Fallout 3

["Wildfox" Meta S. Foxx]

I know this game has been out since 2K8, but has anyone else given it a look at? I know I've overlooked it for so long that my ex-roommate actually got me enticed at looking at it finally, and to my surprise I actually like it. It's not your typical FPS, thank goodness, but rather it's a combination FPS and ARPG (Action RPG). There's a neat little leveling system that grants you perks after each level gained. There's a wide variety of weapons and armor that you can use, but you have to keep up with it, and what I mean by that is your weapons and armor have condition statuses and you have to make repairs to them as their condition statuses decrease because of course, if the weapon is in bad condition, it won't work (don't worry, it's not as hard as it sounds...you make repairs to your weapons and armor by finding the exact same ones and then use the parts to make repairs). The world you will be immersed in is a nicely portrayed post-Apocalyptic Washington, D.C. wasteland, however you first start the game in a fallout shelter called a "Vault" and during your first mission you have to escape the vault into the Capital Wasteland.

There's a lot I can go on about this fantastic game, but I don't want to sound like a blabbering idiot so I'll say this: if you haven't given this one a look, just try it. Even if you don't like FPS games that much I think this one you might enjoy.

[MacDaddyNook]

I tried it, but I have to admit I didn't really have much interest to play very far into it. I got more distracted with wandering around and doing stupid stuff than actually attempting to follow the store. I respect the game and the series (I did have a bit more fun with New Vegas) but it's not my cup of tea.

["Wildfox" Meta S. Foxx]

I'll admit it is easy to get a little sidetracked in this game, but once you get back into the story, the story itself is really good and very well thought out of. I did do a lot of the side missions just to level up because of some of the later difficulty, and that does help. If you ever do get the urge to play again, just play it like any other RPG. Do some side quests to help increase your stats and adjust your karma in how you want to play it, but in a game such as this, you never want to ignore your main story. I mean, that's just a philosophy of mine, though, because that's how I tend to play my games. However if it's not really your cup of tea, that okay.

["Wildfox" Meta S. Foxx]

A while back I went through Fallout: New Vegas (if you've been following my Facebook, you would have for sure noticed all the Trophies I earned in that game since my Trophy information is always posted to FB) and compared to Fallout 3, it's a lot more difficult. I found that healing my character was more of a chore in New Vegas as every bit of food and drink recovers HP in limited seconds, whereas in Fallout 3 food and drink instantly recovers HP. What I will say though is that I like that you can make various foods using the abundance of plant life around you. Weapons are mostly the same, with the exception of ammo, in that which there are different types of ammo that's available for a specific weapon that have different rates of damage dealing (for example, for bullet ammo there's regular, then armor piercing, then the most powerful hallow point) but the best set of ammo also degrades your weapon faster. I do have to praise the crafting in the game, though I wish they would have brought some of the weapon crafting from Fallout 3 over (particularly the Dart Gun which cripples the legs of an enemy giving you an easier time taking them down...this is particularly helpful when taking down two specific enemies in the game...Yao Guai and Deathclaws). One of my biggest gripes is the leveling system. It's mostly unchanged from Fallout 3, but the biggest difference is you gain less skill points to spend on your character during a level up, and instead of picking out perks every level, you pick out perks every two levels (and I read the reasoning behind this is because the creators didn't want the player to build a super powerful character or something like that).

The story of New Vegas is actually quite interesting, though. A vast struggle of three opposing forces trying to gain control of post-apocalyptic New Vegas (formally Las Vegas), and you, a Courier, are caught in the middle of the war. Your actions in the game decide many that goes on throughout the struggle that leads to an ultimate final battle at the Hoover Dam.

Now I should also mention that when you first play FNV, your level cap is set to Level 30. The level cap increases by five levels if you download and install the four expansion add-ons (Dead Money, Honest Hearts, Old World Blues, and Lonesome Road...each expansion pack costing $10 or 800 Microsoft Points each), thus increasing the level cap to 50. To be honest, I will say that while getting all four expansions is beneficial for your level cap (because the perks are well worth it), half of the expansion packs are not all that good. I particularly disliked Dead Money and Lonesome Road (Dead Money the most, though). Honest Hearts is pretty good, but the best one to go through, and I highly recommend this if you're going to play FNV, is Old World Blues. You will have a blast going through this one!

I should warn you though that if you're going to play either Fallout game to watch out for glitches because like a lot of what Bethesda puts out, there are going to be tons of them. I have Fallout 3 on my Xbox 360 and the don't show up as much on that one, but they still do exist and will freeze up your system if they hit hard. But be cautious of the PlayStation 3 versions of both games as glitches are very prominent in both.