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A have played a lot of games but none offers a player as much choice as Fallout 3. There is so much freedom in the game that you can do almost anything you want and your each action will effect the outcome in a different way. Its open world experience is unlike anything I have ever seem and its character development is one of the best. Its the first Fallout title that I have played and it is not related to previous ones in any ways.

The game takes place in the future where the world has been destroyed by the nuclear war. So you will be exploring the post-apocalyptic wastelands of Washington DC as you move from one place to another fulfilling quests and objectives. Your character development starts as soon as the game starts. When the game starts, you are just born and you have the option to choose whether you are a boy or a girl, your looks etc. You are living in Vaut101, a bunker which is designed to protect its residents. You will play through some of the pivotal events of your childhood till you become a teenager and you will be taught that you will live and die in the vault where everyone respects the “Overseer”. Things quickly change when one morning you discover that your father has left the vault and now nothing is the same for you as you have to leave the vault and look for your father.

When you step out of the vault door for the first time, you will look into the wasteland that once was Washington DC. The game allows you to look up long distances and you will a lot of monuments that are still standing. And this is when you journey and survival begins. Along the journey, you will meet several characters many of whom will be friendly. Your main quest will be to find your father but you will also have to perform a lot of side quests in order to get information or to just make some quick bucks. There are a lot of places to travel and you can decide where you want to go. Since a Nuclear warfare has ended the world, you will encounter a lot of radiation everywhere and you will have to take medicines to survive or you can purchase a radiation suit which can offer a bit of protection. Exploring the city also has its own fun. You can go through torn down shopping malls where you can collect some items like food, war currency etc. There is a limit to the amount of stuff that you can carry and the stuff can be traded at caravans and can be used to buy weapons, medicine, food, scotch etc.

Character development is one of the key aspects of the game. As you progress in the game, you will gather experience, perks which can be used to enhance your skills like Theft, Science, Speech, Computer, weapons, terminal hacking, item repairing etc. These will be quite essential in some of the stages of the game. You can also gain a few perks which offers you some varied enhancements. If you have a high speech skill, you will be able to convince anyone easily and he will do the things you require without any favors. The game allows you to be good or bad, whatever you want to be but whatever you do will have its consequences. If you do something bad, like kill an innocent being etc your Karma will go down and if you do “good” things like giving water to a beggar, your Karma will go up. When you talk to each character, there will be a lot of conversation choices and the conversations are sometime hilarious.

The game offers you a lot of choices when a mission is concerned. You can be polite or you can go straight go for the gun. In one of the mission, one person asked me to disable a bomb while one another offered me money to trigger the bomb. So I had the option of doing what I like or I could also go to the chief and report about that man. In the game, as you move through the wasteland, you will encounter a lot of enemies ranging from feral dogs, super mutants, centaurs, robots, drones and other ghostly creatures that have developed because of radiations. You will also encounter raiders and other normal enemies too. You can play the game in the first person or the third person view but the third person view is quite odd and difficult to control. Combat is not one of the strongest point of the game but still you will enjoy it. The Vault-Tec Assisted Targeting System VATS is a unique feature. It lets you pause a game between combat, and allows you to target specific parts of the enemies and you can watch the action unfold in slow motion. There is a lot of things you can do, like hit the limb to slow down an enemy or blow his head off. You get a lot of weapons in the game and you will have to take into account the condition of each weapon. If it gets bad, you have to get it repaired. If you drink scotch or wine, you will have some disorienting visual effects. You will have to pick locks using a torque mechanism, you have to hack terminals using a mini game password puzzle. In the course of the game, you pick up various schematic using which you can make your own weapons provided you have all the parts. You can even purchase an apartment and decorate it whatever however you want.

In the course of the game, you will be encounter various situation like helping a group of soldiers kill a super mutant. Each weapon has its unique feel and sound. The graphics of the game is great and it ran well on my Geforce 8600GT. The Wasteland looks superb and has been beautifully designed. Each location that you will go will have its unique look and feel. The missile effects are nice and developers have taken effect of the details. The AI of the game is pretty decent. Most of the time, you will be dealing with mutants and creatures and they will come right at you. Then there are Raiders, who will attack you but will try to run away if you fire a few bullets at them.

The sound if the game are good. In wandering through the wasteland, you will pick up a few radio stations which might play a few songs or a commentary which will give you more information. You can turn the radio off and then things will be quiet and you can hear the sound of wind and occasional sound of animals which may be roaming. The sound of the characters are unique and there styles and accent is good.

Fallout 3 produces an engaging and creative experience which you will enjoy. The game has a superb story line and a great replay value. You might want to play the game one more time and try out a lot of things in different ways and see what the outcome is. It offers so much freedom that you can even have a good time exploring the wasteland which is waiting to be explored. All the characters you will encounter in the game are funny and engaging. There are a few minor glitches that can be ignored considering how much the game offers. Overall, one of the best PC games of last year.

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