 3 plays you out with a ponderously written movie composed of discrete modules. For all the cool thematic unity in the game's main storyline, it's a shame the "outro" is so tacked-on. I'd rather have Chris Farley come out and do a "Remember ... that time ... when ... you killed those mutants?" routine.

Many of these are trappings of conventional RPGs, and there's no denying that's exactly what Fallout 3 is, but in an unconventional setting. Like BioShock and Far Cry 2, this is an uncompromising and unforgettable vision. Whatever its failings as a game, it more than makes up for them with what it accomplishes as a place -- and a story about a character passing through that place, changing it, and being changed by it. As RPGs go online and morph into rote progression, they lose sight of this part of the genre. The grey wastelands of Fallout 3 are one of the best places you'll find it again.

This review is based on a retail copy of the game provided by the publisher.