Posted 17 April 2009 - 12:06
Fallout 3
Graphics: 7/10
Some solid work but lacking personality. Aside from a couple of clear oversights (incorrect rigging, texture errors etc.), the graphics aren't bad but neither are they particularly good. It also lacks diversity, so you will often encounter very similar looking situations.
Setting: 9/10
Very interesting setting. Nice mix of retro and futuristic elements as well as fictional and "real" components. It offers lots of humorous and serious issues and is both entertaining and meaningful.
Game World: 6/10
The main problem seems contradictory at first: it's both extremely crowded and extremely empty at the same time. Crowded, because you rarely go for more than a couple hundred meters before running into the next location. Overall, the map is only about 5x5 kilometers big - you can literally walk from one end of the world to the other in about an hour. Empty, because even though there are lots of locations, they are largely meaningless. Most only serve as mindless farming dungeons and as beacons for fasttreveling (which makes the world appear even smaller). The few settlements have little to no depth, 3 out of 5 towns have less than 10 inhabitants.
Characters: 2/10
There is absolutely NO character development whatsoever for any of the major characters. The only REAL secret about one of the main characters is revealed right in the very first settlement you go to. Most characters are either lawful good or chaotic (stupid) evil and spend the entire storyline on autopilot.
Story: 2/10
Seriously, this game DEFINES the word plothole. There's so many inconsistencies, coincidences, DEM moments it really makes your head hurt. Your arch enemy is a schizophrenic moron (some may argue that this is due to the writer staff being schizophrenic morons), everyone's got his very own omg-awesome-world-domination/-salvation plan that doesn't make any sense whatsoever, you can skip HALF OF THE STORYLINE without loosing ANY vital information and most of the time you. just. kill. things.
Atmosphere: 7/10
There's some great immersion in the Fallout world, you can really get lost in it - the first time you play it. After that, you realize how repetitive and dull it is, but the first time it's really great.
Quests: 4/10
There are only very few quests in the game that are really interesting. Most just come down to "A says go there, kill/talk to B, come back, decide for A or B". There's always a clearly evil and a clearly good solution, rarely a middle-ground. The bigger quests either consist of a series of those mini-quests or are paper chases.
Combat: 6/10
Fun, but very inballanced. There are a couple of absolute rape-the-dog tactics that will let you annihilate armies of enemies, while others are simply suicide. Without different damage types, the best bet usually is to take the biggest gun and sneak-crit kill whatever you see.
Non-Combat solutions: 3/10
This one sucks, really. While gunning down every damn mothafucka in the room is ALWAYS a viable option, only few quests can be solved by talking only. The couple ones that can will however also offer the required talk option without having leveled any diplomacy skills, so the only real use of these is talking people into giving you more money for your work.
RPG-Elements (leveling, skilling, ...): 2/10
Let's face it, this is REALLY bad in F3. First of, your basic stats (strength, perception, intelligence, etc.) are of little impact to gameplay, the points you can take at the beginning of the game are more than enough to max without having to min. The important stuff are the skill points, but there's so many skill-items in the game that you can increase each skill by 2/3 of its maximum (60 of 100) without having to level up a single time! If you play your cards right, you can reach the maximum skills well before the first half of the game. The perks, which were very important in F1 and F2, are now available in abundance - there's about 5 good ones and you can get them all without any problem.
Overall 7/10
It's a fun game, but lacks serious polish. If you enjoyed playing F1 and F2, make sure to test the game before you buy it!
Now go out and procreate. IN THE NAME OF DOOM!