Fallout 3 Hands-on Preview

Life Is Unfair

There’s a lot to learn in this microcosmic story about my time with Fallout 3 (one which truthfully extends into three more failed attempts to kill the Flamethrower Bitch before I get pulled away from the game). The first is the reason behind my maniacal joy at my own defeat – the lack of world-leveling.

If we’re going to be brutally, unapologetically honest and completely without mercy then we’d have to say that enemy leveling broke Oblivion. No matter where you went you always had the same chances against your foes as they moved to match your ability. You never had to change tactics and, given a high enough athletics score, all you ever had to do was run backwards while shooting arrows, strafing to dodge spells.

Fallout 3 though is different and we’re happy to see that the balance has been built back into the game. True, the game still does level with you, kind of, but it works differently now. The game world now has areas that it will always keep as a few levels above you, below you or just at a fixed stage – thus, the game can offer you predictable, easy combat if you stay in the easy areas, but can he-bitch-man-slap your ass if you want more of a challenge.



That sounds a little unfair. It sounds a little stupid. It works brilliantly. Frankly, it restores purpose to the game. When your character gets cooked by a flamethrower-wielding psychopath that you can’t defeat in repeated combat then the game is offering you a challenge you want to accept. You have to get creative with your tactics and find a way to overcome the obstacle.

Or you run away, bulk up and come back to the fight later with a plasma rifle and a few pipe-swinging followers and a dog to back you up. Either way, you can find your own challenges and aims to help prolong the game and make the game more…well, fun.

That said, enthusiasm isn’t infinitely sustainable under its own power and it’d be wrong to say that there aren’t a few possible issues with Fallout 3.

Hacking, for example, is one of our biggest worries. Why? Because it functions around a minigame. Not one as bad as BioShock’s plumbing minigame, true – but still one of dubious worth. It’s basically a mastermind-clone, where you see scrambled code and have to guess the correct password from listed candidates within three or four guesses. Hm. Great.

Minigames are fickle beasts though and while the hacking minigame doesn’t live up to the impossibly simple yet effective time-out bar of Deus Ex (which compares favorably to everything in my mind, admittedly) , the lockpicking minigame does at least come close. It’s much more realistic, requiring players to force the lock open but without all that cheating, side-on rubbish.


Combat too has a few flaws. While the VATS method for taking down enemies is fun, get into a big fight and you’ll be unable to keep the slow-down effect going and will fall back to the real-time point and shoot mechanic – which isn’t bad per se, but suffers a little when compared to other FPS games. Running and gunning is ostensibly fine, but does at time feel a little bit unsatisfying and it can shine through that Fallout 3 is an RPG first and FPS later.

At the end of it though, these are minor problems for most gamers and it’s likely that an awful lot of these issues will be eliminated as the game progresses through the beta stages and moves closer to the release later this quarter. Fallout 3 is, when all the hype and ‘OMG not as good as originalz!!one’ rhetoric is laid aside, a stonkingly good game by the looks of it and combines the best of The Elder Scrolls with the best of Fallout.

So, in short, be afraid. Lock away your wallets and board up your front doors. Handcuff yourself to the furniture and demolish your hard drives and consoles – Fallout 3 is coming and as far as we’re concerned, it’s going to be as excellent as we could have ever hoped. When it launches then it will demolish your life, soak up your spare time and tear apart your relationships.

As with other Bethesda games, this will be like World of Warcraft in how addictive and time-consuming it could be. Singleplayer is no longer a safe place to hide – Fallout 3 is on its way.

Fallout 3 is scheduled for release this Autumn on PC, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. Stay tuned for our review when the game launches, or tell us what you think in the forums.