Last summer, Fallout 3 was a standout at E3 with its incredible visuals and remarkable gameplay potential. Nearly a year later, we're still amazed at the potential for this post-apocalyptic adventure. Bethesda offered a renewed look at the game Wednesday, showcasing the dynamics of its combat system and story depth.
Fallout 3 begins with your birth, literally. As a newborn, you'll have to determine your sex as well as your name and physical appearance. Using a gene projector, you're able to set what your character will look like as an adult. Preset characters enable you to quickly select an appearance, although you are more than welcome to adjust your look via dozens of different parameters from hair color to skin tone to the shape of your nose. All of this information then goes toward determining your father's appearance, who narrates your first few moments of life.
After you've taken your first few breaths, you move on to taking your first steps. The game's second chapter entitled "Baby Steps," fast forwards a year later. At age one you are capable of crawling around and playing with your toys, which consist of a red ball and a book. "You are Special!" is more than a children's picture book though, actually serving as an introduction to the game's S.P.E.C.I.A.L. system. Here you can distribute points to each of seven core attributes including stamina and charisma. Your choices here affect how your character fares in combat later in the game, as well as interactions with other people. High charisma, for instance, makes it much easier to manipulate other characters.
Your youthful introduction to Fallout 3 continues with snapshots at ages ten and 16, finally wrapping up when you reach your 19th year. It's at this point in your life that you leave the vault to search for your father who has unexpectedly disappeared. Blamed by the vault's overseer for his unexplained disappearance, you're left with no choice but to escape and strike out on your own in the blistering wastelands. You're given a final opportunity to make any desired changes to your character--confirm sex, name, attributes, perks, etc--and then it's off into what remains of the post-modern world.
From the linearity of your youth, the game transitions into a remarkably rich, open-ended adventure. The game does more than set you adrift in a massive world, letting you run wild without regard for consequence; on the contrary, it combines a dynamic system of interaction and morality for a compelling breed of role-playing never before seen. Unlike Oblivion, for instance, you're not able to see and do everything in a single play through. Missions often force you to choose between branching paths that once selected, shut off possible outcomes and open up new avenues of exploration. Choose to kill a character and any associated quests are gone forever. Help a town and an entire slate of possibilities open up for you. Much of your experience comes as a result of your decisions to take on certain quests, as well as how you choose to complete your objectives.
Morality plays an important role in the game, influencing the missions that become available to you in your journeys across the wastelands. Whether you aspire to benevolence, remain neutral, or descend into deviance, unique avenues open up specific to your behavior. A roving gang leader may not talk to you if your karma classifies you as a goodie-two-shoes; acquire a bad reputation as a murderer and thief, however, and perhaps that ruffian may hit you up for a shady mission or two. What quests you complete and the decisions you make come together to determine the game's ending, of which Bethesda claims there are hundreds.
Fortunately, you don't need to make these weighty decisions all by your lonesome. Series mainstay mutt Dogmeat can join you as a permanent companion at an undisclosed point in the game. More than just a combat helper, the pup can be sent on search missions to locate objects and even ordered to specific locations to stay out of harm's way. Like any other character, Dogmeat is capable of falling in battle, so you need to take care when roving the wastelands to mind his health. Other companions can join you along the way as well, although no mention of how many will make it in the final game and exactly who those characters will be. Your karma--good, bad, or neutral--does influence the sort of companions that are willing to accompany you.
Dogmeat, as well as any companions, should prove extremely helpful when venturing into the Washington mall. Once a popular tourist spot it has degraded into a war zone, ravaged by battles between the Brotherhood of Steel and legion of super mutant that have annexed the Capitol Rotunda as their headquarters. The Washington Monument has fallen to pieces, its wiry frame exposed by atomic blasts. Blown apart cars lie amid the ruins of government buildings. What once was a hub of human activity has become a front in a bloody war against hulking mutants that require intense firepower and clever tactics to defeat.
