Fallout 3 First Impressions, or Why I Am Very Old
Can you have First Impressions on a game you have already spent 30 hours on? Absolutely. Though it must be a role playing game.
I’m going to preface this somewhat. I loved Fallout and Fallout 2. I even played (and liked, for what it was) Fallout: Tactics. So you can chalk me up as a Fallout Fan at the start.
I also like Bethesda games, dating back to the incredibly ambitious yet flawed Daggerfall. I am also a fan of their more modern Elder Scrolls games, Morrowind and Oblivion. Both were played to completion, if not played to exhaustion.
Why do I mention this? Because for those that don’t know, Fallout 1 and 2 were produced by a different company and a different development studio. Fallout 3 shares none of the braintrust from Fallout 1 and 2 - instead, it is done by Bethesda, with their experience building those latest Elder Scrolls games.
My fear, when I saw this game was coming out, was that it would feel more like Oblivion than Fallout. That fear is… for the most part… not accurate. The world feels like Fallout. It’s a gritty post apocalyptic Wasteland, as is appropriate. They actively support not-so-nice methods of playthrough. The world DOES feel like a Fallout game. People die. Gruesomely.
My problem, if it can be said to be a problem, arises from the gameplay specifically related to combat. The combat in Morrowind and Oblivion were, at times… simple. Unsatisfying. While some of that has been ameliorated with Fallout 3… the combat simply does not compare to the combat in the originals. Nothing feels tactical here. There’s very little in the way of a ‘plan’, the way you had to do older Fallout combat. You can take cover, sure. You can also activate a mode where you can target specific limbs, etc, and disable parts of enemy bodies, in a pseudo-turn-based fashion. This is okay, and with some enemies it is definitely advisable to disable their legs so they can’t continually jump in your face. In fact, it’s fun, and I believe it is a vast improvement over combat in Oblivion. But all too frequently, I target enemies, disable body parts, then find myself backpedaling as I tear them to pieces with the shotgun in real time. At these moments, even though whether I hit the beastie or not is presumably determined by my statistics as is proper in a good RPG, the game plays more like a shooter. We are back in Oblivion mode.
I ask for the unrealistic. I know this. No one builds turn based tactical combat RPGs anymore. If Bioware isn’t doing it, no one will. Certainly not Bethesda, who has been doing first person RPGs like this for a very, very long time.
But for me, it’s as if someone made, say, Baldur’s Gate 3… or Icewind Dale 3… but made it a real time first person semi-shooter instead of an isometric tactical combat game. I find myself returning to this as I play and run backwards while my action points recharge. It bugs me.
I am still enjoying it and would recommend it without hesitation, at least so far. I guess my main complaint is this:
I am getting old. Bring me my text adventures! It is dark and I am likely to be eaten by a grue.
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