I don't think I've played a game before that makes you present at your own birth, let alone your first and tenth birthdays. It's moments like this that makes you wonder just what you've let yourself in for, and what you have ahead of you.
Set in the claustrophobic tunnels of Vault 101, the 'intro' has a very slow start to it. Aside from one or two fist-fights, there isn't really anything worth mentioning except for your first birthday when you get to choose your stats, your tenth birthday when you get given a BB gun by your father, and an occupation test when you're sixteen. It isn't until the shit hits the fan when you're nineteen that you're finally allowed to do whatever you want to do. In fact, the slow start actually makes this moment so much sweeter, and with the training wheels removed, the rest of the game doesn't disappoint.
After you leave the vault, you see the world for the first time. The year is 2277, and the game is set in the twisted and mangled remains of what was once Washington DC (now known in the game as the Capital Wastelands) after a nuclear war devastated the country back in the 1950's. Despite this, there are still pockets of civilisation around, and it's in these places that you will sell the things you pick up along the way, heal your wounds and remove your radiation poisoning... yes, radiation poisoning. Did I mention the nuclear war earlier? For the most part, everything you eat and drink not only increases your health, but it also raises your radiation level. If it gets too high, to the point where you would probably start glowing, you're toast. This may seem annoying at first, what with having to watch both your health AND your radiation level, but it actually adds a nice touch of desperation to the whole thing. You may baulk at first, but eventually you will gladly drink water from ANYwhere.
The main storyline involves you trying you find your dad, who leaves the vault about an hour before you do. The story itself is quite linear, but the range of missions you do along the way as well as the people you meet will more than keep you entertained along the way. It's the other, optional quests that you can take that really beef the game up, in both content and world exploration. If you just plough through with the story missions, you will miss the entirety of the north-eastern area, as well as a big chunk of the north-western area. You'll also miss out on alot of the custom weapons that you can make, because... well, you just won't find them. That alone is a shame, because some of the more exotic weapons are completely, indescribably awesome.
Speaking of weapons, I feel like I should talk about the targeting system, V.A.T.S. While it is a good system, and I understand why it's in the game, I'd say about 90% of it is useless, and here's why; when you go into V.A.T.S. mode, you can hit the limbs of your enemies more accurately. If you shoot the legs and cripple them, they won't be able to move as fast - if you shoot their arms, they won't be able to aim as well, etc. Now, hitting something in the head does the most damage - which is fair enough - but the head is more often than not the second easiest thing to hit after the torso, and 'crippling' the head also causes their aiming (if they have guns) to go all kinds of wrong. What that means, is that you will almost always aim for the head. In fact, you may have more fun without it, only calling upon it's pin-point accuracy in times of need, like when you're low on ammo and/or health.
Leveling up in Fallout is your standard RPG affair. At every level, you get given a certain amount of ability points to spread amongst your abilities; things like Science - which determins how good you are at hacking computer systems - or Speech, with affects how good you are at talking your way out of situations, or getting other people to do things. You also get to choose a perk. Perks are slightly different from abilities, in that they often add multiple ability points (in the case of the Thief perk, which adds 5 points to both the Sneak and Lockpick skills), or can give you unique abilities (like the Solar Powered perk, which lets you regain health as long as you are stood in direct sunlight.
Karma also plays a factor in this game. Basically, with every good deed that you do (saving people from mutants) your karma goes up, and everytime you steal something or pick-pocket someone, it goes down (obviously). Depending on where your moral-o-meter is sitting, certain people will react differently to you. There is a mercenary called Jericho, for example, who will refuse to join you on your quest if you're too much like a modern day Jesus. There are a number of quests too which will test your morality, so you have to decide what kind of person you're going to be. Whether one route is better than the others or not is debateable, but as far as I can tell, all 3 paths (pure evil, neutral or The Holy One) each have different benefits and perks.
Overall, it's hard to find things to moan about in this game. I know I touched upon the targetting system and how most of it is useless, but that's more of a personal thing. If you prefer the tactical feel of taking somethings legs out before blowing it to hell, then you'll get more enjoyment out of it than I did. Everything has been given the standard Bethesda polish, and it's difficult to find fault without getting really picky. Unless you're talking about the ending...
Oh, the ending. I'm going to mention spoilers to do with the ending and maybe some other things as well in this paragraph, so if you don't want to have anything ruined for you, please skip straight to the end part. Ok, here goes. The whole point of the main storyline, after finding your dad, is to resurrect Project Purity, a project that was designed to cleanse the entire water supply and provide safe drinking water for all. The problem is, that due to an accident, the entire chamber where the activation switch is housed is flooded with radiation, so whoever turns the system on will die. You don't have to go into the chamber yourself. If you want, you can send in some woman from the Brotherhood of Steel and let her die instead. Those are the only two choices you have. That's it. Either you die, or she does. Now, this might not sound like that big a deal, if it wasn't for the fact that the games biggest loop-hole is introduced to you not an hour before this event. Near the end of the game, you can recruit a Super Mutant to help you. Now, the whole point of his character is to walk into a highly radiated room to get something and bring it back to you, purely because he is very resistant to radiation, or possibly even immune to the damn stuff. He is there with you at the end of the game, but if you ask him to go into the chamber, he says something like 'This is your destiny, so you should do it.' which to me translates as 'Yea... it was roughly at THIS point in the game that the writers realised I could cause a bit of an issue, so they banned me from helping you. Sorry." It's just... infuriating to think that there is a being RIGHT next to you, who was designed purely to survive in high radiation areas, and who has the highest chance of survival, but wants to watch you (or the woman) die instead. It's stupid.
It's still a damn good game though. That small blip should not take away from the whole game, and it should definitely be in your collection if you're even remotely interested in the Action RPG genre. No matter what you choose to do, be it go through the story, or branch out and explore more, this is one game that will keep you entertained for hours on end, and keep you coming back for more.
Grade:
A
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