The new game from the makers of Elder Scrolls Oblivion has arrived recently to the tune of much hype. Is it as well deserved as it sounds? For the most part yes. It has enough going for it to take two year end titles from me. Geek Woman’s Best Game of ’08 and Geek Woman’s Best Female Avatar of “08 too.

The story takes place along an alternate reality that had elaborated on the 1940s culture, and froze it in time. You see all the remnants of post war paranoia and propaganda. The Vaults are massive bomb shelters that were built and eventually inhabited by an uptight population that fled into them and managed to survive for a couple hundred years. As the vault dwellers emerge following the nuclear winter, the way they interpret and handle life and their circumstances creates the friction between the factions in the world. How you deal with interactions and battle will determine your character and perhaps the one of two hundred possible endings.

The life of your avatar begins in Vault 101. Where you are issued a ‘Pip Boy’ a wrist worn primitive looking computer interface. The design looks much like Big Boy the logo for a chain of burger joints. It holds the quest info, maps, items, and other functions. It’s easily accessed and functions fine. The map although it zooms and pans well, does not give enough detail. But you can zero in with it on targets for missions simply.

Fallout 3 begins with a coming out of the uterus view of birth. You are allowed to choose a male or female avatar. It then proceeds to recreate the rather creepy childhood of a vault dweller. Quizzes along the way set up your character stats in a clever and realistic manner. By filling out several familiar MEMEs your avatar takes on a character that you model for them. You’ll customize your character, select your favorite stats with a seven-attribute system, called S.P.E.C.I.A.L. and choose skill point assignments.
By the time your character emerges from the Vault into the world such as it is, the avatar will have developed a personality. The female avatars look very skinny, haggard and washed out, which seems to be another similarity to Oblivion. They can’t seem to make very attractive characters. But although slightly down trodden which is realistic for a post apocalyptic culture, the stats and skills for the female characters certainly make up for it. In fact the way that the female characters are seen throughout the game and the playable female characters make this the winner of Best Female Avatar in my blog.

The female characters have more honesty than you see in most games. It isn’t just the wearing of the metal bras and thongs in games that are offensive, but the inconsistency and lack of depth of the portrayal of female characters that is unacceptable. In Fallout 3 you have the female characters wearing every sort of clothes and amour as well as the uncomfortable looking metal sort, but they have more gravitas than your average NPC ho. Instead of having the roles of females limited to sainted sanctimonious healer, raving madwoman or plain unfeeling and unrealistic the game does cast women in all type of roles fairly. They took the time to write and perform alternative scripts and story paths for both genders, which I often have to criticize games for. It is no small amount of work to be that inclusive and it took extra time to put in, which deserves notice.

Far beyond just playing a ‘good’ girl or a ‘bad’ girl you can try different permutations of personality. The game also gives you the option to girl up your character by choosing the Black Widow skill that enhances your stats when you are up against (ahem) male NPC’s in the game. The special skill reflects that special something that some women have which can be used to distract those of the denser sex. Or you can make your character as butch as you like too. This all is really a big step towards avatar equality in gaming.

The re-playablilty in this game could be seriously addictive. It almost scares me how lost I could get in this game. You could try diverse scenarios and character types endlessly.

If you enjoyed Oblivion you will enjoy this game too. However if you were an original Fallout fan instead, you might not be as forgiving. If you like both previous games then you may be happiest. You don’t need to have played any previous games to enjoy this one. Fans of shooters as well as sword and sorcery can find enough layers to keep entertained here. There is good tinkering, plenty of loot and guns. The missions aren’t difficult and a strength of this game is that there are a variety of ways to solve things. It’s a world that rewards invention and exploration. It is anything but linear. Instead of labeling it a sand box, I’d say it is more like rummaging through a huge junk drawer. Wall*E would have a field day here, and most likely you will too.

You can easily switch between first person and third person perspective. This is another feature that I liked in Oblivion that I think every game should offer. Make it simple, leave it up to the player. The more flexibility we get in how we play, the longer we will play for. That is why the MMO’s have people play them for four years at a time. What Bethesda does well is to blende the RPG elements of an MMO with the instant gratifications expected of a console game.

The sound in the game is the quirky in game radio stations that play haunting 40′s music. I found myself seeing ghosts of old relatives in the kitchen after playing Fallout 3 for what must have been too long. The graphics are good, but I imagine would look better with HD than SD. The color palate is dull as would be expected, considering the story line, but I do expect more. What it lacks in beauty it makes up for in every other way.

This game is a buy for sure. You can say good-bye to your real world life for a while as you explore this melancholy and at times humorous picture of the not so distant future. You will be immersed in it, and when you emerge back into the ‘millions of colors’ world that we all live in, you may be more thankful for the kitch. It could teach you to appreciate the things that are gone, even flashy Christmas-time insincerity, fast food, super models and a more naive world that we take for granted. You might find yourself a little more tolerant of the world that you set out to escape when you sat down to play, because after all you’re glad that this world hasn’t had the Fallout. Yet.

I give Fallout 3 9.5 bottles of Nuka-cola out of 10.