Anyway back to the point I was excited, I went to the website, read the vault cartoons, and looked at screen shots on a daily basis. It looked freaking amazing! The release date hit and I quickly started the Fallout 3 download to my PC using Steam, a fine and noble service. Then I started it up only to be exposed to one of the most painfully boring games I've tried to play. In fact the only game I've ever tried that was more boring was EVE online which was about as fun as counting the carbonation bubbles in my coke.
I'm going to be honest I have yet been able to play this game for more the 4 or 5 hours and have barely explored the vast post-apocalypse Fallout landscape. I can only assume that at some point Fallout might actually become interesting but I refuse to invest more anymore time to find out! Last I checked a game was suppose to be fun and not feel like work. Let me check:
Game: An activity providing entertainment or amusement; a pastime (www.thefreedictionay.com)
Yup I'm right game doesn't equal work so I'm sorry I'm not forcing myself to use (I can not use the term play) a game with the hopes it gets better at some point.
In Fallout 3 you start out as baby and build your sex, looks, base skills by answering questions presented to you during a serious of sequences of your early life growing up. Then your dad leaves the vault so of course all the people who protected and sheltered you in your youth feel betrayed and do their best to kill you. Wow talk about separation issues!I assume this seeming over reaction is explained later but again I'M NOT INTRIGUED ENOUGH TO LAST DAYS OF BORING GAME PLAY TO FIND OUT! Anyway you escape and I will say this you are greeted by an amazingly large and detailed world. Problem is your character's movements never mesh with the landscape and the result reminds me of South Park animation.
Then comes the worse part of the game interaction with the AI: it doesn't matter how many times you've talked to the same blanked faced individual you have to surf thru the exact same dialogue pattern over and over asking different questions in the hope they give you something to do. Really it's like one of those lame pick your own adventure books that were popular in the 80s. This became really frustrating when I encountered a lady offering her .. ahem .. services in Megaton. I having just finished playing Fable 2 thought this may be an interesting pick your own adventure dialogue to get through. Thus I spent 30 minutes chatting up the bar prostitute to get her to give me a room and some company hint hint wink wink, and she comes up stairs and just goes to sleep leaving me standing there wondering what the hell I just wasted 100 caps (Fallout money) on. At least Fable 2 gave me a black screen with some amusing fun noises when I got that far.
Out of pure desperation to make the game interesting I started over with a female character thinking I could make her hot and them make her run around naked. Well this game can't a make up it's mind whether or not it's a 1st person or 3rd person game and you can never really get a good look at your own character. Meaning all the time you spend customizing your characters look was a complete waste of time!
Anyway I can honestly say that despite dropping over 50 bucks on this game I probably won't bother re-installing on my newly rebuilt PC.
I realize you posted this over 5 years ago but I heartily agree with you. I purchased this game a while back and have tried to play it many times since thinking "the reviewers loved it, it must be me." But every time I stick it in my Xbox again I just find it to be a mind-numbing bore. I can't stand these games with overly-involved character creation systems (this coming from a guy who actually enjoys the Sims). Do I want to be black, white, do I want this color hair? And the first few hours of FO3 just make me want to cry. Seriously??? Baby steps? Making me take a test to determine what kind of character I am. Beating up kids? Shooting bugs that really don't matter? For Christ's sake I wanted to play a game not a simulation of my childhood. And I wouldn't have purchased a first-person game if I didn't already know the controls. And the combat... holy hell. If I want to shoot someone in the arm, I'll point my reticule at his arm and fire. I don't need the statistics of how much it will benefit me. It's like every battle was it's own excel sheet where I was tasked with risk assessment at work. Geesh, I wanted to play a game!
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