“War. War never changes.”

Those words, voiced by Ron Perlman, have been at the opening cinematics for all three of the Fallout games. For franchise veterans like myself, those four words are often enough to bring on waves of nostalgia. They embody the Fallout universe just as much as the words “Space. The final frontier” embody Star Trek. They’re the hallmark of a legacy. Fortunately, when Bethesda bought the Fallout franchise from Interplay in 2004, the company recognized that the first two Fallout games had set the bar very, very high. In October 2008, Fallout 3 was released, and it was immediately obvious that Bethesda had indeed gotten it right.

The original Fallout was released in 1997 and was widely regarded as the spiritual (if not literal) successor to the classic 1988 game Wasteland. Wasteland, for its part, included a great many elements inspired by tabletop role-playing games such as Gamma World, Morrow Project and, my personal favorite, Aftermath! What made Fallout memorable was a unique combination of open-ended gameplay and black humor. Players could literally choose any course of action and any style of play they desired and still achieve victory.

A multitude of side quests, random encounters, and nonplayer character companions gave Fallout a high replay value and allowed the world to change according to the choices each player made. For example, one early encounter gave you a choice of whether or not to feed a starving and abused dog. If you decided to feed him, he became a permanent companion for your character. Many Fallout vets consider Dogmeat to be the best of all the NPC companions available — but if you don’t feed him right then, he dies and is no longer available. But hey, that’s why you have save games, right? Fallout 2 came out in 1998 and cast the player as a descendent of the original Vault Dweller character from the first game, but no knowledge of the first Fallout game was required. The game world was much larger and had many more locations to explore, but many of the world’s features were familiar, such as the presence of the Brotherhood of Steel. These “power-armored Boy Scouts” had a much bigger role in Fallout 2 than they did in the original, which served to establish them as an integral part of the Fallout universe. Your old friend Dogmeat could also be found in a random encounter, just as cheerful and deadly as ever. Fallout 2 contained a good many pop-culture references and jokes (such as an ongoing series of random encounters based on Monty Python and the Holy Grail) as well as some content that was definitely dark and gritty. Quest lines featured ethical choices such as carrying out acts of genocide, pushing drugs, appearing in porn films or becoming a slaver.

Fallout 3 begins in the safe, sterile environment of Vault 101, walking you through character creation and a basic gameplay tutorial while describing your life at different ages. You can either play through the whole character creation process or make your decisions manually. Even at this early stage, though, your actions will have consequences later in the game. The game really gets rolling once your father leaves the Vault — and you — behind and heads into the unknown outside world. Your job is to follow him out of the Vault and into the hostile wilderness known as the Capitol Wasteland — the ruins of Washington, D.C.

Bethesda really did an outstanding job of integrating game controls and features into the game itself, primarily through the use of the PIP-Boy wrist computer, which handles inventory, character stats, quest logs, mapping and note taking. It’s also the device responsible for allowing you to use turn-based combat instead of real-time, if you choose. The Vault-Tec Assisted Targeting System, or VATS, allows you to target specific body parts and allocate shots one at a time in order to conserve ammo. VATS combat is much slower than real-time combat but is much more precise and deadly. Visually, VATS combat is very much like gunfights in The Matrix, with the camera often following a bullet or giving you a graphic view of the impact on the target. Even if you prefer to use real-time combat, VATS is very useful for helping identify and locate hostiles and for allowing you to heal yourself or switch weapons.

One of the new functions the PIP-Boy has is the ability to receive radio signals and allow you to choose what broadcast to listen to. Almost immediately on your leaving Vault 101, you pick up two signals — one from a fellow named Three Dog, host of Galaxy News Radio, and one from a fellow named John Henry Eden, who claims to be the president of the United States. Listening to the broadcast from GNR, you’ll very quickly hear that your father just visited Three Dog at the GNR broadcast studios, and you get information directing you to the nearby town of Megaton.

What happens next is entirely up to you. Disarm the bomb in the center of Megaton, or set it off and turn the town into a slightly bigger crater — the choice is yours. Either way, you get a place to live. Become a bounty hunter, a slaver, a cannibal, a paragon of virtue — it’s all up to you. Your actions determine your Karma level as well as your standing with the various factions of the Wasteland. As you complete quests, Three Dog reports your actions during his broadcasts and drops hints on where to find new quests.

The Capitol Wasteland is huge, but getting around is simplified by a fast travel option that instantly transports you to any location you have already gotten to on foot. While the outer regions of the map are open and generally easy to get around in, the inner portions of the city of Washington are only reachable through a maze of subway tunnels and access ways. These tunnels are frequently home to raiders, radioactive ghouls and super-mutants, but generally, once you clear an area, it will stay safe for a while. Navigating the Underground can be a pain, but really, if there’s a building collapsed across a roadway, you’re just going to have to suck it up and look for another way to get to your destination. In that respect, the use of the Underground makes perfect sense, though in fairness, I do have to say that the Underground is used a bit too much and that the downtown area could have used a bit more surface accessibility.

Dogmeat is back once more, as is the Brotherhood of Steel. The Enclave, a very well-armed group of folks who claim to be the legitimate government of the United States, also makes a return appearance. Bethesda put a great deal of thought into creating a storyline that was consistent with the established canon but wasn’t just a rehash of an earlier plot. The only disappointment with the main story is that it is really very short if you just play through and focus only on it. Given the huge number of side quests and places to explore, the main quest could easily have been twice as long without significantly changing the amount of time needed to play through all the content the game offers.

Game content, in fact, is probably the area in which Fallout 3 most excels. As with Oblivion, Bethesda released a modding toolkit that allows players to create various downloadable add-ons, from new guns and armor to expanded playlists for both Three Dog and the Enclave radio. Bethesda has also released several content expansions, which need to be purchased (roughly $10 each on average). One of these, Broken Steel, raises the level cap on the game to 30, adds a number of new perks and abilities, and alters the ending of the main story so that you can continue to play once the main story is completed. While Operation: Anchorage and The Pitt are worth purchasing and playing, they are totally optional content. Broken Steel, however, adds so much to the game that it should be considered an essential, immediate purchase.

Visually, Fallout 3 is exceptional. It can be hard to appreciate what the graphics engine is capable of most of the time, since you’re spending that time looking at a grungy, junk-filled wasteland. Exploring the depths of the Deathclaw Sanctuary or the verdant paradise of Oasis, however, demonstrate what exceptional environments the engine can create. The art design and architecture exquisitely captures the retro-futuristic style of the earlier Fallout games, resulting in a world that seems equal parts Leave it to Beaver and Buck Rogers.

The voice talents are, without exaggeration, totally first rate. In addition to Ron Perlman as the Narrator, Fallout 3 features the vocal talents of Liam Neeson as James, your father, and Malcolm McDowell as President Eden. Even though the other voices may not have been done by A-list actors, they are still done very well and do a good job of bringing the characters to life.

While the post-apocalyptic genre might not be to everyone’s taste, Fallout 3 is worth picking up simply because it is an all-around excellent game. That said, please keep in mind that all of the Fallout titles have M ratings, and Fallout 3 Fallout 3 is no exception. This is not a game for young children or anyone who is easily disturbed by violent images and content. The struggle for survival is, after all, a war.

And war never changes.