Played and Tested: Fallout 3

'Who ever thought post apocolyptic disaster could be so much fun.....'

Format: PS3 for this feature but also avaliable on Xbox 360.

Fallout 3 starts you from the very beginning, as a new born baby in the delivery room you are born a Vault dweller in a post apololyptic Washington D.C. From the off you get the chance to mould your character - choose your gender, appearence and skills. The skills you choose from the skills list will result in how certain elements work in the game, for example if you notch up your small guns skill you will be more accurate and inflict more damage with pistols. Or if you choose you want to be able to repair weapons, pick locks or become a master of barter then assign your points to meet your needs.

Now on to the game - after reeling through the years (in a short space of in-game time) from crawling on all fours as a baby, celebrating your tenth birthday, shooting your first Radroach with a BB gun, to taking your bizarre G.O.A.T exams you eventually break out of the vault in search of your estranged father. This is where the game really starts to take shape. As you step out of the vault for the first time and look out onto a derilict wasteland of suburban Washington D.C where everything looks eerie, tragic and disturbingly real you know your in for a treat. From here you are free to roam wherever the boundaries of the map take you, which gives you a lot of freedom and time to take in the visually brilliant surroundings.

In the wastelands you are on your own and with limited ammunition and a somewhat feeble clout you quickly have to search the all the possible nicks and crannys for additional fire power - especially when you are set upon by the less than friendly radio active wildlife.

The first settlement you stumble onto is Megaton, a disjointed community which happens to have an armed and undetonated bomb sitting nicely right at its core. Your initial task is to ask the locals if they have seen your father and for the most part they are as unhelpful as you come to expect from RPG extras but eventually you stumble onto some valued information, which takes your adventure right into the thick of the mayhem. Nice!

Summary
I am only a few hours into the game but already I have been impressed by what Fallout 3 has to offer. The game really captures the post apocolyptic environment in a realistic manner and gives you full access to the wastelands of D.C. The targeting system is top notch and it is highly satisfying bringing down super mutants and stripping them off all their weapons and ammo after. I read reviews that stated that Fallout 3 is Oblivion with Guns but - it's better!