Organized by spoiler tags because there's a fair bit here.
Also worth mentioning I played using a slightly modified version of the Wasteland Survival Guide, which uses the Tale of Two Wastelands mod.
WRITING & STORY
spoiler
I am not a big fan of how much of your character (age, parentage, childhood experiences, etc.) is decided for you in Fallout 3. To me, it felt more like less possibilities than anything else. This is made even worse by the fact that nothing interesting is really done with these fixed story elements. Your relationship with James is never meaningful in the short time it exists, never actually put to the test, explored, or reinforced beyond a few off-handed "I'm proud/disappointed" comments. Your youth and inexperience in an alien and unforgiving world never causes meaningful challenges. So what was the point of setting this all in stone?
The main plot is an instrument to get you exploring the wastes, and offers little in the way of twists or turns. Will you be generally good or incredibly, irrationally evil? Gee, we're spoiled for roleplaying choice here. Tranquility Lane is somewhat interesting conceptually, I guess. Overall there's supposed to be a theme of sacrifice, but again the concept is not engaged with in any meaningful way beyond "Your dad sacrificed himself, so you should too, and you're a bad person if you don't." Here are a few ideas to play with off the top of my head:
- How is a sacrifice changed if the thing you're giving up isn't really yours to give?
- Is it any more or less valid to sacrifice in imitation of another person?
- Is sacrifice noble by virtue of the act itself, or must it have tangible effects to be worth anything?
WORLD & EXPLORATION
spoiler
This is often lauded as Fallout 3's big advantage over New Vegas. The map is denser, and you're not funneled down a particular route beyond the nudging of the main quest. But do either of those things matter if most of the world is so uninteresting? There are unique and worthwhile locations like Mama Dolce's or the Dunwich Building, don't get me wrong, but they are massively outweighed by meaningless ones. What's the draw of yet another random power station, or a car crash? It's even worse in the city proper, where everything is broken up by uniform metro tunnel segments. When you've gone through one tunnel, you've generally gone through them all, so it becomes a massive bore to do anything in D.C. itself.
New Vegas is not totally innocent by comparison. It too has random locations that serve only as dungeon crawling fodder, but a lot less of them. To me, that means less content padding, and while it truthfully could use a little more to explore in some of the more lifeless regions, I much prefer it to the alternative.
KARMA
spoiler
A lot of my umbrage with the Karma system comes down to the name, as it implies an objective good/evil rather than how you're perceived by the denizens of the Wasteland. If you ignore that it's fine, basically a more simplistic and abusable version of the faction reputation system of New Vegas. I actually played with a mod that ported that system to 3, but since the game wasn't designed around that it changed very little.
DLC SUMMARIES
spoiler
Mothership Zeta:
A mediocre corridor shooter suffering from major tonal whiplash compared to the main game. IMO aliens should be cheeky one off easter eggs in Fallout—giving them a whole DLC just feels too wacky. The Alien Blaster is a great weapon, though, and I mained it for the rest of the game.
Operation Anchorage: Short and forgettable. Conceptually I like the wrinkle of the simulation being purposefully altered to glorify pre-War USA, but beyond that barely developed idea it's head-empty, combat-focused content in a game with mediocre combat.
Point Lookout: I dig the misty, dank wetland and southern gothic vibes, and some of the side quests were enjoyable. However, the main plot really falls apart once you meet Calvert. The player character's motivations, already stretched perilously thin given they have no particular reason to be in Point Lookout, are entirely absent after that point beyond mild curiosity as to how it will all play out. Also enemy NPCs are scripted to do 35 bonus damage with all weapons, and that ignores your Damage Resistance. Thanks Bethesda!
The Pitt: This one just made me feel icky. It's so brutally miserable, and neither ending feels good. I sided with Werhner and the slaves, but his backstory makes it clear that he doesn't really care about them and is just using the revolt as a pretext to seize power for himself. One gets the impression that nothing is really going to change in The Pitt, no matter who you leave in charge. I'm all for morally complex storytelling and decisions in games, but this was less morally gray and more morally pitch-black.
(...is this how it feels to be UlyssesT when Game of Thrones gets brought up?)
Broken Steel: I'm sure this was much more appreciated back in the day for fixing the silly main quest ending, allowing you to play after it, and raising the level cap. Without that context this is nothing special, just a lot of fighting Enclave. The one exception is that I enjoyed the side quests! "Holy Water" and "The Amazing Aqua Cura" were some of my favorites in the game, though very short.
MISCELLANEOUS THOUGHTS
spoiler
- Companions are so two dimensional compared to New Vegas, you get so little sense of their personality beyond the base level elevator pitch. I ended up rolling with Dogmeat and Fawkes, the former because dog and the latter because I felt like he could really use a friend :')
- Conceptually, I actually don't mind Three Dog's excessive extolling/disparaging of the player's actions. Galaxy News Radio is essentially a propaganda outlet (he even calls it "Radio Free Wasteland"), so it makes sense that he's going to eschew all nuance and paint you as Jesus or Satan. Still, I wish he would shut up about Bryan Wilks so I could listen to music.
- Percentage based speech checks are dumb and encourage savescumming. Charisma modifying that percentage chance does give it more use than in New Vegas, but only in terms of reducing the expected amount of reloads to pass your check. I used a mod to institute threshold based speech checks and didn't miss the RNG one bit.
- I actually don't mind the Brotherhood being so goody two shoes here. Given the autocratic nature of Brotherhood chapters, the Elder having a change of heart and steering his chapter in a more altruistic direction makes sense. What I DO mind is the split with the Outcasts not having any real effect. They get no attention in the main story despite being a major player in the Wasteland, given their tech and manpower. No, Operation Anchorage doesn't count.
CONCLUSIONS
spoiler
Playing in 2023, 15 years past its original release, it's easy to look at Fallout 3 and see all the ways it has aged poorly or was never that good to begin with, especially in comparison to New Vegas (which is what I've done in the above almost exclusively). And while my impression is indeed pretty lukewarm, I think 3 deserves kudos as an early pioneer of open world exploration RPGs as we know them today. Like Seinfeld, it's hard to see how groundbreaking something was after the ground has been broken and everyone has taken notes. And of course, if we didn't have Fallout 3, we almost certainly wouldn't have New Vegas, so that's worth something.
Although I've alluded to playing New Vegas in the mega I'm actually doing Fallout 4 survival and having a good, if challenging time. Might make a similar post about it when I'm finished, but who knows when that'll be.