JohnnySmash User Info

January 13, 2009 6:11:47 AM

I got hooked on Fallout 3 by watching my friend wander the wasteland finding quests and cool stuff along the way. It reminded me of the Mercenaries games only with a bigger purpose to wandering around as you actually found things and leveled up your charcter. It really appeared to be the ultimate adventure game I'd always wanted- honestly I was extatic when I played a GTA game where you could wander the countryside instead of just be in the city so it was like they took that aspect of exploration I love and multiplied it times a million.

When I bought the game honestly I found the beginning really annoying, ammo was too hard to come by, and the areas and quests in the SE D.C. area were too linear. It was still fun and there were lots of extras to find, but I found more fun in wandering the wasteland and just killing stuff and finding new things.

I think it's easy to misinterpret Fallout 3... it's easy to underestimate how much the RPG aspect matters, or fail to realize the huge world you can explore at will, or even to realize that it's a nonlinear game in the first place. You might also get confused with the inventory and combat, picking up everything or treating the fighting like Halo will leave you with a sour taste in your mouth.

The second you "get it" though, it's amazing. I think Fallout 3 is the first game to tap a very untapped well- huge worlds to explore in a single-player game with incentive to explore them. Imagine a Mario game where you could just wander a giant contiguous mushroom kingdom finding stars and obstacles and quests for stars along the way? Fallout 3 has done that with the RPG/shooter genre. It deserves all the praise it gets.