-In many ways Fallout 3 gives the player more ways to be a villain through their actions than in Dragon Age. This is mostly because the player does not have to follow a strict storyline. As soon as the character escapes from the vault, the player can go anywhere at anytime. There are no cut scenes, enemies can and do attack without warning, and music is optional (example: Galaxy Radio).
-The game increases in difficulty with each level up. So it is possible to beat the game very easily early on and then continue to wander afterwards. On the other hand, if the player chooses to wander and discover the entire world first before completing the main quest, the final mission will be very challenging. I chose an approach kind of between these two extremes by doing a main quest, then a couple of side quests and wandering around before doing another main quest.
-The character’s “moral scale” in Fallout 3 is based on “Karma Points.” The choices are very obvious. Unlike Mass Effect 2 and sometimes Dragon Age, I was not surprised whenever I gained or lost Karma points. If I stole from people (Items are in red) then I lost karma, if I killed a slave trader or saved a city from a nuclear bomb I gained karma points. Karma points affect how people see you. Most of the time, the Non-playable characters will say they have a “feeling” about you. Physically there is no change. Your karma points also affect places you can go and if you can recruit certain people to join you on your quests.
-Example 1: To enter Paradise Falls, a slave trading center basically, you need to have low karma or bring people to be slaves to achieve low enough karma.
-Example 2: In Megaton, I tried to recruit Jericho to wander with me but I had too high of karma for him to want to join me.
-It’s very easy to play the game either way. It doesn’t seem to affect the overall story too much if you have low or high karma but it greatly affects the character’s interactions with NPCs.
-In addition to karma points, Fallout 3 has “perks” that can affect the kind of character the player wishes to portray as well as combat, intelligence, and speech skills. For example, with the Black Widow perk, the female character receives extra damage points if fighting a male enemy. If I was trying to create a sort of “Poison Ivy” of the wasteland, this would be a perk for me.
-These perks enables the player to create their own storytelling within the game. And since Fallout 3 is not as constrained by the main quest, it makes it easy for the player to create their own story if they wish to do so.
-Unlike Dragon Age: Origins, Fallout 3 does not rely heavily on what the character’s companions think of him/her. It depends mostly on the karma points of when the character recruits them. The game is mostly combat with brief nice, relaxing periods of socializing with NPC when the character reaches settlements, vaults, or cities.
-I would definitely say that Fallout 3 is more violet and darker than both Mass Effect 2 and Dragon Age: Origins. Especially with some of the options of low karma.
-Example: In Rivet City, you can convince two of the children to leave the safety of the ship by taunting them. This causes them to go underground where all sorts of creatures could kill them. This is just a mild example. In Dragon Age, the player is usually affecting a small number of people and is more personal, but in Fallout 3 the character makes decisions that will affect thousands. Later on in the game there is even the option of ethnic cleansing and genocide (kill all of the ghouls and Super mutants, etc or not).
-I must say, though, I did find myself wanting more personal contact with NPC. Unlike Bioware Games, where each companion and even many of the NPCs that the players just comes across, it didn’t seem like any of the Fallout 3 characters had a unique and thought through personality beyond the father. It’s the situations and terrifying places that really make this game.
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