First Look: Fallout 3

So I know I was supposed to be waiting for this but Little Big Planet was delayed and it got really good reviews and I picked it up fairly cheap (£34 in Zavvi, although annoyingly if I'd waited until I got to Sainsburys I could of got it for £29 but I'd been to every shop in Manchester and hadn't found it cheaper than £38 before).

I've never played a Fallout game before and I haven't played Oblivion either so I wasn't sure what to expect. The game breaks you in gently as your born and experince your first 16 or so years in Vault 101 in a series of Flash Forwards and does a reasonable job of fitting the choices you make into your intial skill set. Then there's a test (G.O.A.T. tests if you will.. a bit like Harry Potters O.W.L.S. presumably) but if you're not happy with the out come a quick chat with the teacher allows you to change 'em anyway.

As the plot starts to develop you leave Vault 101 and you're out in to the world devestated by nuclear war.. For an 80's kid like me that grew up surrounded by the fear of The Arms Race and When the Wind Blows it's particularly chilling to see. Even though it's an alternate future where development seemed to stop in the 50/60's (apart from the lazer pistols and robots obviously) it's nothing like the Art Deco stylings of Bioshock.

From here on in there's very little concession for newcomers. There's no indication of whether a particular mission is suitable for your (apart from it's distance from Megaton and even that's not that reliable) current level and it's quite possible to take a wrong turn just a few feet from where you're going and stumble on a group of monsters who rip you to shreds. Health and ammo are very scarce and item management is vital. You have a personal computer which is very handy for organising things but the default control scheme for it never feels natural (for instance on the map screen you move the cursor with the right stick and zoom in with up and down on the left stick.. however moving the left stick left or right changes to a different option on the computer and this happens a lot). Even something as simple as the currency threw me for a while. You dealing in caps. Which is fair enough. However I'd been searching dead bodies for loot and wondering why so many of them where carrying bottle caps when it dawned on me that was a 'cap' obvious when you think about it I suppose but nobody spells anything out for you.

Anyway now I've levelled up a bit and I'm getting the hang of the VATS combat and managine my items I'm really starting to enjoy it. Whether I'll finish it or not will depend on the variety of the missions and dungeons but so far so good.