Qualified Goodness
From the get-go you feel the roots of a Bethesda game planted throughout Fallout 3 and depending upon your feelings for Oblivion you will either love or hate this game:
"Sweet! Oblivion with guns!"
or
"Great...Oblivion with guns..."
Now before I progress allow me to preface that aside from some limited experience with the second Fallout game I did not posses a great deal of knowledge of the universe as I was caught up in Baldur's Gate around that time. So I had no preconceived notion other than this was, well, Oblivion with guns. After about 50 hours of gameplay I consulted a good friend who did have numerous playthroughs logged in both Fallout 1 and 2 and Fallout Tactics, for his money the latest installment is what he'd hoped a 3-D Fallout would be like. He was especially giddy about the prospect of Bloody Mess actually giving bonus damage alongside the bonus viscera.
So I am fairly confident that Bethesda has given us quite a faithful and honest interpretation of a beloved franchise while bringing the personal spice of their own studio.
What drew me immediately was the art deco inspired visuals since I'm a sucker for that striking retro-futuristic look, it all felt seamless and helped to enliven what would have been an otherwise depressing albeit realistic post apocalyptic landscape.
An involved character creation process has you making visual decisions, stat determinations and personality choices from birth all the way up until you disembark from Vault 101 as a young adult. While novel though, it can be superfluous on subsequent playthroughs, still it is a nice deviation from the standard fare you might find in other games and seeks to immerse you all the more.
A Bethesda trademark in the form of unique and interesting quests is present as well, from a shocking initial quest which by now many have heard of to making a moral decision regarding a very strange hybrid named Harold not to mention an exciting final assault on Jefferson's Memorial. Collecting the Declaration of Independence is another quest as you confront Super Mutants through a grim downtown D.C. and it's funny to listen to the quest giver regale you with an almost-but-not-quite bit of history.
It's quite exciting to just explore and enjoy the world Bethesda have crafted with another fantastic and deep adventure. This is in part thanks to a well executed voice acting crew which serves to give you a sense of the desperation and predatory nature of the world. In many cases you may find yourself actually getting mad at some of the more pretentious folks in the game. You will constantly be running in to unique characters that have their own personality and the addition of some good talent for one of the main characters makes it all the better as you run and gun with your father to potentially save mankind or at least those in the Northeast. The content is quite good although the pacing of the story, especially at the end might frustrate as it did for me.
From a gameplay stand point you will instantly be familiar with the mannerisms of Fallout if you spent any length of time in Oblivion. This feels a bit dated since your character looks and feels a touch rigid in the animation but this is mostly only apparent in the throwaway 3rd person mode and when you are engaging in melee combat. The greatest difference of course is the V.A.T.S. which is similar to systems in prior Fallout games where you are able target various sections of an enemy that will affect certain attributes when a certain damage level has been reached.
This mode is a nice addition in that it allows you to manage quite confidently situations where otherwise you might feel overwhelmed and since it is related to a number of "Action Points" you will not solely be able to rely on it. This was a relief for me since initially it seemed from various gameplay videos that this was the extent of gameplay, run up to a guy, activate, aim for face, win. And while towards the higher levels you may get this sense, playing on higher difficulty alleviates this a bit. You can make it much more challenging for yourself if you simply choose not to use the V.A.T.S. but for me, the novelty of watching the camera slow down and follow a bullet from your rifle into the head of a Raider for some juicy wig splitting action never wore off.
The entire experience with Fallout 3 was a great reminder of how much Bethesda cares to give players an in depth and satisfying experience. No two playthroughs are exactly alike and you may be surprised to find out how much you may have missed even after logging many hours on a single playthrough. Though the game is not without some flaws and the final act comes far too soon you should be able to enjoy many hours of fun and exciting action as you did with Elder Scrolls IV.
That is unless of course you hated Oblivion...shame on you. :D
