Fallout 3

Fallout 3 is an action role-playing game that can be played from either a first-person or third-person perspective. In addition to the main quests, the player can participate in optional unrelated quests known as side quests. They can then allocate points into seven primary attributes: strength, perception, endurance, charisma, intelligence, agility, and luck. These attributes are known as S.P.E.C.I.A.L. stats, and range from 1 to 10. Additionally, there are 13 secondary attributes whose point totals are affected by S.P.E.C.I.A.L. stats: barter, big guns, energy weapons, explosives, lockpick, medicine, melee weapons, repair, science, small guns, sneak, speech, and unarmed. If the player has a high charisma stat for example, then they will be more proficient with the barter and speech skills at the beginning of the game. The player can add more points into skill stats whenever they earn enough experience points to level up. Experience points can be earned through several methods, such as killing an enemy or completing a quest. When the player reaches a new level, they can select a perk, which is a permanent beneficial upgrade. For example, the perk Master Trader reduces the price of items sold by vendors by 25 percent. Fallout 3 features an open world map that the player can freely explore. Locations the player can discover range from small settlements and abandoned buildings, to larger locations like the Jefferson Memorial and the Washington Monument. The player is equipped with a wearable computer called the Pip-Boy 3000. The device serves as a menu, and allows the player to access items they have acquired; view detailed character statistics and active quests; and look at the map, which can be used to fast travel to previously discovered locations. The player can also utilize the Pip-Boy as a radio, letting them to listen to songs from the 1940s and 1950s on makeshift radio broadcasts. While exploring, the player can recruit certain non-playable characters as companions, who will accompany the player and assist them in combat. There are a variety of weapons in the game, including standard guns, energy-based guns, melee weapons, and explosives. While in combat, the player can utilize a gameplay mechanic known as V.A.T.S., which pauses the game and allows the player to target specific body parts of an enemy. V.A.T.S. is dictated by a statistic known as Action Points. Each attack while in V.A.T.S. costs Action Points, and when the player runs out of Action Points they must wait a short period of time before they can use it again. An important mechanic in Fallout 3 is the player's karma. Whenever the player commits an action that is deemed either good or bad, their karma will change accordingly. For example, if the player provides water to a beggar, their karma increases. Likewise, if the player breaks into a home, their karma decreases. The player's karma affects how other characters perceive them. Certain companions can only be recruited if the player meets the companion's karmic expectation. Some non-recruitable characters will be more accepting of the player depending on their karma level, such as slavers, who will be more accepting to players with negative karma, and provide services that would not be available to players with neutral or positive karma. ==Plot==

. Fallout 3 takes place in the year 2277, 200 years after a nuclear war between the United States and China. Some survivors of the war took refuge in high-tech fallout shelters known as Vaults. The player character, nicknamed the Lone Wanderer, grew up in Vault 101, located near Washington, D.C. After the Lone Wanderer's 19th birthday, their father, a scientist named James (Liam Neeson), leaves the Vault without explanation. The young vault dweller decides to track down their father and journeys the region in and around Washington, D.C., now known as the Capital Wasteland. Along the way, the Lone Wanderer learns about their father's background from other characters, including Megaton resident Colin Moriarty (Mike Rosson), Galaxy News Radio DJ Three Dog (Erik Dellums), and Rivet City scientist Madison Li (Jennifer Massey). Before the Lone Wanderer's birth, James and his wife Catherine had been working on Project Purity, in which a water purifier built in the Jefferson Memorial would have purified the irradiated water in the Tidal Basin and Potomac River. However, Catherine died during childbirth, and James abandoned the project to raise his child in Vault 101. The Lone Wanderer finds and rescues James from a virtual reality program run by overseer Stanislaus Braun (Dee Bradley Baker) in Vault 112. James reveals that he wanted to revive Project Purity and left Vault 101 to seek the Garden of Eden Creation Kit (G.E.C.K.), a powerful piece of technology intended to assist in rebuilding civilization after a nuclear war. When work on Project Purity resumes, the remnants of the United States government, known as the Enclave, intervene under the command of Colonel Augustus Autumn (Peter Gil). Its leader, President John Henry Eden (Malcolm McDowell), wants to inject the purifier with a deadly virus that will kill any mutated organisms who drink the water, including humans. James sacrifices himself to protect the purifier. In response, the Lone Wanderer enlists the help of the Brotherhood of Steel, a military organization that protects the residents of the Capital Wasteland. The Lone Wanderer finds the G.E.C.K. in Vault 87 but is captured by the Enclave and held in Raven Rock. They escape imprisonment and meet President Eden, who is revealed to be an artificial intelligence program. Eden gives them a vial containing the virus and asks them to insert it into Project Purity. Afterwards, the Lone Wanderer leaves and optionally causes Eden to self destruct. Using a massive pre-war military robot called Liberty Prime, the Lone Wanderer and the Brotherhood of Steel retake the Jefferson Memorial from Autumn. They learn the water purifier needs to be manually activated, or else it will shortly explode. Before James died, he flooded the control room with lethal amounts of radiation. The player can either sacrifice themselves to activate the purifier, optionally inserting the virus during the process; instruct Sarah Lyons, a Brotherhood member, to activate it instead; or do nothing and let it explode. ==Development==

Early development and writing The origins of Fallout 3 date back to the cancellation of Van Buren, which was intended to be the third game in the mainline Fallout series. Under the development of Black Isle Studios, Van Buren was to be set in Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, and Utah, and would have included a mixture of real-time and turn-based combat. Black Isle Studios' publisher Interplay Entertainment was struggling financially, and in December 2003 Van Buren was cancelled. In 2004, Bethesda Softworks purchased the rights to develop their own rendition of Fallout 3 from Interplay for $1,175,000 minimum guaranteed advance against royalties. At the time, Bethesda was known for their work with The Elder Scrolls series, but wanted to expand their catalogue with another project. Burgess remarked, "The sense was we had to make our own game." After the release of The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion in 2006, the size of the team drastically increased. This process exemplified Bethesda's decision to foster a more collaborative approach and allow developers to voice their opinions on various aspects of the game. Pagliarulo notes this approach differed from the rigid and "unhealthy" development of The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, in which the developers had to follow the outline of the original design document regardless of their opinions. The player character's father, James, was created as a moral compass, and would react to the player's previous actions. Due to Bethesda's previous oeuvre with high fantasy role-playing games, some players questioned whether Fallout 3 would simply be an iteration of The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. Burgess remarked, "We didn't really have first-person shooter experts, we didn’t really know ... If nothing else, it speaks to some of the ways we were successful that the mediocrity of the shooting didn't matter." As there was not enough time to create another significant location on the map, the decision was made to instead display the remnants of the White House amidst a giant crater, and explain that it was one of the locations targeted by nuclear attacks. The goal was to showcase American life before the nuclear war while simultaneously emphasizing the theme of militant progress. Over 40,000 lines of dialogue were recorded for Fallout 3, which at the time, set a Guinness World Record for the most lines of dialogue in a single-player role-playing game. Some celebrity actors were brought on to provide voice work, including Liam Neeson and Malcolm McDowell. Hines later noted that even if Clinton had agreed, Bethesda would have not allowed him to provide voice work. Hines said, "In no way, shape or form, did we say President Clinton is who we want for this role or [tell Blindlight to] go chase him." ==Release==

Fallout 3 was announced in July 2004, when Bethesda purchased the rights to the game from Interplay. For years, there was little new information about the game, although Tor Thorsen of GameSpot notes that interest in Fallout 3 rose significantly after the critical success of The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. In April 2007, Bethesda published a teaser site for Fallout 3, and in June released the first trailer. To promote the game, Bethesda partnered with American Cinematheque and Geek Monthly to hold a film festival titled A Post-Apocalyptic Film Festival Presented by Fallout 3. The game had a marketing budget of $13 million. Fallout 3 was released for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 3, and Xbox 360 on October 28, 2008 in North America, October 30 in Europe and Australia, and December 4 in Japan. In its first week of release, Fallout 3 had sold 4.7 million copies worldwide, and grossed $300 million. The market research firm Electronic Entertainment Design and Research estimated that by 2015, the game had sold 12.4 million copies worldwide. Due to its content, some versions of Fallout 3 were subject to censorship. As it is illegal to distribute or purchase an Australian game without an ACB classification, Bethesda replaced all instances of the drug morphine with a generic drug, and removed the drug injection animation. Bethesda further altered every version of Fallout 3 to accommodate for these changes. A quest that allowed the player to either defuse or detonate a nuclear warhead was altered so that it was impossible to detonate it, and the name of a weapon was changed. and Microsoft chose not to release Fallout 3 in India due to perceived "cultural sensitivities". Downloadable content Fallout 3 was supported with five downloadable content (DLC) add-ons. The first DLC was Operation: Anchorage, which takes place inside a virtual reality simulation that depicts a battle between United States and Chinese soldiers in Anchorage, Alaska. The second DLC was The Pitt. The third DLC, Broken Steel, takes place immediately after the events of main story, and revolves around the Brotherhood of Steel's campaign to eliminate the remaining Enclave soldiers. The fourth DLC, Point Lookout, is set in Point Lookout State Park, where the player investigates the disappearance of a young girl. In the final DLC, Mothership Zeta, the player is abducted by aliens, and must escape from a UFO. Howard offered a different explanation, and said it was due to more Xbox 360 owners paying for The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion DLC than PlayStation 3 owners. By 2009, all five add-ons were made available to PlayStation 3 owners. ==Reception==

Reviews Fallout 3 was well received by critics. 1UP.coms Demian Linn praised its open-ended gameplay and flexible character-leveling system. While the V.A.T.S. system was called fun, enemy encounters were said to suffer from a lack of precision in real-time combat and little variety in enemy types. The review concluded, Fallout 3 is a "hugely ambitious game that doesn't come around very often." IGN editor Erik Brudvig praised the game's "minimalist" sound design, observing how "you might find yourself with nothing but the sound of wind rustling through decaying trees and blowing dust across the barren plains ... Fallout 3 proves that less can be more." The review noted that the "unusual amount of realism" combined with the "endless conversation permutations" produces "one of the most truly interactive experiences of the generation." Tim Cain, Fallout and Fallout 2 game director, praised the art direction and the attention to details but did not like the way the endings were not enough constructed around player's actions and decisions. He was also critical of how Fallout 3 recycled plot elements from the first two games, such as Super Mutants and the Enclave, saying that if his company, Troika Games, had acquired the license, he would have come up with a completely original story for the East coast. Chris Avellone, Fallout 2s main writer, described the game as having "enough options and tools at disposal to was having fun no matter what the challenges", praising the immersion in Fallouts world, the success in carrying on the legacy of the previous two games, and the fulfilling open-world component; he criticized the writing of some characters and some of gameplay's choices in balancing the skills of the player character. Will Tuttle of GameSpy commended the game for its "engaging storyline, impeccable presentation, and hundreds of hours of addictive gameplay." Although Edge awarded the game 7 out of 10, in a later anniversary issue it placed the game 37th in a "100 best games to play today" list, saying "Fallout 3 empowers, engages and rewards to extents that few games have ever achieved." Some criticisms concerned the bugs in regards to the physics and crashes, some of which broke quests and prevented progression. as is the ending. Edge stated that "the game is cumbersome in design and frequently incompetent in the details of execution", taking particular issue with the nakedness of the HUD, the clarity of the menu interface, and that the smaller problems are carried over from Oblivion. Edge liked the central story but said "the writing isn't quite as consistent as the ideas that underpin" and that the "voice-acting is even less reliable." Notorious for their support of the series' first two games, Fallout and Fallout 2, members centered on one of the oldest Fallout fansites, No Mutants Allowed, have criticized departures from the original games' stories, gameplay mechanics and setting. In response, James Stephanie Sterling of Destructoid called fan groups like No Mutants Allowed "selfish" and "arrogant", stating that a new audience deserves a chance to play a Fallout game; and that if the series had stayed the way it was back in 1997, new titles would never have been made and brought to market. Luke Winkie of Kotaku tempers these sentiments, saying that it is a matter of ownership; and that in the case of Fallout 3, hardcore fans of the original series witnessed their favorite games become transformed into something else. It was awarded Game of the Year by Gamasutra, GamesRadar+, GameSpy, IGN, and UGO Networks. The game also won Xbox 360 Game of the Year from GameSpy, IGN, and Official Xbox Magazine, and PC Game of the Year from GamePro, GameSpy, GameSpot, and GameTrailers. At the 2009 Golden Joystick Awards, Fallout 3 won Ultimate Game of the Year. It also won Game of the Year along with Best Writing at the Game Developers Choice Awards. During the 12th Annual Interactive Achievement Awards, the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences awarded Fallout 3 with Role-Playing Game of the Year and Outstanding Achievement in Original Story, and nominated it for Overall Game of the Year, Computer Game of the Year, Console Game of the Year, Outstanding Achievement in Game Direction, Outstanding Achievement in Game Design, and Outstanding Achievement in Gameplay Engineering. ==Legacy==

Some critics have referred to Fallout 3 as one of the best games in the Fallout series, and as one of the greatest games of all time.{{efn-ua|Attributed to multiple references: Its portrayal of 1950s American culture contrasted by the devastation of nuclear war helped Fallout 3 stand apart from contemporary high fantasy role-playing games like The Elder Scrolls and Gothic. Journalists have also noted how the map emphasized exploration, and allowed players to find unique side quests and scenes of environmental storytelling. Khee Hoon Chan of Rock Paper Shotgun remarked, "The Fallout 3 world is probably better traversed when you abandon all pretense of trying to find your father, and wander about the endless wilderness as a roaming wayfarer, discovering these vignettes of humanity's perseverance after a global catastrophe." In the years since its release, the initial overwhelming praise bestowed on Fallout 3 has somewhat subsided. Retrospective commentary surrounding Fallout 3 often focuses on the writing, which some players and journalists have bemoaned for the lack of choices the player can make to affect the story and unrealistic character decisions. Fallout 3 successor, Fallout: New Vegas, introduced multiple questlines the player can follow to complete the game and replaced the karma system with reputation among specific factions. Billy Studholme of The Washington Post wrote, "Before Fallout 3, there was no Fallout as we know it today. The game blew the hinges off the franchise in the best way." Maxwell McGee of GamesRadar+ also notes that Bethesda made Fallout 3 more accessible to new players. McGee stated, "It's a guided experience that expertly introduces the Fallout universe without leaving you lost in the wasteland." ==Notes==