Fallout 3 - Initial Impressions
I just got Fallout 3 loaded up and running, spent a couple of hours poking around the first parts of the game, and as of right now I have to say that they've nailed it. It definitely has that Fallout feel and I'm impressed in that the first-person perspective is just as I would have imagined it when I was playing the 2-D isometric perspective from the original games. The world is disturbingly gritty, dirty and messed up. I had heard that the dark humor of the first games isn't there, and I can see that this may be the case, this game is much darker.
Not sold on the combat system just yet, and that may be an issue of dealing with the foundation the game is built on. I didn't play Oblivion, but I did play Morrowind and you can tell that the same sort of mechanics are in play. They did put in a system called VATS, and that allows you to pause time and pick out a body part to target specifically, once selected the game goes back to your character and into slow-mo. You get to watch the bullet sail to its target, and see the resulting damage. It's pretty cool, but we'll see how long that lasts. I miss the turn based mechanics of the originals. The enemy AI, so far, seems to be of the charge mentality. They just run at you until you kill them somehow.
Visually and audibly the game is great. The voice acting is good and the NPC models are eerily realistic, though I've noticed a few of them in some awkward positions where their neck bends at odd angles. The world seems to be very expansive right now, but I haven't gone too far. I've roamed out across the wasteland a few times, but I'm quickly devoured by mutated kritters. There also seems to be wide variety of paths to take, as far as playing as a good guy, a bad guy or some mixture. You get good karma and bad karma for actions, but the ramifications of this is not yet apparent. There appears to be some sort of "make-your-own-shit" portion of the game too, where-in you buy directions from vendors, find the parts and then build stuff. I only say this because the first general store you come across has a "rock-it launcher" schematic, and there seem to be a lot partsy type things laying around the landscape. Hopefully this will add a "neato" factor to the game. We'll see.