Final verdict: C
Final playtime: 60 hours

Hey kids. It’s Fallout 3 time. I’ve been hearing a lot of people calling GOTY on this game. Faggots like Climpa, mainly. Hey, you’re free to call whatever shit you want GOTY, but that doesn’t mean you’re right. Because I’m the only one who’s ever right.

Before playing, my expectations for Fallout 3 were “mediocre”. My hope, though, was that it’d be “pretty cool”. I’m not gonna be too unfair with this game. I’ll say that it’s not so bad. Hell, I’ll even go so far as to say it was enjoyable sometimes.

The game box read like some kind of anti-advertisement for the game. “By the makers of Oblivion”. Uh, yeah, you’re saying that like it’s a good thing. Too bad Oblivion sucked all kinds of shit huh? And that’s probably the biggest problem with Fallout 3. It’s way too much like that piece of shit Oblivion. Because a little bit like Oblivion is way too much.

Then we have other anti-propaganda on the box. “Disc made in Mexico”. Oh. Well, guess I shouldn’t be surprised when it stops working huh? Ohhhh snap, I went there!

Ok no, but seriously now. The game starts with a downright tasteless cutscene of you getting squirted out of the womb as a baby. Ok, it didn’t actually show anything, and that’s appreciated, but the sounds and implication is enough to disgust me. God damn, was that a really fucking necessary scene? Yeah, I know what you’re thinking right now. “But nigger, how can you accuse something of being tasteless with all the refuse you write?” Well, fuck you. There’s a huge difference between that shit and my shit. If you can’t see that then I have nothing to say to you.

Then the game moves on to the character creation screen. Oh god. Fuck. Have I mentioned how much I hate character creations? And especially pompous ones like these with ten fucking million little things to change and none of them make a fucking difference. Seriously there were some things where I slid the bar and didn’t know what the fuck was even changing. There’s enough bullshit to potentially waste hours tweaking your character’s face. What a fucking waste of time and space. Guess what, dumbass? Not only are those tiny faggot tweaks you’re making barely noticeable, but the game is meant to be played in first person, so you won’t even SEE your god damn turd of a face. And even if you played in third person, you still can’t face the camera. And even if you somehow managed to look at your character’s front, most of the time you’ll be wearing a fucking helmet.

And if that weren’t enough, good luck making a decent looking character, because Fallout 3 suffers from the same problem as Oblivion: There are NO good looking characters. I think it might be a tiny bit better but not by much. It’s still down there in uncanny valley. Look, people. If you can’t make good looking characters then don’t fucking try to make them realistic. Just don’t. Go with a stylized look. Cel-shaded, cartoony, I don’t care. That’s the whole deal with the uncanny valley theory. If you’re not good enough to go past the valley, then it’s better if you don’t fucking try and just stay on the other god damn side. For example. Let’s compare this game with Harvest Moon: ToT which I played a few weeks back. It’s obvious that there’s a world of difference between these two games graphics-wise. ToT is somewhat cartoony and even childish looking. Fallout 3 is dark and mature looking. But when I look at the characters, I find the ones in ToT to be cute and pleasing to the eye. Meanwhile I find the ones in Fallout 3 to be repulsive. This is a problem, because come on, who doesn’t like nice looking things?

But anyway, moving past that… I was pleased to find out the combat isn’t much like an FPS. Because really, who likes FPSes? Only Shepton, that faggot. As long as you have enough action points remaining you can pause the game while choosing where to shoot at the enemy, how many times to shoot him, then confirm your actions and see what happens. Kind of like an RPG! Who would’ve thought. Once your action points are used up you have to fall back to playing as an FPS though. Which is… well it’s ok. Not gonna be too hard on this point.

Earlier I said this game was too much like Oblivion and it’s the fucking truth man. The similarities are blatant. And this is not a good thing. I will say that they’ve improved the Oblivion gameplay, and thus Fallout 3 isn’t as bad. But frankly something that shitty should just be scrapped altogether. Just like Oblivion, the world is fucking huge. Too fucking huge. And that’s a problem, because when you make something this big, it’s almost impossible to make things good enough. By having so much shit, the quality of everything goes down. Developers are forced to spend less time making each thing compelling for the player because there is simply too much they have to work on. People are all like “oh my god, the world is so BIG! AMAZING” But can’t you fucking see that it’s just miles and miles of the exact same shit? At least walking through the wasteland is made a tiny bit less boring by the fact that you can listen to the radio. But they could have done so much more with it. There are only 2 stations and they loop after only like 30 minutes. That does not fucking cut it. The music is shitty 50’s songs, which is gay, but I’ll live. The talk portions are entertaining though, but I wish they had done much more because after a while you’ve just heard the same thing too many times. But yeah. Huge world? Boring world.

And it’s the same deal with the dungeons. I’ll be fair and say they are improved over Oblivion’s boring shitfest. I think they might actually not be randomly generated in this. But even so, a surprising amount of the dungeons still feel lifeless and generic. And it’s for the exact same reason. The game is too fucking big. Would you bother working hard to make a fun and creative dungeon when you know most players won’t even find it, and that you have to make a hundred more of them? Of course not. However, I do know the loot is randomly generated. I mean there’s even a perk that makes it so you find more ammo in containers. And shit man. Why do they insist on filling dungeons with so much god damn pointless bullshit? You have to sift through millions of useless plates, forks, coffee mugs, empty containers, lint, crutches. Fuck. And you can grab all of it. What a hassle. What’s next, letting you grab dust bunnies? No, I don’t give a fuck about realism. It pisses me off how developers make shitty design choices all in the name of “realism”. Get a clue, jackasses. For example, why are the dungeons in this game so fucking dark? That’s just annoying. There are some dungeons where even with the Pip Boy light on I can barely see shit. And if you turn it off it’s basically like looking at a turned off TV.

Another thing they improved about Oblivion’s trainwreck gameplay is the whole level synching bullshit. Basically, leveling in Oblivion was pretty much pointless because enemies were always scaled to your level. In Fallout 3, this is improved but not done away with. It’s only masked. The type of enemy you find is determined by your level, but you still sometimes encounter the weaker lower tier enemies which you dispatch more easily as you level up. Sooo yeah. I guess leveling is still somewhat pointless on that front but at least it makes you look forward to it by letting you choose new perks and putting points into your skills such as speech, lockpicking, medicine, etc. The whole level scaling thing is necessary due to the game’s nature, so I guess they can’t really get rid of it. Unless they also get rid of the entire open ended gameplay! Which actually doesn’t sound like such a bad idea. God knows it’s not doing anything for me. I’d rather have a quality linear game than this ho hum shit.

While we’re on the subject of the game’s nature, let me say that I loathe the way difficulty is handled in this game. It’s basically a bar you can slide left or right at any fucking time to make the game harder or easier. Getting your ass kicked? Just slide that bar and whoop, now you’re invincible. What the fuck? That’s nothing but a god damn cop out. It makes the entire thing pointless challenge-wise if you can change it at any time. If you choose hard mode, it should be brutal and unforgiving while also being fair and balanced. You should NOT have the option to make yourself invincible if things get hairy. Yeah I know what you’re saying. “Nigger, you ain’t gotta change it if you don’t want to.” Shut up. That’s not the point. The fact that it’s there is enough to destroy any semblance of challenge the game might have. Saying “Slide the bar if you want it to get harder…and then slide it back down if it’s too much” is like saying “Make a gun build and then play with your fists”. It’s a lazyass alternative to actually getting off your ass and working (not to mention testing) proper difficulty levels.

Another thing I hate (which is another thing that comes with the territory when you make a game as big and complicated as this) is how you gotta jump through so many fucking hoops to avoid all the bugs which range from annoying to game-breaking. Like for example. At one point after completing a quest ALL of my fucking key items had disappeared. Then I reloaded, and it happened AGAIN. Then I reloaded again and did some hoop jumping bullshit to avoid it happening.

Or another example, if you take a certain path in a quest and then complete it, the game never registers it as completed. You don’t get the exp reward, and it’s stuck in your quest log forever. I had to reload and do it 4 fucking times until I found the right hoops to jump through so it would work.

While we’re on the subject of quests, they’re a little better than the ones in Oblivion. At least here they give you exp, so they’re not a complete waste of time. However, most of them are still you doing dumb favors for dumb strangers you don’t give a fuck about. Though the rewards are sometimes nice, like exclusive perks, oftentimes they’re just stuff like money. And money is more or less useless in this game. I had a huge hoard of it and I wasn’t really sure what to do with it aside from buying themes for my house. The guns and ammo selection vendors had was rarely any good, and you’re better off just finding your ammo. I have to say, though, that if there’s one thing this game does well, it’s making ammo relatively scarce. Although I never actually ran out, I always felt like I was cutting it a little close, which is great, because it made finding ammo more meaningful.

And dude. What’s up with that gay level 20 cap? You hit it so fast it’s ridiculous. And once you do, like all RPGs, the whole thing goes downhill. I guess they expected you to replay it after you hit 20 and do the things you missed? Yeah, I would, if the game was better. As it is, no thanks. Once is enough.

Finally let’s talk about the whole alignment system. I take issue with this system in that it falls into the trap most games do, of making the vast majority of the choices too black and white. As it is, if you play making the choices you’d make yourself, it’s impossible to be anything but very good alignment because the evil choices are just too ridiculous. I mean fuck. Who would blow up an entire town for a little cash? Nobody. And if you would, you’re probably not playing Fallout and instead planning your next child kidnapping. You piece of shit.

However, since money is pretty useless in Fallout 3, then there’s zero reason to do it! What this means is that the only way to be evil is to deliberately do unreasonable things just for the sake of being evil. Sigh. Way to fail, idiots. Can’t you be a little more creative? Still, I’ll be fair and say there are few choices here and there that are well done and not as clear-cut or stupid.

What IS stupid, though, is the ending. Jesus christ, it takes some serious suckage to make an ending this retarded. It’s like they were going for a fucking reward for dumbest ending or some shit. I don’t even care about spoiling this part because of how stupid it is. Basically at the end you have to turn on something to save the day. But the chamber it’s in is full of deadly radiation so whoever goes in to activate it will die. It gives you the option of either sacrificing yourself or sending a girl to sacrifice herself instead. Yyyyeah except I’ve got a fucking super mutant party member who is IMMUNE to fucking radiation standing RIGHT THERE like an idiot! What. The. FUCK. He could’ve done it without taking any damage! How can- I don’t- What could possibly-

Anyway yeah. Overall this game isn’t that bad. It’s certainly not complete shit like its close cousin Oblivion. But it’s still built on the same framework, the same foundation, which is ultimately flawed. It was ok. Definitely not something I’d want to play again.

Final Verdict: C

Final Playtime: 60 hours