Fallout 3. Bethesda Softworks. $43.99

Passed Inspection: Strong main story, hundreds of side quests and locations to explore.

Failed Basic: Infested with bugs, doesn’t have that same special ambiance of previous Fallout games.

There are a lot of really pleasant gameplay moments in Fallout 3, both within and outside of the main quest story.

When you mention the name Fallout to the older generation of avid PC gamers, it’s a very good chance they will know what you’re talking about. The conversation may turn to fond memories of roaming the Wasteland, popping Mentats, swilling Nuka-Cola, and watching your combat foes explode into amusing giblets. Fallout and Fallout 2, and to a lesser extent, Fallout Tactics: Brotherhood of Steel, are a few of those rare games that just seem to have it all there: story, atmosphere, gameplay, and that all-important fun factor. That is why they still captivate many a gamers’ hearts and hard drives some eleven years later.

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This is the legacy that faced the game creators at Bethesda Softworks when making Fallout 3. By this reviewer’s account, at least they succeeded in capturing the fun factor that is so often missing from games, especially those series of games that make it to a third edition. Fallout 3 is infested with bugs the size of radroaches, and many other problems that had me wondering why I continue to play, and then I would blast a Raider into a pile of goo and remember, "oh yea, that’s why."

We wargamers tend to be much more critical of games than the average gamer, what with our passion for dealing with TO&Es and OOBs and the like. It was easy to pick out a bunch of errors and discrepancies in Fallout 3’s initial release. Then, like a sledgehammer to the back of the head, I’d realize I was having fun, despite all my Wasteland woes. Even now, as I think it imperative to make note of more than a few points of contention I have with Fallout 3, I don’t want those points to overshadow the emphasis on just how much fun I had and am still having.

I wish I knew more—or anything for that matter—about the entire process of game development. Then I could better understand just how so many problems could radiate throughout a game not very long after that same game engine was used for an earlier game that didn’t have nearly the same amount of problems at launch. Bethesda’s previous release, the highly acclaimed The Elder Scrolls: Oblivion, is to me one of the best games I’ve ever played, and as I recall, it was released in a cleaner state. Not perfect, no, but I have not had any problem with it on my computer in all these years I’ve been playing it.

Yet, with Fallout 3, which also uses the same Havok engine as Oblivion, the bugs and errors run rampant, like a radscorpion with its stinger on fire. Important NPCs suddenly vanish from the game—said NPCs being the object of or crucial to a quest, which now leaves the player unable to complete that quest. Frequent game freezes that require nothing less than a full hard reboot. Enemies that were able to meld into various places in the landscape, be it a wall or rock, making it impossible to kill them with any means available. Flying opponents. Yes, I said flying, or at least levitating. Many times I would zone to an area where I had previously been and had killed something, only to see what I had killed go zipping up into the sky and / or come crashing down to earth, and then continue to do so in an endless cycle.

Then there are the way-overdone ragdoll physic death throes, where I would score a critical headshot on a creature and watch them flip 20 feet up in the air. Another vagrant physics error often happened when merely bumping into a world object, like a shopping cart or body part, would send it bouncing around like a pinball. All these errors and more jumped out at me during gameplay as being downright unacceptable, especially with a game engine that’s been used before by the same company. Aren’t you supposed to get better with something the more you use it?

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