Review of Fallout 3 for Xbox 360 by Protomario

Fallout 3 is a post-apocalyptic computer and console action role-playing game developed and published by Bethesda Softworks as the third installment in the Fallout series and a sequel to Interplay's Fallout and Fallout 2. It was released on October 28, 2008 in North America, on October 31, 2008 in Europe and on December 4, 2008 in Japan. It is available on the PC, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. The game takes place in the year 2277 on the East Coast of what used to be the United States of America, mostly in Washington, DC, Maryland and Virginia. The game play features include real-time combat and first or third person perspective, in contrast to the previous games, which were turn-based and isometric. Information about the canceled Fallout 3 project developed by Black Isle can be found in the Van Buren article. The game is set in a post-apocalyptic, retro-futurist Washington, DC following the Great War between the US, China and other countries. The Great War was a conventional and nuclear war that occurred on October 23, 2077 and lasted less than two hours despite causing immense damage and destruction. Before the Great War were the Resource Wars, during which the United Nations disbanded, a plague rendered the United States paranoid, and Canada was annexed. The Player Character is a young inhabitant of Vault 101, a fallout shelter in the Washington D.C. area. The vault has reportedly been sealed for 200 years until the player's father opens the only door to the outside world and disappears without any explanation. The Vault Overseer believes that the player was involved in their father's escape, and sends the vault's security force to arrest him. This leaves the player little choice but to also escape from the vault, with the hope of locating his father and finding out why he left. The Vault-Tec Assisted Targeting System, or VATS, is an active pause combat system implemented in the game. While using VATS, the otherwise real-time combat is paused. VATS also allows the gory deaths in the game to be shown in slow motion and great detail. Attacks in VATS cost action points, and the player can target specific body areas for attacks to inflict specific injuries. It should be noted that the player receives greatly reduced damage while using VATS, it also greatly reduces a weapons condition, forcing the player to strike a balance between using more ammo or losing guns quicker. This trade-off allows for two very different play styles throughout the game. The Karma system is an important feature in Fallout's gameplay. A players actions, including conversation and combat choices, affects the player's status in the game world; a player who makes good decisions is received more positively by NPCs, and a player that makes bad decisions has the opposite reaction. Crimes can also be committed by a player, and whichever faction or group that is harmed by a crime are fully aware of the player's action in most cases. Other factions that were not affected by the crime will not be aware of it, and since a town is usually its own faction, news of a crime committed in one town will not spread to another. Beware however, excessive good or evil deeds will cause a bounty by the opposite alignment group. Talon Company (If you are extremely good) or the Regulators (if you've been bad) will ambush you randomly, and are not bound to any particular area, they can appear anywhere in the wastes. Factions can range in size and boundaries, however, and may not be restricted to a single area. The game world itself was planned to be significantly smaller than that of Oblivion's but is now similar in size.