Game Cover

War, war never changes.

Platform played on: PC

# Review

The first Fallout I ever played was Fallout 3, and I was completely enthralled by the macabre story and the dark humour. The basic premise of the Fallout universe is that the world was destroyed by a global nuclear war (in which China invades Alaska and US annexes Canada), and you have to survive in the post-apocalyptic wasteland of the United States.

The game is played as a turn-based open-world RPG, and the player is rewarded to explore the map. There are various hidden secrets and treasures, and the lore is extremely rich. The player can take on various missions for different factions and NPCs, and the outcome of the game is determined by the player's actions.

Aspects of the game aged like fine wine while others aged like room-temperature milk.

What I enjoyed the most about the game (and all other Fallout games) is the story. The lore is enthralling and the characters are extremely interesting. The writing is incredible; it's like playing through a Stephen King novel. The story is dark and grotesque, but surprisingly human, and even funny in some places. There are a whole spectrum of characters and factions, from cultists, to criminal gangs, to normal people who are just looking to survive. The missions often have many different paths so there is a lot of creativity on how to best accomplish the objectives.

The interface took a while to get used to but becomes very intuitive after some use. Some menus, however, such as the barter interface, could use some better designing. It was extremely difficult later on in the game to trade, as the denominations of trade get very large but the menu only allows increments of 1. The game overall could have used some more QA. For example, some of the endings were unobtainable and the game was unbalanced; once you have power armour and energy weapons, you are basically invincible and can one-shot most enemies.

My Indestructible Character (Yes, I Saved Dogmeat)

# Conclusion

As with all Fallout games, it's charming with its various Easter eggs and dark jokes. Even the bugs become part of the charm. The game itself has high replayability and I would argue that it's one of the most iconic video games of the 90s.

# Overall rating: 8.6

What does the rating mean?

I would recommend using the tutorial by Per Jorner and although I haven't tried it, I've heard that installing the unofficial patch makes the bugs much less painful.