Fallout 3

Fallout 3 is a post-apocalyptic computer and console open-ended, action role-playing game developed by Bethesda Game Studios and published by Bethesda Softworks. It is the third installment in the Fallout series and a sequel to Interplay's Fallout and Fallout 2. It was released on October 28, 2008 in North America, on October 31, 2008 in Europe and on December 4, 2008 in Japan. It is available on the PC, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3.

The game takes place in the year 2277, 200 years after the Great War, on the East Coast of what used to be the United States, mostly in Washington, D.C., Southwest Maryland, Western Pennsylvania and Northeast Virginia. The gameplay features include real-time combat and first or third person perspective, in contrast to the previous games, which were turn-based and isometric.

Setting


The game is set in a post-apocalyptic, retro-futuristic Washington, D.C. following the Great War between the U.S., China, the Soviet Union and other countries. The Great War occurred on October 23, 2077 which caused immense damage and destruction despite lasting less than two hours. Before the Great War, there were the Resource Wars that nearly crippled the world and brought riots to the streets, during which the United Nations disbanded, and an F.E.V. plague coupled with global terrorism rendered the United States paranoid of both real and imagined communist plots. Canada was annexed by the United States in order to help the U.S. war effort against the Chinese in Alaska. The fact that Canada had the plentiful resources of nearly untouched wilderness made America's effort well worth the protection the U.S.A. promised to provide.

Story
The introductory sequence introduces the Lone Wanderer (player) to their character's father James, a doctor and scientist in Vault 101. James frequently makes comments about the player character's deceased mother Catherine, and her favorite Bible passage, Revelation 21:6, which speaks of "the waters of life".

The main quest begins after the player is forced to flee Vault 101 when James leaves the vault, throwing it into anarchy and causing the paranoid Overseer to send his security force after the player. The search for James takes the character on a journey through the Wasteland, first to the nearby town of Megaton, named for the undetonated atomic bomb at the center of town, then the Galaxy News Radio station, whose enthusiastic DJ Three Dog gives the player the moniker of "The Lone Wanderer". The player travels to Rivet City, a derelict aircraft carrier now serving as a fortified human settlement. Here the player meets Doctor Li, a scientist who worked alongside the player's father. Doctor Li informs the player of Project Purity, a plan conceived by Catherine and James to purify all the water in the Tidal Basin and eventually the entire Potomac River with a giant water purifier built in the Jefferson Memorial. However, continued delays and Catherine's death during childbirth put an end to the project, and James took the player's character as a newborn to raise them in the safety of Vault 101.

After investigating the Jefferson Memorial, the Lone Wanderer tracks James to Vault 112, and frees him from a virtual reality program being run by the Vault's sadistic Overseer, Dr. Braun. James and the player return to Rivet City, and James reveals he sought out Braun for information on the Garden of Eden Creation Kit (G.E.C.K.), a device that contains the components needed to finally activate Project Purity. James and Doctor Li lead a team of Rivet City scientists to the memorial with intent to restart the project, but the memorial is invaded by the Enclave, a powerful military organization formed from the remnants of the pre-War United States government. James floods the project's control room with radiation to stop the Enclave military leader, Colonel Augustus Autumn, from taking control of it, killing himself (but Autumn survives), his last words urging his child to run. The Lone Wanderer and Dr. Li flee to the ruins of the Pentagon, now a base for the Brotherhood of Steel and now known as the Citadel. With Project Purity still inoperational even with the Enclave occupying the site, the player travels to Vault 87 to find a G.E.C.K. and finish James's work. The player finds the Vault to be a testing site for the FEV (Forced Evolutionary Virus), and the source of the Super Mutants in the Capital Wasteland. After the player acquires the G.E.C.K., the Wanderer is ambushed by the Enclave and captured.

At the Enclave base at Raven Rock, the player is freed from their cell by the Enclave leader, President John Henry Eden, who requests a private audience with them. En route to his office however, Colonel Autumn defies Eden's orders and takes command of the Enclave military, ordering them to kill the player. Fighting their way to Eden's office, the player discovers Eden is actually a sentient ZAX series supercomputer who took control of the Enclave after their defeat in Fallout 2 on the West Coast thirty years ago. Eden wishes to repeat the plan of then-President Dick Richardson using Project Purity, infecting the water with a modified strain of FEV that will make it toxic to any mutated life. This plan will kill most life in the wasteland including humans, but the Enclave, due to their genetic "purity" as a result of their isolation, will be immune and free to take control of the area. The Wanderer, provided with a sample of the new F.E.V., is given a choice to either leave peacefully or convince Eden to self-destruct the entire base. The Lone Wanderer escapes Raven Rock and returns to the Citadel.

With the knowledge they possess, the G.E.C.K. and the means to activate Project Purity, the Brotherhood assault the Jefferson Memorial, spearheaded by a giant robot named Liberty Prime. In the control room of Project Purity the player confronts Colonel Autumn, and has the choice to persuade him to give up or kill him. Dr. Li informs the player that the purifier is ready to be activated, but the activation code must be input manually, and also that the control room is flooded with lethal amounts of radiation. The Lone Wanderer is forced to choose between sending Sarah Lyons of the Brotherhood inside the extremely irradiated purifier or entering themselves. Whoever enters into the chamber inputs the code hinted at through the game, that being 21:6, and dies from a radiation spike.

If the "Broken Steel" DLC is installed, the player survives if they activate it themselves, but they also have the option of sending one of their radiation-immune companions to enter the code and start the purifier with no casualties. The player also has the possibility to enter the F.E.V. sample into the water prior to activation, having adverse post-ending effects on the game's side quests.

Cast

 * Ron Perlman - Narrator
 * Liam Neeson - James, the player character’s father.
 * Malcolm McDowell - Enclave President John Henry Eden
 * Peter Gil - Enclave military commander Colonel Augustus Autumn
 * Heather Marie Marsden - Sarah Lyons
 * Erik Todd Dellums - Three Dog
 * Wes Johnson - Mister Burke
 * Craig Sechler - Butch
 * Odette Annable - Amata

Character system
Main character creation occurs as the player experiences the character's childhood. The player decides the character's general appearance using a Gene Projection, conducted by the father before the mother dies. Afterwards, the father removes his surgeon's mask to reveal a face similar to the one chosen by the player for the character; your father's race will also be the same as your own no matter what. As a child in the Vault, the character receives a book titled "You're SPECIAL," whereupon the player can set the character's seven primary aptitudes. The character receives training weapons and a Pip-Boy 3000 later on during childhood, and the player's performance in various tests determines the rest of the attributes. Additionally, several quests inside the Vault are able to influence the player character's relationship with his or her father. Skills and Perks are similar to those in previous games: the player chooses three Tag Skills out of 13 to be the character's specialties. Five skills have been cut out from the game (Fallout and Fallout 2 had 18 skills). First Aid and Doctor have been integrated into Medicine, Throwing and Traps have been merged into Explosives, Steal integrated into Sneak, and both Outdoorsman and Gamble have been removed completely. The maximum level the player can achieve is level 20 (which is to be raised to 30 after purchase of the third DLC installment, along with the ability to continue your game after the main story missions are complete). The Traits from the previous Fallout installments were combined with Perks in Fallout 3, and the player can choose a new Perk each time after gaining a level.

Combat
The Vault-Tec Assisted Targeting System, or V.A.T.S., is an active pause combat system implemented in the game. While using V.A.T.S., the otherwise real-time combat is paused. Attacks in V.A.T.S. cost action points, and the player can target specific body areas for attacks to inflict specific injuries. When attacks are selected, V.A.T.S. will then execute the attack in real-time slow motion, allowing the gory deaths in the game to be shown in great detail. The player will take 90% reduced damage from enemies during this sequence. It should be noted that while the player has a 15% increased critical hit chance while using V.A.T.S., weapon degradation per shot is greatly increased, forcing the player to strike a balance between using more ammunition or losing guns more quickly. This trade-off allows for two very different play styles throughout the game.

Items
A dynamic facet of gameplay is that firearms wear out over time of use. As a weapon degenerates, its damage is reduced and it loses accuracy. However, worn out firearms of the same type can be combined to make more reliable and powerful weapons. Weapon schematics can also be found and used to create various devices such as the Rock-It Launcher that can fire various items such as lunchboxes and stuffed animals, or the bottlecap mine, made out of a Vault-Tec lunchbox, cherry bombs, sensor module and bottle caps. Along with equipping various weapons, the player can also utilize different armors and clothing that may have effects that can alter various skills. For example, a pair of mechanic's coveralls may boost the player's repair skill while it is worn. Armor and clothing come in two main parts for the head and body, allowing a player to wear different combinations of hats and armor as well as masks and facial clothing which can be worn with hats. Also, a player's inventory has a specified weight limit, preventing a player from carrying too many items. Story-related or essential items like Ammunition have no weight, due to the developer not wishing to bog down inventory management. Your weight limit will increase if you increase your Strength stat in SPECIAL.

Party
The player can have a maximum party of three, consisting of himself/herself, Dogmeat, and a single non-player character. In addition to having Dogmeat in your party you are able to send him out on his own to search for items such as weapons and ammunition, radiation medicine, and stimpaks. Dogmeat can be killed during the game if the player misuses him or places him in a severely dangerous situations such as leading him into the Deathclaw Sanctuary. He cannot be replaced, unless you have the Broken Steel add on, in which you can choose a perk allowing you to recruit Dogmeat's puppy (Puppies!). If the player kills Dogmeat one can acquire two followers. Dogmeat and Dogmeat's puppies can be given stimpaks to heal them if needed. In the PC version of the game, Dogmeat can then be resurrected via console commands and will continue with the player unaffected. The player's party can further be extended, with several temporary quest non-player characters that will stay with them until the quest related to the non-player character is completed, if their quest is never completed however, many will stay permanently with the player until killed.

Karma
The Karma system is an important feature in Fallout's gameplay. A player's actions, including conversation and combat choices, affects the player's status in the game world; a player who makes good decisions is received more positively by non-player characters, and a player that makes bad decisions has the opposite reaction. Crimes can also be committed by a player, and whichever faction or group that is harmed by a crime are fully aware of the player's action in most cases. Other factions that were not affected by the crime will not be aware of it, and since a town is usually its own faction, news of a crime committed in one town will not spread to another. Beware however, good or evil deeds will cause a bounty by the opposite alignment group. Talon Company (If you are good) or the Regulators (if you've been bad) will ambush you randomly, and are not bound to any particular area, they can appear anywhere in the wastes. It is arguable that the karma system could tie the game to existentialism as you accept responsibility for your actions and their results. Factions can range in size and boundaries, however, and may not be restricted to a single area. The game world itself was planned to be significantly smaller than that of Oblivion's but is now similar in size.

Changes from previous Fallout games

 * While Fallout and Fallout 2 feature turn-based combat and top-down isometric view in a 2-D engine, Fallout 3 features real-time combat and first or third person view in a 3-D engine. Fallout Tactics and the canceled Van Buren featured both turn-based and real-time combat and a top-down view.
 * Perks and Traits have been merged. In Fallout and Fallout 2, Traits were chosen at character creation, and were commonly a combination of a powerful advantage and a potent disadvantage, where Perks were purely advantageous.
 * In the SPECIAL character system, the number of skills has been reduced from 18 to 13, traits have been removed and perks are selected every level instead of every 3 to 4 levels.

S.P.E.C.I.A.L
S.P.E.C.I.A.L stands for Strength, Perception, Endurance, Charisma, Intelligence, Agility and Luck. These stats determine which kind of person your character will be.

Interplay
Fallout 3 was initially under development by Black Isle Studios, a studio owned by Interplay Entertainment, under the working title Van Buren. Interplay Entertainment closed down Black Isle Studios before the game could be completed, and the license to develop Fallout 3 was sold for a $1,175,000 minimum guaranteed advance against royalties to Bethesda Softworks, a studio primarily known as the developer of the The Elder Scrolls series. Bethesda's Fallout 3 however, was developed from scratch, using neither Van Buren code, nor any other materials created by Black Isle Studios. In May 2007, a playable technology demo of the canceled project was released to the public.

Bethesda
Bethesda stated it would be working on Fallout 3 in July 2004, but principal development did not begin until after The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion was completed. Bethesda announced their intention to make Fallout 3 similar to the previous two games, focusing on non-linear game play, a good story, and true "Fallout humor." Bethesda also stated the game is targeted for a rating of M for Mature, and would have the same sort of adult themes and violence that are characteristic of the Fallout series. Fallout 3 uses a version of the same Gamebryo engine as Oblivion, and was developed by the same team. Initially Bethesda held the right to make only 3 Fallout games with royalties to be paid to Interplay.

In 2006, Bethesda bought the full Fallout franchise leaving Interplay the right to make Project V13. Between May 2 and June 5, 2007 Bethesda showcased 5 pieces of concept art by Craig Mullins on the Fallout 3 website during the countdown to the teaser. The cinematic teaser trailer for Fallout 3, consisting of the first part of the intro, was released by Bethesda Softworks on June 5, 2007, after a 30 day countdown on the Fallout 3 website. On August 2, 2007, the game's website was opened.

Reception
Leonard Boyarsky, one of the creators of the original Fallout, when asked about Interplay's sale of the rights to Bethesda, said that he felt as though "our ex-wife had sold our children that she had legal custody of," admitting that he feels very possessive of the series, but also admitted that his concerns have nothing to do with Bethesda. Considerable concern was also raised by some members of the series' fan community, largely concerning major changes in game play style compared to the original games and Fallout 3 ' s similarity to Oblivion. The reaction from the press, however, was largely positive, with many considering the shift to first person view and real time combat an update, and with most considering the similarities to Oblivion to be a good thing.

In a review from 1UP.com, Fallout 3 was praised for its open-ended gameplay and flexible character-leveling system. Its memorable setting prompted a favorable comparison to the 2007 game, BioShock. 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 that despite the game's shortcomings, Fallout 3 is a "hugely ambitious game that doesn't come around very often," and one would "be a fool not to play it and enjoy the hell out of it."

Sales for Fallout 3 have thus far been very high, and figures suggest that the game has outsold all previous Fallout games (including all other spin-offs) in its first week.

Fallout 3 won several awards following its showcasing at E3 2007. IGN gave it the Game of E3 2007 award, and GameSpot gave it the Best Role-Playing Game of E3 2007 award. Following the game's demonstration at E3 2008, IGN also gave it Best Overall RPG, Best Overall Console Game, and Overall Game of the Show for E3 2008. Game Critics Awards gave the game Best Role-Playing Game and Best of Show for E3 2008.

Controversies and censorship
On July 4, 2008, Fallout 3 was refused classification by the OFLC in Australia, thus making the game illegal for sale in the country. In order for the game to be reclassified, the offending content in the Australian version of the game would have to be removed by Bethesda Softworks and the game resubmitted to the OFLC. According the OFLC board report, the game was refused classification due to the "realistic visual representations of drugs and their delivery method (bringing) the 'science-fiction' drugs in line with 'real-world' drugs." Despite this, Australia's Fallout 3 was expected to be released on October 30, on par with the European version, and was delivered on time with the drug-name changes.

On September 9, 2008 Bethesda vice president of PR and marketing, Peter Hines, has described the idea of a censored Australian version of Fallout 3 as a misconception. All versions of Fallout 3 no longer include real world drug references, then morphine was renamed to Med-X.

Game content was edited in the German release to include less violence. (No gore).

Bethesda Softworks changed the side quest "The Power of the Atom" in the Japanese version of Fallout 3 to relieve concerns about depictions of atomic detonation in inhabited areas. In non-Japanese versions, players are given the option of either defusing, ignoring, or detonating the dormant atomic bomb in the town of Megaton. In the Japanese version, the character Mister Burke has been taken out of this side quest, making it impossible to detonate the bomb.

Also in the Japanese release, the "Fat Man" nuclear catapult weapon was renamed "Nuka Launcher," as the original name was a reference to the bomb used on Nagasaki, Japan.

Microsoft India decided not to release the game in that country, citing "cultural sensitivities". It has been speculated that this is either because the cattle in the game are called brahmin, which is the name of the highest Hindu caste, or possibly due to the fact that the player can kill and eat the cattle, which, as it is a venerated animal, is against the principles of most Hindu sects.

Leak
On October 9, 2008, an Xbox 360 review copy of Fallout 3 was leaked on torrents all around the world. Bethesda Softworks reacted by closing streaming videos and YouTube videos of the leaked copy. However a large amount of information was leaked, including most of the main quest line.

Developers


The project is headed by executive producer Todd Howard. Other producers include Ashley Cheng, Gavin Carter and Jeff Gardiner. The lead designer is Emil Pagliarulo who previously worked on Thief games as well as the Dark Brotherhood quests in Oblivion. Lead level designer is Joel Burgess. Other leads are lead artist Istvan Pely and lead programmer Steve Meister. PR and marketing for the game is coordinated by Pete Hines.

See: Fallout 3 developers for a full list of known developers.

Music
The soundtrack of Fallout 3 is comprised of two main elements: the ambient soundtrack composed by Inon Zur, who also created the soundtrack of Fallout Tactics, and songs and other musical works which are played by in-game radio stations.

Collector's Edition
The collector's edition of Fallout 3 features: A Vault Boy bobblehead, The Art of Fallout 3 (which features never before seen exclusive concept art for the game), and "The Making of Fallout 3" DVD. The entire package is contained in a Vault-Tec lunch box container.

Survival Edition
In addition to the above products, the Survival Edition features a life-size model of the Pip-Boy wrist computer upon whose screen is a fully functional digital clock display.

The Pip-Boy is a similar rendition of the one seen in game. However it is made from a lightweight plastic that surprised many users. Undeterred fans put batteries into their clocks, however many found the buttons to not be functional. Others had the clock function for a time, then turn into a flashing "12:00" before never working again.

Limited Edition
There was also a limited edition of the game simply called the Fallout 3 Limited Edition that was exclusive to the UK and available only through the retailer game. It comes with the game and a Brotherhood of Steel power armor figurine.

Add-ons
Bethesda Softworks has released five add-ons for Fallout 3:
 * Operation: Anchorage
 * The Pitt
 * Broken Steel
 * Point Lookout
 * Mothership Zeta

Game of the Year Edition
Fallout 3: Game of the Year Edition was released on October 13, 2009 for PC, PS3, and 360; this edition includes all five add-on packs, a Vault Boy poster and a 2 sided map of the Capital Wasteland. Mothership Zeta will not be available in any disc version aside from the Game of the Year edition.

Behind the scenes

 * The original inspiration for V.A.T.S. was Burnout's crash mode replays.
 * In the world of Fallout, the bombs fell on October 23. Bethesda tried to coincide the release of Fallout 3 to that.
 * The downtown D.C. area in Fallout 3 was twice the size at one point. The team decided it was too large and confusing and cut the area space in half. The Wasteland area was half the size, and the team felt it was too small, so the Wasteland size doubled.

Official links

 * Official site
 * Official Fallout 3 Forum
 * Planet Fallout

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