For some reason, It takes me multiple tries to fully get into a Fallout game. It took me like 5 times with Fallout 4, which eventually became one of my favorites, I've yet to fully get into Fallout NV though I have played about 10 hours, and it took me even longer to fully get into Fallout 3. Now that I have played over 80 hours of Fallout 3, I can say that this is pretty fantastic, and one of my favorite Open World games I've played.

Bethesda gets a lot of mostly deserved hate these days due to games like Fallout 76, Starfield, and games they published like Redfall. However, you can not deny, that before Bethesda's down fall, they were the very best at Open World RPGs, and this game, as well as some other titles, prove that. The Open World of Fallout 3 is not only fun to explore, but is Immersive, atmospheric, full of Unique locations, Unique Charcters, and Dangerous. The world Bethesda created, is harsh, hellish, and horrible. The world is full of things, things that only have one goal in mind, and that goal is to make sure you don't make it out of the Wasteland alive. It is quite possibly the most dangerous land to explore in any game, which can be said about almost every Fallout, but due to the great designs and mechanics of the enemies you encounter in the waste, this game feels just so much more brutal. The grey coloring and rough textures, though I really like those, create a depressing, oppressive atmosphere, one that I have yet to see replicated in anything else excluding the original Fallout games. Bethesda, at least to me, understood the Fallout product very well, and it shows in the world the created. In the other Bethesda games I've played, Skyrim, Fallout 4, Oblivion, Morrowind, the pure adventurous wonder they implement in each of these, is unrivaled, and is found here in Fallout 3 as well, with tons of places to explore and scavenge, as well as finding stories that the player allways feels is unique to their experience. Something I want to add really quick, the Towns and Cities you find in the world were all pretty memorable and interesting. Megaton is no doubt the best one, but Rivet City, Little Lamplight, and Big town, are all interesting places with interesting characters and unique themes that I love. Some left a little to be desired, but mostly no complaints, Fantastic job once again in the Open World department from Bethesda.

Besides the areas outside of DC, DC itself, though not as open or fun to explore, was scary, dangerous, and well done. I do wish they would've had the city more open, and though there are problems with the Metro system they make you go though, I thought they were still fun to explore. I just wish they didn't block the player off from exploring freely, hopefully that is something that can fix in a hypothetical Remake.

Moving on to something I wasn't as big a fan of, the Main Campaign. The best part of this game is the side quests. So I avoided doing the Main Quest a lot, just making sure I got stronger, because from past playthroughs the Main Quest has always been a struggle for me. I'm sure playing on Very Hard difficulty has something to do with that, but it's also due to the poor balancing of enemies in the game. Besides the tedious difficulty, the Main Story has one of my favorite beginnings to any game I've played. I agree it's definitely too long, which can be said about all Bethesda openings, but I also believe it was very well done and memorable. However, the rest of the campaign seems extremely rushed and poorly paced. I believe this is due to the struggles of trying to make things work on the hardware they had to work with, as well as the Engine Bethesda uses. I'm pretty certain they wanted this game to be much bigger, especially the Main Story. There are a lot of cool and good moments, but also there is a feeling of "I never got to experience the whole story".

The rushed story, as well as the bugs in the game, makes me think this is the game that is in most need of a Remake. Not a remaster to make it pretty, but a full Remake. Yes this game is great as it is, but playing this and realizing the potential it has for being the very best Fallout game makes me want one even more.

Moving on, the gameplay was good. From the RPG mechanics to the Gunplay and everything in between, I heavily enjoyed it. However, the Gunplay would be kinda shit without the V.A.T.S. carrying it. It's just ok by itself, which can be said about all Fallouts except 4 and 76, but the V.A.T.S. is so incredibly necessary. Besides the lack luster gunplay, the RPG elements are well done, and do seem to have a good amount of "Depth" behind them. My absolute favorite gameplay aspect, something that I touched on earlier, is the scavenging for recourses. I cannot describe how much I enjoy doing this in games. I don't know what it is, but just scavenging around for useful shit in games is so satisfying for me. Fallout 3, might just be the best at this. So much stuff to find, but also a lot fo stuff you can miss that makes it even more satisfying to find. I found it so awesome when you would literally have to pull out a little wooden bin and find some chems or bullets the devs randomly thought to enclude. It takes the Immersion to an entirely different level, and I couldn't get enough of it.

Fallout 3, especially compared to New Vegas and even 4, doesn't give you much choice on in what you can do. I'm pretty sure it has to do with hardware limitations and the amount of quests, but that doesn't change the fact that in Fallout 3, you are either really good, or really evil. Sometimes it doesn't even give you a choice between the two. In NV, I felt I didn't just have two choices, I felt like I could be neutral, I could be good, but go about it 3 different ways, and vice versa with being evil. Now I always just do the morally right things in games anyway, but it would've been so much better to get more options on how to go about missions.

Speaking of things Fallout NV and 4 do better than 3, especially NV, the Dialogue was honestly, at times, bad. Now the dialogue for the NPCs were usually fine, though there was way to many lines that they just randomly through in a "Fuck". The main Dialogue issue is what options they give the player. I swear, you can either be a generic hero, or a cornball psychopath. You can ask other stuff sometimes, but compared to NV, for every 3 Dialogue options in Fallout 3, Fallout NV has 7-8 options on how you can respond. Just disappointing, but it wasn't to bad.

The Soundtrack of Fallout 3, like all the Fallouts, is nothing short of fantastic. From GNR to the music without the radio, it all gives off this unique atmosphere and tone. There are times GNR messes up the tone of the area you're in, so I would just turn it off for those.

As I mentioned earlier, the cast of characters you find around the wasteland, Three Dog of GNR being the best of all of them, improves your experience and tone of the game. From your dad, Amata, the Overseer, Moira Brown, Lucas Simms, Three Dog, Sentinel Lyons, Elder Lyons, Liberty Prime, Doctor Li, Fawkes, Dog Meat, Moriorty, Gob, Nora, Mccreaty, Riley's Rangers, Harold, President Eden, and many more, Bethesda did and always does a pretty great job making memorable and interesting characters.

Now, there were 5 DLC's in the GOTY edition. These include Broken Steel, Mothership Zeta, The Pitt, Operation Anchorage, and Point Lookout. I'm going to give all of these their own little reviews, as well as their own ratings.

Starting off with: Broken Steel

Broken Steel was the first DLC, and that's how I'm going to review these, in the order I beat them. Broken Steel honestly shouldn't have even been DLC. The Game should've just continued on anyway after beating it. That being said, this was a solid DLC, though definitely in the "Fall of Duty" category of Bethesda Fallout DLCs. I do wish there was a bit more to it, but there is a lot of fun action and memorable moments, and it does let you continue the game. All and all, even if it is a bit disappointing, it was still a solid expansion to the base game.

Score: 3.2/5
Letter Grade: B-

The Pitt:
The Pitt was my most anticipated of the bunch, and I was hoping for much more than the end product. It was still good, but again, like a lot of the DLC in this game, it was a bit disappointing. I didn't even mean to start this DLC when I did, but I'm glad I did. It starts off much more interesting than it eventually becomes, but the story throughout is good, but it has the same feel of the Main Story, the feeling that "I feel like I didn't get the full experience". Besides the story, I've gotta give props for the great job Bethesda did on making the area of "The Pitt" in which you explore. It honestly makes my skin crawl, as it is just full of radiation, dying people, disease, slavery, and fire. I know that sounds bad, but that's exactly what they were going for, and they set the DLCs tone, pretty much to perfection. I do wish you could do more, especially after you finish the DLC, and I do wish the characters were more intriguing, but the area they created is very well done, and the story is good enough to keep the player wanting to play it more.

Score: 3.4/5
Letter Grade: B

Operation Anchorage:

The worst DLC by far. It's just straight up mediocre. Not only is it tedious and difficult as hell, they just didn't do the concept of a "VR war Simulation" that well. It could've been so cool with the Brotherhood Outcasts, but the decided to do this weird war simulation instead. You do get some good loot at the end, and it does start out cool, but eventually just becomes tedious, and the leat Fallout feeling DLC.

Score: 2.7/5
Letter Grade: C+

Mothership Zeta:

The DLC I was most pleasantly surprise by. People often say this is the worst Fallout DLC, but I honestly might like it more than Broken Steel. That's not a very high bar, and the rating I'll give Mothership Zeta isn't going to be that high, but still, I was expecting a mediocre mess, but I got a Solid and Unique well done concept. Though yes, it is definitely way to difficult. I came in with about 120, maybe more stimpacks, and I left with, no joke, 0. The aliens are just bullet sponges, and a bit annoying to take down. The best parts about the DLC, are the characters you meet on the ship and exploring the ship. Not just exploring the ship is well done, but the design of the spaceship was nailed by Bethesda. They did a lot better with the Sci-Fi aspect than I thought. It would've been cool if there was more, like maybe stuff you could do with the Aliens, but all and all, I thought it was fun and had good moments(especially the blowing up the ship part) and characters. It also gives you some really good loot.

Score: 3.2/5
Letter Grade: B-

Last but not least: Point Lookout

Talk about "Saving the best for last". I'm so glad this was the last DLC I played. This is by far, and it's not even close, the best Fallout 3 DLC. It is the only DLC in the game that I would consider "Complete". It's a whole new open area to explore, with fun to quests, new interesting characters, and though the loot you get leaves much to be desired, feels like a rewarding experience through and through. I do think the main quest could've been a little better, but I heavily enjoyed this DLC. A great sendoff for my playthrough.

Score: 3.8/5
Letter Grade: B+

After all that, after all I've played, I can say that this is an experience and playthrough that I will not forget. It has it's flaws no doubt, from the bugs to the flaws in the Main Quest, and the lack of "openness" of DC, it has it's problems that I'd love to see fixed. But besides that, the Open World, the Soundtrack, the DLCs, the Characters, the Quest Lines, the Gameplay, the Gunplay, the choices you make, the Tone, the Mood, the Atmosphere, all of that, adds up to one of gamings finest experiences. If you like Open World games, or Video games in general, I'd recommend Fallout 3.

Score: 4.5/5
Letter Grade: A

Satisfying synergy

It's something when a deck building game can grab your attention as much as Slay the Spire did for me. I think it comes from a want more than a need: Wanting a turn based rogue-lite/like that prioritized classes and different abilities that gave the pick up and play format that I appreciated from the rogue-like/lite genre. Darkest Dungeon technically filled this niche but runs became too long to stay invested for when I prefer just doing a quick max of an hour run before moving onto single player experiences once more. An intermission before starting a new journey so to speak into the boundless video games I have yet to play.

Slay the Spire's narrative element isn't really apparent from playing the game itself but there's a few puzzle pieces you can put together. The spire is your enemy, the cause of your rebirths is a whale ancient called Neow as you go through three acts and areas to do the titular duty: Slay the Spire. It's here just as set up for the meat of the game which is exploring the said locations itself.

The most satisfying element of playing is finding out combinations, making the most of what you can and truly deciding your own path without any real filler in between. Changing, removing, transforming and altering yourself is how you'll eventually get your first clear as you progress through several challenging floors of enemies, elites and bosses. Finding each classes has dedicated builds and synergies that work extremely well and feel extremely rewarding when you can pull the off and the sheer variety of cards and their actions really let you go in depth with how you want to act. Playing a big deck with constantly drawing cards or playing a small deck that relies on luck less but getting that perfect card at the perfect time? It's all possible in a run. There's a lot of variables and factors you can grab and address to go through each time that it never feels easy or monotonous but the fun is making do with what you can get since truly trying to strive for each build might actually harm you in the long run since you're relying on card drops at that point. I think it's best to not play with any guides and figure out your own combinations until the higher ascensions (difficulties) when you truly want to do everything the game has to offer. Average runs of Slay the Spire can take up to forty minutes to an hour from my experience which is just barely long enough to fill that pick up and play situation I'm looking for in games like these.

The art of the game is alright but there's a few things that leave a bit to be desired like some of the card art being first drafts still and the models but it's really hard to care much since I feel like the gameplay does so much to elevate the experience anyway. The soundtrack is good with boss tracks raising the tension pretty well and area themes feeling like you're in a D&D session of sorts which fits.

A lot of popular rogue-lites/likes from my experience are purely action oriented and as much as some of them are fun, I do wish there was something like this where you can take your time a bit and properly plan things out and Slay the Spire fills that niche perfectly for me. If you take the time to think things through and find out some clever combinations yourself, you can get a clear no problem and it's all about doing it your own way. The game always keeps its hand close to its chest but you're playing with a full deck. Use it.

now, the full game has not been released. hell, the most finished builds are only available to high-tier patrons. and i'd rank peripeteia among the most engrossing experiences in the Graming World of Grames. i spent 15 HOURS exploring this demo - and i only played the first 3 levels, not even touching the final level (which is bigger than all of the previous combined). the elevator pitch is gloomy anime deus ex with fun platforming and like 50 different weapons. derivative sure. i think the elements synergize nicely. it lets me scale the biggest building in the game and then run across the rooftops of the city for zero (0) reason. there are so many areas and details in this game that serve no gameplay or narrative purpose other than to be cool. so climb buildings! look at stuff! any game that allows me that kind of kinetic freedom is an all-timer in my book. the soundtrack and audio design are on point too. idk, i don't wanna make this review too long, but now that we're able to leave reviews here i really wanted to say how amazing this game is.

oh also marie is very cute and murderous

I just love loving stuff
it's been a long time since I actually liked a game man, I thought games are boring nowadays but this... this kinda changed my mind

Ion even know what genre this game is considered but..
Play it yall, it's good I promise.
yea the story is a bit complicated since it requires MUCH of your time replaying it over and over and over and it's told through notes and books that are hard to find/understand or through encounters that you'll never know they existed till your third playthrough but Ion got no problem getting smart solely for the purpose of understanding this ON MY OWN -or on a 4 hour YouTube explanation video 🤔🤔🙄🤞🏻-



Believe me, I don't say this lightly but, this game... is truly ... one of the best video games ever made. like seriously this even literally made me motivated to draw again OH MY GOD
i stopped being an artist like 2 years ago for unknown reasons but the cast of characters this game got HAS MADE ME START DRAWING AND ACTUALLY LIKING IT AGAIN I CANT BELIEVE IT

i cant WAIT for future updates, i’ll replay this so many times and tell all my friends about it I LOVE WHEN I LOVE STUFF SORRY I CANT HELP IT.
my message to anyone whos reading this, just fuckin, like, play the game bro like why are you still reading this


Also, what a fucking cool title I can't stop saying it holy shit??
side note: I like calling this 'Tirmeena' :P


AND YEA RIGHT MIRO PLEASE RELEASE AN ARTBOOK AS A DLC IM BEGGING YOU PLEASE I'LL GIVE YOU ALL MY MONEY IF THAT'S WHAT YOU WANT

As a huge From Software fan, I have a lot of things to say about this game. I have a decent amount of negative thoughts, but honestly, it's mostly positive. I'm very surprised by the reaction to this game; though I have a feeling a lot of people that are trashing it barely played it (or didn't play it at all).

I will say, I played this a month and a half after release (after the patch where lots of stuff was rebalanced to make it "more difficult"). This may affect my feelings towards the game versus someone who played it at launch. I am aware that people were experiencing technical issues (to varying degrees). I did not really experience any.

If this game came out before Lies of P, I may have enjoyed it even more. I think everyone would have. Since LoP came out the month before this, I think some people were burnt out on soulslikes already, which is unfortunate. It also doesn't help that LoP is definitely the superior game overall. It overshadows this for sure. Don't let that deter you from trying this one, though. It's great, too.

As always, the most important aspect of a video game for me is how it feels - and Lords of the Fallen feels great. Not perfect, but great. Miles better than the first attempt 9 years ago. The original LotF is a complete joke compared to this. Not only does it feel great to control, but there are multiple additions to combat that I enjoyed a lot. The moveset felt more varied than in a From Soft game, for one. I loved the dashing/dodging R2 attacks, for instance. The fact that there was a different animation and different attack for dashing R2, dodging R2, charged R2, and regular R2 was awesome. FS games usually implement a couple of these but LotF has more options in regards to regular attacks, and that made the combat more dynamic. I also really liked using a crossbow as a second weapon and easily switching to it by holding L2 without having to swap out my regular weapon. Good stuff. I started off the game using a "great hammer" and wasn't particularly enjoying the combat. It was SO slow. 10 hours in or so I crafted a halberd using boss materials and stuck with that the rest of the game. Once I started using that, the game felt a lot better.

I like the idea of the "two worlds simultaneously" mechanic, but it isn't implemented super well. It just feels like a bunch of unnecessary roadblocks. The game wouldn't have been any worse off if this mechanic were entirely absent. I think it would be better, actually. It's just a chore to switch dimensions to solve an easy puzzle, then find a way to switch back to the normal world. It's pointless. Lore-wise, I'm sure it's not pointless, but I can assure you I didn't listen to a single thing anyone in this game had to say. I did not care whatsoever. Nothing about the world was interesting to me. I was just here for the combat and exploration, as I usually am with Souls(like) games - unless it's particularly intriguing.

Speaking of the exploration, this is where the game misses the mark the most. I frequently felt lost because a lot of the areas look the same. There wasn't much personality or distinction between them. Especially when you are constantly switching to the Umbral world. In that world, everything truly is identical - and you're in it constantly. Bland grey and brown areas galore - sometimes with a blue tint. It's just not very interesting to look at. This combined with the way the game handles attempting to give you shortcuts and you have somewhat of a mess in terms of the readability of the environment. I like the idea of placing your own checkpoints in theory, but it's not executed well. Plenty of times I would place a temporary checkpoint somewhere to then instantly come across a shortcut back to a previous checkpoint - and realize I wasted a resource. I was constantly robbed of the feeling a shortcut is supposed to give. It was all over the place in terms of the pacing of the permanent checkpoints vs. the temporary checkpoint spots vs. the shortcuts. It's like different people designed each of these features and they did not communicate with each other.

Difficulty-wise, I found it balanced very well. It's definitely easier than a Souls game but that's totally fine with me. It's not a perfect game so if it was any more difficult I could see it becoming frustrating much faster than a FS game would.

The enemy designs were pretty unremarkable. Pretty standard fare; nothing stands out too much. Also, there was not much variety. On top of that, they constantly threw re-used bosses at you as regular enemies as the game went on. It felt a bit lazy for lack of a better term. I don't like using that word but it really did feel like it here.

A few more positive notes: I liked the build variety, the leveling system, the equipment options, the UI, the speed you used consumables and switched to your ranged weapons, and the ability to change your armor color (although that was a bit lackluster in terms of options).

Overall, there are plenty of great aspects to this game. Absolutely try it out if you're a Souls fan. Between this and Lies of P, LoP is better overall. I would argue that LotF and LoP both have excellent takes on the combat of a Soulslike game. LoP comes out as the clear winner when you add in explorative design and the way the game presents itself. Whether that be the world around you or the characters you interact with. LotF feels generic in some ways, but like I said - it got the most important part right. The combat. So hurray for them!

I see reason why people really love this game and call it a masterpiece it has outstanding characters, choices matter a lot and overall it has great story and writing but it fall short on things it really shouldn't great examples are
- drags sometimes in main quest for unnecessarily longer time than it should (this is more preference)
- gameplay (really mediocre almost boring)
- rpg elements (are just regretful and worst one is leveled gear that is worst thing you can have in an rpg open world game it destroys and discourages and doesn't reward player for exploring the world which is abysmal for this kind of game).

Its still a great game but numerous people turn a blind eye for some of its prominent flaws.