It’s Furious Balancing

I owe a friend¹ my review of my latest computer gaming obsession, Bethesda Softworks’ Fallout 3, so today you get a Computer Game post.²

My computer game genre is fantasy/adventure role-playing.  I know; that sounds kinky.  What I mean by that is that I prefer single player and online multi-player games that incorporate the stereotypical “fantasy” universe.  Elves, magic users, dwarves, swords and other melee weapons (as opposed to guns and grenades).  That sort of thing.  Think Dungeons and Dragons³ or The Lord of the Rings⁴.  My favorite computer game of all time is Elder Scrolls 3: Morrowind, put out by Bethesda Softworks in 2002.  It still has a large, vibrant player community, even though a six-year-old computer game is considered to be Ancient History.

I was a little bit disappointed with Elderscrolls IV: Oblivion, but I nonetheless enjoyed the three to four months I spent with it.  Compared to Morrowind, the world was limited and homogeneous.  I didn’t feel it was a sequel to Morrowind — more of an underdeveloped subplot in the ongoing story of Tamriel.   But, like I said, I still enjoyed it — just in a different way.  It wasn’t enough to sour me on Bethesda games.

When I heard that Bethesda was doing Fallout 3, I knew I had to play it.  It was Bethesda, and I had no experience with the prior games in the Fallout series.  The basic premise intrigued me:

Imagine if, after World War II, the timeline had split.  Our world forked into one branch, the Fallout universe into the other.  In that other branch, technology progressed at a much more impressive rate, while American society remained locked in the cultural norms of the 1950′s.  It was an idyllic “world of tomorrow,” filled with servant robots, beehive hairdos, and fusion powered cars.  And then in the year 2077, at the climax of a long-running war with China, it all went to hell in a globe-shattering nuclear war.⁵

200 years later you, the Player, are thrust outside into the the Capital Wasteland after spending the first 19 years of your life safe underground in a city/fallout shelter known as Vault 101.

High-resolution versions of these screenshots and the concept art can be found here and here.

I’m not going to offer any spoilers here, nor can I claim to be a computer game reviewer of any merit.  I just know what I like (and what I don’t like).  This is more of a list of reactions and impressions than a game review.

First, the negatives:

• It definitely deserves the Mature 17+ rating from the ESRB.  I haven’t seen any nudity, but there is plenty of other stuff.  Blood and Gore, Intense Violence, Sexual Themes, Strong Language, and Use of Drugs is the official description.  None of the nasty stuff is gratuitous, in my opinion.  It’s appropriate to the violent dog-eat-dog world of the game.  Just be forewarned — this game isn’t for your 13-year-old brother/son/nephew or sister/daughter/niece.  Really.  It took me a while to get used to shooting peoples’ heads off.  There’s a high “splat factor” here.  And a high “How Many Time Can One NPC use the F-word” factor, too.

• Bethesda didn’t bundle the game with a Construction Set.  One of the high points to Morrowind and Oblivion is that the player could create or modify in-game elements with the software that came with the game.  Want fancier armor or a kick-butt sword?  Your own house in the city?  Less encumbrance?  More speed?  A whole new quest?  Make it (or Modify it) yourself with the Construction Set.    No construction set here, cats and kittens.  That’s a big “thumbs down” from me, Bethesda.

• In Morrowind and Oblivion, your increases in level came with the development of your skills.  You gained experience in a skill when you used it in the game.  You got better at casting Illusion spells the more times you cast Illusion spells.  Same for Lockpicking or Alchemy or Athletics or whatever.  Every time you picked a lock, you get a little bit better at picking locks in general.  After you had increased your major and minor skills 10 times, you gained a level.  Not so for Fallout 3.  Your earn generic experience points for killing a monster, or picking a lock, or solving a quest.  When you gain enough points, you go up a level and can allocate so many points to your skills.  From a role-player’s perspective, this makes no sense.  How can I go out in the Wasteland and kill a bunch of radioactive giant scorpions with my 10mm handgun and get better at wielding missile launchers?  How can picking a bunch of locks successfully increase my skill in offering medical treatment to wounded Non-Player Characters?  The way the game mechanics exist in Fallout 3, I could keep allocating points to Big Guns (e.g. Missile Launchers) every time I level.  Eventually, I could have a Master rating in Big Guns without ever having touched one in the game.  Um….yeah.  That’s another big “thumbs down” from this Role Player Grrrl.

Now for the positives:

•  V.A.T.S. or Vault-Tec Assisted Targeting System.  Basically, you can spend something called Action Points and make called shots on the mobs.  I will say that called head-shots from stealth⁶ are very cool, if not a little bloody.  Bloody as in “exploding heads are bloody.”  Cringe-worthy but kewl.  The first time I saw this, part of me said, Eeeeewwwww and the rest of me said, This rocks. Srsly.

•  The graphics on a high-end gaming machine are very sweet.  I’m not a techie, but I do know that Some People are jealous of Squeaker (my home computer).  I’m running Ultra-High graphics with no visible lag.

•  You get a lot of character customization through the use of Perks (character traits or skills you can choose for yourself at various levels).  Certain Perks can alter game play significantly.  For example, I chose the Perk “Black Widow” at Level 2.  This not only grants me 10% more damage against male opponents, I also get unique dialog options in some situations.  For example, Mr. Burke, a rather shady character you meet at the beginning of the game, is now sending me impassioned love letters.  Once he discovered I had no interest in blowing up the starting city of Megaton and was rather offended by his suggestion, as he was insinuating I do for him and his “friends,” he apparently fell for me.  I guess he liked strong, opinionated women.  Or he’s setting me up.  We will see how this develops.

•  For lack of a better word, I like the atmosphere of the game.  Gritty, gray, dirty and dingy.  It has a consistent feel to it.   I also like seeing parts of D.C. that I encountered when I lived there.  The Metro tunnels.  The monuments.  The museums.  It’s not entirely accurate, though.  The Washington Monument does not have a  metal substructure — it’s solid stone in Real Life.

•  Your actions have long-reaching consequences.  You gain (or lose) Karma Points with certain actions, and your total “Karma” affects how NPC’s interact with you.  There’s a continuum of Good – Neutral – Evil for the Player.  Yes, you can “buy” good karma with donations to the church or giving beggars purified water, so it is similar in some respect to paying off your bounty for crimes you committed in Morrowind or Oblivion.  I haven’t quite put my finger on this element of game play, but Karma in Fallout 3 is not necessarily the same as Reputation in Morrowind or Oblivion.  You can be good without necessarily being famous.

So, this version of Laiane Wolfsong has about 40 hours of gameplay under her belt at Level 7.  There’s a lot more of this game to explore (and re-explore with a different type of character), but my first impressions are more positive than negative.

Game on, cats and kittens.

* * * * *

1. Our former chiropractor, but he’s much more of a friend [↩]
2. As opposed to a Knitting Post or a Political Post or a Righteous Indignation Post.  Be forewarned, I’m working, sort of, on a post that combines Knitting AND Politics AND Righteous Indignation, and maybe even an image capture from a video of a burning effigy knitted with acrylic yarn.  I need to talk to my Press Corps about that.  Yo, HunterXan’s Husband, email me something.  Anything.  I’ll work with what you have. [↩]
3. The table-top dice-driven game, not the online game. [↩]
4. The books, not the computer games. [↩]
5. From the game’s Vault Dweller’s Survival Guide that comes with the game software. [↩]
6. Stealth attacks increase your chances for critical hits. [↩]

This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 12th, 2008 at 6:37 pm and is filed under Gaming. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.