I'm a big fan of Bethesda's work anyway, having frittered away many hours playing Morrowind and its multiple addons, so I was pleased to see their name on Fallout 3. Fallout 3 is fun, interesting, varied and thought-provoking with lots of nice little details and plenty of longevity and playability.
Having said all that, I'm not really sure it deserved game of the year. As polished, detailed and realistic as all the landscapes are, there are still A LOT of glitches. Creeping around in the DC subway system, every time I turned a corner, my head disappeared disconcertingly into the wall. In areas with a lot of sound and texture going on such as the dense and dripping underground caverns of Hamilton's Hideaway, there's a significant drop in frame rate, giving a strobing effect that's irritating and unpleasant.
NPC AI is fantastic. I found myself hiding behind walls just to listen to conversations between supermutants. "I remember a woman. Or perhaps being a woman, I don't know. It bothers me." "What are you some kind of human?" "No, I just-" "Stop saying these things! You make me sick! Get back to work!" But some of the text based conversations with villagers and key characters are overwhelmingly tedious, going round and round in circles clicking through pages of dialogue until they eventually say something useful or interesting.
The Pip Boy is a welcome alternative to Morrowind's journal, feeling far more realistic and intuitive. My life is literally on my Pip Boy. VATS is an entertaining way to kill enemies, but general firing is pretty difficult. Maybe my character is just shit, but she doesn't seem to shoot in the direction of the targeting icon, even when the enemy is two feet away and the icon is flashing red to indicate they're in range.
Game of the Year is a big title. To me, that says that this is THE BEST game of the year, in every category. The best designed, the best executed, the best to play. And while Fallout 3 is excellent in all these areas, it still doesn't quite get my vote. Morrowind, also a former game of the year, seemed like a worthy winner. Maybe that made me set my expectations too high. But it just feels to me like Bethesda hasn't moved on quite enough from the template Morrowind created.
Who knows, maybe the game's ending will blow me away so much, I'll change my mind. I'll let you know when I get there.
Don't get me wrong, the sepia toned ending was all very nice, and I enjoyed the Broken Steel add-on very much, but I still kind of felt like shrugging at the end of Fallout 3. I'm still playing, exploring the huge world Bethesda has created but that's less about the story and more about Fawkes.
