Games for Christmas: Fallout 3 on the PC

If platforming is not your thing and if you don’t own a PlayStation 3, this Christmas, you should go back to the PC (which is definitely not dead) to play what is probably the Game of the Year for many people, Fallout 3.

There’s a whole world that Bethesda managed to create around Washington D.C. There are destroyed cities, bombed out streets, a Super Duper Mart to explore, National Archives to be raided, the Jefferson Memorial to be reconstructed or destroyed and a main quest that can be pretty much ignored till having hit level 20, which is as far as you can go in Fallout 3. By choosing the Traveler perk, you will be showed all the locations on the map and each of them is worth visiting.

A world destroyed some 200 years before the game begins still looks beautiful. Even if the game deals basically in shades of brown and gray, the red hue as the Sun sets or rises makes walking around the Wasteland pursued by Deathclaws a moment marked by optimism.

Trekking through the game and leveling up while doing minor quests means that you get to be pretty powerful quite soon, which makes the game more enjoyable if you only have the holiday period to play it. You should upgrade skills like lockpicking and science so that you can see most if not all the locked areas in the game, while also stocking up on ammo and medicine.

Going through most of what Fallout 3 has to offer takes about 60 hours. Playing the game and spending some time with your family means that you need to take about ten days off for the holidays. If you enjoy a bit of role playing game, mixed with shooting, a bit of acting (some of it very wooden) and a lot of exploration, then take those days off and play Fallout 3.