Hero of Canton said:

I'll link you to my review this Thursday. The truth is that Fallout 3 is compelling despite its flaws, but I'm amazed how few are detailed in some of these reviews.

Well...perhaps not that amazed.

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Loudninja said:

From the vids it looks on par, only thing wrong is that bug.

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IGN said:

The atmosphere and style are everything you could ask for and more. The PS3 version has shown us substantially more bugs than what you get on PC and 360.

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Fallout 3 is a PC game. Sure, it's an Xbox 360 game, too. And it's a PlayStation 3 game, I guess. It's also an RPG, technically.

But when you get at the heart of it, Fallout 3 feels like a game designed for the PC. It has the soul of a big-boxed, full-manual, five-CD game from 1998. It has all the complexity and addictiveness of a System Shock, or a Deus Ex--or, yes, a Fallout....

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....First of all, I can't recommend the PlayStation 3 version as an attractive option, considering that substantial exclusive DLC is lined up for the 360 and PC versions.

Now, I played through Fallout 3 on the PC. While I have not played the final version of Fallout 3 on the Xbox 360, I can make a few recommending statements based on my experience.

The game's UI and controls work perfectly well on the PC--the "A" and "E" keys provide easy loot and dialogue solutions--so that shouldn't factor into your decision. Regardless of that, I far preferred using a keyboard and mouse to control the game, especially in combat situations...

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...More than that, as I stated above, Fallout 3 just feels like a PC game. This is an immersive FPS-RPG in the classic sense. It's a game to be played a few feet from a monitor, with thick headphones clapped around your skull--preferably in the dark.

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Haeleos said:

I have to get this off my chest. The animation in this game is so fucking ridiculously awful. This is Too Human level of mediocrity. Too Human, Fable 2, and this all have really bad unfinished animation... dunno what's up with RPGs lately but they're all really lazy in that department.

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IGN Head to Head said:

Features
The core gameplay features of Fallout 3 are the same across all three consoles but there are lots of smaller differences in the setup and options menus – especially on PC.

First-off there's a top level settings menu on PC that allows for adjustment of detail. This includes settings for the Graphics Adapter, Aspect Ration, Resolution, Antialiasing, Anisotropic Filtering, and Advanced detail settings. These include texture resolution, depth of field, nine separate toggles for water detailing, shadows, and view distance sliders for seven individual items. Gamers also have the option to turn on v-sync, HDR, and Bloom effects. Here are the system requirements for PC:

Windows Vista/XP
2.4GHz Processor
1GB RAM
6GB HDD Space
Nvidia GeForce 6800, ATI x850 minimum

We did notice that when playing in 16:9 on a 16:10 monitor the game letterboxed the screen to show it in true resolution – a nice touch that isn't in every game.

The online extras and functionality is where the PS3 shows a few flaws. First off, the screen blurs and freezes for a few seconds every time a friend notification pops on screen. We solved this issue by turning off friend notifications. It was also announced that downloadable content will be available for Xbox 360 and PC but not PS3. We have yet to find out what this content is so we can't say this is a definite loss for PS3, but it is handy information to have before you make your purchase.

Both the PC and 360 also have achievements. The PC is a Games for Windows Live title, so it includes all the functionality common to that platform. The PS3 version lacks trophy support.

We also ran into bugs on all three versions of the game but the PS3 seemed to have slightly more issues than the other two. There were two instances where a scripted story sequence failed to progress and it was necessary to reload a save.

Overall
1. PC
2. 360
3. PS3

Control
On the PS3 and 360 Fallout 3 controls almost identically. There is the ability to customize every action to your likings so people who have a problem with Bethesda's tendency to map jumping to the Y or Triangle button will be happy.

Control customization also exists on the PC along with the option to plug in a 360 controller if the keyboard just isn't your cup of tea. The PC also has the option to auto-run using the Q key, which isn't an option on the consoles.

Our only controller complaints have to do with the action mapping on 360. This is mapped to the d-pad, just as it is for PS3 giving players 8 slots to jump to any equipment. Unfortunately the 360 d-pad is so mushy that it's difficult to be precise using these buttons.

Overall
1. PC
2. 360, PS3

Graphics
This category is clearly dominated by the PC. Even a quick glance reveals that the PC version is cleaner, runs at a higher resolution, has more detail, better character models, and better texture clarity. Many of the little details of the ruined DC area were not immediately apparent until viewed them on our AlienWare rig. For example, buzzards circle high above the town of Megaton. They exist on all three versions of the game but they didn't catch our eye on the consoles.

If you want a great example of how the PC outperforms the other two options take a close look at any of the character models in the game. You can see all three versions running side-by-side-by-side in our Video Head-to-Head right here. For now you can see what we're talking about in screenshots.

As for the 360 and PS3, there's been much ado about the inferiority of the PlayStation in the past few weeks. In our estimation the PS3 looks slightly worse than 360 with some aliasing issues and lesser texture quality. Editors who have played the game agree that the graphical differences between 360 and PS3 seem almost insignificant when you see how much better the PC looks.

Overall
1. PC
2. 360
3. PS3

Sound
This is the one category where's there's almost nothing to differentiate the three versions. As always Bethesda has packed their game with atmostpheric dialogue and battle chatter so we recommend playing the game in surround sound to fully appreciate the dialogue that fills the world around you.

Overall
1. PC, 360, PS3

Presentation
Load times on the PC were speedy on our machine with a 10 second initial load into the world and three to four seconds to load any of the saves. The consoles are only a few seconds behind with 11-16 second initial game load times and 7-10 seconds to load up a save.

Overall
1. PC
2. 360, PS3

Overall
There's no question that the PC wins this Head-to-Head with the most fully featured, best looking, and best running version of Fallout 3. If you have both a 360 and PS3 I would recommend going with a copy of the game on Xbox but the differences aren't drastic enough to warrant the purchase of new hardware. The PS3 version is still a great buy.

Overall
1. PC
2. 360
3. PS3

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gofreak said:

Did they swap the PS3 and 360 shots accidentally in the first comparison?

Anyways, makes me glad I'm getting the PC version.

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tokkun said:

I'm wary of trusting reviewers on this one. Oblivion reviewed well, but I ended up hating that game.

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BadlyCookedTurkey said:

I don't know whether to get this or not. Great scores it seems, but those shots look bland, boring and....well pretty grim really.

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herod said:

weird how IGN mark down the PS3 version for a couple of things but give the 360 and PC parity but then go on to explain that the PC version is superior.

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herod said:

weird how IGN mark down the PS3 version for a couple of things but give the 360 and PC parity but then go on to explain that the PC version is superior.

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slider said:

I think Herod's point is why hasn't the PC version then scored higher than the 360 version? If PS3 can be marked down for it's failings (it's all comparative) surely the 360 sits lower on the scale than the PC version.

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Rez>You said:

To the poster who asked (Mods, if this isn't allowed shoot me a PM and I'll remove it):

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okrim said:

Wait a minute; I'm the only who notice better texture underground on ps3 to compare 360 version in the first shot? So to watching this shot it isn't exactly that texture are always better on 360...however yes, 360 is in overall better.

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mr_bishiuk said:

As there are XBL achievements on the PC i'm considering getting this on PC for a change, I know the DLC is exclusive on consoles to 360 but will it be coming to PC as well?

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mr_bishiuk said:

As there are XBL achievements on the PC i'm considering getting this on PC for a change, I know the DLC is exclusive on consoles to 360 but will it be coming to PC as well?

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herod said:

shacknews says yes

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Rez>You said:

To the poster who asked (Mods, if this isn't allowed shoot me a PM and I'll remove it):

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itxaka said:

More resources used in other departments? (Not in Too Human)

Probably is that, they rather run one more ai routine or something like that, that spend time/resources in animations. At least that is what I would do.

Or maybe is Oblivion legacy xD, at least the jump is a bit better this time.

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Rez>You said:

Ask and ye shall recieve:

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It’s a review I’ll admit I struggled with, finding myself caught between the rock of real excitement at all the options the game offers and the hard place of extreme annoyance at some of the decisions Bethesda made - many of which are direct hangovers from Oblivion and are a bit more galling second time around. Particularly, I’m hyper-sensitive to not-quite-there characterisation in RPGs, and tend to feel that if you can’t make the acting absolutely spot-on, you’re better off with subtitles. (On that note, I enjoyed the Witcher EE quite a bit more with the still-awful English dialogue turned off in favour of subtitled Polish.) While it’s the 360 version I reviewed, I wrote and scored with the PC version (and this ol’ platform’s lengthier RPG heritage) in mind, which is possibly one reason I’m a little less super-enthusiastic than others.

I’ll talk more about it here later I’m sure, but short answer - a fabulous world and certainly not the mindless action game the more vocal anti-Bethesda lobby had pegged it has, but some of the lousy production values and the absolute necessity for ultra-violence keep me from truly loving it. A unquestionable must-play (even, I think, for the most rabid anti-Oblivion AIM) and a gift to explorers, but God, what a bit more slap’n'polish could have done for it. I absolutely cannot wait to see what the mod community manages to do with such a great world design, though.

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mr_bishiuk said:

Wow in those larger shots the 360 looks way better than the PS3, the PS3 ones look a jaggy mess, particular the first one. Just look at the bridge on the right.

Actually the final shot has an even bigger difference in quality, the landscape in the middle distance almost looks last gen on PS3 and has none of the quality of the 360 version on the floor in front of the player

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