Future Shock

After a determined effort over the last week, I finally got round to completing Fallout 3 yesterday, giving myself a nice glow of self-satisfaction that you get from completing such an epic masterpiece of a game.

I had bought it maybe around 18 months ago, and put in a good 50 hours in completing it first time round. But then the "Game of the Year" version come out, with five add-on packs, giving me an excuse to go through it all again and pick up on stuff I'd missed before. At the conclusion of the final mission of the "Broken Steel" add-on, I'd logged 80 hours in, breaking the 78 hour record from Final Fantasy VII.

The game deserves such a large amount of attention due to the massive detail found throughout the world you inhabit, which is a huge reproduction of a 300 years post-Nuclear war Washington DC, referred to by characters as the Capital Wastelands. To surmise the backstory: you've been brought up in the safety of a "vault" underneath the ruins of civilisation by your loving Doctor Dad (voiced by Liam Neeson) after the mother dies at your birth. After a tutorial acting as bits of your childhood, Pop elects to scarper from the Vault and, obviously, you have to go follow.

The world of the Wasteland is a pretty bleak one - giant mutated cockroaches, scorpions and bears roam the land along with gangs of human raiders who want nothing more than to chop you up and steal your gear. More sinister are the giant 'Super Mutants', who look like skinhead versions of the Incredible Hulk and whose sinister origins and plans are revealed throughout the game.

Though there is a core storyline that makes up the spine of the game, it also allows you the option to wander round the DC ruins, visiting settlements and either helping or hindering the good (and bad) citizens you come across. Central to how people react with you is the "Karma" system: do nice things and you get good karma, which means certain people are more likely to help you. Act like a complete bastard by robbing and murdering, and the same people aren't going to welcome you with open arms, but others may well have work for you.

For some reason, I found myself always trying to do the "right" thing by people and so missed out on some missions, such as helping out a slaving ring capture some new 'recruits'. Instead, I opted to blast them off the face of the earth in a rain of righteous shotgun shells.

Fallout 3 isn't a game for those who aren't keen on bleakness and a sense of existential despair. There's very little happiness or joy, and most the people you meet appear to just want to get by without being murdered/enslaved/eaten. In this context, doing someone a favour and having them show gratitude does actually provide a sense of well-being, until you realise this isn't real life and then you feel a bit daft.

While the 'original' ending did strike me as a tad unsatisfactory (and sudden), with the add-on packs, matters conclude far better and also allow you the option of wandering the lands post-game to pick up on missed bonuses, missions and other distractions. This isn't so much a draw for me, but for those of you (hello, Terr) who like to gain every achievement and trophy, it's a real boon.

Playing Fallout 3 was something of an experience, and at the moment it sits in my "Top Five Games Evah!" list. Casual gamers may find it too deep and requiring of too much effort, but anyone with an interest in story and immersion should pick this up - and if they haven't already, and it has been out a couple of years now, so what's the excuse?