Metareview -- Fallout 3 (PC, PS3, Xbox 360)
by Ludwig Kietzmann 
{ Oct 28th 2008 at 9:55AM }
- 1UP (A): "Faults be damned, though; this is the kind of hugely ambitious game that doesn't come around very often, and when it does, you'd be a fool not to play it and enjoy the hell out of it and look forward to the day (next-next-gen?) when the fidelity of open-world RPGs takes another big step closer to the uncanny valley's far side."
- Eurogamer (100/100): "Despite so many worries, Fallout 3 almost effortlessly succeeds in its central aim of reviving a much-loved brand to appeal to the vast majority of players. It's a thrilling, all-consuming experience that will absorb you for weeks, whether you're attracted by the action, the adventure, or the role-playing, as you fall in love with the relentless excitement, incredible atmosphere, sense of place and sheer choice."
- Worth Playing (95/100): "In the end, Fallout 3 feels like a Fallout game, and that is absolutely the highest compliment. Despite the changes, much of the charm and fun of the franchise remains intact, and despite the similarities to Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion, I never felt that I was playing anything but a Fallout game."
- Giant Bomb (80/100): "It's unfortunate that Fallout 3 is saddled with so many little- and medium-sized issues, because they get in the way of what's an otherwise fantastic experience. The world is well-realized and full of options. It'll be a struggle in spots, but I'm willing to guess that most people will be able to overlook a lot of the game's problems and still have a very good time exploring the irradiated wasteland formerly known as Washington DC."
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
theturtle363 @ Oct 28th 2008 9:58AM
saw that coming
ronin13 @ Oct 28th 2008 10:31AM
Well there goes another 60 bucks....
ExMcCloud @ Oct 28th 2008 12:57PM
You mean 80 bux....When u see the Lunch pale special edition your gonna buy it...Period.
fischju @ Oct 28th 2008 10:04AM
Review wha? My Survival Edition just got dropped off, I'm a little hysterical, don't expect to hear from me for a couple of days.
ZaxCG2 @ Oct 28th 2008 10:53AM
Make sure to leave the feeding tube in your throat. Also, wear eye-protection when stepping into the sun after completion of the game.
(Mocking you because I don't have the game)
Cynics @ Oct 28th 2008 10:16AM
so better than Halo than?
xFenixKnightx @ Oct 28th 2008 10:10AM
No, different.
And its *then, not than.
/Grammar Police out
Cynics @ Oct 28th 2008 10:18AM
My grammar is atrocious because I did not attend college and played too many video games. I also kill babies and vote republican.
superklye @ Oct 28th 2008 10:21AM
Are you joking, Fenix? "Than" is used for comparing one item to another.
"X is more than Y." "Y is better thAn Z."
Then is used when discussing time. "What happened then was..." "Then we went to the store."
Looks like the grammar police need to come and Rodney King some sense into you.
superklye @ Oct 28th 2008 10:22AM
Oh...Oh God damn it...I just saw the second than.
My bad. :(
Slaziman @ Oct 28th 2008 10:23AM
He meant the second "than" retard.
Slaziman @ Oct 28th 2008 10:24AM
Oh god I just saw you already posted an apology.
My bad :(
primetime4 @ Oct 28th 2008 10:26AM
@superklye... wouldn't it be nice to have an edit feature?
Shmil @ Oct 28th 2008 10:47AM
@ primetime
It would be nice to see an edit button, but also it's very entertaining to see people make small asses of themselves. NO offense to anyone in particular, I'm guilty of it as well from time to time. Probably even in this post.
offday @ Oct 28th 2008 10:48AM
@Cynics,
Now we know you're lying. Democrats are the ones who kill babies, not republicans.
Anam @ Oct 28th 2008 10:15AM
"Faults be damned ..."
"Despite so many worries ..."
"... so many little- and medium-sized issues ..."
And absolutely no hint of what any of the issues are? Next time, Joystiq, could you please quote part of the reviews that are just slightly more informative?
Ludwig Kietzmann @ Oct 28th 2008 10:20AM
I think there's a way to access the ENTIRE review via futuristic hyperlink technology. :) Also, I'm not sure how quoting the parts which reviews suggest players overlook is particularly helpful. What you want is the nega-review.
Blazur @ Oct 28th 2008 11:21AM
Thank god for Science. This "hyperlink" you speak of sounds like it could really benefit humanity.
Anam @ Oct 28th 2008 12:48PM
Excuse me, but if Joystiq wants to summarize reviews is it really horrible of me to suggest that they use more informative quotes from the reviews?
I'm not asking them to change the format. I'm suggesting that this edition of the megareview feels less useful for me than other editions have been.
Sheesh.
Ludwig Kietzmann @ Oct 28th 2008 1:53PM
I understand the complaint, but the whole point is to use excerpts which capture the intent of the review. It's hardly informative to highlight nitpicking in a review which aims to praise the game.
Duke @ Oct 28th 2008 1:59PM
They are posting the summary quotes that were prepared by the authors. Thats pretty much how every website handles this, otherwise they end up having to dice apart the review themselves and making it a bit time consuming.
Anam @ Oct 28th 2008 3:27PM
Thanks Duke. I didn't realize it was just the summary that the original reviewer prepared. I still think it's annoying that the summaries mention complaints with no indication of what the complaints are, but I suppose it was incorrect for me to direct my criticism towards Joystiq.
Sorry about that, Ludwig.
NaeemTHM @ Oct 28th 2008 10:18AM
Hey did you dudes confuse Eurogamers score for Giant Bomb?
When I see slew of A's and 100's then one 80 or 75, it makes me feel that that review just wanted hits on his website. Sure everyone is entitled to their opinion, but COME ON! Clearly you're hating to get web-traffic.
Eggy @ Oct 28th 2008 10:28AM
Eurogamer used to be a pretty thrustworthy site but this year they've really started to bullshit their readers with high scores for certain hyped up games. Certain games get point deducted for minor niggles and others get 10s eventhough they have major flaws.
baby sea tuna @ Oct 28th 2008 10:29AM
Remember, those guys at Giant Bomb are the same ones that hated on EVERYTHING while at Gamespot.
Vcize @ Oct 28th 2008 10:42AM
Why would they have gotten mixed up? Giant Bomb hates giving out 5/5's, so usually gives out 4/5's, which translates to 80/100 on metacritic.
Eurogamer on the other hand gets knocked both for giving all hyped up games outlying low scores, and for giving all hyped up games automatic perfect scores. The two are kind of mutually exclusive, so complaining about each is not only invalidates one of those arguments, but both.
NaeemTHM @ Oct 28th 2008 10:51AM
You know what? I just read Giant Bombs review and take back what I said. It was well written and his qualms seem justified.
t_m @ Oct 28th 2008 11:19PM
the reviews all basically say the same thing... its just a case of how much you "penalise" the faults.
Thats a personal thing really. (as is most reviewing, but anyway..). Some people are able to overlook huge problems if they find something worthwhile, others let the small problems ruin the experience for them.
(Eg: I'd overlook the terrible interface in KotOR because the immersion was so good. But i couldn't overlook it KotOR2 because the rest of the game wasn't good enough to overshadow it)
tmacairjordan87 @ Oct 28th 2008 10:19AM
I don't give a shit what the reviews say, good or bad. I played the game a couple hours last night before going to bed and it's unbelievably good.
As soon as you take your first steps out of the vault and get that ridiculously great view (seriously, go see it and then come back to me and say graphics don't matter), you know you're going to get sucked in for hours.
Ian @ Oct 28th 2008 11:06AM
Agreed. Love it love it love it. Pretty much the best game I've played in a long long time.
PSN: johnnynumber5 @ Oct 28th 2008 12:38PM
I agree with you 100%. I played the game for nearly 5 hours last night and it exceeded my expectations in every way possibe. I like it allot better than Dead Space and Far Cry 2 which are both great games in their own right. I put it in atraround 9:00pm and the next thing I knew it was 2:00am. It has some insane immersion and fantastic gameplay. Honestly, I didn't like Oblivion that much but the formula was good. The subject matter in Fallout 3 is more up my alley than Oblivion.
The vault section of the game was a little boring but it provided some good backstory into the characters. This is especially true when you get to look at the overseer's dossier and files.
It's amazing to have a true open world FPS RPG like Fallout 3. It really mixes all of its elements perfect and makes another candidate for GOTY.
I have the PS3 version and there were a few AI bugs and graphical issues I noticed - but, those were mostly while in the vault.
Sesur @ Oct 28th 2008 9:59PM
Glad you like this Fallout; I've put in 11 hours straight already and I have to force myself NOT to play so I don't completely neglect my life.
FoxHoundADAM @ Oct 28th 2008 10:19AM
I'm really worried that the crap comabt system will kill this game for me. Although the setting and presentation look amazing.
FoxHoundADAM @ Oct 28th 2008 10:23AM
To be fair Giant Bomb rates on a sacle of 1-5 stars. They gave it a good 4 Star review, but joystiq has expanded that to the "80".
tmacairjordan87 @ Oct 28th 2008 10:27AM
Metacritic does that, not joystiq. They also screw up 1up's grading system, since an A means an automatic 100 and a C- comes out to something like a 60. The point is their conversion system for letter scores is fucked up.
Conor @ Oct 28th 2008 8:02PM
Did Oblivion's crap combat ruin the game?
No.
I see where your coming from though.
Huey2k2 @ Oct 28th 2008 10:26AM
Out of all those reviews I trust the Giant Bomb one the most. I seem to have a lot of the same taste in games as Jeff Gersmann.
So from what I can tell it's a very well presented and put together game, but it suffers from a lot of the poor combat and AI issues that Oblivion had, which are the main reasons why I could never get into Oblivion.
I kinda want this, but at the same time I'm low on cash and Gears 2 comes out soon... Decisions decisions.
Dirty @ Oct 28th 2008 10:28AM
Ill wait for the Nega-review.
Dirty @ Oct 28th 2008 11:18AM
Im just kidding. Gamefly just sent it, likely a keeper.
Jakka @ Oct 28th 2008 10:31AM
Yes, every time somebody gives game a lower score, "they're just doing it for traffic".
Same happened with LBP.
Variety - "Good fun game,excellent level editor, but takes years to get anything done" 8/10
You don't even wanna know about the fanboy backlash.
tmacairjordan87 @ Oct 28th 2008 10:40AM
Maybe it took them years to get anything done, but there was no shortage of great user made levels when I was in the beta. In fact, I was shocked at how great some of them were since it was only going on for less than a week.
TwEE @ Oct 28th 2008 3:20PM
I can see a lot of people I know thinking LBP like wii music is garbage for tots.. So not everybody out there is going to give it a 10..
Genisus @ Oct 28th 2008 10:32AM
A-WAKA-WAKA!
Gehodra @ Oct 28th 2008 12:14PM
I have no idea where that came from, but I voted you up anyway.
Jakka @ Oct 28th 2008 10:32AM
Also yes, we should have more reviewers like those on Giant Bomb as that's what, 6th 100/100 I've seen this month?
SNKFan @ Oct 28th 2008 10:51AM
I highly doubt these "issues" will be as crippling or as frustrating as all the problems Fable 2 has.
totoro @ Oct 28th 2008 10:53AM
Not a diss on Fallout 3 (which I'm sure is great fun), but what is with the grade inflation for games this year?
ZaxCG2 @ Oct 28th 2008 10:56AM
THEY'RE ALL JUST SO GREAT. WHY WOULD YOU QUESTION THAT?
totoro @ Oct 28th 2008 10:59AM
:D
ZaxCG2 @ Oct 28th 2008 10:59AM
Well I'm officially interested in this game. Never really heard of the series before (I was never a PC gamer until a year ago, screw you), but after watching the GT Retrospective and watching the trailers I'm ready to ... well... try to see if my PC can run it. BAHAHAHAHA. Oh I'm good. 2.04GHz ≠ 3GHz.
Anyways, if this is Oblivion with guns, I'd have a lot of fun with it. Oblivion was great... it just lacked gunnage.