I am Lee Baillie

A game of jaw-dropping scope, Fallout 3 is an intense journey from start to finish. Escaping from Vault 101 into post-apocalyptic Washington DC, now known as the Capital Wasteland, you are left to fend for yourself using only skills you learn along the way. It isn’t long before you run into trouble, however, and you are forced to fight for your life using your bare hands or any weapon you can find. Using the VATS system – a way by which to pause the action, compose yourself and queue up a selection of hits on a single target or multiple enemies (many come in twos and threes,) – the aesthetic aspect of the game really kicks in as you kick out on a giant insect or a Super Mutant.

The game can be played in first or third-person views, a growing trend in RPG games, and each view has its better uses. For example, using the third person view allows you to fully take in and explore the landscape and the buildings and gives a better sense of your surroundings. When in combat, however, using the first-person view really helps you to home in on an enemy, especially when in close combat. You can see and hear the cinematic animation as each bullet hits your enemy’s flesh with a spatter of blood and a satisfying explosion of flesh as you destroy the mutated abomination lusting to cause you pain.

Immersive, the surroundings will have you exploring for an age before you even get into the stories of the game.

Overall Fallout 3 is definitely a high-hitting game for 2008 and is far superior to, though less anticipated than, many other RPGs over the past twelve months. You will not complete this game in an instant; it is very much a long-haul ride. But trust this: you will NOT be disappointed with anything after the game has finished. Except, perhaps, with that fact itself.