The resurrection of a venerable series!

Fans of the classic PC games may remember the first 2 Fallout games from the late '90s fondly. The unique settings and humor of the series is a breath of fresh air in the sea of "me-too" games with high fantasy backdrop. The games were set in the west coast of United States after a nuclear war reduced the country to rubbles, and the survivors had to fight off harsh irradiated environment, raiders and mutated creators (including human mutants), the player can create their in game alter ego with certain traits, which can affect how certain scenerios are resolved (if you have high speech, you can usually resolve conflict without bloodshed, etc.). Unfortunately, the creator of the series Black Isle studio (and its publisher Interplay) no longer exist, and many fans gave up hope for a proper sequel for the great series.

Fortunately, another great RPG studio, Bethesda Softworks, picked up the right to the series, and I really had high hopes for Fallout 3, since I loved their last game Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion. I eagerly waited for the release of the game and picked it up the day it was released. After putting in a good number of hours, I can say this game totally does the original series justice!!

Fallout 3 retains the atmosphere and humor of the first 2 games very well, and Bethesda injected into the game its own trademark of having a huge free roaming world, after you get out of Vault 101 (Your main character grew up in the vault, basically a elaborate bomb shelter), you are treated with the wide open vista of the wasteland, and you can see miles off every direction, and whatever you can see, you can basically walk there, it's intimating at first, but also a very exhilarating experience to have this wonderfully crafted world you can explore. The combat is also fun, you can go in real time and just blast away (although you probably won't be hitting the target much at first, since the hit percentage is dependent upon your weapon skills), or you can pause the action and more target individual part of the enemy body in a more tactical fashion. And true to the first 2 fallouts, each mission usually have multiple methods you can approach to solve it, and it also sometimes present you with moral choices, and the choice you make will impact the game world in various degrees (An extreme case is that there is a town with a undetonated nuclear bomb in it, and you can either be a hero and disarm it, or you can reactivate the bomb and destroy the whole town, if you choose to disarm it, the residents will be grateful and you can have a home in it, if you choose to destroy it, the town will be gone).

I do find some minor fault with the game, first of all, because of the game is set in a post apocalytic world, everything appears dirty and grey, so it gets kind of dull in the visual department, and even occupied houses looks like it was abondoned, looted and vandalized. Another thing is that the violence can be over the top sometimes. Even with these minor annoyances, I found the game very fun and utterly immersive, I highly recommend this game to everyone!