Video Games: Funtime in Post-Apocalyptia!

I come to you once again to give you a review of a game. This time, it is Bethesda Studio's "Fallout 3," a first-person action RPG set in a nuclear war ravaged DC area, known as the Capital Wasteland.While one can go into the game setting with little to no background on the previous two Fallout games, it's best if one is provided with at least a little information. Imagine a world where, around the 1950's, history went on differently: the Cold War never ended, and American Culture didn't really progress. Tensions around the globe got worse and worse, until the cold war turned quite hot, with the Chinese, notably, invading Alaska. Then 2077 rolls around, and the nukes go flying, devastating the world, and rendering much of it into blasted wasteland.

But people survive, both through sheer luck and through being some of the few to live in a Vault, a specialized underground fallout shelter, kind of like a non-military Cheyenne Mountain.

You, born in Vault 101, where no one ever enters and no one ever leaves, don't put a serious thought to leaving the Vault until one fateful day. You awake on that day to find your father has left the Vault, not telling you the reasoning, and it has triggered a series of events that will force you outside the Vault, into the blasted Capital Wasteland, to search for answers, prosper in the way you choose, and maybe, just maybe, to change the future of the Wasteland for good.

In terms of graphics and setting, the game is superb, giving just about the perfect feel to the world. It isn't a happy place, there's a lot of suffering, and often the only humor to be found is of the darker, sardonic variety.

A lot of the tech is unusually retro or clunky, while at the same time being more advanced than our own, as if developed on a completely different line of development than our own.

The main story, likewise, is quite good, with perhaps the only real disappointment being that beating the main storyline literally ends the game with no new game plus function.

Gameplay-wise, it excels as well, but will also likely disappoint many. Don't mistake the game for a shooter; it is an RPG, and your character's skills and stats determine far more than just about any gameplay one could pull off. If you go in trying to play it like "Halo" or "Call of Duty," you're going to be disappointed, and likely take a lot more damage than you should.

Overall, it is an excellent game, and if you enjoyed Bethesda's previous games, "Oblivion" and "Morrowind," I can almost guarantee you will enjoy this one as well.