Fallout 3 Part 1

****WARNING, THIS MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS FOR BOTH FALOUT 3 AND FABEL 2****

READ LAST PARAGRAPH FIRST

I'm not sure whether what I'm going to write is a review or critical analysis or just ramblings about how totally bad ass Fallout 3 is. Maybe it will be alllllll those things and many more! :-D

There has been a lot of hype over this game, perhaps in part due to the fact that the first two were loved by all (I never played them but there seem to be some die hard fans) I never played the first two, I did read about the plot and got a pretty good understanding of what they were all about, story wise at least. But I can't compare Fallout 3 to them as games. From my understanding they have completely different gameplay mechanics and what not. But what I CAN compare it to (and what everyone thought it was going to be, only with guns) is Elder's Scrolls IV Oblivion. For those of you who read this that aren't gamers (That's probably only Stacey :-D) the people that made Fallout 3 also make a series called Elder's Scrolls. The most recent instalment of which looked very much like the demos that were being shown of Fallout 3, only with guns instead of swords and bows AND MY AXE! This game IS NOTHING LIKE OBLIVION! It's sooooooo much better, I've played the game for at least 20 to 25 hours (I had to fit those hours spent playing around going to the gym and getting poontang) and I have not once seen a building or area that is exactly the same as another area I'd just been in. Oblivion was HUGE but it was just filled with the same caves and dungeons over and over. Okay, I'm sick of talking about other games that aren't Fallout 3, I'll get into the story part of the game and what is so super kick ass about it. (this may be where the spoilers start)

You start off the game by being born, literally. You're looking out the eyes of a baby being born. You're crying and there is blood on the screen (because if you get blood on your eyes than it forms little droplets as if it was on a camera lens, for those of you who are stupid and don't know that) Know, this birth scene is all part of the tutorial and character building that happens over the course of your childhood up to the age of 18 or 19. First off you select what gender you are and so your father (that is a doctor and delivered you) say the different dialogue for which ever one you choose. Then you're dad is talking to you and says something like "Know, son, you're mother and I were thinking of naming you......" and then you get to fill in the name. I called my guy Jesus Spalding Jr. After I entered that in he said "Isn't that a lovely name for a beautiful baby boy :-D "

Now, I'd heard that this was how they did the character editing thing. Like, you grew up and as you did you could select all your character traits, like if you were strong or more smart or whatever (For the RPG nerds that are reading this, it's like all the other Fallout games. It uses the S.P.E.C.I.A.L system and then for your other stats like your repair skills, small gun skills, bow staff skills etc you take an exam when you turn 16 that determines what you are going to be like as a character and assigns the points to each area based on that. Of course you can change them as you see fit but I thought it was a clever way of doing it) BUT, I didn't know what they were going to do for how your player looks. It's hard to work in setting up what you look like into a believable system, so what they did was do something which seems really silly thinking about it now. Upon your birth and after you select your gender and name your father pulls down a screen and says something like "The DNA making system has determined what you're going to look like in the future, lets see whether you're going to super hot OR super not!" and then you set up what you look like. I wish real life was like this!

So, back to the story. You're born and you learn over a montage of scenes from different parts of your life that you have been born inside a nuclear bunker after doomsday. It's called a Vault, which is a stupid name for a company to call there line of nuclear bunkers, but whatever. 

As you get older you get the sense of some tension between the Vault Overseer and your father. Coming to a climax when your father escapes the Vault and the Overseer wants to kill you. I don't really understand why exactly, but I was going to have none of this shit! The Overseers daughter came in and told me that all this shit was going down and I had to escape, she also gave me a gun she stole from her dad. Anyway, she ran off an I went out trying to find my way out of what looked like the inside of a battleship while giant cockroaches attacked the guards while I made my escape (Oh yeah, for you idiots who don't know nuffin bou science and crap, radiation makes animals big and sometimes green, thought I'd just school you on that discipline of science) . I stumbled across the Overseer with some of his goons interrogating his daughter, I decided that he must be arsehole if this is what his relationship with his daughter was like. So I killed him, and his goons! Ha ha ha! I love RPGs.

The daughter got all teary eyed and went on about how I "didn't have to go that far!" I just selected the rudest things to say back to her. Liiiikkke "You're father was a tyrant, he deserves to be dead" or something like that, then I left the vault and headed out into the remnants of the world above.

Turns out this is going to be a 2 part epic, because I am sick of typing and it's late. I'll do the second part tomorrow, maybe. Also, the second part will be were the spoiler are so this part is actually safe. I'll put a note in the top telling you to read the last paragraph first. And just like a trained monkey, you should be reading this part now. Well done! Now go back and read the rest of it!