I’ve been spending quite some time now playing Fallout 3, so I thought I’d drop some remarks about the game here.
A lot of people on the Tubes are complaining bitterly about Fallout 3: my guess is that it’s partly due to (a) the “hardcore” Fallout fans who will deride any sequel that isn’t exactly like Fallout 1 and 2, and (b) the fact that Bethesda made it, instantly fixating it as Morrowind/Oblivion With Guns in most people’s minds.
(As an aside, there was a particularly humorous Fallout 3 screenshot floating around a while ago, consisting of the starting cell of Oblivion with the Fallout 1/2 status bar tacked onto the bottom.)
I’ve been playing FO3 quite regularly the past few weeks, and while it has its problems, the game is really quite enjoyable. The quests don’t feel quite too Fed-Exy the way Morrowind and Oblivion’s were, and there’s plenty of interesting things to see in the Wasteland (wait, what?).
One problem I ran into which I cannot fathom is a throw-back from Oblivion, which entailed me falling into the inside of a boulder, forcing me to load from an earlier save. This has only happened once, fortunately. Why Bethesda didn’t bother fixing this problem is beyond me, though.
The hyped-up V.A.T.S. system isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, either. I perform head-shots more consistently shooting at single pixels than bothering to aim with V.A.T.S. Mostly I use V.A.T.S. in conjunction with my scoped .44 Magnum or sniper rifle to figure out exactly what the hell that little blob moving in the distance is.
Mostly, though, I’m ignoring the bulk of the more long-winded quests, including the main quest, settling for wandering the Wasteland, searching for Interesting Things To Look At and Fun Things To Shoot At.
Yeah, that’s about it for now.
