Fallout 3: Game of The Year Edition

Review by NeuroSplicer for Fallout 3: Game of The Year Edition
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I am old enough to have played the original game when it first came out in 1997. I was a great fan of the series that followed and, thus, was very eager to get my hands on this latest installment. In a short sentence: FALLOUT-3 is A DREAM COME TRUE! And now the dream is complete.

It is a cRPG game in which the player can alternate between the First and Third person perspective roaming a world comparable in size with OBLIVION. The action has moved from Vault 13 and Southern California to Vault 101 and Washington, D.C. and the story brakes away from the previous bloodlines. However, the atmosphere of the original has been maintained and its scents sharpened: veterans will find it fitting like and old glove – whereas the new gamers are in store for a bag of pleasant surprises.

The graphics are wonderful, the guns detailed and the environments highly interactive. Short of a screenshot, imagine what would HalfLife-2 would look if released today. And similar to HL2, FALLOUT-3 does not require an…ubercomputer to run smoothly. Once you see a NPC move though, you understand where the corners were cut.

Character customization is carried out in great style using the new and improved PIP-BOY at the beginning. You exit the vault and the harsh reality of a world that barely survived annihilation slaps you on the face. Adapt or perish.

The main storyline is there to be followed but FALLOUT-3 offers the greatest number of alternative choices I have ever encountered in a game! There is always a great number of paths to follow in order to achieve any goal – but every choice comes with a consequences tag. This is common feature of most classic cRPGs but in FALLOUT-3 I saw it implemented like never before. If nothing else, this sends replayability through the roof.

Side-quests offer little besides distraction and experience points (XP) to be spend on character improvement. XP are gained solely by completing quests, emerging victorious from fights, finding locations, picking locks and hacking terminals – and they are not limited by the action they were earned. Leveling up is based on 7 basic attributes [Strength, Perception, Endurance, Charisma, Intelligence, Agility & Luck - acronym?;)] that, in turn, affect your (13) specific skills. Leveling up used to be capped at Level-20 (increased to 30 by installing the DLCs), as the game designers wanted to encourage replaying the game. However, with this increase, now your character can realize its full potential. Replaying the game is still a joy though.

The game is violent and gory but well within tasteful limits. Not so with the language – but it is trade off with realism. In a radioactive world, Sunday-school niceties are bound to go out the window.

What deserves a special mention is V.A.T.S. (:Vault-Tec Assisted Targeting System) which opens new vistas in cRPG design. It is an ingenious system which lets you pause the game and target specific body parts of your opponents. The success of your attack still depends on your skills but the end effect is cinematic and amazing (remember SWORDFISH?).

This GOTY edition includes all 5 DLCs released so far: OPERATION-ANCHORAGE, THE PITT, BROKEN STEEL, POINT LOOKOUT and MOTHERSHIP ZETA. Compared to the basic FALLOUT 3, applying the above improves the experience immensely! As mentioned above, since one used to reach the Level 20 cap long before the endgame, increasing this by 10 levels will give you a brand new ballgame.

Augmented weapons, new territories, novel foes and unexpected story branching – all for the price of the original game. I own the original game and coveted after these DLCs in the past months, waiting for a complete edition such as this GOTY one. When it became available I jumped at the opportunity to get them all. And did not regret it for a moment.

After the nuclear summer of 2008 (with all the Limited-Installation/defective EA releases), this seems like a post-apocalyptic dawn indeed! BETHESDA decided to listen to the gaming community and did NOT cripple this beautiful game with any idiotic DRM scheme. Inputting a serial number and a DVD-check is more than reasonable.

The publishers of FALLOUT-3 understand that there is a fine balance between “protecting the product” and…”insulting your own customers”. And they obviously view respect as the two way street that it is – and for this they deserve our support: buy this game, today.

Voting with our wallets is the only argument the gaming industry cannot afford to ignore. And it is about time to cast some well deserved positive votes.

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!

Review by Sergio Lamadrid for Fallout 3: Game of The Year Edition
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This is the 3rd time I’ve tried Fallout 3, and I must say, the third time’s a charm.

I didn’t like this game the first or the second time, but granted I gave it only a couple of hours each time. I last bought this game in June, but returned it when I heard about the GOTY edition a few days later.

The GOTY does come with 2 discs, Disc One is the gameplay for Fallout 3, which looks virtually unchanged, except on the actual disc itself where it says “Fallout 3 Game of the Year edition”. Besides that, there’s little to no difference. Disc 2 has all the DLC, including the last installment; Mothership Zeta.

The instruction manual is a new one for GOTY, and instructs you to install disc 2 to your hard drive, before playing if you’ve never played Fallout 3, or do not have a current save file. However I didn’t read it, and played about 3 hours of disc one before I noticed. I installed disc 2 (About 10 minutes, give or take), and everything was fine. I got the messages in-game letting me know that I have all 5 DLC’s unlocked, that my level cap was raised to 30 etc.

After playing this game a good 10 hours, and not even completing half of the storyline, I feel like an idiot for not liking this game the first or second time. I think I was completly hooked when I saw the Washington Monument. It’s just an amazing experience.

It gives you the option to choose what DLC you install. You don’t have to install all 5, you can pick just one, or two, or all 5.

Here are the requirements.

Broken Steel = 620 MB

Mothership Zeta = 324 MB

Operation Anchorage = 369MB

Point Lookout = 413 MB

The Pitt = 492 MB

Total of 2.2 Gigs. (2218MB)

Go buy this now. If you haven’t bought any of the DLC, go trade in your old Fallout 3 disc, and get the GOTY edition.

Review by Mike Fields for Fallout 3: Game of The Year Edition
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I pre-ordered this game from Amazon and it arrived right on the release date! I was very happy with that.

Now, I had already been an owner of the base Fallout 3 game, and when I found out the GOTY edition was going to be released, which included all five “expansions” (Operation: Anchorage, The Pitt, Broken Steel, Point Lookout, Mothership Zeta), I knew I had to have it! This is especially considering PS3 owners had to sit back and wait while XBOX360 owners had them available months and months ago. Each of these expansions were selling for $10 for 360 owners, but now we can have the original game ($35) plus the DLC ($50 total) for $60 (total savings of $25). Not too shabby.

People have a few concerns with loading time, crashing, and save files not carrying over. I haven’t experienced any issues with crashing (my original Fallout 3 crashed once in my 30+ hours of gameplay), but perhaps I can help shed light on the other two concerns.

1.) Long load times – When I first exited my house in Megaton, the game took about 2-3 minutes to load. This is *much* longer than usual. However, this is because the new content is initializing. Instantly, Point Lookout and The Pitt showed up in my quests. Next, I fast-traveled somewhere and again the load time was 2-3 minutes. Upon arriving at my destination, the remaining three quests (Broken Steel, Point Lookout, Mothership Zeta) became available. After this, load times were back to normal. Also, there were some frame rate issues at first coupled with the game freezing for one or two seconds periodically, but this ceased after about an hour or two of playing. I attribute these issues to the new quests being available and the game syncing up with your particular save game.

2.) Save files not carrying over – This is a regional issue. In the U.S., most players are not having difficulties. However, in Canada, I’m hearing a lot about how they only have an option to start a new game in the GOTY edition. This is because they played the Canadian version of the original Fallout 3 and it appears that saves generated by certain Canadian editions of the game aren’t being recognized by the GOTY Edition. This is obviously a glaring problem for Canadian players, so we can only hope that Bethesda releases a patch to address this issue.

All in all, each DLC quest will add anywhere between 3-4 hours of additional gameplay (so about 15-20 more hours total). There are also new enemies and weapons introduced. The most significant DLC is Broken Steel, which adds an additional 10 levels to achieve, 14 new perks, and 6 new achievements to unlock, and probably the largest addition to gameplay time. As for sheer enjoyment, Point Lookout and The Pitt offer great excitement due to their intricate story lines and engaging environments.

If you are a PS3 owner and Fallout 3 fan, this is the compilation that you’ve been waiting for! More missions, more guns, more enemies, more perks, more hours of fun! Even if you own the original copy, I would advise you to re-sell it and pick up a copy of the GOTY edition. Also, keep in mind that the issues people are having are only a patch fix away. I feel these are rare (or just misunderstood), and your gameplay experience will not suffer in the least. The 2008 game of the year just got better in 2009!

Review by Postman35 for Fallout 3: Game of The Year Edition
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In 2007, I purchased Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion (Game of the Year Edition) after finally jumping into this generations gaming systems. Close to 400 hours later, I decided that game was the best value for my money in terms of content, quality, and overall fun that I would ever play.

I was wrong.

My wife purchased me Fallout 3 in 2008 as an anniversary gift; she knew I’d played the original Fallout games and really enjoyed Oblivion with me, so it was a great gift. To say that I was stunned and enraptured with Fallout 3 would be an understatement; I’ve played this game with regularity for over a year. It is a huge, expansive, detailed, life-like world with so much to do and see that each time through you can find more and more surprises that you may have missed previously. Toss in all 5 DLCs at a mere $60, and this game is pushing 150 hours of game time just for one play through.

This is an incredibly involved game and isn’t for everyone; its the kind of game that takes hold of your imagination and won’t let go, so if you have the time to play a game of this depth, I recommend purchasing it immediately, its worth every penny.

Review by frenchiefellow for Fallout 3: Game of The Year Edition
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To start off, I loved the base game of Fallout 3, I got it when it first came out, and sure it had its fair share of problems, but it was still great.

And so the story continues with 5 new DLC’s, which add new items and locations to your already large choosings.

But alas, this game feels as though little to no testing was done in the game. It is plagued with glitches, frame rate issues, lag issues, freezing issues, amongst other annoying problems I hadn’t experienced in my initial Fallout 3 experience. I believe that the game froze my PS3 at least 15 times across all 5 DLC’s, this also included exploring some areas from the the original copy. These problems occur often, inspiring a new found hatred for the game. To be short, the problems are terrible, annoying, and large in number.

But despite its problems, the game does manage to do a lot of things right:

1) You can use you saves from the original copy if you still have them!

2) New weapons and items are (mostly) very useful and powerful

3) Point Lookup continues the game’s-experience with many side-quests and sandbox gameplay

4) The level cap is raised to level 30.

5) The game can now continue after the main-quests are over!

6) You can find a lot more ammo for the Alien Blaster!

7) The quests from the DLC (while they are nothing special) add a few more hours of gameplay

$110 worth of games for $60 is a great deal!

The DLC’s are solid, but are not great. They feel like the main game’s side quests to me, as they feel unimportant, but the rewards are worth playing for. My favorite weapons and apparel are from the DLC including: Winterized Power Armor, Tesla Cannon, Gauss Rifle, Samurai Armor, Samurai sword, Auto-axe/ Manopener, infiltrator/perforator, tribeam laser rifle, double barreled shotgun, level-action rifle, Alien Disintegrator I would have like to have seen more length and depth to each DLC, as no single DLC took more than 3 hours to complete (with the exception of Point Lookout’s side quests and exploration)

I’d be hesitant to recommend this to anyone but hardcore Bethsda and Fallout fans, until a patch comes out that if not eliminates the problems, at least minimizes them.