Fallout 3

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

The game takes place in the year 2277 on the East Coast of what used to be the United States of America, mostly in Washington, DC, Maryland and 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.

Information about the cancelled Fallout 3 project developed by Black Isle can be found in the Van Buren article.

See also: Fallout 3 FAQ.

Setting
The game is set in a post-apocalyptic world following The Great War, a nuclear war that occurred on October 23, 2077 and lasted less than two hours but caused immense damage and destruction. Before The Great War were the Resource Wars, during which the United Nations disbanded, a plague rendered the United States paranoid, and Canada was annexed.

The game takes place in the year 2277 on the East Coast of what used to be the United States of America, mostly in Washington, DC, Maryland and Virginia.

Story
The Player Character is a young inhabitant of Vault 101. The Vault has been sealed for the last 200 years and no one has ever left it - until it turned out that the PC's father has disappeared from it without any explanation. The Vault Overseer believes that the Player Character was in on it and sends his people after him or her. This leaves the player no choice but to leave the Vault. The player then sets off on a journey to find their father and find out why he left.

Abandoned to rust, decay, and creeping vegetation, monuments from before the Great War still stand amidst the ruins of Downtown DC: the Capitol, the Jefferson Memorial and the battered remains of the Washington Monument; this desolate area is known as Capital Wasteland. The central hub of civilization in the ruins of the former capital is Rivet City, based in and around the remains of an aircraft carrier carried far inland and beached by a catastrophic tsunami whose waters have long since receded. Other settlements include the towns of Megaton, Arefu, Tenpenny Towers and Paradise Falls. Movement between the towns is possible through the Washington Metro tunnels.

The Brotherhood of Steel community is stationed in the Citadel built in the ruins of the pre-War Pentagon. The mysterious Mister Burke and his employer, Allistair Tenpenny send the player on a mission of sabotage and destruction in the town of Megaton. But it is Super mutants, who since emerging from their refuges, have waged an unceasing war against humans to invade their territory, and the Enclave - the self-styled inheritors of the power of the United States government - under the leadership of their new President John Henry Eden, who is the player's biggest foes in the game.

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.

Cast

 * Ron Perlman - Narrator
 * Liam Neeson - Player Character's father
 * Malcolm McDowell - Enclave President John Henry Eden
 * Heather Marie Marsden - Sarah Lyons
 * Wes Johnson - Mister Burke

Character system
Main character creation occurs as the player experiences the character's childhood. The character's mother dies in labor in the Vault 101 hospital, immediately after which the player decides the character's general appearance through a DNA analysis conducted by the father. Afterwards, the father removes his surgeon's mask to reveal a face similar to the one chosen by the player for the character. 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. 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 VATS, is an active pause combat system implemented in the game. While using VATS, the otherwise real-time combat is paused. VATS also allows the gory deaths in the game to be shown in slow motion and great detail. Attacks in VATS cost action points, and the player can target specific body areas for attacks to inflict specific injuries.

Items
Another fact of gameplay is that firearms wear out over time: as a weapon degenerates, its rate of fire slows and it loses accuracy. However, worn out firearms 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, created by combining a leaf blower and a wood chipper, that can fire various items such as lunchboxes and stuffed animals, or the Clever Bottlecap Mine, made out of a Vault-Tec lunchbox and bottlecaps. 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. Also, a player's inventory has a specified weight limit, preventing a player from carrying too many items. Items like weapon ammo have no weight, due to the developer not wishing to bog down inventory management.

Party
The player can have a maximum party of three, consisting of himself/herself, Dogmeat, and a single NPC. In addition to having Dogmeat in your party you are able to send him out on his own to search for items such as arms and ammo, radiation medicine, and stimpacks. Dogmeat can be killed during the game if the player misuses him or places him in a severely dangerous situation and he cannot be replaced. Only one NPC can travel with the player at any time, and in order to get another NPC to travel, the first one must be "fired" by the player.

Karma
A Karma system is an important feature in the gameplay. A players actions, including conversation and combat choices, affects the player's status in the game world; a player who makes good choices is received more positively by NPCs, and a player that makes bad choices 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. 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. 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 expected to be similar in size.

Changes from previous Fallout games

 * While Fallout and Fallout 2 featured 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 (like Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel). Fallout Tactics and the cancelled Van Buren featured both turn-based and real-time combat and a top-down view.
 * In the SPECIAL character system, the number of skills has been reduced from 18 to 13 and perks are selected every level instead of every 3 to 4 levels. Traits have been removed and retooled into new perks.
 * Early comments and previews indicate that the game may feature a lightened version of Oblivion's dynamic difficulty adjustment, in which the strength and power levels of foes (and potentially acquired loot) is scaled in relation to the player's level, to preserve a sense of challenge no matter where the player went in the nonlinear game world. Issues with the system arose when, in Oblivion once the player rose to high levels, even the weakest bandits or cannon-fodder guards could be seen wearing the rarest and most powerful equipment available. It would be akin to the PC encountering Raiders in Power Armor wielding Miniguns very early, if he happened to exit the vault at the maximum possible level.
 * Comments implied that unlike Oblivion, where the level scaling occurred at all times, levels would be "set" at a given location depending on the travel path of the player. This is subject to change or even outright removal, as the game is still in development.
 * Perks and Traits have been merged. Traits were chosen at character creation, and were commonly a combination of a powerful advantage and a potent disadvantage, where Perks were purely advantageous.

Minimum requirements

 * Windows XP/Vista
 * 1GB System RAM (XP)/ 2GB System RAM (Vista)
 * 2.4 Ghz Intel Pentium 4 or equivalent processor
 * Direct X 9.0c compliant video card with 256MB RAM (NVIDIA 6800 or better/ATI X850 or better)

Recommended requirements

 * Intel Core 2 Duo processor
 * 2 GB System RAM
 * Direct X 9.0c compliant video card with 512MB RAM (NVIDIA 8800 series, ATI 3800 series)

Supported video card chipsets

 * NVIDIA GeForce 200 series
 * NVIDIA Geforce 9800 series
 * NVIDIA Geforce 9600 series
 * NVIDIA Geforce 8800 series
 * NVIDIA Geforce 8600 series
 * NVIDIA Geforce 8500 series
 * NVIDIA Geforce 8400 series
 * NVIDIA Geforce 7900 series
 * NVIDIA Geforce 7800 series
 * NVIDIA Geforce 7600 series
 * NVIDIA Geforce 7300 series
 * NVIDIA GeForce 6800 series
 * ATI HD 4800 series
 * ATI HD 4600 series
 * ATI HD 3800 series
 * ATI HD 3600 series
 * ATI HD 3400 series
 * ATI HD 2900 series
 * ATI HD 2600 series
 * ATI HD 2400 series
 * ATI X1900 series
 * ATI X1800 series
 * ATI X1600 series
 * ATI X1300 series
 * ATI X850 series

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 cancelled 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 gameplay, 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.

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. Considerable concern was also raised some members of the series' fan community, largely concerning major changes in gameplay 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.

Controversy
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 is expected to be released on October 31st, on par with the European version. Several Australian websites claim confirmation of the release date, but as of October 2008, Bethesda and Red Ant (the distributor of the game for Australia), have yet to confirm it.

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. .", as morphine was renamed to Med-X.

Game content will be edited in the German release to include less violence."

Leak
On October 9th, 2008, a 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.

Collectors Edition
The collector edition of Fallout 3 has been announced. The game features: A Vault Boy Bobblehead, and 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.

Official links

 * Official site
 * Official Fallout 3 Forum
 * Viral site

Fansite links

 * Fallout 3 news at Duck and Cover
 * ''Fallout 3 news at No Mutants Allowed
 * Fallout 3 news at RPG Codex
 * Fallout 3: A Post Nuclear Blog
 * Fallout 3 Headquarter (German)

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