Fallout 3 vs. Oblivion

I recently bought Fallout 3 after months of anticipation. I am very pleased to say that it far exceeded my expectations. It is one of the best games I have played in a long time. Fallout 3 is an open-ended RPG similar to the open-ended gameplay of the past two installments in the Elder Scrolls series, Morrowind and Oblivion. Just so there is no confusion Fallout 3 does have an ending, unlike Morrowind and Oblivion, but the thing that makes it open-ended is the fact that you essentially choose when it ends and what you do beforehand.

It's true that in a lot of ways Fallout 3 is Oblivion with guns, but it offers so much more. While Oblivion was drab and repetitive, Fallout 3 has something new around every corner. Every inch of explorable land is crammed full of content. It is a lot smaller than Oblivion in land area but you don't notice because there is so much to do.

Oblivion had great graphics and an improved fighting system but lacked that which made Morrowind great. Everything seemed so redundant. When you've seen one dungeon in Oblivion you've seen them all. The quests for the factions were good but the main quest line was terrible. In the main quest you are forced to endure dungeon after repetitive dungeon until the last quest, which pits you against random hordes of monsters on your way to your destination. Probably the worst aspect of the game was that everything was adjusted to your character's current level. That means that depending on what level you do any specific quest on you could be facing harmless rats or ferocious monsters. I beat the main quest on level 5! Level 5!!! That means, literally, no good weapons or armor until you reach level 15 or so. You can't sneak into a cave laden with enemies that would otherwise obliterate you and steal some good loot at level 5. Nope, you must wait until you are at the approved level before you can have a big boy sword. What?... Level 5? It's a Steel Shortsword for you! In Morrowind I knew places where you could get a piece of the best armor or a great weapon before you even hit level 3! It just took some exploring and lots of saving and retrying. The developers tried to remedy this by making every dungeon in Oblivion regenerate every now and then. That means that if you explored it at level 5 you can still get good stuff from it at level 20. This was a simple remedy and not a solution. In Morrowind and Fallout 3 this feature isn't needed because there is more than enough content to keep people happy. In both Morrowind and Fallout 3 there are areas where you just can't go until you attain a higher level. In Morrowind you couldn't really even start the main quest until you were level 3-5 because the first mission was so hard.

Fallout 3 has everything that Morrowind had and Oblivion had (what little it did have) that was good and added even more. The fighting plays like an RPG-FPS hybrid and the main quest line is amazing. There are points in the story and in side quests were I really had to think about what to do because there were so many ways to do it. Another great thing included in Fallout 3 is Karma. Everything you do in the game affects your karma level, whether you choose to be good, evil, or somewhere in between. I usually like to go the path of the rogue turned saint but there are many characters to be made and developed. Fallout 3 is a definite must play for anyone into the action-RPG genre and even for anyone who is a fan of good games in general. Just a warning though, Fallout 3 is not, in any way whatsoever, a family game. Blood, gore, and plenty of exploding heads and dismemberment may make this game fun and funny for some, but horrifying and mentally scarring to others. So please, do not let anyone who is under the age of, I'd say, 16 play this game. It is not intended for children and should not be played by children. That is what the rating system is for, look at it before you buy it.

All pictures from http://www.ign.com/