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mrstickball on 12 November 2008
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51hrs and 30 minutes to complete it for me.

Level 20

70-80% of side-quests completed (as per achievements)

4/20 Bobbleheads found

90-92 locations/areas discovered (just short of the achievement)

Still have a few achievements to get, as I scored 650/1000 on my first playthrough:

  • Agitha's Song
  • Nuka Cola Challenge (20/30 bottles collected...Not bad for getting 0 bottles in the shipments)
  • All 3 neutral alignment achievements (Level 8/14/20)
  • All 3 evil alignment achievements (Level 8/14/20)
  • You've Got to Shoot Them In The Head
  • Weaponsmith (have 1 more blueprint to get)
  • Data Miner
  • One Man Scouting Party
  • The Bigger They Are
  • Yes, I collect Dolls
  • Vault-Tec CEO

Overall Impressions:

It's my GOTY candidate. Bethsada upped the ante in every imaginable way with Fallout 3 compared to Oblivion (and I've spent somewhere around 250+ hours on Oblivion). VATS is revolutionary in design, and I hope more games and developers take the idea behind VATS (turn based strategy in a real-time setting) and flesh it out. It's not perfect, but absolutely revolutionary. After 51hrs, I was still giddy each time I fired up VATS to kill someone.

Weapon balance was suprisingly good. Even at level 20, and completing some of the last side-quests before beating the game, I was still switching and using the 10mm Submachine Gun, and Chinese AK once in awhile - which speaks volumes about how well balanced weapons are, and still needed late in the game.

NPCs are pretty smart compared to Oblivion, but still have the weaknesses - I was able to trap quite a few and butcher them before they got to me. Not to mention, sidekick NPCs are pretty smart, at times.

Pros & Cons:

Pros:

  • VATS is amazing, and a must-see for any person doubting how you can hybridize turn based RPGs and real-time games
  • Story and dialogue options are near Mass Effect (ie, awesome) levels
  • Weapons are fun, balanced, and strategic - I only used the Fat Man during the very last 2 hours of the game
  • Dungeon/Area design is a huge step up from Oblivion - far more variation
  • As per Oblivion, game is huge and very open ended. Even if you cheated to get the Karma achievements, I'd expect no less than 60hrs to 1000/1000 the game - If not 80hrs. Of course, Karma achievements typically require 3 playthroughs.
  • Fawkes, post-Raven Rock is the best sidekick in the history of gaming. He's litterally a gamebreaker, in a good way.

Cons:

  • Overworld is, at times, bland and depressing. I mean, it's a post-apocalyptic wasteland, but the color pallete is horribly bland.
  • Caps can be, at times, hard to come by.
  • Some quests (such as Big Trouble in Big Town) have borked options - Such as, you cannot fix robots to defend the town, as you can't find them in the junkyard.
  • General Oblivion-esque glitches are prevalent. NPCs act atrocious at times, and some get stuck in odd areas.
  • Game froze 3-4 times on me throughout my 50hrs of playing (X360, game not installed. 20GB and pre-Falcon)

 



Back from the dead, I'm afraid.