I’m roughly a dozen hours into Fallout 3, and so far my experience has been very entertaining but highly inconsistent. Every flash of brilliance, moment of wonderful storytelling and interesting nook of the vast capitol wasteland has been marred by stiff character animations, sloppy A.I. and show-stopping bugs. I thought I might take a moment to chronicle some of the ups and downs on the roller coaster of quality that is Fallout 3.
HIGH: Having your character gradually evolve his or her stats and appearance while growing up in Vault 101 was a terrific introduction to the post-apocalyptic Fallout universe. It was highly interactive and allowed the player to establish their personal narrative right from the outset. Furthermore, it helped to contrast restrictive life in the Vault with bare survival in the Wasteland, a major theme of the game. In fact, it’s a shame that I had already seen so much of this particular sequence from the prerelease promotional material, but I suppose it’s my own darn fault for peeking.
LOW: While the NPCs look fine when they’re standing still or gesturing, the illusion is shattered once they start moving. It’s hard to pinpoint exactly why their movements look unnatural, but I suspect the leading cause is the fact that characters don’t move their shoulders when they walk or run. I haven’t seen animations this bad in years, especially not on modern systems.
HIGH: Stepping out into the sunlight of the D.C. wasteland for the first time was spectacular. Bethesda absolutely nailed the environmental aesthetic, and the impressive draw distance meant that the ruins stretched out for miles in all directions. Every crumbled building, abandoned playground and irradiated cola bottle told a story of the pre-war world. Thankfully, this is a truly seamless transition into the third dimension for the Fallout franchise.
LOW: The artificial intelligence of both friend and foe is sub-par. Assailants charge right at you and have difficulty navigating obstacles and terrain. I have yet to see them take advantage of cover or hold a strategic position even if their weapons have a range advantage. Furthermore, the pathfinding occasionally glitches in spectacular ways. I once walked into Megaton to find a friendly old man NPC dead in the middle of town. It turns out this is a known bug, where NPCs can occasionally die from “falling off walkways or radiation exposure near the bomb.”
HIGH: There are new quests, cities and characters hidden in every nook and cranny of the wasteland. Furthermore, because of the open-ended mission structure and large number of quests, you’re encouraged to start wandering as early and as often as you’d like. If the goal is to promote exploration, then Fallout 3 does “open world” better than Oblivion, Grand Theft Auto 4 or even Far Cry 2.
LOW: After installing a new broadcast dish at the Washington monument, I found myself locked out of the GNR building (Galaxy News Radio, not Guns ‘n’ Roses.) Apparently this is another known bug, but this time it was preventing the completion of one of the main storyline missions. In a more linear game this would have required a new playthrough, however…
HIGH: …this is not the case in Fallout 3. The game prides itself on having multiple solutions to every problem, and this situation was no different. It turns out I had two options for progressing: either raise my lock picking skill to 100 to enter a second story door, or simply skip the quest entirely and move straight to the next storyline NPC.
Once you get into the swing of it, the charm of the gigantic world and its fascinating inhabitants glosses over the game’s many glaring flaws and glitches. It’s just a darn shame that a game as good as Fallout 3 lacks not only polish, but in many cases basic quality assurance.
