External User

*scratches head*
How can I put this fairly...

Fallout 3 is a good game. It offers a huge and immersive world for the player to explore, with tons of interesting locations and quests to discover. All of this is bathed in a deliciously satiric post-apocalyptic mood. For those of you worried that Fallout 3 is just "Oblivion with guns", well, I can put your fears partially to rest: F3 does feel a lot like Oblivion in its gameplay and controls, but it's still very much a Fallout game at heart.

The game has its share of flaws, though, and most of them seem to come straight from Oblivion. Dodgy controls, an asinine stealth system, doll-like NPCs... Most of these things can easily be forgiven in the face of the sheer awesomeness of the elaborate gameworld. But the game's biggest problem is that after those countless hours of exploring the Wasteland, the story comes to a deeply unsatisfying conclusion. And when the wtf-effect of the lousy ending wears off, you find yourself reflecting on the road you traveled to get there and you realize that ultimately it was a fun but shallow and meaningless ride.

I've used this image to describe my feelings about Oblivion before, but it suits Fallout 3 equally well: F3 is like butter spread over too much bread. There's a lot of bread to eat for sure, but you never really get more than a taste of that buttery goodness, and it's a shame.

In the end though, Fallout 3 is still worth your time and it still gets a solid 8.5/10 from me. In the end, it's not the destination that counts, it's the journey.

The best RPG I've played in a very long time. It easily beats high-profile games like Oblivion in almost all respects. The Witcher has depth, maturity, realism and coherence, qualities that are hard to find in games of any genre. Its world may not be as huge as Oblivion's, its mechanics not as intricate as Neverwinter Nights', but in the end The Witcher is a more satisfying experience than those two games combined. The world and story will draw you in and won't let you go until it's all over, many hours later.

This isn't to say that The Witcher doesn't have its flaws. For starters, it has your usual array of "bring me x of item y and I'll pay you z"-quests, which got old a decade ago. The whole "collectible sex cards" thing might be fun, but it detracts from the realism of the world and feels slightly "wrong". But these really are minor issues that are easily forgiven when compared to the sheer awesomeness of the rest of The Witcher.

So stop reading reviews, just go buy the Enhanced Edition (which comes in an extremely nice package, by the way). I would recommend you play the game in original Polish and English subtitles, though. The localized voices aren't all that great, but the original ones are excellent for the most part.