Now I really can't write too in-depth of a review right now, and there's a very good reason for that - I haven't been able to get very deep into the game. Don't get me wrong, I'm a pretty adaptable gamer; however, it feels like Bethesda handed me an instruction manual with half the pages ripped out and waved me away. As soon as Vault 101's door rolled shut behind me, I wandered blissfully into the Wastelands, totally inexperienced but expecting the game to walk me through a bit of it until I got my bearings. Nope! Nothing. No tutorial, no handy mentor, nothing. Here's a BB gun and a jumpsuit: go nuts.
I understand the logic behind it - it's a very realistic look at survival in a post-apocalyptic world. You pretty much start out as an Average Joe with no real powers or abilities and try your damnedest not to die. If you ever wondered how you'd manage in such a situation, Fallout 3 shows you just how that scenario works out. Turns out that if I do survive the apocalypse, the post-apocalypse is gonna do me in. I got killed by a scorpion within the first five minutes of leaving the Vault. Go team me!
The game's expectations have me stuck in a twisted sort of loop. I'm not really able to complete my quests, because I have no ammo to survive them. I can't afford ammo because I have no caps (the currency of Fallout 3). I have no caps because I can't complete the quests and earn caps, because I have no ammo to survive said quests!
On top of it all, my little Fallout avatar is just like me - short, blonde, and too nice for her own good. Nice to the Nth degree, even, seeing as all the "nice" answers are not just nice, but saccharine, give-you-diabetes nice. Everyone I run across wants me to help them with their problems, and I keep saying yes for some odd reason. I have errands to run all across the wasteland, and have yet to complete any of them, which just makes me feel guilty for not helping the NPCs. Are you getting that? I'm worried about hurting the NPC's feelings; what does that say about me?
I decided to narrow my questing options and just focus on saving my father (Liam Neeson, who causes my character to have vaguely Oedipal thoughts. Daddy issues, anyone?). However, whenever I followed the recommended path to get to where I needed to be, it led me right through a camp of Super Mutants who proceeded to shred me into little naive pieces with a gattling gun over and over again. I finally broke down and looked up a walkthrough online, and it told me I wasn't supposed to travel overground, but through the subway tunnels!
There had been no mention of tunnels! In any other game, somebody would have chimed in after my first tragic suicide run through DC: in the Mario games, Toad would have popped up in a helpful little speech bubble. In Bioshock, Atlas would have come in on the service radio and suggested I try the tunnels, since the streets are full of death and all. But in Fallout 3, no one's gonna pop up and go "Hey! Listen!" until you get the point. Either you figure it out your own self, or you die. A lot. That's a pretty steep learning curve.
In spite of all my complaining, I'm not hating this game - far from it! The world is absolutely beautiful, even in its desolation. The attention to detail is staggering, and the people that inhabit it really appeal to me (even though it seems every other person I meet wants to take me apart). I even like little avatar-me, in spite of her less-than-endearing habit of dying frequently, and in slow-motion nonetheless.
I can't wait to see more of Fallout 3 and make something of my little virtual self. But first, I need to get on the far side of this learning curve ...
