Fallout 3 (developed by award winning Bethesda Softworks) has been coming along great these last few months. With several new features revealed at E3, this game looks to be Bethesda’s best yet.

          

Based in Washington DC, the game follows the original Fallout universe, in which several alternate events proceeding World War II led to a nuclear war in 2027. Before the devastation, vaults were created to offer a safe haven to civilians of the United States, vaults where they could live and reproduce but never leave.

          

This is where you come in. born in vault 101 as a baby you craft the features of your face and what it will look like when you are older. A few years later it checks back on your avatar, now a toddler. Here you will decide your main skills from a list (very similar to Oblivion, also by Bethesda) of around 10-20 attributes. A little later you learn to walk, possibly the most unique way of orienting players in a game. A check in at age 10 shows you how to shoot and you receive a bb gun and training. Finally at age 19 your father vanishes from the vault and you, being curious and concerned, leave to follow him.
This is the year 2227 and the earth is a giant wasteland of the nuclear war from 200 hundred years ago. 



          You find a gun and travel on but the adventure will not be easy; mutants, scavengers, the Enclave (the last of the U.S government), and other threats plague the land. This is where a great element of the game comes in; V.A.T.S., a system that allows you to freeze the action and zoom in on the enemy. You can aim for body parts, heads, arms, legs, torsos, and even weapons. This causes major effects in an enemy's ability to attack or defend. shooting a leg will cripple them (causing them to limp) and hitting their arm will cause them to lose their weapon or drop their accuracy drastically. It also pertains to different enemies. for instance, shooting the antenna off of an ant will cause them to lose their orientation; they will go insane, and may even attack their own allies.

          

Don’t feel invincible though, V.A.T.S goes against you too. Enemies will use the same system to try to cripple you. for example your accuracy will drop if you are shot in the arm, just as agility drops when your legs are shot. This forces you to go to a doctor in one of the towns or you can just gain a surgery skill and heal wounds yourself.



          Perks offer a unique alternative in the game, and every other level you will receive a point to learn one. One of the more unique perks is "mysterious stranger", which will randomly summon a man to your aid. portrayed as a man in a fedora with a gun he will shoot your current enemy dealing extreme damage and killing them.



          Bethesda has jumped on the special edition train as so many developers do and made two different ones. A new "survivor edition" will only be for amazon.com as a preorder, and comes to $129.00. It will contain a life size statue of pip-boy, a watch/alarmclock that replicates the pip-boy 3000 that you use in the game, plus all of the stuff boxed with the collectors edition. The price range is awfully steep, but hardcore fans might feel the need to spend the extra money.



          Coming out this fall (probably late September-early October), Fallout 3 is looking great, and is sure to gain even more attention for Bethesda.