My Rants: Fallout 3 and New Vegas w/ DLCs

When I first played this game, I instantly became a fan of Bethesda's RPG's because they do the job right when making an open world with interesting concepts and lore. My favorite series made by Bethesda is of course, the Elder Scrolls series but Fallout takes things to a whole new perspective, especially for a sort of Scifi feel to it. But unfortunately I was never been able to play any of the Fallout games when I was a kid so for this review I will only be reviewing that of Fallout 3, Fallout New Vegas and its DLC's. Also I will be referencing some of the old games as well so if your unfamiliar with a few things feel free to check it up. So lets get on with the review starting with the basic plot of the Fallout series.

The year is 2077 to where the world was still in the modern era of the 1950's or some people call it "The Golden Age of Science Fiction". In this time we had some 1950's styled robots, clothing, economy, and structure. But in the same year of 2077, and event called the Great War facing off with the United States and China against each other. In the meantime during the war everyone was on edge over the fact that Nuclear War was on their doorstep so a company known as VaultTec created large underground dwellings known as Vaults to protect over a thousand occupants for each Vault. That is until one day on October 23rd of the same year, both the United States, China, and every other country of the world released their arsenal of nuclear weaponry across the world starting a Nuclear Holocaust and thus beginning the Fallout world.

Now this concept of a background was both cool and freaking scary at the time. In days like these almost everyone is afraid of a Nuclear Holocaust and many of us try to either prevent it from happening or preparing for it but to no matter what the threat of a Nuclear Holocaust is still there no matter how hard we try to prevent or prepare and war will still be around for over hundreds maybe thousands of years by now and no political power cant prevent a war from happening no matter how hard they try. There will always be people who wants power or vengeance or something that brings them cause and they will get it to the fullest extend and it's up to the good people of the world to prevent them from getting what they want by horrible ends.

So enough preaching, lets get on with the review for Fallout 3. The game takes place two hundred years after the Great War and in the once great state of Washington DC as you play a character known simply as the Lone Wanderer who in the game is a young inhabitant of Vault 101 which has been kept sealed for 200 years. The reason why was because in the making of the Vaults, VaultTec used these vaults for social experiments to not only test some of the inhabitants mettle but to also horrifically torture them in the end such as one Vault having an inhabitant of women only and only one man and one Vault having only one man and a box full of puppets. Vault 101 was part of a social project to where no one was allowed to leave the Vault what so ever.

So as the Lone Wanderer you experience through birth, childhood, mid-teens, and mature years having your father the only parent that you have as your mother died while giving birth to you. That is until one day your father James somehow left and escaped the Vault and the Vault Overseer who is the head honcho of the Vault expects that you were involved in the escape of your father and tries to get you arrested. So like you father you escape the Vault and enter a new world filled with mutant monsters, slavers, factions who wants your head on a plate, and more as you look around to find your father and why he left.

This was a good way to start a game like this, to literally grow into your character and personalize the Lone Wanderer. I also liked how well of a character James was, he really felt like a good father who wants best for his child. He in my eyes was a great father figure, I actually wished he was my dad...moving on. What I didn't really liked though was the sudden paranoia when my father escaped as well as all the chaos that was happening. I mean all of this was made by one guy, and because of him everything was hitting the fan. People dying, everyone panicked and the Overseer was well not my most favorite of characters. I even tried to make a peaceful solution with the Overseer but I was given no choice but to threaten him to let me leave. I sort of felt bad about it. But all and all it had to be done, sacrifices need to be made for the greater good.

Gameplay wise it's your typical Bethesda RPG sort of control, right trigger or X button to wield your weapon, right trigger to shoot, left trigger to aim, and so on. There are some familiar mechanics as well such as Karma which depending on your actions in the game will give you good karma and make you a hero of the Wasteland or bad karma and make you the living scourge of the Wasteland which what Karma does will help you with interacting with certain characters and recruiting certain characters as party members. Then there's the scrounging of various items. In this game, money or Caps are important, and this game really makes you feel like you're in a Post-Nuclear Wasteland that forces you to go out, venture trough dangerous terrain, collect as much items as you can, return to town to sell your goods and repeat the cycle so you can buy better equipment to get more better loot to sell.

Then there's the leveling system, which in this game every level grants you access to certain perks that requires a certain level, attribute status, or level of Karma to gain access to. These perks will really help you out in the game whether it be to lower radiation levels, to become friends with certain factions, to killing your enemies more better, to getting better loot and so on. There's also variations of weapon types as well such as hand held guns, two handed guns, mounted guns, laser guns, plasma guns, so on and so forth. The best guns you can get is the legendary guns, these guns will help you out in the long run trust me. The sooner you find them, the sooner you can kick ass.

And in the game you get to see some historic Washingdon DC such as the Washington Monument, the Lincoln Memorial, the White House (or what's left of it) and so on and so forth but I suggest you wait and level up enough before you go out and explore, otherwise you'll be killed off easily by high level creatures such as the dreaded Deathclaw. So with these elements this game was bound to be good right, well if you can deal with some bugs. For example, framerate is an issue in this game and explosions from rocket launchers, grenades, or worse the Mini-Nuke Launcher tends to take either a moderate or huge chunk of your frame rate. If you make enough explosions your game will pretty much freeze or crash and this goes for both PC users and Xbox 360 users out there.

Later on as Fallout 3 was still in popularity, Bethesda created a new DLC for the game called Operation: Anchorage where you must aid a group known as the Outcasts to break into a weapons vault and with the help of your Pip Boy you can go inside a virtual simulator that will send you to the years of 2076 and 2077 where the Chinese threat invades Alaska and steal their oil pipelines and reserves. So with you, it's up for the US Military to take action to the Chinese and push them out. When I played this game, it presented a good challenge and I literally had to be cautious about my ammo and my health because in this health wont regenerate and you cant pick up enemy weapons or loot their bodies. Instead you have to rely on health and ammo dispensers and react only to objects blinking red. The DLC would've been one of my favorite if it wasn't for the ending. The climax of the simulation was great and all taking down the last area for the Americans but to me it seemed rather slow paced, I didn't really get much of a boss fight more like a "kill all the Chinese in the area" fight and when General Jingwei appeared I thought that I was given the chance to kick his ass, instead I just talked to both generals and the simulation ends. What's worse is when you finally open the vault and collect what you want, everyone turn their back on each other and starts killing each other. I'm sorry but was there some sort of rebellion in the Outcasts or am I missing something here? I don't know.

The next DLC to came out for Fallout 3 was that of the Pitt. What is the Pitt to be exact, well imagine the city of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in a post apocalyptic setting with burning skies, nuclear radiation all around, slaves, mutants, and raider masters up to a T that looks like an actual functioning government, in a industrial setting, and choices that will truly test your morale. So in the game you meet up with a man named Wernher who is an escaped slave and asks you to help his people in the Pitts so disguised as a slave you are sent off through a railway track to the Pitts where you can help out the slaves and get the mysterious cure for mutation for them. And this DLC was pretty right about testing your morale really, later on in the DLC you are given the choice for the mysterious cure, to either leave the cure and let the masters work on creating more of the cure in a few years time, or give the cure to the slaves now. Honestly, I said screw the slaves and work for the masters for the cure. Medical discovery takes a long time to process, it's not like they can take the gene, put it in a bottle and fill it with water and call it medicine. No there needs to be study, there needs to be experimentation, without it then humanity entirely wont get out of this apocalyptic hellhole anytime sooner.

After that, another DLC was made named Broken Steel which is to say is the aftermath of the Fallout 3 ending. After the ending and activating the water purifier, you wake up several weeks prior to see what you have done. You purified the Capital Wasteland's water, defeated the Enclave group and join in the ranks of the Brotherhood of Steel. However everything isn't all rainbows and unicorns people. No, the Enclave is still out there and about, scattered and possibly leaderless. Though you have the Enclave on the run, the Enclave fights back with an even more ferocious bite that will leave you to question; who is really winning this war? Though I cant really say much because I have yet to complete this due to certain difficulties such as high amounts of explosions and freezing. Instead I can only tell you what I can, it's a very long DLC so be prepared to take breaks a few times so you wont get exhausted. There are new achievements, level cap is increased by ten levels, new monsters such as the Albino Scorpion and Enclave Hellfire Troops are in the game now, new perks and encounters, new weapons, armor and locations for you to explore. So this is going to be fun.

So after Broken Steel, Bethesda created what I call the most terrifying and most strangest of DLC's I've ever encountered in a Fallout game; Point Lookout. Point Lookout takes place in a swampland along the coastline of Maryland where though it hasn't fall in it, but the world left it behind as an abandoned new world filled with mutant red necks, hallucinogenic cultists, and a creepy atmosphere to boot. Now granted there was some parts that weren't really rememberable such as the characters and the main plot of course, the only thing that was rememberable was that of the maze like mansion while it was attacked and the "Walking with Spirits" quest. This quest here was by far the most twisted I've ever seen, you are sprayed by the Mother Punga where you start to hallucinate from seeing enemies that aren't there, of visions of your past, to abnormal events, and so on. I didn't knew what the hell was going on and I have my own problems with hallucinations thank you very much. Anyways the DLC may not be great but if you're looking to kill some mutant hillbillies, find an alternate source for health other than stimpaks, new weapons to add to your arsenal and a creepy vibe while exploring than this DLC is for you.

Finally for the Fallout 3 DLC we have science fiction epitome itself, Mothership Zeta. If you are a fan of science fiction then this DLC is definitely your cup of tea. So the DLC starts after you finding the remnants of a crashed UFO where all of a sudden you are abducted by ALIUMS! So it's your job to figure out a way to escape the space vessel before you get a probe in your ass or worse. This DLC was pretty difficult but fun, it provided what it promised, a science fiction themed alien fighting DLC with some pretty good characters and some cool weapons and armor. So this DLC doesn't disappoint, what's even better is once you completed the DLC you can use the UFO as a new home or base which was pretty cool so now you don't have to live in a shack of Megaton but in a interstellar spaceship.

But the series must go on and so a new Fallout game was to be developed by none other than Bethesda themselves and by years time they created the next installment of the Fallout series, Fallout New Vegas. The game takes place four years after the events of Fallout 3 in the Mojave Wasteland of California and Nevada. You the player is simply known as the Courier who was supposed to dead and killed by a man named Benny who stole your package you were supposed to deliver which was a platinum poker chip. Once restored to perfect health by a man named Doctor Mitchell you are off to find the man named Benny and settle the score once and for all while a three way power struggle between the New California Republic who wants peace, order and law upon the land, the Caesar Legion who wants to enslave the people of the land and rule with an iron fist, and Mr. House who wants to keep the land how it is and rule it with an army of mechanical robots.

The concept of this game was just great, with enhanced mechanics such as crafting and aiming, reoccurring monsters from the old games such as the Nightkin from the first Fallout game and the Gecko from Fallout 2. There's some new mechanics such as gambling which by all means are pretty fun and rewards you with lots of money if you play your cards right and have a good sense of luck, I suggest you hit Blackjack. More weapons and armor, better companions with their own quests to befriend them and learn more about them, factions, factions all around. And just like a good game, your choices and actions determents the means of the end but one way or another you have to choose either one of the main factions; the New California Republic or NCR, the Caesar Legion, or Mr. House but if you know how and where to do it you can choose D and be independent making your own decisive faction to take over New Vegas. Go to them and say "Fuck you, yall aint getting shit from me!" and give them two middle fingers up.

All and all this game was just a blast of fun, and don't worry desert is not everywhere, there's other places as well such as snow and pines, a Vault filled with exotic plants, and so on. The only problem I had for Fallout New Vegas was that of both the ending and the world itself. For the ending, Bethesda didn't quite make an end result of the world. Meaning that unlike Fallout 3 with Broken Steel you don't continue the game after the final battle. Once the final battle is over you got to restart from an early save or checkpoint as though the battle hasn't happened yet. I would've thought that Bethesda would've learned their lesson but oh well. Another thing is that this world we're in is four years after the events of Fallout 3 where in Fallout 3 the people of the Capital Wasteland figured the means of purifying water so the question is where is all the purified water? I mean yes there are water bottle in the game that are purified but what about the lakes? Why is it that there are some people out there still drinking water from fire hydrants and pipes when the Brotherhood of Steel is providing fresh water. Maybe there's something else going on I'm not sure. I need to contact a Fallout expert for that.

But in the meantime lets go over the DLCs, where unlike Fallout 3 there are only a total of four DLCs and I will explain them all by their level requirements starting from no level requirement to Level 25 and over (which by the way the level cap of this game is pretty freaking high if you have all the DLC, just saying.) so lets start off with the first DLC, Honest Hearts. Honest Hearts starts off with the Courier meeting up with a group called the Happy Trails Caravan Company where with them you can travel to a place called the Zion Canyons where while exploring the canyons you get ambushed by a tribal group called the White Legs and after killing the tribal ambushers and traveling across the canyons you meet up with a man nicknamed The Burned Man. The Burned Man was that of Joshua Graham, a Mormon missionary/ Co-founder of the Caesar Legion, First Legate of the Legion, and leader of the tribal group known as the Dead Horses. The Dead Horses along with another tribal group known as the Sorrows are at a struggle with the White Legs tribe and its up to you to solve the crisis to either defend or evacuate the canyon. This DLC was pretty light hearted, I sort of liked the characters especially that of Joshua Graham. I could see why he was the man he is, he is fueled by vengeance and anything that has to do with the Legion he despises. Also there are some forms of clues to the DLC's which I will get to the main focus later. The clues in this DLC is that of who was leading the White Legs to join with the Caesar Legion and who was "The Man in the Cave". The one who was leading the White Legs we'll get to that later but for the Man in the Cave will be explained in the next DLC.

That next DLC was that of the Old World Blues. You thought Mothership Zeta was all about science fiction you ain't say nothing yet. We're talking about robots, cybernetic dogs, Roboscorpions, scientific technology, and oh the landscape and designs! Just amazing is all I can say. I'm guessing that once every science fiction nerd sees this they would be oozing their pants right now am I right? Anyways, the DLC starts off with the Courier comes in contact with a crashed satellite and gets instantly transported to the Big Empty or Big Mountain aka Big Mt which is a large crater with bases of scientific labs and testing facilities as you awake to find yourself that you went through a vivisection having both your heart, spine, and brain taken and replaced with synthetic robotic parts. Later on you meet up with a few scientists who had done the vivisection on you and asked for your help against a man named Dr. Mobius and they tell you that they have your heart and spine but your brain is in the hands of Dr. Mobius so it's up to you to go out and find your brain. This DLC was just amazing, it was funny at times, it had great rememberable characters to which I just adore, the landscape was unique, the weapons and gameplay was just off the charts, all and all this DLC was my most favorite out of any DLC I came across. And what's better, you can make a home there as well, so it's like a more better version of Mothership Zeta I suppose. Now onto the clues, before you arrived there was one other person that was in the Big MT who was named Father Elijiah, who was the one in charge of the attack against the NCR at the Brotherhood's Helios One base to where he mysteriously vanished and went to Big MT where he was captured by the Think Tank and escaped seconds later only to discover the area known as the Sierra Madre to where he went to a small settlement called Little Yangtze to experiment with explosive collars and find the broadcast signal of the Sierra Madre's exact location and later escaped by train and left all the tunnels behind him filled with other train wrecks. So long story short, Father Elijiah was obsessed.

The next DLC to come in the line was that of Dead Money. You the Courier receive a broadcast on your pipboy inviting you to the Sierra Madre to where you followed the broadcasts coordinates that leads you in a bunker to where you were gassed, stripped, collared, and dragged to the villa of the Sierra Madre where the returning Father Elijiah to gather a team of four with Dog/God the Nightkin, Dean Domino the Ghoul, and Christine Royce the mute. Together you all must get to the Sierra Madre by passing through courses to unlock the main gates to the main door and create a heist into stealing the contents of the Sierra Madre or else Father Elijiah will detonate your collars and kill you thus replacing you and your team with another set of captives. So with that you must use your resourcing skills to survive the villa as you face nearly unkillable creatures known as Ghosts, holograms, radios and static waves that will try to prematurely detonate your collar, and poisonous gases. Now to be fair, this DLC was pretty freaking hard especially at the end what with those indestructible or nearly impossible to find speakers and not to mention the fact that you cant just kill the Ghosts but you also have to dismember them in order to kill them. Ammo is pretty scarce so you have to rely on your melee skills most of the time and you got to look at every corner you are in to find some good weapons and armor. But with all that said it is infact a good DLC. Why, the characters Dog/God, Dean Domino, and Christine Royce of course. These three characters made my day when I got to them. Dog/God I felt sympathetic to, I really wanted to be his friend and find peace with himself. Dean Domino was a pretty cool yet funny guy, I just wished that I could've had a more peaceful solution with him at the end. And finally Christine Royce, this character I really liked. She was series, straight to the point on her work, and thanks to a "certain" perk I wanted to be in a close relationship with her. But unfortunately that didn't happen sadly. To say at least to me she is on my Top Ten Beautiful Woman on Video Games.

And finally we get to the pinnacle of the Fallout New Vegas DLC's, the Lonesome Road. When I first bought this DLC I was in for quite the adventure, the very DLC that ties in all the DLC's together in a perfect and understandable order. The DLC starts off by you getting a message from a man named Ulysses, the one who was originally supposed to deliver the Platinum Chip and tells you to come to a place known as the Divide, a land that has been torn apart by frequent earthquakes caused by underground nuclear explosions, violent storms capable of tearing off your skin, and home to many terrible and powerful creatures such as the Deathclaw, Tunnelers, skinned radiated survivors, and more. So with that it's up to you to find Ulysses and see what matters of horrors has caused all this destruction and what does he know about you.

This DLC was freaking nuts, even at your highest level of 50 and powerful weapons up the ass this DLC will be one hell of a challenge to accomplish. In the DLC there are of course several new weapons and armors you can get, one weapon of course will be quite useful to you when facing Deathclaws, the Flare Gun. In all honesty I actually laughed in joy when I discovered what this gun can do. What this gun does, is scare off Deathclaws when fired, that's right. Deathclaws; Can take a missile to the face head on but is a pansy when it comes to flying red lights. I was relieved when I first got this because going through Deathclaw terrain and killing them became a breeze. Especially the quarry who at around level 25 I had to sneak in, get to the highest point with a .50 caliber anti-material rifle to snipe every last Deathclaw in the area. The gameplay was great, the final conclusion of the DLC was just amazing and sad but in a good way, I especially liked Ulysses and thanks to my speech skills of 100 I was able to befriend him in the end. And just like Joshua Graham I understand where he's getting at, yes it was my fault that the place he was going to call home was destroyed horrifically but I was just a simple courier, I didn't know what in the hell I was delivering nor did I knew its purpose. I was just another pawn to political power and nothing more.

So that my friends was Fallout 3, Fallout New Vegas and their DLC's and I got to say this game series is great. No wonder everyone loves it. There are some great characters, good and evil. The world and lore is just fascinating to explore, the gameplay is top notch and DLC's really make the main game feel more special. And if you aren't happy try New Vegas on Hardcore difficulty where your survivability will really be put to the test. You have to constantly eat, drink, and sleep in order to be healthy, ammo now has weight to them, stimpaks and radaways heal over time, doctor bags can only restore limps only and partially, and companions can die. Try that for size chaps.