A part of the character generation process in Fallout 3.

This is after the part where you are born (and the scene shows the hospital) and you pick your gender and name.

Previous to this, you are crawling around the bedroom and find a children’s book on the floor, which you pick up and set your starting stats.

Short, pre-review review…this game is amazing. Best three-word description, “Steam Punk Oblivion.”

More on this one late…this thing is pretty sweet.  Should have some video of me whacking some super mutants.

UPDATE: As promised…

NOTE: As should be guessed from the title of this post, Fallout 3 is an RPG.  As you can see from the video, it does have some FPS elements, but trust me, if you try and play this game like it’s Halo or Half-Life, you will die, a lot, and it will not be fun.

As you can see in the video above, the game utilizes a type of targeting computer and “Action Points” to make specially targeted attacks.  When you aren’t using this tech-helper, you have to aim and shoot manually, and in real time.  From my experience so far, it feels like the AI opponents have access to computer help in aiming all the time.  Which is to say, for them it’s like slow motion all the time.  You can’t run around in circles for 5 minutes and not get hit (like in Halo).  You will get mowed down.  Quickly.

That makes the game a bit more challenging, and for me, more fun.

You play it like a combination of Oblivion, Splinter Cell, Bioshock, and a bit of post-apocalyptic GTA (although more in mission style and world-size than action).  With brief moments of solid action, the meat of the game is expoloration and simple interaction.

At heart it plays true to its roots as a role-playing game, and it gives you lots and lots of roles to play.  This is true both in the storyline and the game mechanics.  There are many ways to enhance your character as you level up in old-school, RPG style of get-experience, level up, distribute skill points.   Skill points control stuff like real-world accuracy and effectiveness with weapons, so you can’t make up for having a 20 (out of 100) Heavy Weapons skill with world class Quake rocket-launcher dancing.  Again, RPG != FPS.

I’m stilling getting into the game, but if you ever wanted to be like that character that crazy guy plays in the Mad Max movies, now is your chance.  And it *really* does play like that.  It can get verrrry creepy when you are crawling around in some burned out, underground subway station and the lights go out and you start to hear creepy, crawly noises. 

Suddenly, your world erupts into hellish fire and you have to figure out which way to shoot to make it stop.

Good stuff.  Stuff that didn’t make it into the movies, sadly.  The movies were more about the social stuff, of which there is plenty in the game, but the fun is going off alone, at least for me.  That’s the Mad Max world I wanted to see, and here you get to do so.  Up close and freakishly personal.

Also, and more important to games reviewed on this site, there are “perks” that allow you to become a “cyborg” and “ninja”, so it looks like I have to make it at least level 20.  And so I’m off to the wastelands.

Peace (or world war ends badly….)