Fallout 3 is an action role-playing game released by Bethesda Game Studios, and is the third major game in the Fallout series. The game was released in North America on October 28, 2008, in Europe and Australia on October 30, 2008, and in the United Kingdom and Ireland on October 31, 2008 for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 3, and Xbox 360.

Fallout 3 takes place in the year 2277, 36 years after the setting of Fallout 2 and 200 years after the nuclear war between the United States and China that devastated the game's world in an alternate post-World War II timeline. The game places the player in the role of an inhabitant of Vault 101, a survival shelter designed to protect a small number of humans from the nuclear fallout. When the player character's father disappears under mysterious circumstances, he or she is forced to escape from the Vault and journey into the ruins of Washington D.C. to track him down. Along the way the player is assisted by a number of human survivors and must battle myriad enemies that now inhabit the area now known as the "Capital Wasteland". The game has an attribute and combat system typical of an action strategy game but also incorporates elements of first-person shooter and survival horror games.

Following its release, Fallout 3 has received very positive responses from critics who praised in particular the game's open-ended gameplay and flexible character-leveling system. The NPD Group estimated that Fallout 3 sold over 610,000 units during its initial month of release in October 2008, outselling Bethesda Softworks' previous game, The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, which sold nearly 500,000 units in its first month. The game has also received post-launch support with Bethesda releasing downloadable add-ons for the game.

Gameplay

Attributes and karma

Character creation occurs in steps from the character's birth until they are 16 years old. At birth, the player determines what their character will look like. As a baby, they read a child's book titled You're SPECIAL, where upon reading the player can set the character's primary attributes. Finally, at age 16, the player takes the G.O.A.T. exam to determine the first three Skills they wish to focus on. Skills and Perks are similar to those in previous games: Skills can be gradually assigned and give players increasing degrees of ability; for instance, increasing the lock pick skill grants the player access to harder doors to unlock. With each level, the player can allocate more points to their skills and a new Perk can be selected, each offering advantages of varying quality and form. Additional Perks are made available every level, some requiring specific stat levels or karma levels.

Another important statistic tracked in the game is karma. Each player has a total amount of karma which can be affected by the decisions and actions made in the game. Positive karma actions include freeing captives and helping others. Negative karma actions include killing good characters and stealing. Beyond acting as flavor for the game's events, karma can have tangible effects to the player, primarily affecting the game's ending. Other effects include altered dialogue with non-player characters (NPCs), or unique reactions from other characters. Actions vary in extremes of karma; pickpocketing awards less negative karma than the killing of a good character, for example. The player's relationships with the game's factions are distinct, so any two groups or settlements may view the player in contrasting ways, depending on the player's conduct.

Health and weapons

The player's health is separated into two types: general and limb. General health is the primary damage bar, and the player will die if it is depleted. Limb health is specific to each portion of the body, namely the arms, legs, head, and torso. Non-human enemies will sometimes have additional appendages. When a limb's health bar is depleted, that limb is rendered "crippled" and induces a negative status effect, such as blurred vision from a crippled head. Health is diminished when damage is taken from being shot, falling from great distances, and/or accidental self injury. General health can be replenished by sleeping, using medical equipment (stimpacks), eating food, or drinking water. Limbs can only be directly healed by stimpacks, though if they are not crippled they will be healed as the player's general health is healed.

There are also secondary health factors which can affect performance. Being set in a post-apocalyptic nuclear wasteland, radiation poisoning will set in if the player stays in an irradiated area for too long. Radiation sickness must be healed by special pills or doctors. The player can also become addicted to drugs and alcohol, and then go through withdrawal symptoms if denied those substances. Both afflictions can blur the player's vision for a few seconds and have a negative effect on SPECIAL attributes until the problem is corrected.

Another game mechanic is item degradation. The more weapons and armor are used or damaged in combat, the less effective they become. Firearms do less damage and may jam during reloading, and apparel becomes gradually less protective. This will eventually result in the item breaking altogether. Items can be repaired for a price from special vendors, or if the player has two of the same item, parts can be salvaged to repair another.

Players also have the option to create their own weaponry using various scavenged items found in the wasteland. These items can only be created at workbenches, and only if the player possesses the necessary schematics or the necessary Perk. These weapons usually possess significant advantages over other weapons of their type. Each schematic has three to four copies to be found. Each copy, up to a maximum of three, improves the condition (or number) of items produced at the workbench. A higher repair skill will also result in a better starting condition for the related weapon. Weapon schematics can be found lying in certain locations, bought from vendors, or received as quest rewards.

V.A.T.S.

The Vault-Tec Assisted Targeting System, or V.A.T.S., plays an important part in combat. While using V.A.T.S., real-time combat is paused, and action is played out from varying camera angles in a computer graphics version of "bullet time", creating a combat system that the Bethesda developers have described as a hybrid between turn-based and real-time combat. Various actions cost action points, limiting the actions of each combatant during a turn, and both the player and enemies can target specific body areas for attacks to inflict specific injuries; head shots can be used for quick kills or blinding, legs can be targeted to slow enemies' movements, opponents can be disarmed by shooting at their weapons, and players can drive certain enemies into a berserker rage by shooting out things like antennae on various overgrown insects and combat inhibitors on armored robots. Action points can be significantly increased in a number of ways.

Companions

The player can have a maximum party of three, consisting of their character, a dog named Dogmeat, and a single non-player character. Dogmeat can be killed during the game if the player misuses him or places him in a severely dangerous situation and he cannot be replaced (this was changed with the introduction of Broken Steel: the level 22 "Puppies!" perk allows the player to gain a "Dogmeat's puppy" follower if Dogmeat dies); it is possible to not encounter Dogmeat at all depending on how the game is played. One other NPC can travel with the player at any time, and in order to get another NPC to travel, the first one must be dismissed (either voluntarily by the player or as a consequence of other events) or die in combat.

Enemies

There is a multitude of enemies that the player may encounter. There is a variety of mutated and dangerous creatures scattered across the Wasteland, including Deathclaws (large, mutant reptiles), Radscorpions (giant irradiated scorpions), mirelurks (a man-sized, bipedal crab), dogs, mad brahmin (two-headed cows), mole rats, yao guai (mutated bears), and large, yellow-green Super Mutants. The player may also encounter hostile humans, including raiders, mercenaries, Talon Company Mercs, slavers, other Vault survivors, and some people driven to madness. Some areas contain feral ghouls, ghouls who have lost their humanity. A ghoul is a human who has been transformed by "an ungodly amount of radiation". Ghouls can live to be a century or more old, some having survived from before the war 200 years ago. There are also a various number of robots with different combat armament and weaponry. Sentry bots, military robots (i.e. Mister Gutsy), and Robobrains are a few robotic adversaries (or sometimes allies) the player may encounter.

Plot

Setting

Fallout 3 takes place in a post-apocalyptic, retro-futurist Washington D.C. and parts of Maryland and Virginia in the year 2277 after a world war over resources which ended in nuclear holocaust in 2077. The player character (PC) lives with their widower father, James (voiced by Liam Neeson), in Vault 101 (one of several fallout shelters in the D.C. area). One day, the PC wakes up to find that James has left the Vault and ventured into the Capital Wasteland — as the area around D.C. is now known — for unknown reasons. The Vault Overseer becomes suspicious and orders his men to kill the PC, forcing the player to go out into the Capital Wasteland where they must follow James' trail and learn why he left. Along the way, the player will encounter various factions, including the Brotherhood of Steel, a group of technology-coveting survivors from the American West Coast, the Outcasts, a group of Brotherhood of Steel exiles, and the Enclave, the elitist and genocidal last remnants of the U.S. government.

Story

The main quest begins after the Lone Wanderer (the title given to the player character by the populace of the Capital Wasteland) escapes Vault 101 at age 19. The search for James, the player's father, takes the character on a journey through the wasteland, first to the nearby town of Megaton, named for the undetonated atomic bomb at its center, then the Galaxy News Radio station. The player then travels to Rivet City, a derelict aircraft carrier now serving as a human settlement. Here the player meets Doctor Li, a scientist who worked alongside the player's father. Doctor Li tells the player of Project Purity, a plan to remove the radiation from the water of the Tidal Basin, as a means of restoring the environment and improving the lives of those inhabiting the wasteland.

After investigating the former lab of Project Purity, built inside the Jefferson Memorial rotunda, the player tracks James to Vault 112, and frees him from a virtual reality program being run by the Vault's corrupt Overseer. The player and James return to Rivet City and meet up with Doctor Li. They discuss the Garden of Eden Creation Kit (G.E.C.K.) and its possible whereabouts, which are rumoured to be in Project Purity's computer database. However, while the player helps James restart the lab equipment, the Enclave (the post-Great War United States government) arrives and attempts to take over the project for their own purposes. During a confrontation, James sacrifices himself and kills several Enclave soldiers by overloading Project Purity's main chamber with lethal amounts of radiation. After fleeing the lab through underground tunnels, Li and the player arrive at the Citadel of the Brotherhood of Steel, which is in the ruins of the Pentagon. After recovering, Li pleads with the player to find a G.E.C.K. to finish James' work. The player eventually finds one in Vault 87, which had been dedicated to creating and perfecting the FEV (Forced Evolutionary Virus). After retrieving the G.E.C.K., the player is ambushed once more by the Enclave, who take the player captive.

Awakening in a holding cell in the Enclave base at Raven Rock, the player is briefly interrogated by Colonel Autumn and then summoned to the office of President John Henry Eden, who promises safe passage to his control room. While the player is en route, however, Colonel Autumn, acting against Eden, orders the Enclave soldiers to attack, and the player must fight their way to the control room. There, Eden, who turns out to be a supercomputer given control of the East Coast of the United States, gives the player a modified form of the FEV virus, which will kill all individuals with any level of mutation (i.e., everyone), and requests that the player insert it into Project Purity.

The player escapes Raven Rock (which will be destroyed shortly thereafter if the player convinces Eden to trigger a self-destruct) and returns to the Citadel, where Elder Lyons (leader of the East Coast branch of the Brotherhood of Steel) will ask the player for any information they have. The Brotherhood of Steel also enlists the player's aid in assaulting the Jefferson Memorial with Sarah Lyons, the leader of an elite squad of Brotherhood Knights, and a gigantic pre-war robot built to liberate Alaska named Liberty Prime. After breaking through to Project Purity, the player must deal with Colonel Autumn through violence or persuasion. Through the building's intercom, Doctor Li informs the player that due to the damage caused by the recent fight, someone must activate the system before it overloads, destroying the facility. Unfortunately, the one who activates the system will have to be sacrificed due to the chamber being close to overwhelmed by lethal amounts of radiation. In the end, the choice comes down to the player, who must choose whether to activate the system personally, convince Sarah Lyons to do it, or simply wait, which ends in the facility's destruction. If the Broken Steel DLC is installed, the player also has the option of having one of three radiation resistant followers (a Super Mutant, a Ghoul, or a robot) activate it, should one of those three have been recruited and brought along. The ending sequence that follows depends on the player's actions in the game, karma, who activated the purifier, and whether or not the player tainted the water with the modified FEV virus.

Development

Interplay Entertainment

Fallout 3 was initially under development by Black Isle Studios, a studio owned by Interplay Entertainment, under the working title Van Buren. Black Isle Studios were the developers of the original Fallout and Fallout 2. When Interplay Entertainment went bankrupt and closed down Black Isle Studios before the game could be completed, the license to develop Fallout 3 was sold for a $1,175,000 minimum guaranteed advance against royalties to Bethesda Softworks, a studio primarily known as the developer of the The Elder Scrolls series. Bethesda's Fallout 3 however, was developed from scratch, using neither Van Buren code, nor any other materials created by Black Isle Studios. In May 2007, a playable technology demo of the canceled project was released to the public.

Leonard Boyarsky, art director of the original Fallout, when asked about Interplay Entertainment's sale of the rights to Bethesda Softworks, said:

Bethesda Softworks

Bethesda Softworks started working on Fallout 3 in July 2004, but principal development did not begin until after The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion and its related extras and plug ins were completed. Bethesda Softworks decided to make Fallout 3 similar to the previous two games, focusing on non-linear gameplay, story, and black comedy. Bethesda also chose to pursue an ESRB rating of M (for mature) by including the adult themes, violence, and depravity characteristic of the Fallout series. They also decided to shy away from the self-referential gags of the game's predecessors that broke the illusion that the world of Fallout is real. Fallout 3 uses a version of the same Gamebryo engine as Oblivion, and was developed by the team responsible for that game. Liam Neeson was cast as the voice of the player's father.

In February 2007, Bethesda stated that the game was "a fairly good ways away" from release, but that detailed information and previews would be available later in the year. Following a statement made by Pete Hines that the team wanted to make the game a "multiple platform title", the game was announced by Game Informer to be in development for Windows, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. A teaser site for the game appeared on May 2, 2007, featuring music from the game and concept art, along with a timer counting down to June 5, 2007. The artists and developers involved later confirmed that the concept art, commissioned before Oblivion had been released, did not reveal anything from the actual game. When the countdown finished, the site hosted the first teaser trailer for the game, and unveiled a release date of "Fall 2008". Fallout 3 went gold on October 9, 2008.

During a March 21, 2008 Official Xbox Magazine podcast interview, Todd Howard revealed that the game had expanded to nearly the same scope as Oblivion. There were originally at least 12 versions of the final cutscene, but with further development this expanded to over 200 possible permutations in the final release, all of which are determined by the actions taken by the player.

Bethesda Softworks attended E3 2008 to showcase Fallout 3. The first live demo of the Xbox 360 version of the game was shown and demonstrated by Todd Howard, taking place in downtown Washington, D.C. The demo showcased various weapons such as the Fat Man nuclear catapult, the V.A.T.S. system, the functions of the PIP-Boy 3000, as well as combat with several enemies. The demo concluded as the player neared the Brotherhood of Steel-controlled Pentagon and was attacked by an Enclave patrol.

Audio

Several famous actors of film and video games lend their voices to Fallout 3, including Liam Neeson as James, Ron Perlman as the game's narrator, Malcolm McDowell as President John Henry Eden, and Odette Yustman as Amata Almodovar. Veteran voice actors Dee Bradley Baker and Stephen Russell also provide voice overs for the game. The Fallout 3 soundtrack continued the series' convention of featuring sentimental 1940s big band American popular music, the main theme, and few other side songs recorded by The Ink Spots; in addition to a foreboding, menacing score written by composer Inon Zur. In a review of the game for Kotaku, Mike Fahey commented that "While Inon Zur's score is filled with epic goodness, the real stars of Fallout 3's music are the vintage songs from the 1940s."

Marketing and release

Trailers

On June 5, 2007, Bethesda released the Fallout 3 teaser trailer. The press kit released with the trailer indicated that Ron Perlman would be on-board with the project, and cited a release date of Fall 2008. The trailer features The Ink Spots song "I Don't Want to Set the World on Fire", which the previous Fallout developer Black Isle Studios originally intended to license for use in the first Fallout game. The trailer, which was completely done with in-engine assets, closed with Ron Perlman saying his trademark line which he also spoke in the original Fallout: "War. War never changes". The trailer shows a devastated Washington, D.C., evidenced by the partially damaged Washington Monument in the background as well as the crumbling buildings surrounding a rubble-choked city thoroughfare.

A second trailer was first shown during a GameTrailers TV E3 special on July 12, 2008. The trailer zooms out from a ruined house in the Washington, D.C. suburbs, providing a wider view of the capital's skyline including the Capitol Building and Washington Monument in the distance. On July 14, 2008, an extended version of this trailer was made available, which besides the original content, includes a Vault-Tec advertisement and actual gameplay. Both versions of the trailer feature the song "Dear Hearts and Gentle People" as recorded by Bob Crosby and the Bobcats.

Film festival

On July 11, 2008, as a part of promoting Fallout 3, Bethesda Softworks partnered with American Cinematheque and Geek Monthly magazine to sponsor "A Post-Apocalyptic Film Festival Presented by Fallout 3". The festival took place on August 22-23 at Santa Monica's Aero Theater. Six post-apocalyptic movies made over the past 40 years were shown which depict life and events that could occur after a world-changing disaster, including Wizards, Damnation Alley, A Boy and His Dog, The Last Man on Earth, The Omega Man, and Twelve Monkeys.

Retail versions

Fallout 3 is released in five separate versions, only three of which are made available worldwide:

• The Standard Edition includes the game disc and instruction manual with no extras.
• The Collector's Edition includes the game disc, manual, a bonus "making of" disc, a concept artbook, and a 5" Vault Boy Bobblehead, all of which is contained in a Vault-Tec lunchbox. In Australia, the Collector's Edition is exclusive to Gametraders and EB Games.
• The Limited Edition includes the game disc and manual, as well as a Brotherhood of Steel Power Armor figurine. This edition is available only in the UK through the retailer Game.
• The Survival Edition includes everything from the Collector's Edition, as well as a model of the PIP-Boy 3000 from the game which functions as a digital clock. The Survival Edition is available exclusively from Amazon.com to U.S. customers only.
• The Game of the Year Edition, which includes the original Fallout 3 game as well as all 5 of the downloadable content packs, was released on October 13, 2009 in North America and October 16, 2009 in Europe. It was released in Australia on October 22, 2009, and will be released in Japan on December 3, 2009.

Downloadable content

Bethesda's Todd Howard first confirmed during E3 2008 that downloadable content would be prepared for the Xbox 360 and Windows versions of Fallout 3. There are five DLCs: Operation: Anchorage, The Pitt, Broken Steel, Point Lookout, and Mothership Zeta, released in that order. Of the five, Broken Steel has the largest effect on the game, altering the ending and allowing the player to continue playing past the end of the main quest line.

Originally, there was no downloadable content planned for the PlayStation 3 version of the game. Although Bethesda had not offered an official explanation as to why the content was not released for PlayStation 3, Lazard Capital Markets analyst Colin Sebastian speculated that it may have been the result of a money deal with Bethesda by Sony's competitor, Microsoft. When asked if the PlayStation 3 version would receive an update that would enable gameplay beyond the main quest's completion, Todd Howard responded, "Not at this time, no." However, in May 2009, Bethesda announced that the existing DLC packs (Operation: Anchorage, The Pitt and Broken Steel) would be made available for the PlayStation 3; the later two (Point Lookout and Mothership Zeta) were released for all platforms. As of September 18, 2009, the Trophies for the additional content were on view if the user had played with Trophies enabled; those that had received a platinum trophy before they were enabled would now have only 53% of the available trophies.

On October 1, 2009, a NXE premium theme for the game was released for the Xbox 360. Consumers could pay 240 Microsoft Points, or by having downloaded all other downloadable content. The PlayStation 3 received a free theme, featuring a Brotherhood of Steel Knight in the background, and includes symbols from the game as icons on the PS3 home menu. In December 2008 the official editor, known as the G.E.C.K. (Garden of Eden Creation Kit) was made available for the Windows version of the game as a free download from the Fallout 3 website.

Reception

Professional reviews for the game have been very positive, with an average Game Rankings score of 93% for the Xbox 360 version and 91% for the PC and PlayStation 3. 1UP.com praised its open-ended gameplay and flexible character-leveling system. While the V.A.T.S. system was called "fun", enemy encounters were said to suffer from a lack of precision in real-time combat and little variety in enemy types. The review concluded, Fallout 3 is a "hugely ambitious game that doesn't come around very often". IGN praised the game's "minimalist" sound design, observing, "you might find yourself with nothing but the sound of wind rustling through decaying trees and blowing dust across the barren plains ... Fallout 3 proves that less can be more". The review noted that the "unusual amount of realism" combined with the "endless conversation permutations" produces "one of the most truly interactive experiences of the generation", awarding the game a 9.6 out of 10.GameZone gave Fallout 3 a 9.5, 9.4 and 9.2 out of 10 for the PlayStation 3, 360 and PC versions respectively, while Resolution Magazine awarded the game 93% on all formats. Although Edge awarded the game 7 out of 10, in a later anniversary issue it placed the game 37th in a "100 best games to play today" list, saying "‬Fallout‭ ‬3‭ ‬empowers,‭ ‬engages and rewards to extents that few games have ever achieved."

Some criticisms were the bugs in regards to the physics, crashes, and some that broke quests and prevented progression, the latter of which are fixable by reloading from an earlier state. The AI and stiff character animations are another common point of criticism, as is the ending. Edge states that "the game is cumbersome in design and frequently incompetent in the details of execution", taking particular issue with the nakedness of the HUD, the clarity of the menu interface, and that the smaller problems are carried over from Oblivion. Edge liked the central story but said "[t]he writing isn't quite as consistent as the ideas that underpin" and that the "[v]oice-acting is even less reliable". It has also been noted that the PC version is "the most fully featured, best looking, and best running version of Fallout 3."

From its release in October through the end of 2008, Fallout 3 shipped over 4.7 million units. According to NPD Group the Xbox 360 version has sold 1.14 million units and the PlayStation 3 version has sold 552,000 units as of January 2009. The Xbox 360 version was the 14th best-selling game of December 2008 in the United States, while the PlayStation 3 version was the eighth best-selling PlayStation 3 game in that region and month.

Awards

Fallout 3 won several awards following its showcasing at E3 2007. IGN gave it the Game of E3 2007 award, and GameSpot gave it the Best Role-Playing Game of E3 2007 award. Following the game's demonstration at E3 2008, IGN also gave it Best Overall RPG, Best Overall Console Game, and Overall Game of the Show for E3 2008. Game Critics Awards gave the game Best Role-Playing Game and Best of Show for E3 2008.

Technical issues

Shortly before the game's release, IGN posted a review of the game citing numerous bugs and crashes in the PlayStation 3 release. The game also contained a flaw causing the game to freeze and the screen to blur when friends signed in and out of the PlayStation Network. The IGN review was edited shortly thereafter, removing all references to the PS3's flaws, causing controversy in the PlayStation communities. In reviewing the PlayStation 3 Game of the Year edition, reviewers found that most flaws remained, citing occasional freezes, several animation and scripting issues, and other flaws requiring a restart of the game. Even IGN recursively cited flaws with the original release, as well as the Game of the Year edition, calling it "a fantastic game", but warning players to "be aware that you might have to deal with some crashes and bugs."

Controversies

Drug references in Australia

On July 4, 2008, Fallout 3 was refused classification by the OFLC in Australia, thus making it illegal to distribute or purchase the game in the country. In order for the game to be reclassified, the offending content in the Australian version of the game would have had to be removed by Bethesda Softworks and the game resubmitted to the OFLC. According to the OFLC board report, the game was refused classification due to the "realistic visual representations of drugs and their delivery method [bringing] the 'science-fiction' drugs in line with 'real-world' drugs." A revised version of the game was resubmitted to the OFLC and reclassified as MA 15+ on August 7, 2008, or not suitable for people under the age of 15; this new rating ensured that the game could retail legally in Australia. According to the OFLC board report, the drug content was not removed entirely from the revised version of the game, but the animation showing the actual usage of the drugs was removed; the minority view on the decision stated that the drug content was still enough to warrant a refused classification rating, despite the admission that the portrayal of the drugs was appropriate within the context of the game. In a later interview with U.K. gaming magazine Edge, Bethesda Softworks revealed that there would be only one version of Fallout 3 released worldwide, and that this version would have all real world drug references removed. It was later clarified that the only change made would be that morphine, a real world drug that would have appeared in the game, would instead be renamed to the more generic "Med-X."

Release in India

On October 23, 2008, Microsoft announced that the game would not be released in India on the Xbox 360 platform. Religious and cultural sentiments were cited as the reason. Microsoft stated, "Microsoft constantly endeavors to bring the best games to Indian consumers in sync with their international release. However, in light of cultural sensitivities in India, we have made the business decision to not bring Fallout 3 into the country." Although the specific reason was not revealed in public, most people guessed it was because the game contains two-headed mutated cows called Brahmin (which may have been an intentional misspelling of brahman), which is also a class of religious scholars in India, as well as the fact that the cow is revered by Hindus.

Sensitivity to Japan

Bethesda Softworks changed the side quest "The Power of the Atom" in the Japanese version of Fallout 3 to relieve concerns about depictions of atomic detonation in inhabited areas. In non-Japanese versions, players are given the option of either defusing, ignoring, or detonating the dormant atomic bomb in the town of Megaton. In the Japanese version, the character Mr. Burke has been taken out of this side quest, making it impossible to detonate the bomb. Also in the Japanese release, the "Fat Man" nuclear catapult weapon was renamed "Nuka Launcher," as the original name was a reference to the bomb used on Nagasaki.

References

1. "The difference in looks between the two console versions is small compared to the leap that comes with a top of the line PC."
2. Kelly, Andy. "Fallout 3 Review". PlayStation Magazine 3 (107). October 2008.

External links

• Fallout 3 Official Website
• Fallout 3 at The Vault wiki