Best of the Decade: Fallout 3

Fallout 3

Platforms: Playstation 3, Xbox 360, Windows

Release Date: October 28, 2008

Publisher: Bethesda Softworks

Developer: Bethesda Game Studios

Bethesda games are broken. There’s no way around it. I was intimately familiar with Oblivion’s brand of broken before their new project was even announced. Fallout 3 followed faithfully in its footsteps in being a technical mess of a game. If we’re being honest, most of Bethesda’s games would be laughed off of the shelves were it not for their one primary saving grace.

But oh what a saving grace it is.

Like its fantastical predecessor, Fallout 3 nails the feeling of an epic scope like no other game this side of World of Warcraft. It’s pretty safe to say that Bethesda’s games are the largest, most detailed worlds in all of gaming, at least on the single player end of the equation and perhaps beyond. Exploration is present in spades. There’s so much to do and see it boggles the mind. I may go back to WoW periodically for my “holy bejeezus this gaming world is huge” fix, but in my off months I’m playing games like Bethesda’s, and no one does them better than the studio that brought us Elder Scrolls.

Click to read more ...

Best of 2009 - Honorable Mentions, Part One

And now for those unfortunate games that just didn't quite cut the mustard. In some alternate universe these could be just as deserving of a slot in the top ten, but for some reason they got left behind. They are grouped here so they can at least get some shot at the recognition they so clearly deserve.

Fallout 3 DLC

The elusive definition of a “good value” in gaming is getting trickier and trickier to define in these times of inevitable downloadable content, dirt cheap iPhone games, and digital distribution that sometimes costs inexplicably as much as a physical product.

I have not lost sight of the fact that the downloadable expansions for Fallout 3 have cost me nearly as much as buying the game new in the first place. This on top of the fact that I paid extra for the Limited/Collector’s/Special/Suckers edition, which is an entirely different maddening variable in the value equation.

Click to read more ...