Fallout 3 Is An Absolute Nightmare - This Is Why 

The amount of betrayal I feel being told this was a video about Fallout 3, then being told it was actually a video about Fallout Tactics, and then being told it was actually ACTUALLY about Fallout 3 is unmatched.

One of my favorite memories of this game was when I was wandering the wasteland at night, enjoying the pleasant ambiance music, and I came across Uncle Leo, a random encounter character. Uncle Leo was a kind, patient and philosophical dude who happened to be a super mutant. The player can demand that he hand over all his possessions, but he misunderstands the malicious intent on your part. He apologizes for "being a poor host," and gives you a dirty pre-war suit as a gift. When you respond to his generosity with "you don't seem to understand, I'm robbing you," he replies sincerely: "no, you're not. I wanted you to take it as a gift. I meant to give it to you anyway." And then follows that up with something that I have not forgotten ever since I first heard it: "Have you ever watched the moon rise over the Wasteland? I only wish I had something as wonderful as that to give to you." I don't know why that struck me so deeply. Maybe it was the fact that we were both standing under a wash of moonlight, alone together in a vast and empty wasteland, my character having just tried to mug him, and he responds to it all with such profound wisdom and grace. He was such a great character that I really wish we could have done more with. I'm also upset that we're really only able to get that gem of a line of dialogue by being mean to the poor guy. :(

What annoys me the most of the ending. Is that if you do make Fawkes activate the purifier. The game only shits on you saying Fawkes is the true hero of the story, nevermind that making the mutant that is IMMUNE to radiation is the smartest decision and that you single handedly defeat the Enclave. But no, pointless suicide is the only way to be recognized as a hero.

Bethesda Dev Here. The main reason half the buildings were empty is because Todd Howard had told us "If it has more then 15 bathrooms its important" In all fairness I did catch Todd eating plywood and sheet metal in the breakroom.

Canadian Navy member here, there is a reason why naval ships have absurd amounts of doors. They are designed to have numerous watertight compartments that can be isolated. The reason for this is in case of a hull breach, and we take on water because of it - we can seal off that compartment (which already would be sealed normally) and only lose that compartment to sea, as opposed to the entire ship filling up with water. Annoying for game design? Absolutely. Realistic to real life? Very much so.

Spiffing voicing Sid, is just the best thing ever, our money gremlin offering money

"Games for Windows, Games for Windows never changes."

As someone in the navy, River City perfectly encapsulates what it's like to live on a vessel, there's too many doors, you don't know where the fuck you're going and EVERYWHERE LOOKS THE SAME

23:00 As someone who served in the US Navy on an aircraft carrier, that is EXACTLY the feeling you get trying to find anyone anywhere on a carrier.

I remember loving that "ah ha!" moment when, at the conclusion, you realise you have recruited Fawkes, who is immune to radiation. It felt like some of the better moments from the original Fallout games. Only to be then met by "Great idea, but no. Because...reasons."

The funniest thing to me about Colonel Autumn is that, back when I first played Fallout 3, like, eight years ago, I legit thought that he was two different people. I thought there was one Enclave dude who died with your dad, and Autumn was just *some other* Enclave dude in a trench coat. That’s how unclear his survival was and how unremarkable he was as a character

The whole "companions at the purifier" kerfuffle would be so easy to fix by just... not letting the companions follow you in that mission. Maybe the mutants are uncomfortable helping a faction bent on killing them (which would make plenty of sense) and never actually follow you in the Citadel for fear of getting shot at, it would really be that easy. Not like you need them, the entire mission is basically a set piece to show off Liberty Prime and you always have Lions following you in the purifier so you can easily finish the mission almost without firing a shot.

the funniest thing about Fallout 3 is that, if you get "Tale of Two Wastelands", the Capital Wasteland is way too easy for the arsenal that New Vegas has. so the Courier becomes a unstoppable killing machine of destruction without their natural predator around: Morality Choices.

I would always be afraid when playing this game on my PS3, not because it was intense or scary, but because it would eventually freeze out of nowhere, making me lose about an hour of progress. Good times.

I still can't get over the fact that Bethesda randomly picked a German town 10km from where I grew up as Stanislaus Braun's hometown. I was SO convinced that it must have been some sort of easter egg that picked a place near you based on your IP address or something when I first came across it in the game😄

Fallout 3 actually scared me on my first play through. The creepy background, and running into your first versions of enemies while holding a pistol and a bat. Then, once you have enough ammo and weapons, you become a complete badass.

You’re right with the “it” statement. Look at Far Harbour in comparison to Fallout 4. If FO4 had had half the heart and effort that it’s dlc had been so lovingly crafted with, then we’d have definitely been onto a winner.

I'd like to offer a correction, Fallout 1 and 2 were both made by the same people, they just renamed their RPG-team to Black Isle mid development of FO1. They just didn't have a logo until after release.

I'm surprised there was no mention of the DLC which makes Fawkes go "I was going to send you, the human who will certainly be melted by the radiation, in to push some buttons, but that would actually be really dumb and yeah of course I'll go do that."

For anyone wondering, the GOG version is far more stable and runs a lot smoother. I played though until I got to level 30 without a single crash.

This was an absolute joy to watch. It's been really fun following the development of this video and seeing the Spaghetti in the editing timeline :D

Fallout characters saying "you again," is like sonic characters spamming "Long time no see." And honestly I love that

The code is 216 by the way, if you were curious. You know, like the Revelations quote Liam Neeson told you about in the vault when your character was 1? In hindsight it's a bit strange this wasn't shown in some meaningful capacity, this was the code to start the purifier, and not just some quote that inspired your father. He does say it a few more times during the midgame, which is how I figured it out myself, but only by going through some of his extra dialogue options.

I never worried about Fallout 3 feeling barren in what you could find. It felt right with being someone coming so late to the party as it were that everything had already been picked clean and through. It made finding something feel like "Oh shit, nice" instead of "Oh cool, I've got a thousand of those". Basically the opposite of Fallout 4, where everything was so greatly stocked and accessible.

Fallout 3 almost makes me wish for a nuclear winter. This video was restricted to 18+ for a year, so there's a remake of it on my channel with less violence, but now this 18+ has been removed, so this is the best version

“Yes this game has over 200 endings” Really Todd. Really.

If you’re in the simulation and console command kill 2 people, or hurt “sally”, she warns you the first time. Like the simulation of a simulation is self aware that they didn’t just spontaneously die. Sally is warning the player. “You can’t do that here.” The second time you hurt somebody, she Tesla explodes and immediately kills you. Even if neither kills were directly done by the player, but through console

The side quests are definitely what makes this game. Especially meeting Harold. That quest saves this game for me. He was part of the mission to exterminate the mutants that were coming out of the Mariposa military base way back in California that preludes FO1. It ended with him becoming severely irradiated and his friend, Richard falling into a vat of FEV that eventually turned him into the FO1's villain "the Master". It was a really good tie in.

Technically, Interplay and Black Isle weren't different studios. It was still more or less the same team under different branding.

Bethesda's main motto is simply "Why fix the game when you can just make another one?"

... The level of theatrics and presentation in these reviews is exponentially incredible. And 40 minutes? Eventually this man is going to produce a full-feature film just to discuss game mechanics. ... And "The Yeast I Can Do"?! Have your like, you amazing bastard.

My favorite part of the game is the absolutely obtuse way you’re given the code for the final mission, in that it was given to you at the VERY beginning of the game. Your dad doesn’t just quote revelations 21:6 for no reason, it’s LITERALLY the code for running the water purifier (216). Of course, you have to infer that this is the code and there’s no direct hint to it aside from a few dialogue choices early on in the enclave prison. All it would’ve taken was just a note or something aside from James just quoting revelations.

I've played just about every fallout and honestly the hardest part about playing a fallout game is just putting up with how busted and fucked these games actually are

This style of vid and editing is CLEARLY so well loved. It's absolutely what gives your video their charm. Brilliant stuff

As someone who's first fallout was 3. The enclave still felt like following a shadow as you put it because I always thought the radio station was an old recording of some kind that was still being broadcast only for it to be revealed towards the end that it was not and I liked that a lot.

"but you haven't even masked your voice" Sid: *becomes spiffing brit*

Honestly, the easiest way to play Fallout 3 on Windows 10 is to do so via A Tale of Two Wastelands. That allows you to play the entire Fallout 3 campaign, and then transition to the New Vegas campaign by using a travel point to go to the Mojave wasteland from DC.

"...back when knowing how to run a game on a computer was a specialist skill." Bethesda-era PC players: **laughs in load order**

*Read The Paper*

“I’ll give a better ending!” Bethesda couldn’t do it any better themselves!

I remember being 13 and playing this back in 2009, one day while just walking the wasteland in the distance to my right I saw the corpse of a Yao-Gui flying directly upward before plummeting behind some hills.

I still remember vividly my last time playing F3's ending. I had the Broken Steel DLC and could FINALLY convince Fawkes to go into the purifier, good job Bethesda?... NO Apparently they were so salty about people pointing out this obvious plot hole they have a very snarky bit in the final slideshow about how "The Lone Wanderer found a TRUE HERO to venture into the irradiated control chamber." which ticked me off. Fawkes is IMMUNE to radiation, there's a way to solve the issue with no one dying and the game basically calls you a coward for not committing suicide. I could maybe see the logic if you convinced Sarah Lyons to give her life in your place or something but with Fawkes it just felt condescending, I had played F3 multiple times and still have fond memories but that ending left such a sour taste I never bothered again.

9:24 the power station actually has a unmarked quest that’ll lead you to a unique weapon you can get by just following the power lines, and finding a holotape, and then finding more! Which are scattered across the entire fucking wasteland.

Fawkes' refusal to enter the irradiated chamber at the end is some of the worst and hokiest writing I've ever seen. He needlessly sentences a human to certain death because of some contrivance about how each person has to follow their own path. So he's basically saying your fate is to die here in an effort to do what he could have easily done without anyone dying. It seems he's really keen on ending your lineage.

I finished Fallout 3 for the first time literally last week and these were all issues I had. I think the biggest issue I had was that even though I managed to convince Fawkes to enter the chamber at the end of the game. The game still called me selfish for not sacrificing myself? There was a perfectly good radiation proof super mutant right beside me? WHY WOULD I SACRIFICE MYSELF WHEN I HAVE NO REASON TO.

My biggest gripe with this game is that everything feels like Bethesda just dressed Elder Scrolls and all of its character actors in different costumes and told them to be post-apocalyptic. As a result, the world feels like a bunch of nukes were dropped last thursday. It's supposed to take place two centuries after a war, but none of the citizens act like they're several generations down from apocalypse survivors. They even live in literal garbage without ever having attempted to build anything new. Also, for some reason Virginia is a desert with dried up dead trees, when the only reason the previous two games were like that is that it's California. Deathclaws are genetic splicing experiments that escaped from a lab on the other side of the continent. Radscorpions are arachnids that do not live in the D.C area. Super Mutants were made exclusively a few dozen miles away from San Fransisco. Bethesda's entire contribution to Fallout feels like someone made a sequel by skimming a fanmade wiki and only looking at the pictures. Probably the exact reason why they actually thought that aliens are canon.

There's a big problem with Bethesda's story design nowadays and his name is Emil Pagliarulo.....except when he's writing psychopathic murderers. He is actually pretty good at that.

It's amazing they were allow to sell it on Steam without a fix. It was easy to tackle but it really must have frustrated a lot of people. Off track, Rivet City become fun when Diego gets married, and you attend the wedding with a flame thrower and use it right after his new bride says "I love you Diego".

Ah yes. I vividly remember the first time I got to the end of fallout 3 with Fawkes telling me it was somehow my destiny to suicide despite a perfectly valid and logical option being avalable. That was the only playthrough where everything seemed to inexplicably turn red for the ending. The dozen or so mini-nukes I blasted at everything in sight might have had something to do with it.

You have no idea how comfortable it is to hear someone else say they didnt know the password at the end of the game after years of being ridiculed for it by my friends.

“Oh actually that’s how machine guns work” *yeah if you have a fully automatic flintlock from 1500*

Many locations actually had secret (hidden) areas that with a few exceptions were boring. The underground subway tunnels were boing and confusing. But so was my life so I played them several times.

I loved when 40 hours into a play through my save got corrupted and would crash anytime I would try to fast travel or enter a building. Turns out you can't save over the same file too many times or the save will go kaput.

This best part of this entire video is Spiffing Brit doing the voice of your cat...maybe you and he should do a collaboration on why Fallout 3 is a perfectly balanced game with no exploits!

The fact that he didn't realise who the Enclave even are when they show up is one of the many signs that Bethesda failed immensely at writing this game.

An early Christmas present? Brilliant

I really want a full version of "Welcome to the Wasteland"

Not re-recording the '7 minutes of loading' line was a stunning act of bravery

It truly is telling that your review of fallout 3 makes me want to play New Vegas again

Fallout 3 is a game where you play an NPC following the real main character around while he does the actual plot, because Todd Howard is a malevolent interventionist god.

Me, a German, witnessing UNJs impression of a german accent and him reading the book "Why the Germans do it better" after doing said impression: /feeling weirdly patriotic/

The quality of these videos are insane. Seriously, the cinematography, writing, meta narrative are absolutely superb. The time and effort you've put into this is clear to see, and I look forward to seeing you destroy Fallout 4 next. God speed and all that

8:50 When I first played Fallout 3 as middle schooler, I would prefer to keep the Enclave Radio on while exploring dark places and at night, because the affably evil voice of Malcolm McDowell seems tailor-made to make you relax despite being in immense danger.

Any quest in every Bethesda game ever: go to place half way across the map, kill everyone, take their stuff.

Fallout 3's ending could've been fixed entirely if they wrote it to where the Enclave pushed one final attack on the purifier and everyone went to fight them off while you activated it.

The story in Fallout 3 (and 4) is the reason why I absolutely hate Emil Pagliarulo. The man cannot write a good story to save his life, yet has been the lead writer on no less than 3 Fallout titles to date. Between the absolutely cringe Enclave ending in Fallout 3, the joke of a faction that is the Institute in Fallout 4, and the paper thin premise of Fallout 76, I legitimately do not understand how this man is still employed as a writer. As someone who enjoys great stories and plot twists, it downright offends me that this man is still allowed to write for video games. /rant

Its amazing the criticism you've given this game can be applied to Starfields failures too. Big huge empty spaces that would have been better served if they cut back and focused on making less areas, but better.

I'm going to say this: As a game, Fallout 3 is an unbalanced mess that despite all its many, *many* flaws manages to still be entertaining. However, as a proof of concept, it's absolutely spectacular. We only received Fallout New Vegas because Fallout 3 succeeded.

The Point Lookout DLC was amazing. The weird drug trip sequence is excellently done. With the upside down trees, the Washington Monument in the distance, your Mother's skeleton and Mister Burke leaning against the nuke... really examines the Lone Wanderer's state of mind. Nobody ever mentions it and I think it's seriously underrated.

I’m almost sad fallout tactics didn’t get its own video. Also this video reminded me all about fallout 3’s ending and how weird it was.

I honestly loved this game when I was younger. I explored it world for hundreds of hours

Remember how the Broken Steel DLC ‘fixed’ the ending by allowing you to send in one of the several companions (seriously there’s like 3 or so you could have with you) immune to radiation to activate the purifier? All well and good, except that the ending still calls you out for not killing yourself for no good reason (we’ll ignore that you now miraculously survive activating it yourself so that the DLC can take place).

I feel like the " war never changes " thing pertains to how the war between people (and monster) will never change. We will always have a battle, and it's over money and land. All the time.

I think that some of the sidequests being the most interesting thing about this game is one of its big problems, given how a lot of them are far enough away from the main quest path so that you may well never stumble across them. That and the first half of the main quest being go to a location, talk to someone, do a job for them, them get directed to the next person to talk to

Parody isn’t copyright! I want the full version of “Welcome to the Wasteland” please.

Crashing every few hours, that's the Bethesda equivalent of running perfectly. Doesn't get better than that!

The one I could never forgive was how ol'Dad apparently abandoned me to die in the vault, and this is never addressed. As an FO1/2 fan, I was genuinely enraged and confused that I wasn't permitted to kill him myself.

That fake news paper made my day. To the assistant editor who spent five minutes of your life you'll never get back finding that joke, I laughed my ass off at it, thank you. The effort wasn't wasted, I loved it!

i hope margery sees this

I remember playing this game before the fix, downloaded a couple of mods and finished the game with only one or two crashes. Even finished the dlc's as well, so I was surprised to see everyone struggle trying to play this game. It was also funny to watch, keep up the amazing work!

"FINALLY, THE 3RD INSTALLMENT!" -My brother in 2008 -Me in 2021

My older Brother's friend loaned us his copy of FO3 and that was our 1st time playing it. He told us, "Go ahead and borrow it for as long as you like, I finished it already a few times." Literally a week later, trophies were patched into the game and my brother's friend was like "Damn it! And I JUST said you can borrow it as long as you like, I'm not gonna bug you for it back after only a week!" lol

The problem with Fallout 3 was that it was too big, so they had to fill it with a bunch of nothing. Todd then looked at that, and said. "Yeah, lets make Fallout 76 4x larger. That is a number I can say!" While the developers are over there in a corner tearing their faces off.

What I miss from Elder Scrolls and Fallout games is the horror aspect. I was doing that museum quest in FO4 and as I got to the end, I was really spooked until the reveal "Oh.. it's just an Irradiated Dearhclaw Matron.. whatever"

The pills scene is so funny that if you listen closely you can hear the Editor or whoever in the background also thanks for giving all the joy of me watching you upisnotjump I appreciate and helps me go through life and thank you for that

"Huh, UINJ taking a jab at Hbomb? Do the two know each other?" ".... Wait, I'm stupid, he literally showed up in an Hbomb video."

some of the best editing and skits i have ever seen on youtube! props to you, im excited to rewatch on friday.

Spiff voicing Sid somehow makes him more villainous. I now expect him to commit war crimes, and exploit the entire known universe for infinite money.

I love Fallout Tactics and I will die on this hill. It was my first Fallout game, it got me in to Fallout 1 and 2, and is a precious part of my young gaming years. Also: filling a super soaker with acid is now, and will forever be, one of my favourite weapons.

The thing I feel Fallout 3 does best is: Wasteland exploring. Sure most of the locations are empty and has nothing in them, and that is certainly a point against that statement. However. The mood of sifting through ruins in a world that is more or less completely devoid of civilization is done very well. If they added stuff in more of the empty buildings, like the example with the desk fan in this video, then it would be a perfect wasteland simulator. More small side-quests would also be nice. I do no care for the main quest at all.

Fun fact, Charon, a ghoul companion you can get in underworld, will in fact follow your order to go into the chamber.

First thing I did when I started playing this on my PC for the first time was look up a guide to mod it. The video I found was so helpful. It went over how to get Games for Windows, how to play in windowed mode but actually full screen, and making it crash less in general.

The way I looked at the original ending to FO3 was as follows. Your father gave up the entire world for his child. And then once his child was safe and grown, he realized it was time to give up his family and even his life to save the world. Which he did and failed. The burden then becomes yours and you end up being given the opportunity to sacrifice yourself for the world. It’s poetic in a sense that the cost of the world was always your life. I will admit the first time I finished the game I chose to input the code myself. And I actually stopped and put the controller down for a few minutes just sitting in the silence that it was all over. I enjoyed the finality of the story and the fact that I could start a new one and not just continue on whenever DLC was released. Which they did anyways.

I was literally wondering a couple of hours ago when this video was going to come, so happy it's here, this channel is so underrated.

Despite all the hate comments bro has been getting for his Conan joke, I respect the dedication. This content is just a breath of fresh air from seeing commentary channels that use nothing but vine sound effects and clips from tv shows/movies to display their reactions.

My wife and I have played Fallout 3 literally dozens of times, for probably thousands of combined hours. Although that's our trusty old PS3 copy and I've not had the courage to test my PC copy, yet... This has not encouraged me to do so. Which is a shame, because I love that fucked-up game.

i was expecting a fallout 3 video, then settled with a Fallout tactics video, only to realize it IS a fallout 3 video. 10/10

We really need a full remake of FO3. There were a lot of good ideas executed very amateurly and I'm glad this video validated some of my annoyances. I thought it was just me being ungreatful, but the empty feeling just never really left while playing it. Sorta just hoping to see *something* interesting around the next corner.

Ah yes… that one time in the Bethesda writers’ room: “Dude you know what would be totally perfect thing to add to a game about a post-post-nuclear wasteland?” “Nah wut” “Aliens 👽” “Oooo-wOOOooo” And Mothership Zeta was born

I knew this was coming, but I never thought I'd see my boy massacred like this....at least Fallout 3 was dunked on by you! 🤣