PAX 08: Fallout 3 Impressions

By George Walker | August 30, 2008

If you liked Oblivion, you will like Fallout 3. If you liked Fallout 1 and 2, you will like Fallout 3.

Because, they have done an AMAZING job of melding RPG elements from the originals into Fallout 3. The old stats like Action Points and Perks are, of course, adapted for the new 3D platform, but far from feeling tacked on, I felt very much the same as I did when I played Fallout for the first time.

The level that they had available was basically just the area outside Vault 101, and as you step out into the wasteland the landscape looks pretty good. Bleak… desolate… And you can even see the shelled out remains of the U.S. Capitol building off in the distance. Since there were no real objectives in this demo beyond “go see what you can find” I headed off down an old abandoned highway. As I sauntered into the midst of some shelled out buildings the game chimed “You’ve discovered Springvale!” Huh. Cool.

I continued further down te street and I saw a large sign that said Springvale Elementary. I decided this might be worth checking out. I approached the ruined building and was told “You’ve discovered Springvale Elementary!” Sweet. I’m gonna sneak in there. I clicked down on the thumbstick to enter sneak mode (which was an integral part of both Oblivion and Fallout, in the past) and began checking out the school. It was pretty dark, as I suppose you would expect for the post-apocalypse, and I started picking up bad guys on my indicator. As I approached, they detected me and started unloading on me with revolvers. This is where the combat system kicked in, which you’ve hopefully seen in the game