Developer: Bethesda Game Studios

Are you OCD? Do you happen to find it relaxing collecting all of something and sticking that something into a nice neat pile. Not that I am accusing you of being a clean freak or anything like that in fact your house is probably a mess most likely but you still like to eat jellybeans by sorting them all into separate colors and only eating one kind at a time.

Yeah, I know you.

Boy, have I got the game for you! I originally gave Fallout 3 a pass because I had tried to play the original version of the game and well it has a real dragged out boring first part. After playing Fallout: New Vegas and realizing how utterly buggy it was I had to go back and revisit this game because I figured if after seeing the meat of the new game there had to be some juicy steak I missed in the first one.

I am glad I did… Fallout 3 is a huge game and I swear I have still not visited every part or seen every side quest or done it all. I just got through playing it for a week and a half too. So if exploring and collecting are some of your favorite parts of a dungeon style quest game grab Fallout 3 and especially this Game of the Year edition with all the DLCs, add-ons, and complete patches.

All for a really really cheap $30.

Now the game play is so not perfect because as I said the first part with the character generation is so boring and it still freezes up occasionally and you still should make sure you save constantly but unlike Fallout: New Vegas none of that gets too annoying or “in the way” of you enjoying the story that is unfolding. None of the glitches I experienced kept me from completing any major parts of the game.

Things I wish I had known before starting this epic game…

FIRST! With all the DLCs installed you need to know something before starting the game.

There is a Level 30 perk called Almost Perfect that has been added. This severely changes how you might go about playing the game especially if you are more about tooling around and not necessarily doing the main quests.

If you plan on taking the Almost Perfect perk then do not pick up any Bobbleheads when you find them in the game until you hit Level 30 – you take the Almost Perfect perk and ONLY THEN run around collecting all the Bobbleheads like a fool because you know where they all are and spent so much time not picking them up like you wanted to. This will make your character literally game perfect and mega powerful no matter how bad the choices you made when you started out the game. So that means you have to “not do certain things” you would usually do in the game. DO NOT start the main quest Finding the Garden of Eden or the side quest Trouble on the Homefront. The former dumps you into the only chance to get the Energy Weapons Bobblehead which you cannot go back to again and the latter gives you the very last chance to get the Medicine Bobblehead from dad’s desk.

A big thing to take into consideration according to how you want to play the game and if you want to try for playing a perfect character.

In the game one of the first BIG decisions you have to make is if you should destroy Magaton a town you run into. I say do not destroy it because it has some big bonuses for you using it as your home base. Walter’s Scrap Metal being the best one. Walter will give you not only good money for any scrap metal you find but experience points with it remember we are going for level 30 here so every point counts. He is the only guy who does this for scrap metal in the entire game so always use him to sell your scrap metal.

Objects to never sell but stash them for selling for good money and experience points like this:

• Brotherhood of Steel Holotags
• Scrap Metal
• Pre-War Books
• Teddy Bear

So do what the game is asking you to do and start stashing stuff at your house in the various lockers they give you and keep an on hand inventory of crap that will be needed later on. I am just telling you about the stuff that turned out to be of HUGE BENEFIT to have kept a hold of and not sold off ever to the numerous random vendors in the game.

Each of these items has a person in the game who will give you both good money and experience points which will be critical for a nice long game and your survival in it. Check out the Fallout 3 wiki under “repeatable quests” for more information. In fact that whole site is the best one to scrounge for necessary information on the many many hidden aspects of this game.

Other objects I suggest you keep are bottlecaps which have no weight and you can carry as much as you want and gun ammo of the physical variety – you know, bullet-like ammo labeled 10 mm or .308 the numbered stuff not the energy weapon stuff. The reason to keep all this ammo you are not using is it has no weight but also when you complete The Pitt DLC because you are running around doing all the side quests racking up to level 30 you can turn any ammo you happen to have into any other ammo you happen to use as long as it is bullet like not energy weapons.

Here are other items to collect and sell “to a specific person” you will find in the game for good money…

• Nuka-Cola Quantum
• Sugar Bombs
• Blood Packs

Lastly I never really ate any of that food or drink playing the game because most of it is radioactive. So the ONLY things I ever bought from vendors were Stimpaks and Ammo and any of those highly collectible objects for the other characters in the game who pay you huge money and sometimes experience points for them. Learn to get some sleep (You only need to do it for 1 hour to get all the benefits out of it.) because that is the best health restoration when not eating or drinking any of that radioactive crap.

What I am hinting at is the very best weapons or armor worth getting is the stuff you pickup from dead bodies or get in various quests and repair yourself so the best skills in the game to have are Repair, Speech, Lockpick. So you can always get access to things you want and fix them when you need. When using “Repair” remember to select the item you want to repair and NOT to repair the item you don’t want with an item you want to keep. That was a bad mistake I learned that unique items can be used to repair common ones and then you lose that unique item forever. Also remember weapons that depend on blowing up… will blow your ass up as well. I don’t tend to play without arms or legs so sell them and get good money for selling them before you hurt yourself.

The best thing to buy for your house from Craterside Supply in Megaton is My First Infirmary so all your medical needs are taken care of by a quick trip home from then on out.

Grade A for Fallout 3: Game of the Year Edition but only if you are an OCD gaming fiend from hell and like to wander around a post apocalyptic earth looking for junk to buy and sell and fix. Well, there is that main quest to save the world blah blah blah but who cares about that since every game does that.