Fallout 3
DEVELOPER:	Bethesda
PUBLISHER:	Bethesda
SYSTEMS:	PC, Xbox 360, PS3

Fallout 3

I want to start with a disclaimer here: I have not played the first two Fallout games. I know about them, and I've read about them, but I have not played them. Therefore, you'll be getting a review from - and for - a gamer just coming into the series. With that out of the way, let's get this thing underway.

Fallout 3 has been negatively tagged as Oblivion with guns. That's not really very accurate, because if you went by the unfamiliar landscape and piecemeal construction, it's more like Morrowind with guns. I'm kidding, but it does somewhat earn the former designation. I know that when I found my first subway to enter, my first thought honestly was "this is like finding an Alyed Ruin!" Not that that's a bad thing. Oblivion was our 2006 Game of the Year, and it still holds up today. Of course, Fallout's theme and gameplay pegs it for a much more mature audience.

We'll start with the theme. Civilization at large has been destroyed in World War 3, mainly between the U.S. and China, and all that's left is an irradiated wasteland. You begin as a baby, growing up in a Vault-tec vault, creating your character as you go. Once you reach the climax of this opening sequence, you exit the vault and are given the Oblivion treatment with all of that free space sprawling out before you, beckoning for exploration. That 'free space' is the Capital Wasteland, formerly Washington, D.C., and it's not free, per say. It's going to take a strong will to survive out there, and that's going to take VATS.

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