When I first heard of this game I immediately thought of the Ted Nugent song which if you hadn't listened to the song before is a guitar-driven track with a real "I'm gonna kick some ass" feel to it which strangely enough fits this game. I am a big fan of the action movie genre and a HUGE fan of John Woo's work with "Hard Boiled" being one of my favorite movies ever so I was very eager to play this game because it was a sequel to that film. In the gameplay aspect, it fires on all cylinders it's such a balls-to-wall kind of game that I wish we got from a Max Payne game (Max Payne 3 is kind of close) the movement is so slick and satisfying and I love all the things you can do in a stage with my favorite being able to ride on those carts also the tequila bombs are cool. Story-wise though it doesn't strike me in any way which is strange because it's John Woo but whatever you don't play stranglehold for the plot. I wanna give a shoutout to this game for having one of my favorite levels in a video game which is that part where you fight these guys while a jazz band is forced to still play and you have to protect them it's so cool. Though the game is extremely jank and that fov is so ugly.

A flawed, yet cathartic, gem.

I'll start by saying that I haven't watched Hard Boiled and am mainly familiar with John Woo through cultural osmosis and some movie clips, so I won't be commenting on how the story works as a sequel to Hard Boiled, but it doesn't have any returning characters asides from the lead if you care about that. Also not touching on the multiplayer cause it's dead.

This game is the result of a development studio working under a sinking publisher trying to translate the "gung fu" style popularized by director Woo, and previously partially represented in videogames by Max Payne, into an interactive spectacle. It's probably easy to say that this is a Max Payne rip-off, but with the little I've seen of the director's movies, I think this game was going to end up playing like this regardless of if Max Payne had done it first or not.

So what is this really like in practice? Well, there's some problems. A lot of the actions in this game, in terms of movement, are either automated or guided. You automatically vault over low height objects like tables, and things like jumping on rails or taking a zip line down only work when the game thinks you're in position and highlights the point at which the action starts, where you're supposed to press the jump button. Another thing that's automated is the slow motion Bullet Time, here named Tequila Time, which will automatically kick in during acrobatics or when aiming under cover as long as you have some Tequila juice filled in the bar.

The way I described those things may even sound really bad, but the interesthing thing about this game is that once the level design clicks in, it all works. Instead of always being a linear affair where you're pushing forward through small groups of enemies, often in corridors, like in Max Payne, Strangehold will throw you into combat arenas filled with cover, jumping points, usually two floors and many entries for dozens of enemies to ambush you. It's in these moments where you're improvising where to jump to, seeing your bullet time kick in, stacking up combos with kills as you take cover, jump and vault around where the game shines.

The developers worked on the engine to get some of the most impressive destructible environments you'll ever see. So many objects can be destroyed, enemies come at you from all angles, the walls get chipped away by bullets often losing you your cover and you must keep that murder momentum going to fill up your Tequila Powers to use Tequila Bombs. The Tequila Bombs are special abilities that require you to kill enemies to fill their bar, and they're all useful in some way. First you can heal, then you get to use a precision shot, followed by the ability to get 30 seconds of invulnerability paired with unlimited ammo, and finally, a sweeping circle shot move that kills every enemy in the area. In later levels, the game will be throwing you so many enemies that you will need these in nearly every fight to survive, and so keeping your meter up to have a reserve of powers at your disposal compliments the otherwise basic gunplay.

Unfortunately, this game falters in the pacing and variety department. We have what's called "standoffs" which are basically shooting QTEs where you stand in place and must dodge slow moving bullets making sure you hit the target. The standoffs are pretty clunky, and will often lose you health no matter what you do, luckily we barely have a few of them throughout the game. The other part where they drop the ball hard is in the second level, a linear affair where you must tick off objective targets to destroy to progress and it closes off with an overly long and mindless turret section. It creates a terrible impression of the game after the decent first level that actually had a cool combat arena, but luckily the game never falters like that again. It's just unfortunate that in trying to create variety, they simply kill the pace.

But all in all, this game is extremely cathartic. Played for 4 hours and 49 minutes to see the end, so it wasn't longer than it needed to be considering that shooting is all it has, and seeing my stats of how many people I killed and property damaged I caused in that time was great. After you finish up a fight, you leave behind an incredible trail of destruction as a result of all those bullets and explosions you used to survive. There's no other game quite like this that I know of, which is why I'm willing to overlook the flaws in favor of just taking it all in and enjoying it.

We need more like this, this is a great attempt at translating an action movie over to video-game form and another game that can work out the issues it had, led by a developer with more resources to work with, would simply be perfection under the right circumstances. The game is up for purchase on GOG and it's practically given away during sales, I really recommend checking it out if it looks cool to you at all.

This is a bit better than I had given credit for in the past. I'm not sure how since the combat, fetch quest mission design, aesthetics, and map layout all leave a lot to be desired (that's pretty much a solid 80% of the game). Regardless there's a solid gameplay loop to be found in exploring the wasteland, doing quests, and becoming progressively more overpowered due to the perks, skills, and equipment you come across or receive. Miracles do happen, I guess.

I played this on game pass so I could snatch achievements for Microsoft Rewards so i didn't have access to any of the DLC. I'm looking forward to eventually giving this a third playthrough on PC with mods and all the DLC for the first time.

Pip-boy is dead. Now, I am Pip-Man.

My first playthrough of Fallout 3 was entirely mod-free, so I’ll be reviewing it through that lens. Strap on your Pip-Boys, grab your Todd Howard collectible bobble head, and follow me into the wasteland!

It is no overstatement to say that in 2008, Fallout 3 changed the course of the entire video games industry, rerouting seemingly every project in development that may have been a linear game into an open world adventure. Oblivion was great and all, but what Fallout 3 did with its open world was unprecedented, even in Grand Theft Auto III (often credited as the father of the genre). Followed by two other open world hits, Fallout: New Vegas and Skyrim, this game proved that players didn’t need or necessarily even want direction in their video games. Go anywhere, do anything. It just works.

The game begins with a quick history of what happened to the world — in 2077, the Chinese dropped bombs on the US, we returned fire, blah blah blah world is ended in a nuclear holocaust. The world of Fallout isn’t our own, though; it’s a very different one in which the transistor was never invented, cars run on nuclear energy, and 50s Americana vibes dominate popular culture. Suddenly, you’re born! (Don’t feel too bad about being born. It happens to the best of us).

Your father, Liam Neeson, pulls you from your mother’s womb as you enter this exciting new world of nuclear mutants and wasteland horrors. Your mother dies in childbirth, and your Liam Neeson dad raises you in the safety of Vault 101, one of the few underground safe havens that protects from the creatures on the surface. Your best friend, Amata, is the daughter of the Overseer, the tyrannical leader of the vault. You go through some typical growing up stuff, from baby to prepubescent teen to a grown ass 19 year old. You see some glimpses of the trials and tribulations of growing up, choosing a career, and getting bullied. Tunnel Snakes rule! This whole section is quite interesting but only lasts an hour at most, so hold on to your hat and we’ll get you out into the open world in just a bit.

Like I said, in 2008 this was a literal game changer. Leaving the vault to chase after your missing father, you step out into the world for the first time and see the expanse of the Capital Wasteland. The visuals have not aged well, but a few mods will definitely make it more bearable. I won’t get too much farther into the story of Fallout 3, of which there isn’t much. I want to focus on the world. This game, much like Skyrim, is a sandbox for you to build your own post-apocalyptic story.

There isn’t much of an overarching objective beyond “Find your dad.” There’s one simple reason I still praise this game design to this day: “Find your dad” is exactly the right balance between urgent and trivial. Most open world RPGs, including most of Bethesda’s, suffer from creating a main objective that is so urgent that if you truly want to role play you can’t do any side quests. There isn’t time for exploring when the Dragon God is attacking villages or your son has been kidnapped by the Institute. But your dad, a seasoned wastelander and capable doctor, has wandered outside of his own volition. He’ll be fine on his own, but I still want to find him. But if I stop here and check out Paradise Falls… well, it’s not a big deal.

Fallout 3 features some of the most interesting quests in RPG history. I don’t want to spoil them, but look out for Tranquility Lane, The Mechanist vs. the Ant-Agonizer, Oasis, and Our Little Secret, among others. There are less quests than you might be used to in other open world games, but each quest is a lot more substantial than you’d anticipate, all of them with multiple branching paths and conclusions. Each quest comes to you pretty organically through conversation, environmental clues, or just overhearing something interesting at the local bar. Fallout 3 features a Karma system that disappears from later games, which works just as it sounds. Do something bad and you lose karma, do something good and gain karma. Karma is said to influence events around you and determine how some NPCs interact with you, so stop stealing stuff! Or don’t.

The music is amazing. Inon Zur is as purposeful as always, matching ambient soundscapes to the marching rhythms of war. The main theme is nothing short of iconic, and is still the main theme of the Fallout franchise today. Dun dunnnn dunnnnnnnnn

Although not as fleshed out as the characters in Fallout 4 or NV, Fallout 3 does feature some great characters to team up with. Among the companions, I stuck with Fawkes the super genius Supermutant and Dogmeat, my loyal mutt from the junkyard for the majority of the game. Other characters like Charon, king of the Ghouls, Sierra Petrovita, Curator of the First National Nuka Cola Museum, and the residents of the all-child city of Little Lamplight round out a cast of interesting people to meet. The dialogue is quite well written as well, and conversations are interesting and not something you’re skipping through to get to the “good stuff.” Conversations are, for the most part, the good stuff. Sierra was my first video game wife. Well, you can’t marry her, but we’re all just doing a make pretend here.

The gun play is bad. I don’t have a lot else to say. It’s clunky and it feels bad to shoot. There’s no way to reliably aim your gun in this game that is dependent on guns. VATS is essentially a lock-on system using AP (Action Points) and is the best way to ensure you’re doing any damage to enemies. You can also pick which body part to hit with your shots, and crippling specific body parts is the most strategic way to win fights. Cripple legs to immobilize enemies, or cripple arms to make them drop their weapons. Be aware there is weapon degradation ! But no crafting needed, stop by any merchant and pay them to repair your weapons and armor. I recommend a melee build, this game is a good bit easier with a Shishkebab. The shooting has aged terribly, but again that’s not the good part of the game. VATS is a clever holdover of the combat from the first two games, sitting somewhere between turn-based and live combat.

The settings are amazing. Oasis is my favorite, but I don’t want to spoil it for you. Just head north, you’ll get there. Paradise Falls, the slave city, is very neat for a city built entirely of junk. Little Lamplight is a town of all children and entirely subterranean. Seeing the 70 story Tenpenny Tower in the middle of the desert for the first time is a wonder I will never forget. Rivet City is a whole city build into a dilapidated aircraft carrier parked right on the river. Underworld is a secret city of ghouls trapped underground. Visit the proud Republic of Dave. And when you see the White House in shambles, the Washington monument crumbling… it makes you feel something (if you’re American). It’s all so dismal, wonderful, and hopeless at the same time.

And if you’re unfamiliar with Fallout, the monsters will blow your mind. Fallout has always had some of the best monsters in video games, so this isn’t surprisng, but some of them are legitimately scary while others are simply baffling. Supermutants and ghouls are all well and good, but let’s hang out with a centaur sometime. Whenever I look at it I remember how far we have strayed from God’s light.

More than anything, this game lets you explore. You can go far and wide, or stay on the short and narrow. Care about the story or don’t. It matters exactly as much as you want it to. Find the people, go to the places, shoot the stuff, don’t shoot the stuff, I don’t care. Just go. Any direction you please.

Fallout 3 is a wonderful and depressing trip into post apocalyptic America. Go literally anywhere and do literally anything you please. If that’s scary to you, the main quest will take you all over the map. But I encourage you to stick to the road less traveled- that is to say, don’t follow the roads. Fight for good or evil, for the Brotherhood or the Enclave, for justice or chaos. Just make sure to allow yourself to feel that freedom. They keep telling you that war never changes, but more importantly you’ll find that in some terrifying ways America never changes, either.