Big Game Hunter: "Fallout 3"

Published 5:40 pm Friday, September 5, 2008

Hands-on: “Fallout 3” is the most anticipated title this fall, and with good reason. Previous installments in the games franchise have been nothing short of genius — perhaps with exception of “Fallout: Tactics” — so the hype surrounding “Fallout 3” has been building and building, leaving many wondering if the game could ever live up to expectations.

The answer is an enthusiastic, mutant-hunting “yes.”

I was given a hands-on at the Penny Arcade Expo on the Xbox 360 and the game handled like a dream. The VATS in-game targeting and cinematic sequence was everything a first-person shooter fanatic could ask for.

Landscapes are what you expect after a nuclear attack: arid, dirty and filled with mutants — much like my apartment.

The attention to detail, however, that developer Bethesda put into the game shines, from the chipped paint job on a wrecked car to the flakes of rust on a 30-gallon drum stewing in an irradiated swamp.

The music in “Fallout 3” is fun, and while you can choose to stick with the orchestral score throughout the game you can also tune in to radio stations that exist within post-apocalyptic Washington, D.C. Ella Fitzgerald singing in your ear while you lay down a torrent of covering fire from a hybrid assault rifle can get a bit surreal, so you may choose to change the station from time to time.

Lastly, the sandbox style game is gigantic. Bigger than “Elder Scrolls: Oblivion,” with a number of endings you earn depending on the moral choices you’ve made in-game.

Don’t make the mistake I made and ask random people to juggle grenades — they don’t appreciate it.

Available: Oct. 28

Price: $59.99

Platform: PC, PS3 and Xbox 360

Rated: “M” for mature

Justin Arnold, Big Game Hunter, jarnold@heraldnet.com