I've got some pretty strong nostalgia for clearing the school and the supermarket. Crossing the river and entering the metro was a strange and dangerous mystery.
I would say that Fallout 3 is the kind of game that left a significant mark when it was released - both in terms of lore and gameplay controversies and in propelling the franchise forward. Regardless of how it stacks up against other games, it’s undeniable that Fallout 3 has had a considerable impact on the history of games released since then, especially those from Bethesda.
I spent a ridiculous amount of time playing this game in high school 2009-2012. It was such a fun and immersive game and I’ve never experienced anything like it since. I remember feeling such a sense of wonder when I first arrived in the wasteland.
I'm one of those odd balls who likes 1 most and 3 second and I'm glad you touched on most of what made me like 3 so much. Absolutely people complain about the boring colours and lack of visual variety but that to me was the point, it's the only one in the series that truly felt like a post nuclear apocalypse to me. The grim landscape is what makes every little point of intrigue stand out and every time you leave a settlement, you get that lone wanderer in a wasteland with a dog at your side and the radio keeping you company feeling, and when you see a blade of grass growing somewhere it's like a special moment (until you find a place like Oasis). Starting out as a toddler reading your SPECIAL book is also such a cool way to make your character and do the tutorial. Then the unmarked interactions are the icing on the cake - this is the only game where I scoured the entire map going to every little triangle that popped up on my radar because every little location I found was interesting and rewarding in some way. Never did feel that way with the rest of the games.
Totally agree, so much love for this game but the atmosphere it had in the wasteland made it feel much more like an apocalypse setting. The ‘boring colours’ are what it should be like, the following fallout games have been too vibrant for me in comparison with Fallout 3. It just nailed the whole post apocalyptic vibe.
I love this game. The debate around which is the best Fallout gets super toxic and while I think, objectively, New Vegas is a better role playing game, the vitriol with which people attack 3 in NV's defense is unwarranted. Bethesda had to build this from scratch and did an amazing job. The tone seems a little different to the isometric originals but I think they totally nailed it. I like the relatively small scope. The sickly green hues. The story revolving around something so simple but fundamental (clean water). It all feels very precise. I even like the level cap. Did a playthrough recently and it was nothing but joy from start to finish in what was a very tight, curated experience. The exploration, random encounters, quests, they all feel very personal. NV is more ambitious in many ways but for me, tonally, it's a little messy in places. Don't get me wrong, if I could only have one from here on out, it'd likely be NV. But I don't think people should dismiss the fact that NV built on a great foundation provided by 3. They're very different games and both are great for what they did at their resepective times and under their respective circumstances. Both should be celebrated!
Still remember emerging from the vault moment, incredible :-) Slightly behind KOTOR big moment for me, but still one of the most memorable moment in games
A simple fix for F3's ending for me was always to simply have the control room flood with *water* and not radiation. Not only is it slightly poetic, but it makes sense none of your companions will do it.
tbf it is mentioned that when its shut, its bulletproof glass and you are locked in there it is a one way trip, plus the concussive force that knocks you and or sarah out. I personally enjoy the ending as its very good thematic messages of sacrifice, and as well brings the full story circle, only thing id change really with Broken Steel is simply put if you have a companion enter the chamber, they're gone, you can't recruit them anymore. Then again does feel like a weird thing everyone brings up when a lot of stories have that heroic moment that could be done by anyone else in the party.
VATS is an important part of Fallout and they method they implemented it in Fallout 3 was groundbreaking. The game up to that point was isometric and turn based and fans were (very justifiably) concerned the game was going to Oblivion with guns or just a FPS. As one of those fans the VATS system bridged the gap.
I just want to say, that I consider F3 intro one of the greatest of all time. It's nothing flashy, but it represents the tone of the universe perfectly. It also gives me the chills when the camera gets out of the bus and the song starts echoing amidst destroyed Washington... PS: I just finished this game (for the fourth time in total, first time being at its premiere) 3 weeks ago, what a coincidence 😊
If anyone wants to play Fallout 3 again on PC, A Tale of Two Wastelands comes HIGHLY recommended. There are tutorials on TH-cam that make installation easy, no computer skills needed.
I played it 2 weeks ago, and TTW isn’t mandatory at all. It’s still possible to play without TTW. I ran a playthrough with a bunch of mods from a guide, mainly for fixing the damn game, but also a couple of nice addons. The modding community has been revived since 2022, even though Bethesda latest update broke the launcher, and a downgrader is needed.
The atmosphere and side stories make this game incredible. It feels like every bit added has not only reacted to the apocalyptic environment, but many are done so in a way that is unique to how they see the world
another good thing which im sure some find tedious is the metro. Dividing the exterior cells inside DC through rubbel and the metro connections which i think was done because of hardware and memory limitations make DC feel much larger than Boston in f4 and makes the DC metro and the maps integral to the game while the MBTA stations are just individual dungeons more or less
I absolutely LOVED the metros in 3. They were my favorite part of the game - the whole atmosphere is just great. And youre very fragile when you travel through the first time so it gives that feeling of hiding from bigger threats. I can see why people might find them tedious or confusing but i really miss them in later games. Metro 2033 kindof scratches that itch but the vibe is a little different
I recently started this after beating 4, only having played for a little before and that's very confusing to me it feels the game is telling me I can't really go most places in the beginning like there aren't many open areas in this open world game and you have to use the tunnels to advance (before you can use fast traveling anyways)
The step-out moment coming out of the vault at the beginning is simply fantastic! You can see that so many other games have tried to emulate that, like Zelda BotW.
The Karma system is flawed, for sure, but the fact that the most Evil thing you can do in the game, according to the Karma system, is to crush Moira's spirits and her dreams of writing the Wasteland Survival Guide. It has a larger Evil Karma score than blowing up Megaton.
And then you hand out a single bottle of purified water and instantly become Wasteland Jesus again. And for giving away a single bottle of water a group of evil-aligned mercenaries hunt you down forever...
Great review! I love this game and I'm glad you mentioned that Fallout 3 revitalized the franchise. I understand the move from isometric CRPG to FPS was pretty jarring, but I think a lot of classic Fallout fans seem to forget the franchise was dying, if not dead, before Bethesda acquired it. The IP was in limbo because Interplay was collapsing and we weren't getting another game. Fallout 3 was what D&D nerds like myself call a critical death save lol.
For a bit of context, what was hard was that it wasn't just FO that was moving away from turn-based at the time, it was every genre that used to have turn-based options moving to be wholly action, RTS, RTwP because everybody was on the Diablo kick. Up until Shadowrun Returns and Wasteland 2 more or less, if you didn't or couldn't play action games you were mostly looking at JRPGs or a few indie folks like Spiderweb. Doesn't excuse the people who were outright hateful in response, but it did genuinely suck for a bit. (I'm in the "can't play action stuff" camp for various physical reasons, so there was a long while I mostly just played Flash games in large part because almost nobody was making a major PC game I could successfully play.)
@@Roderick720 Yeah, I'm now grateful for how things are today, because now everybody who likes every type of RPG has tons of high-quality options. And having Wasteland 2 and 3 come out took the sting out of the FO switch, too.
I remember that. Interplay canceled a few games, ended up closing down, and sold the Fallout license. It looked very bleak for a while there. When Bethesda released Fallout 3, I was thrilled and truly loved the game. Have to say, the hysterical attacks on F3 from No Mutants Allowed (at one time THE place on the interwebs for the Fallout community) was disheartening. Yeah change is difficult, but what matters is the soul of the franchise survived.
I thought this was just gonna be a review of the one game, but it’s actually kind of a history lesson of the franchise, which explains the length of the video. I really appreciate that as a 40+ Fallout fan who grew up with it. GG Mort! 👍
22:25 I do feel WotR did this really well to. You can talk the villian down but it requires specific detail and some tough checks, because it should be very very hard to make someone give up on their lifes work.
It's insane, but in an era of open world games where everything is procedurely and/or randomly generated, I have come to tremendously respect what used to be one of the most hated aspects of Fallout 3: The Metro Tunnels of DC. Every one of those tunnels and caverns was handcrafted by the developers. Every single one. And now that I know what it's like to explore even larger environments that were *not* I have a newfound respect and appreciation for those damn metros. It's amazing how time changes our perception of things.
This game took over my life when I was younger. I was 12 when it came out and it blew my mind. Still does to this day. I don’t think any game besides Skyrim has had such an impact on me. Love fallout 3, glad to see it getting the praise it deserves.
As someone who has played all the Fallout games, including 1 and 2 from pretty much launch.. F3 is my favorite (might be fave game of all time honestly).. and it comes down exactly what you mentioned. From the first time I started playing these games, it was the game world that drew me above anything else.. and Fallout 3 immerses you into that world better than any others. The freedom to explore and just wander the wastes, finding all of these random situations just calls to me more than Vegas' more clear cut story line.. Yes F3 doesnt have the faction system, but personally I like that more considering you do feel more like a Lone Wanderer without all that added items (note, Vegas is still amazing, but for me its 3rd after F3 and F1. )
Rivet City is still one of my favorite locations in terms of design to this day. This game just has that special something that makes you return to it every once in a while.
Despite its jank and unsatisfying ending before the DLC, it's a masterful restructuring of a franchise's genre and push to a new generation of gamers. Great to hear you enjoyed the experience; it would have been so sad to have spent a week to only be disappointed. :)
In my opinion this game is just a masterpiece, it has some flaws for sure, but as a whole is one of my top 3 games of all time. New Vegas is also great and ranks highly for me, but it didn’t manage to capture the wasteland atmosphere that fallout 3 got so right. I wish I could experience this game for the first time all over again…
Awesome video bro. Both 3 and NV are in my top games of all time. For a while i couldn't remember what was the thing I liked more about Fallout 3 compared to NV (I prefer NV overall). Until I picked up this year and remembered, the exploration. I remembered that I spent hours upon hours in Fallout 3 just wandering the wasteland. No goal, sometimes not even having active quests, just wandering around and seeing what I could find. And you hit the nail on the head in that section. Again. Great video.
The best way to play this game in 2024 is tale of two wastelands. You can mod the skills and perks to be exactly like FO3. The game is far more stable when its ported to new vegas, plus you get all the best new vegas mods. And ironsights too
TTW is an amazing experience. Playing with new vegas mechanics and even mods. There's only minor hiccups with the story but its relatively easy to ignore. The Lone Wanderer and the Courier are like 98% compatible to be the same person. And playing with all those new animation mods that Vegas has now. COmpletely new gun animations. Animations for skinning animals, opening doors, even just picking up items. It's incredible
I couldn't get this game to run on my pc, when I used the game on my Steam account. This is despite trying to trouble shoot it for quite a while. I'm glad to see that wasn't the case for you, Mort.
Have to thank you on this one. While I enjoyed it on the 360 back in the day, I'd given up on this game because it kept crashing on me for PC but your first impressions video inspired me to try troubleshooting it again and while it's only been 8 hours played so far, I have yet to crash. No idea why I couldn't find the solution online before, it was pretty easy to research this time around. Edit: and I jinxed it. Crashed less than an 1 hour into my next session.
Thanks for the video. I think the progression system works what this game is. You either become the paragon, or terror of the wasteland. You might not replay it, so you can really commit to the role. Onward to 400k. All glory to the algorithm.
This, and Oblivion was peak inmersion in late 2000s, good memories. Also fyi, there was a mod to cannibalize the baby from the Pitt dlc. Very inmersive too
Upon the topic of “Andale”. Also, they do a fair bit of dialogue based lore building. So the man who confronts you in Andale will mock their victims one saying “Don’t kill me, I have a child in rivet city.” And you go there and you find a unruly child and uncaring mother who’s father “ran away and got himself killed”
it wasnt just your movement speed and enemies movement speeds it was literally everything including your firerate with weapons and swing speed with melees everything was faster due to your framerate
Its SO NICE seeing a mostly positive review of this game that isnt an "in defense of" videos that shit on New Vegas because FaLlOuT 3 Is BeTtEr BrO tRuSt Me! I love this game so much and always pick it up again eventually and its so refreshing to see this kind of video
FO3 was the very first RPG I ever played, I got it pretty close to release on the XB360 as a birthday present. I remember having a lot of fun with it. I can’t say that I enjoy it today as much as I did back then, I'm a lot more cynical when it comes to games and I’ve played a lot I like better but I respect it for what it was and what it was trying to live up to.
Fallout 3 is one of my favorite game of all times, and I've played the hell out of it, on Xbox 360 and PC with mods. When I tried to play it again after some years, it just didn't run well enough, but there was no crash log or anything else. NV has crash logs now, thanx to Buffout, and you can find the causes for crashes, but it never got ported to Fallout 3. Modding is practically dead, not like NV.
I think you really nailed how Fallout 3 makes it fairly easy to have a "perfect" game (especially after the Brotherhood of Steel DLC): you can build a character who is good at everything, and the lack of factions means that there aren't a lot of mutually exclusive questlines. Individual quests offer interesting choices (or at least comically evil ones) but the impact of those choices doesn't have the same cascading effect it does in games like "Outer Worlds" or "Baldur's Gate 3".
As to the installation of Tale of Two Wastelands, The Best of Times has an easy guide; it took me about an hour overall on my older laptop. IMHO, it turns two of the greatest games into the absolute GOAT. Especially with a few more integration mods - TTW Reputations, Speech Checks, and Benny Humbles You And Seals Your Stuff.
Good and insightful review. Probably helps that I agree with you about most points :) Except perhaps that I think BGS games are deliberately treating roleplaying as something you actually do - more so than most RPGs that seem to focus on numbers on a sheet - or a selection of predetermined dialogue choices. I know it's one of their primary design philosophies to allow as close to complete freedom as possible, and that CAN ironically make them feel less about traditional roleplaying, because we're so used to stats and elaborate dialogue trees as the de facto representatives of choice. I find myself much less hindered when trying to be "a specific someone" in a game like FO3 - because it's so exceptionally open to a wide variety of playstyles and approaches to whatever quest objective you're focused on. Still, as with any BGS game - it's full of overly streamlined mechanics and balance issues. The less said about the writing, the better :)
i replayed this for the first time since i first played it on the xbox 360 at game release and its a great game but surprisingly shorter than i remember. which isn't a bad thing
I know for a fact a lot of the new Vegas die hards that hate FO3 haven’t fully explored the capitol wasteland there is so much cool exploration to do in the metros and DC ruins. I was trying to find a yt video on a specific area and there wasn’t a single video about it. And I had only been there mabe one other time in my hundreds of play throughs.
The thing that drives me back to fallout 3 the most is 3dog. I loved the radio in that game the music was so good. While the music hasnt really changed in the later games the radio host in 4 is so insufferable i never listen to it. Only in fallout 3 will i be listening to it, butcher pete starts playing so i find the nearest enemy, whip out the shish kabob and just start hackin and whackin and smackin, choppin that meat.
Huge nostalgia for Fallout 3. It can't be understated how huge the hype was for this after the massive success of Oblivion. For what it's worth, it was a step up from Oblivion's godawful moment to moment combat decisions, VATS in 3D worked better than I expected, and the world building and general level design was generally excellent, especially after the cut and paste jobs Bethesda was becoming known for. Overall, it's not better than New Vegas or the isometric titles, it has plenty of issues, but it isn't Fallout 4 and it isn't Fallout 76. it isn't by any means bad despite being very rough around the edges.. While it doesn't particularly hold up to modern gaming expectations, I recently 100%'d it after having played hundreds of hours of it on release. I enjoyed myself when it came out and I enjoyed myself recently - I consider it a big win in the history of Post Apocalyptic video games in general.
Not unpopular in my opinion plus New Vegas wouldn't exist without this game to build it upon but so many gamers seem to trash this game and herald New Vegas as genius as if that game was built from the ground up.
My dudes... I haven't played a single fallout game. But! I feel like I am getting it now. The first few games were about how would humanity rebuild itself with brotherhood, ncr, enclave and whatnot. New Vegas improved on it. " Everyone wants to rebuild civilisation but noone can agree on how". It makes so much sense with fallout games. You got fans of the originals, New Vegas, 3 and 4 and even some 76. Like every fandom loves fallout, but noone can agree why. Like damn. "Fallout, fallout never changes". Poetic justice indeed
Same... I've sunk a lot of hours into both New Vegas and 4, and I love them equally, though for somewhat different reasons. On the other hand, for me, 3 has always been the Fallout equivalent of Oblivion.. it's OK, but that's as far as it goes.
Great review, I appreciate that you focus on how Fallout 3 does an amazing job in redefining the genre of the series in some genius ways. I personally think the writing and many of the mechanics are terrible, I am firmly on the NV side of that divide, but I do enjoy the capital wastelands. I appreciate that you always break down the various systems separately.
Fallout 3 remains the only game in the series that I've ever spent any significant time with. I've dabbled with all of them, but F3 is the only one I've played and finished. Twice, in fact: once with just the core game on PS3, and once on Steam with the GOTY in 2015.
It would seem playing this game at a higher FPS helps more than it hurts, considering there is no sprint function and you aren't playing with a sprint mod. As Bethesda games go, you could play this game a second time and experience all the bugs you didn't experience during this play through lol. The grove quest peaked my interest and honestly made me think about playing this game. I've written off this game many times as a game I'll never play but that was a neat quest and I appreciate you for exploring all the decisions you can make and the morality of it
Fallout 3 has aged quite well, imo, and that's largely due to its incredible atmosphere and tone. I remember a song by Miracle of Sound about the game called Beauty Bleak, which i think nails why Fallout 3 has such a timeless vibe to it: desolate and empty as it is, there is a forlorn beauty to it all. You're wandering and picking through the bones of a fallen civilization, and there is some serenity to that. For me, anyway. 😅
Used to lose my saves all the time having to redo stuff. Then one dude in a message all way back to 2011 said: change the save´s folder to read only. :P To be honest I had problems with Stellaris, a lot newer game, and all I needed to do was to remove its exe´s admin. rights. Happens.
I know it is a cop out, as the discussion of mods usually is, but the overhaul mod Wanderer's Edition for Fallout 3 is some of the best gaming I have ever done.
While I do not fully understand what people see in Moira as a character (I always felt her writing and VO were extremely obnoxious) I'm glad Fallout 3 exists and I honestly find it to maybe my favorite Bethesda title together with Morrowind. It's very flawed, but there's a lot of love and an enormous amount of details, plus the quest design is the most fun and interesting I feel they've done since they started putting in features such as quest markers. I obviously prefer New Vegas and 1 and 2, but 3 deserves a lot of praise for what it does well. Also it's been so long that I've come to enjoy the green filter. It's arguably excessive for an open-world game, but it does help sell the mood. Fallout 4 I think looks much better for longer stretches of time, but it also conveys a different atmosphere.
I definitely prefer the f3 - fnv 3d fallout style of leveling, its an abstraction sure and might not make much sense but its better than the tedium of elder scrolls games. Like you can wear a certain type of armor or block with a shield for the entire game pretty much and not reach 100 skill with it, and the best way to actually level up crafting skills is just to spam shit out like iron daggers and the perks system is an even worse system. Its gated by player levels even though a lot is just flat stat increases to damage or something or lock picking of hacking when the skills system gives players more freedom to rush certain skills for their character
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I've got some pretty strong nostalgia for clearing the school and the supermarket. Crossing the river and entering the metro was a strange and dangerous mystery.
I would say that Fallout 3 is the kind of game that left a significant mark when it was released - both in terms of lore and gameplay controversies and in propelling the franchise forward. Regardless of how it stacks up against other games, it’s undeniable that Fallout 3 has had a considerable impact on the history of games released since then, especially those from Bethesda.
Very well said!
Well said. Playing Fallout 3 when it was the newest Fallout game is a completely different experience than playing it now.
I spent a ridiculous amount of time playing this game in high school 2009-2012. It was such a fun and immersive game and I’ve never experienced anything like it since. I remember feeling such a sense of wonder when I first arrived in the wasteland.
I'm one of those odd balls who likes 1 most and 3 second and I'm glad you touched on most of what made me like 3 so much. Absolutely people complain about the boring colours and lack of visual variety but that to me was the point, it's the only one in the series that truly felt like a post nuclear apocalypse to me. The grim landscape is what makes every little point of intrigue stand out and every time you leave a settlement, you get that lone wanderer in a wasteland with a dog at your side and the radio keeping you company feeling, and when you see a blade of grass growing somewhere it's like a special moment (until you find a place like Oasis). Starting out as a toddler reading your SPECIAL book is also such a cool way to make your character and do the tutorial.
Then the unmarked interactions are the icing on the cake - this is the only game where I scoured the entire map going to every little triangle that popped up on my radar because every little location I found was interesting and rewarding in some way. Never did feel that way with the rest of the games.
Totally agree, so much love for this game but the atmosphere it had in the wasteland made it feel much more like an apocalypse setting. The ‘boring colours’ are what it should be like, the following fallout games have been too vibrant for me in comparison with Fallout 3. It just nailed the whole post apocalyptic vibe.
I love this game. The debate around which is the best Fallout gets super toxic and while I think, objectively, New Vegas is a better role playing game, the vitriol with which people attack 3 in NV's defense is unwarranted.
Bethesda had to build this from scratch and did an amazing job. The tone seems a little different to the isometric originals but I think they totally nailed it. I like the relatively small scope. The sickly green hues. The story revolving around something so simple but fundamental (clean water). It all feels very precise. I even like the level cap. Did a playthrough recently and it was nothing but joy from start to finish in what was a very tight, curated experience. The exploration, random encounters, quests, they all feel very personal.
NV is more ambitious in many ways but for me, tonally, it's a little messy in places. Don't get me wrong, if I could only have one from here on out, it'd likely be NV. But I don't think people should dismiss the fact that NV built on a great foundation provided by 3. They're very different games and both are great for what they did at their resepective times and under their respective circumstances. Both should be celebrated!
The environment in this game is fantastic and was incredibly immersive! Amazing memories playing fo3
Still remember emerging from the vault moment, incredible :-) Slightly behind KOTOR big moment for me, but still one of the most memorable moment in games
A simple fix for F3's ending for me was always to simply have the control room flood with *water* and not radiation. Not only is it slightly poetic, but it makes sense none of your companions will do it.
tbf it is mentioned that when its shut, its bulletproof glass and you are locked in there it is a one way trip, plus the concussive force that knocks you and or sarah out. I personally enjoy the ending as its very good thematic messages of sacrifice, and as well brings the full story circle, only thing id change really with Broken Steel is simply put if you have a companion enter the chamber, they're gone, you can't recruit them anymore. Then again does feel like a weird thing everyone brings up when a lot of stories have that heroic moment that could be done by anyone else in the party.
Mort…Mort never changes.
How long were you cooking that up? 😂
..shouldn't change...you mean, right?
Good enough for me
fallout 3's atmosphere, unmatched
VATS is an important part of Fallout and they method they implemented it in Fallout 3 was groundbreaking. The game up to that point was isometric and turn based and fans were (very justifiably) concerned the game was going to Oblivion with guns or just a FPS. As one of those fans the VATS system bridged the gap.
Fallout 3 has always been my absolute favorite in the franchise. It's not the best by far, but I adore that game.
I think it has the best prologue/tutorial of any game
RIP our comrades that played Anchorage on too high a difficulty for them
I pour a little of every nuka cola out to respect the fallen
I just want to say, that I consider F3 intro one of the greatest of all time. It's nothing flashy, but it represents the tone of the universe perfectly. It also gives me the chills when the camera gets out of the bus and the song starts echoing amidst destroyed Washington...
PS: I just finished this game (for the fourth time in total, first time being at its premiere) 3 weeks ago, what a coincidence 😊
If anyone wants to play Fallout 3 again on PC, A Tale of Two Wastelands comes HIGHLY recommended. There are tutorials on TH-cam that make installation easy, no computer skills needed.
I really wish the game was easier to mod and play without TTW.
I played it 2 weeks ago, and TTW isn’t mandatory at all.
It’s still possible to play without TTW.
I ran a playthrough with a bunch of mods from a guide, mainly for fixing the damn game, but also a couple of nice addons. The modding community has been revived since 2022, even though Bethesda latest update broke the launcher, and a downgrader is needed.
The atmosphere and side stories make this game incredible. It feels like every bit added has not only reacted to the apocalyptic environment, but many are done so in a way that is unique to how they see the world
another good thing which im sure some find tedious is the metro. Dividing the exterior cells inside DC through rubbel and the metro connections which i think was done because of hardware and memory limitations make DC feel much larger than Boston in f4 and makes the DC metro and the maps integral to the game while the MBTA stations are just individual dungeons more or less
I hated the metros the first time I played but grew to love them in later plays.
I absolutely LOVED the metros in 3. They were my favorite part of the game - the whole atmosphere is just great. And youre very fragile when you travel through the first time so it gives that feeling of hiding from bigger threats.
I can see why people might find them tedious or confusing but i really miss them in later games. Metro 2033 kindof scratches that itch but the vibe is a little different
I recently started this after beating 4, only having played for a little before and that's very confusing to me it feels the game is telling me I can't really go most places in the beginning like there aren't many open areas in this open world game and you have to use the tunnels to advance (before you can use fast traveling anyways)
The step-out moment coming out of the vault at the beginning is simply fantastic! You can see that so many other games have tried to emulate that, like Zelda BotW.
The Karma system is flawed, for sure, but the fact that the most Evil thing you can do in the game, according to the Karma system, is to crush Moira's spirits and her dreams of writing the Wasteland Survival Guide. It has a larger Evil Karma score than blowing up Megaton.
And then you hand out a single bottle of purified water and instantly become Wasteland Jesus again. And for giving away a single bottle of water a group of evil-aligned mercenaries hunt you down forever...
Great review! I love this game and I'm glad you mentioned that Fallout 3 revitalized the franchise. I understand the move from isometric CRPG to FPS was pretty jarring, but I think a lot of classic Fallout fans seem to forget the franchise was dying, if not dead, before Bethesda acquired it. The IP was in limbo because Interplay was collapsing and we weren't getting another game. Fallout 3 was what D&D nerds like myself call a critical death save lol.
For a bit of context, what was hard was that it wasn't just FO that was moving away from turn-based at the time, it was every genre that used to have turn-based options moving to be wholly action, RTS, RTwP because everybody was on the Diablo kick. Up until Shadowrun Returns and Wasteland 2 more or less, if you didn't or couldn't play action games you were mostly looking at JRPGs or a few indie folks like Spiderweb. Doesn't excuse the people who were outright hateful in response, but it did genuinely suck for a bit.
(I'm in the "can't play action stuff" camp for various physical reasons, so there was a long while I mostly just played Flash games in large part because almost nobody was making a major PC game I could successfully play.)
@@JeysieC That's fair. CRPGs went through a slump for little while there.
@@Roderick720 Yeah, I'm now grateful for how things are today, because now everybody who likes every type of RPG has tons of high-quality options. And having Wasteland 2 and 3 come out took the sting out of the FO switch, too.
I remember that. Interplay canceled a few games, ended up closing down, and sold the Fallout license. It looked very bleak for a while there. When Bethesda released Fallout 3, I was thrilled and truly loved the game. Have to say, the hysterical attacks on F3 from No Mutants Allowed (at one time THE place on the interwebs for the Fallout community) was disheartening. Yeah change is difficult, but what matters is the soul of the franchise survived.
I thought this was just gonna be a review of the one game, but it’s actually kind of a history lesson of the franchise, which explains the length of the video. I really appreciate that as a 40+ Fallout fan who grew up with it. GG Mort! 👍
22:25 I do feel WotR did this really well to. You can talk the villian down but it requires specific detail and some tough checks, because it should be very very hard to make someone give up on their lifes work.
One of my fav games of all time thanks for the review!
This was my first Fallout. Such a great game! I really need to go back and re play it
That's some quick turnaround time from the preview video, Mort. Hope it was a good use of your alone time!
It's insane, but in an era of open world games where everything is procedurely and/or randomly generated, I have come to tremendously respect what used to be one of the most hated aspects of Fallout 3: The Metro Tunnels of DC.
Every one of those tunnels and caverns was handcrafted by the developers. Every single one. And now that I know what it's like to explore even larger environments that were *not* I have a newfound respect and appreciation for those damn metros. It's amazing how time changes our perception of things.
So glad you got around to this one Mort, it indeed serves as a very important piece of gaming history 🎉
Fun watching a review of something I’ve beaten for a change!
This game took over my life when I was younger. I was 12 when it came out and it blew my mind. Still does to this day. I don’t think any game besides Skyrim has had such an impact on me. Love fallout 3, glad to see it getting the praise it deserves.
Bro's backlog is afraid of him !! He's just killing it. Love your channel !
glad you reviewed this bro. this was the first fallout i played back in the day and i was scared shitless after leaving the vault.
IMO Tale of Two Wastelands is the best way to play Fallout 3.
God I love this game so much. No other game holds such a special place in my heart like fallout 3.
Amazing... I'm a long time Elder Scrolls fan and I literally just started this today
Great review. Fallout 3 was the first one I played and I loved it. Watching this makes me wanna play it again lol. Maybe when I’m done with Tsushima
This was by far the best Fallout game imo
How would you rank the fallout games ?
I think the art style is the best and most consistent its been in the series.
A 90 minute review of Fallout 3 in 2024! I am blessed!!
As someone who has played all the Fallout games, including 1 and 2 from pretty much launch.. F3 is my favorite (might be fave game of all time honestly).. and it comes down exactly what you mentioned. From the first time I started playing these games, it was the game world that drew me above anything else.. and Fallout 3 immerses you into that world better than any others. The freedom to explore and just wander the wastes, finding all of these random situations just calls to me more than Vegas' more clear cut story line.. Yes F3 doesnt have the faction system, but personally I like that more considering you do feel more like a Lone Wanderer without all that added items (note, Vegas is still amazing, but for me its 3rd after F3 and F1. )
The sheer amount of quality content you produce is incredible man. Easily one of my favorites.
Rivet City is still one of my favorite locations in terms of design to this day. This game just has that special something that makes you return to it every once in a while.
Maybe in concept but the execution was eugh
Oh heck to the yeah!
1 long video from Morty babyyyy
I also enjoyed so much the alien DLC. It felt refreshing and so intersting to play
Man that was a great video, puts the game in a positive light without ignoring it's faults. Very entertaining commentary too.
Loved this epic adventure and with such great gaming memories of a time when i actually had time to devote to it
Despite its jank and unsatisfying ending before the DLC, it's a masterful restructuring of a franchise's genre and push to a new generation of gamers. Great to hear you enjoyed the experience; it would have been so sad to have spent a week to only be disappointed. :)
In my opinion this game is just a masterpiece, it has some flaws for sure, but as a whole is one of my top 3 games of all time. New Vegas is also great and ranks highly for me, but it didn’t manage to capture the wasteland atmosphere that fallout 3 got so right. I wish I could experience this game for the first time all over again…
Awesome video bro. Both 3 and NV are in my top games of all time. For a while i couldn't remember what was the thing I liked more about Fallout 3 compared to NV (I prefer NV overall). Until I picked up this year and remembered, the exploration. I remembered that I spent hours upon hours in Fallout 3 just wandering the wasteland. No goal, sometimes not even having active quests, just wandering around and seeing what I could find. And you hit the nail on the head in that section. Again. Great video.
The best way to play this game in 2024 is tale of two wastelands. You can mod the skills and perks to be exactly like FO3. The game is far more stable when its ported to new vegas, plus you get all the best new vegas mods. And ironsights too
TTW is an amazing experience. Playing with new vegas mechanics and even mods. There's only minor hiccups with the story but its relatively easy to ignore. The Lone Wanderer and the Courier are like 98% compatible to be the same person.
And playing with all those new animation mods that Vegas has now. COmpletely new gun animations. Animations for skinning animals, opening doors, even just picking up items. It's incredible
I couldn't get this game to run on my pc, when I used the game on my Steam account. This is despite trying to trouble shoot it for quite a while. I'm glad to see that wasn't the case for you, Mort.
Have to thank you on this one. While I enjoyed it on the 360 back in the day, I'd given up on this game because it kept crashing on me for PC but your first impressions video inspired me to try troubleshooting it again and while it's only been 8 hours played so far, I have yet to crash. No idea why I couldn't find the solution online before, it was pretty easy to research this time around.
Edit: and I jinxed it. Crashed less than an 1 hour into my next session.
Thanks for the video. I think the progression system works what this game is. You either become the paragon, or terror of the wasteland. You might not replay it, so you can really commit to the role. Onward to 400k. All glory to the algorithm.
some one makes a new long form fallout 3 review every month and I'm here for each and every one of them
Thank you and have an amazing day
This, and Oblivion was peak inmersion in late 2000s, good memories.
Also fyi, there was a mod to cannibalize the baby from the Pitt dlc.
Very inmersive too
Played this on pc 10yrs ago loved it but never able to finished it. Would love to play it again someday
Upon the topic of “Andale”. Also, they do a fair bit of dialogue based lore building. So the man who confronts you in Andale will mock their victims one saying “Don’t kill me, I have a child in rivet city.” And you go there and you find a unruly child and uncaring mother who’s father “ran away and got himself killed”
Best game in the series!
it wasnt just your movement speed and enemies movement speeds it was literally everything including your firerate with weapons and swing speed with melees everything was faster due to your framerate
Fallout 3's atmosphere is perfect
The main story is so rarely talked about I had never realized it's straight out of X-men
I'm glad you got to experience one of my favorite games.
Tale of two wastelands has both a text guide and video guide to install. Can be a pain to install but worth it.
I've been looking forward to this!!!! Thankyou Mort!
Its SO NICE seeing a mostly positive review of this game that isnt an "in defense of" videos that shit on New Vegas because FaLlOuT 3 Is BeTtEr BrO tRuSt Me!
I love this game so much and always pick it up again eventually and its so refreshing to see this kind of video
Glad to hear works well on the Deck! It has replaced my PC and If Mort says it, then it’s good!
Fallout 4 and NW are sure good post-apocalyptic games but Fallout 3 is the apocalypse itself.
It's the best Fallout imo
I love fallout 3, it's a guilty pleasure.
Oblivion piqued my interest, Fallout 3 got my attention. The rest is history (ahem Skyrim)
FO3 was the very first RPG I ever played, I got it pretty close to release on the XB360 as a birthday present. I remember having a lot of fun with it. I can’t say that I enjoy it today as much as I did back then, I'm a lot more cynical when it comes to games and I’ve played a lot I like better but I respect it for what it was and what it was trying to live up to.
Fallout 3 is one of my favorite game of all times, and I've played the hell out of it, on Xbox 360 and PC with mods. When I tried to play it again after some years, it just didn't run well enough, but there was no crash log or anything else. NV has crash logs now, thanx to Buffout, and you can find the causes for crashes, but it never got ported to Fallout 3. Modding is practically dead, not like NV.
I just played this game last night... and I love it!
I think you really nailed how Fallout 3 makes it fairly easy to have a "perfect" game (especially after the Brotherhood of Steel DLC): you can build a character who is good at everything, and the lack of factions means that there aren't a lot of mutually exclusive questlines. Individual quests offer interesting choices (or at least comically evil ones) but the impact of those choices doesn't have the same cascading effect it does in games like "Outer Worlds" or "Baldur's Gate 3".
One of my favorite games of all time if i could somehow play this for the first time again i would
As to the installation of Tale of Two Wastelands, The Best of Times has an easy guide; it took me about an hour overall on my older laptop. IMHO, it turns two of the greatest games into the absolute GOAT. Especially with a few more integration mods - TTW Reputations, Speech Checks, and Benny Humbles You And Seals Your Stuff.
Good and insightful review.
Probably helps that I agree with you about most points :)
Except perhaps that I think BGS games are deliberately treating roleplaying as something you actually do - more so than most RPGs that seem to focus on numbers on a sheet - or a selection of predetermined dialogue choices.
I know it's one of their primary design philosophies to allow as close to complete freedom as possible, and that CAN ironically make them feel less about traditional roleplaying, because we're so used to stats and elaborate dialogue trees as the de facto representatives of choice.
I find myself much less hindered when trying to be "a specific someone" in a game like FO3 - because it's so exceptionally open to a wide variety of playstyles and approaches to whatever quest objective you're focused on.
Still, as with any BGS game - it's full of overly streamlined mechanics and balance issues. The less said about the writing, the better :)
Four words, Tale of Two Wastelands
i replayed this for the first time since i first played it on the xbox 360 at game release and its a great game but surprisingly shorter than i remember. which isn't a bad thing
Yeah, I think the increased movement speed didnt help on that front but I also thought it was surprisingly short
I know for a fact a lot of the new Vegas die hards that hate FO3 haven’t fully explored the capitol wasteland there is so much cool exploration to do in the metros and DC ruins. I was trying to find a yt video on a specific area and there wasn’t a single video about it. And I had only been there mabe one other time in my hundreds of play throughs.
Solid upload. I laughed at the 1 luck choice though on progression-- it wouldn't be a good rpg progression system without a dump stat.
Thank you for your hard work man, love your content
The thing that drives me back to fallout 3 the most is 3dog. I loved the radio in that game the music was so good. While the music hasnt really changed in the later games the radio host in 4 is so insufferable i never listen to it. Only in fallout 3 will i be listening to it, butcher pete starts playing so i find the nearest enemy, whip out the shish kabob and just start hackin and whackin and smackin, choppin that meat.
Huge nostalgia for Fallout 3. It can't be understated how huge the hype was for this after the massive success of Oblivion.
For what it's worth, it was a step up from Oblivion's godawful moment to moment combat decisions, VATS in 3D worked better than I expected, and the world building and general level design was generally excellent, especially after the cut and paste jobs Bethesda was becoming known for.
Overall, it's not better than New Vegas or the isometric titles, it has plenty of issues, but it isn't Fallout 4 and it isn't Fallout 76. it isn't by any means bad despite being very rough around the edges.. While it doesn't particularly hold up to modern gaming expectations, I recently 100%'d it after having played hundreds of hours of it on release. I enjoyed myself when it came out and I enjoyed myself recently - I consider it a big win in the history of Post Apocalyptic video games in general.
My favorite Fallout. The ambience and exploration is unmatched
Unpopular opinion: i enjoyed this game more than New Vegas
That is indeed and should stay an unpopular opinion
Not unpopular in my opinion plus New Vegas wouldn't exist without this game to build it upon but so many gamers seem to trash this game and herald New Vegas as genius as if that game was built from the ground up.
Same. The environment and random encounters are better.
Some People enjoyed 4 more than 3 and NV and that's okay .Have fun with what you enjoy.
If you enjoyed it, it's not an opinion
I could not agree more with your points on the gameworld. FO4 always reminded me of Oblivion: the theme-park versions of their respective franchises.
My dudes... I haven't played a single fallout game. But! I feel like I am getting it now. The first few games were about how would humanity rebuild itself with brotherhood, ncr, enclave and whatnot. New Vegas improved on it. " Everyone wants to rebuild civilisation but noone can agree on how". It makes so much sense with fallout games. You got fans of the originals, New Vegas, 3 and 4 and even some 76. Like every fandom loves fallout, but noone can agree why. Like damn. "Fallout, fallout never changes". Poetic justice indeed
the atmosphere of fallout 3 is great but honestly new vegas and 4 i love a lot more. people hate on 4 but i love it for many reasons
Same... I've sunk a lot of hours into both New Vegas and 4, and I love them equally, though for somewhat different reasons. On the other hand, for me, 3 has always been the Fallout equivalent of Oblivion.. it's OK, but that's as far as it goes.
Great review, I appreciate that you focus on how Fallout 3 does an amazing job in redefining the genre of the series in some genius ways. I personally think the writing and many of the mechanics are terrible, I am firmly on the NV side of that divide, but I do enjoy the capital wastelands. I appreciate that you always break down the various systems separately.
4:02 - Change... change never changes.
Fallout 3 remains the only game in the series that I've ever spent any significant time with. I've dabbled with all of them, but F3 is the only one I've played and finished. Twice, in fact: once with just the core game on PS3, and once on Steam with the GOTY in 2015.
It would seem playing this game at a higher FPS helps more than it hurts, considering there is no sprint function and you aren't playing with a sprint mod. As Bethesda games go, you could play this game a second time and experience all the bugs you didn't experience during this play through lol. The grove quest peaked my interest and honestly made me think about playing this game. I've written off this game many times as a game I'll never play but that was a neat quest and I appreciate you for exploring all the decisions you can make and the morality of it
great review man.
Fallout 3 has aged quite well, imo, and that's largely due to its incredible atmosphere and tone. I remember a song by Miracle of Sound about the game called Beauty Bleak, which i think nails why Fallout 3 has such a timeless vibe to it: desolate and empty as it is, there is a forlorn beauty to it all. You're wandering and picking through the bones of a fallen civilization, and there is some serenity to that.
For me, anyway. 😅
Ehhh nothing can fix the god awful writing
I like your Fallout 4 analogy. It is the only Fallout game I like playing, though.
Used to lose my saves all the time having to redo stuff. Then one dude in a message all way back to 2011 said: change the save´s folder to read only. :P
To be honest I had problems with Stellaris, a lot newer game, and all I needed to do was to remove its exe´s admin. rights. Happens.
I know it is a cop out, as the discussion of mods usually is, but the overhaul mod Wanderer's Edition for Fallout 3 is some of the best gaming I have ever done.
While I do not fully understand what people see in Moira as a character (I always felt her writing and VO were extremely obnoxious) I'm glad Fallout 3 exists and I honestly find it to maybe my favorite Bethesda title together with Morrowind. It's very flawed, but there's a lot of love and an enormous amount of details, plus the quest design is the most fun and interesting I feel they've done since they started putting in features such as quest markers.
I obviously prefer New Vegas and 1 and 2, but 3 deserves a lot of praise for what it does well. Also it's been so long that I've come to enjoy the green filter. It's arguably excessive for an open-world game, but it does help sell the mood. Fallout 4 I think looks much better for longer stretches of time, but it also conveys a different atmosphere.
I dare say I have explored Fallout 3 rather thoroughly, yet - I have never seen that mutant tree named Harold.
I definitely prefer the f3 - fnv 3d fallout style of leveling, its an abstraction sure and might not make much sense but its better than the tedium of elder scrolls games. Like you can wear a certain type of armor or block with a shield for the entire game pretty much and not reach 100 skill with it, and the best way to actually level up crafting skills is just to spam shit out like iron daggers and the perks system is an even worse system. Its gated by player levels even though a lot is just flat stat increases to damage or something or lock picking of hacking when the skills system gives players more freedom to rush certain skills for their character
Yeah. Having your skill level up by using it (as is done in games like Skyrim and the original Final Fantasy 2) can be extremely tedious and wasteful.