Fallout 3
Games have no right being this much fun.
I'm not one for FPSes and I honestly didn't expect it to be so awesome, but it is. I bought it mostly on an impulse; I had a couple days off, GTA IV isn't coming out until December 3rd and while Guild Wars still holds my heart, I felt like playing something entirely different.
I played it on Easy Mode, of course, cause I'm bad at FPSes, and I made my first character a girl. Named her Elisabeth, after my mom, and played her to be neutral-good, but with some stealing and hacking and lockpicking thrown in for good measure (cause it's fun).
There is a LOT of stuff to do and a ton of places to visit and explore. I was particularly enamored with Rivet City, a giant city built on the remains of an old boat. It's got a ton of dizzying halls and stairways--and I'm a sucker for great city designs (I also loved the city of Altdorf in Warhammer Online and as everyone who's ever played GW with me knows, Kaineng City is one of my favorite locations. I know the place like the back of my hand).
The world also looks amazing. It's really a shame there's no easy way to take screenshots (prntscrn + copy/paste into an image editing program) because there are more than just a few breath-taking areas (especially since I can play it on high settings. Yummy).
Because I'm bad at FPSes like I said, V.A.T.S. is really a godsend. You target something, press V and then you go into a sort of slow-motion, bullet-time thingy where the game lets you aim for specific bodyparts. It's usually a good idea to aim for the head, but there are situations where it's a little more tactical to aim for their weapon or legs instead (or in case of the giant Fire Ants Who Hurt, their antennas). Also, while there are a lot of baddies around, mostly in the form of Super Mutants, it's still possible to travel quite far without having to shoot stuff every other feet, which made me happy. Also, things don't respawn, so when I cleared the Jefferson Memorial in quest A, stuff was still dead when I returned there later for quest K.
The quests range from the somewhat silly ("I'm writing a book that has a chapter on radiation poisoning! Go and get some radiation poisoning for me, would you?") to the quite... brutal ("Tranquility Lane", a virtual reality where you are a little kid and wind up going on a massive killing spree with a knife, or the quest where you have to lure a vulnerable and not too bright child out of the child-run town of Little Lamplight to turn her over to the Slavers--I actually wound up not finishing it after I took it, because Christ. I also was on my good char at the time, though I don't think I can do it even on Liam (my bad boy), because Christ).
There are a lot of quests and areas to explore, but I'd wager that if you stuck mostly to the main storyline, you'd be finished with the game pretty fast. So I'm savoring it for now, going places, doing quests, meeting people, stealing their shit and generally fucking around a lot.
Now that I've talked about the good stuff, here are some minor quibbles:
* Buggy in places. One NPC wandered off somewhere in Little Lamplight and I just couldn't find him anywhere after I initially talked to him. I had to haul him back through command console hackery in order to proceed with the quest line. Some robots I had to repair didn't spawn in Big Town after I took the quest; this also took futzing with the command console to remedy.
* I can't name my own savefiles. This annoys me :>
* It suffers from the Insurmountable Waist High Fence syndrome in places--It's not waist-high, but the rubble/debris piles in Fallout 3 are arranged in such a way that any normal person could climb over them. You, however? Can't. This is quite frustrating. The game wants me to travel through the metro tunnels when I prefer to stay above-ground. It's a sandbox! Let me pick my route!
Aaaand that's all I can think of. It really is an amazing game and I highly recommend it even to those who don't particularly care for FPSes (like me! Though I liked Half-Life).
And now, some (linked for huge) screenshots:
My good girl, Elisabeth
And another.
Shooting a Super Mutant through V.A.T.S.
Germantown
What's left of the Lincoln Memorial. You can also see me getting radiation poisoning because I'm standing too close to the irradiated water. If you head up into the memorial, Lincoln will be headless.
Woolly Mammoth in the Museum of History
Broken bridge close to a town called Minefield
Gerg informed me that this is the capitol. This game is probably a lot more fun to Americans when it comes to spotting famous buildings :P
I'm not one for FPSes and I honestly didn't expect it to be so awesome, but it is. I bought it mostly on an impulse; I had a couple days off, GTA IV isn't coming out until December 3rd and while Guild Wars still holds my heart, I felt like playing something entirely different.
I played it on Easy Mode, of course, cause I'm bad at FPSes, and I made my first character a girl. Named her Elisabeth, after my mom, and played her to be neutral-good, but with some stealing and hacking and lockpicking thrown in for good measure (cause it's fun).
There is a LOT of stuff to do and a ton of places to visit and explore. I was particularly enamored with Rivet City, a giant city built on the remains of an old boat. It's got a ton of dizzying halls and stairways--and I'm a sucker for great city designs (I also loved the city of Altdorf in Warhammer Online and as everyone who's ever played GW with me knows, Kaineng City is one of my favorite locations. I know the place like the back of my hand).
The world also looks amazing. It's really a shame there's no easy way to take screenshots (prntscrn + copy/paste into an image editing program) because there are more than just a few breath-taking areas (especially since I can play it on high settings. Yummy).
Because I'm bad at FPSes like I said, V.A.T.S. is really a godsend. You target something, press V and then you go into a sort of slow-motion, bullet-time thingy where the game lets you aim for specific bodyparts. It's usually a good idea to aim for the head, but there are situations where it's a little more tactical to aim for their weapon or legs instead (or in case of the giant Fire Ants Who Hurt, their antennas). Also, while there are a lot of baddies around, mostly in the form of Super Mutants, it's still possible to travel quite far without having to shoot stuff every other feet, which made me happy. Also, things don't respawn, so when I cleared the Jefferson Memorial in quest A, stuff was still dead when I returned there later for quest K.
The quests range from the somewhat silly ("I'm writing a book that has a chapter on radiation poisoning! Go and get some radiation poisoning for me, would you?") to the quite... brutal ("Tranquility Lane", a virtual reality where you are a little kid and wind up going on a massive killing spree with a knife, or the quest where you have to lure a vulnerable and not too bright child out of the child-run town of Little Lamplight to turn her over to the Slavers--I actually wound up not finishing it after I took it, because Christ. I also was on my good char at the time, though I don't think I can do it even on Liam (my bad boy), because Christ).
There are a lot of quests and areas to explore, but I'd wager that if you stuck mostly to the main storyline, you'd be finished with the game pretty fast. So I'm savoring it for now, going places, doing quests, meeting people, stealing their shit and generally fucking around a lot.
Now that I've talked about the good stuff, here are some minor quibbles:
* Buggy in places. One NPC wandered off somewhere in Little Lamplight and I just couldn't find him anywhere after I initially talked to him. I had to haul him back through command console hackery in order to proceed with the quest line. Some robots I had to repair didn't spawn in Big Town after I took the quest; this also took futzing with the command console to remedy.
* I can't name my own savefiles. This annoys me :>
* It suffers from the Insurmountable Waist High Fence syndrome in places--It's not waist-high, but the rubble/debris piles in Fallout 3 are arranged in such a way that any normal person could climb over them. You, however? Can't. This is quite frustrating. The game wants me to travel through the metro tunnels when I prefer to stay above-ground. It's a sandbox! Let me pick my route!
Aaaand that's all I can think of. It really is an amazing game and I highly recommend it even to those who don't particularly care for FPSes (like me! Though I liked Half-Life).
And now, some (linked for huge) screenshots:
My good girl, Elisabeth
And another.
Shooting a Super Mutant through V.A.T.S.
Germantown
What's left of the Lincoln Memorial. You can also see me getting radiation poisoning because I'm standing too close to the irradiated water. If you head up into the memorial, Lincoln will be headless.
Woolly Mammoth in the Museum of History
Broken bridge close to a town called Minefield
Gerg informed me that this is the capitol. This game is probably a lot more fun to Americans when it comes to spotting famous buildings :P