Customer Reviews

Fallout 3: Amazon.com Exclusive Survival Edition

5 star:		(28)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(11)

 

 

I would give the Survival Edition 0 stars, except that the minimum is 1.

Let's review why one would buy this edition. The Survival Edition is identical to the Collector's Edition, except that it includes a Pip-Boy 3000 replica. The price difference (at the time of this writing) is $50. Therefore, logic would suggest that the Pip-Boy 3000 is being billed as a $50 value.

Now that we've established the value of this item, let's consider what the Pip-Boy is worth from a fan's perspective. I am a big-time Fallout fan. I played both Fallout and Fallout 2 when they came out and have played through each game several times with different characters and different types of choices. When I learned about the different editions that would be offered for Fallout 3, I jumped at the opportunity to get the Survival Edition with my very own Pip-Boy.

I received the package at work at noon. I can't install and play the game at work, of course, so I opened up the Pip-Boy box and checked it out.

Initial Reaction (under 1 minute): The Pip-Boy is a piece of junk! It's a couple pennies worth of injection-molded plastic, a cheap compass (woo, a moving part), a non-functional dial that moves 30 degrees or so, and a non-functional knob that moves 45 degrees or so. It'll all green, except for the clear buttons (not red like in the picture), the very distinctive white LCD numbers (much more white and noticeable/distracting than in the picture), and the white and red compass. The rest of it is just a cheap green plastic color, with no gray highlights as shown in the picture. Not very impressive.

Second Reaction (T+ 1-2 minutes): Put in the batteries. My, the numbers are hard to read. It's hard to even see them with my office lights on and the faint sun from the mostly cloudy skies outside my window. It doesn't look anything like the nice, big, readable numbers in Amazon's photo. Hmm, how do I set the time? Wait, why did the clock just switch from 12:00AM to 12:01PM? I thought one learned in elementary school that 12:00 is the transition point from AM to PM and vice versa... Made in China indeed.

Third Reaction (T+ 2-3 minutes): The manual says to push the left button and the clock will flash, allowing you to set the time. Umm... no, it doesn't do anything. Try pressing it once (as it's worded in the manual), holding it in a short time, and holding it in a long time. Ditto for the other buttons. Okay, now for combinations of buttons. Nothing. Great!

Final Reaction: It's going back. I didn't open the game's DVD case, so I hope I can return it without any problems. I do feel like Amazon should be obligated to process the returns quickly since this is the "Amazon.com exclusive" item. Heck, I'm already getting the information ready to contact my credit card company. (With all due respect to Amazon, of course; I totally love Amazon and buy from it all the time. I'm just really upset about this product.) I went through the online return process, packed up the game in the original materials, slapped on the return postage slip, and, after taking some time for lunch, walked it over to the nearest post office to mail it back.

I'm really sorry I bought this item. If you've bought it and get anything from this review, you might not even open it and instead just go through the return process; it's that bad in my mind. I'd hoped Bethesda would provide something worthwhile for its new Fallout fans (since they bought the franchise after Fallout 2 came out). Deep down, I had hoped they'd toss in a surprise bottle cap or something like that. But no... this is a MAJOR disappointment. When I get my refund, I'm not sure I'll even go with the collector's edition. I love Bethesda's games, but they've gone down a couple notches in my mind on this one. I am really disappointed with them.

Bottom Line: Don't buy this edition. If you want some goodies to go with the game, grab the collector's edition and save $50. If, on the other hand, you want a cheap plastic toy, go get a Happy Meal at McDonalds.

If you purchased the Fallout 3 "Survival" Edition from amazon.com, you will want to be aware of this:

For me, the Pipboy Clock that came with the Survival Edition was Broken on Arrival. Two of the three buttons do not work which makes it impossible to set the time (short of putting the batteries in at midnight or noon). So, I went through the info in the box and found a warranty card. To my surprise, the warranty states that: 1) You have to pay to send the clock in for repairs, 2) You need to enclose a check for $10 for return shipping.

This is unacceptable.

So, I contacted amazon.com to see about an RMA for a replacement. They cannot since at that time they were out of stock, but they will refund my money if I return everything (and they will pay for shipping). At least I can get my money back.

Still unacceptable if you want to keep the Pipboy.

So, I tried to contact Bethesda Customer Support (301-949-2200) hoping that this could be resolved. They directed me to Bethesda Technical Support. Their Customer and Technical Support is the same thing (supposedly). After 4 calls to each of the numbers, this is the result:

1) No one can escalate the issue..there is no such thing. Their technical support department is an self-enclosed entity that does not have any upper management. If you push to hard, they will direct you to Customer Support, which takes you back to Technical Support. Round and Round and Round....

2) They tell you to use the warranty card. Once you explain that this would cost over $20 to do this(almost half of the price difference between collector's and survival edition), they get sympathetic...but can do nothing. They tell you to call Customer Support.

3) If you call the parent company number (301-926-8300), they will happily direct you call to voicemail. Someone will call you in 24 hours and give you the Technical Support Number.

To summarize:

Bethesda is not responsible for the Pipboy Clock to work when you get it. They do not want to be responsible and do not care if it arrives broken or not. If it is broken and you want it to work, send $10 to fix it (plus shipping to send it). But they do not guarantee that what you get back will work, so you may have to do this again.

Does anyone else see this as incredible poor customer service?

First of all I would like to point at that the thing on the top left of the Pipboy people are calling a compass, is obviously not a compass. Since it is held vertically it would be impossible for the compass to work, it is a radiation meter, if you played the game first then you would know that.

The Pipboy is a cheap piece of plastic, it does go on your arm but falls off very easily, I am afraid to break it. That is about what I figured it would be like though, what I was really disappointed in is the fact that it has no alarm on it. I was hoping to be able to replace my alarm clock in my room with a sweet Pipboy3000, but it only tells the time, nothing more.

The artwork, bobblehead, making of DVD, and lunchbox are all very nice though.

Pipboy 2/5

Everything else 5/5 overall.

Much like everyone else, my complaint is about the clock. Yes, the injection molded plasic is cheap, and the design is kind of lousy, but I was more or less OK with it. Within a week, the clock display died. Tried switching batteries, and its still dead. It's not exactly dead, but its lost about 98% of its glow. Presumably its still working, but you can only make out a faint light in a dark room, making it useless.

Went to my friend's place, and his had died already as well. Not only are the models themselves cheap and poorly made, even just the clock mechanism is junk. Sad waste of $50. I could have another new game for that kind of money. I hope Bethesda gets on this and does something to make gamers whole regarding this matter, because I am officially pissed until they do.

I love the game and all the extras. Now that the Geck (game editor) is available, the full potential of the game will soon be met in the form of better balancing, level cap extensions, etc. I do think the pip-boy is not all that it could be for the added cost, but it is a cool artifact that called out to the Fallout fan-boy in me.

I noticed that my PipBoy was eating batteries once a week, and that the one on the bottom often got quite hot and failed messily. Over Christmas break I resolved to retrofit a wall wart interface into the back of the unit. Things got really interesting when I took it apart and found out that THE BATTERY HARNESS IS MISWIRED!!! The proper way to wire it would be to put all three batteries in series to get 4.5 volts, but in fact two of the batteries were in series for 3 volts, and then wired to the third battery, the one at the bottom, in parallel. This design puts undue stress on the batteries, especially the bottom one, and is the cause of the PipBoy's ridiculous battery consumption. I have rewired my battery harness for battery longevity and added the socket for a dc power source (Radio Shack).

IMHO, Bethesda should apologize and recall all the units, especially in light of the premium price of the Survivor Edition.

The game is everything I hoped it would be, a 5 out of 5 from a guy that loved Fallout 1 and 2(Wasteland for that matter) and wasn't so big on Oblivion. It's a bit moody in terms of crashes, but the game saves so often for you, even if you forget to save and crash, you won't have lost much progress. After the patch a few days ago, I haven't had one crash.

The Bobblehead is perfectly good. Paint isn't great, but overall decent workmanship.

The lunchbox workmanship is a little short of the old 70's lunchboxes you got as kids. Don't imagine most people will use it as such. If you don't, it will pretty much last as long as you'd want it to.

The PipBoy clock(the only difference between this and the collectors edition), as so many others has stated, is TOTAL JUNK. One of the pegs for the mounting base broke just trying to put it together. The batteries died in it 4 days after assembling. Rechargeables don't provide enough voltage to even barely run the clock. So I suspect the new energizers I just put in it to last maybe a week. In an age where 2 AA batteries will power a wireless mouse for 4 months, this is unacceptable and pointless; should have made it a plug-in clock.

For the additional 50 dollars that this Pipboy raised the price, I expected it to be made of at least epoxy resin(tough stuff, but cheap; many toys are made of it) and have painted some detail into it! If you've ever bought a collectors edition item from McFarlane toys(Spawn, The Crow, Janis Joplin, etc) you'd know what I mean. They can create strong, well made and detailed collectible figures for under $10 retail. This Pipboy is a Happy Meal Toy. Without the happiness.

Face it, fellow fanboys! Amazon paid $3 for these units, charged us $50 dollars for them, and cleaned up.

It's not likely I'll be buying directly from Amazon, again.

If you want this game, do yourself a favor and either just get the regular edition, or the collector edition if you want the bobblehead (which is really cool, btw) If you DO break down and get the Survival Edition, be prepared to own a clock that will DIE less than 2 weeks after you get it. It's NOT WORTH THE EXTRA MONEY!!! This is my first and LAST "Amazon Exclusive" collector thing. Thanks Amazon!

Just saying more of the same. I've played the Fallout genre since most people who bought this game were in diapers. I even played that BoS junk and loved it. But this "Survival Edition", is worthless. The game is cool, the lunch box is cool, however the artbook must have come from the world's smallest printing press, the bobble-head is kinda cheap, and the Pipboy is just terrible. It's like those ghetto $1 cell phones you buy for babies where all the simulated buttons and dials make the same noise. Except this crap doesn't even make noise. Amazon even shipped me the X-box version instead of the PC as I ordered, just adds to the whole dissapointment of this package.

The game is fantastic. The lunchbox and bobblehead are neat. Those points have been made very well in other reviews of them. This review focuses on the one item exclusive to the Survival Edition, the PipBoy Clock. The clock is a poor product, plain and simple, and not worth $10 extra, much less the $50 over the Collector's Edition price.

Performance is terrible. The clock doesn't work unless you use some redneck engineering on it with aluminum foil inserts placed between the positive battery point and the positive contact plate. Once you get the batteries in and actually get power to the display, setting the time can itself is cumbersome. The three buttons provided are often times unresponsive, requiring a good deal of wiggling at times to get the display to change as desired. The display, even with fresh batteries, is very dim, very hard to interpret unless the room it's in is very dark.

In terms of power consumption, it devours batteries, consuming three AA batteries every two weeks, sometimes sooner. In comparison, the old one-way pager I carry for my job, which has an alarm, storage for phone numbers and time received, and makes some rudimentary sounds if desired, uses one AAA battery every MONTH or so. This clock doesn't even have an alarm, and uses much more power for it.

Aesthetically, the clock is a mixed bag. The overall design and look match the Fallout universe exactly. My example, however, arrived unpainted, looking nothing like I expected it to look. I know the technology and "look and feel" of the game series is "used retro science fiction", but this clock is as drab as drab gets, with no logos or anything to maintain that sense of having something form the Fallout world, even if it's a fake. Further, the clock was at one point supposed to be wearable like the PipBoy used in the game. That too, has been nullified by poor craftsmanship.

Furthermore, the level of customer service provided for this clock from amazon.com and Bethesda SoftWorks, the game's license holder, is incredibly underwhelming. For one, in order to get any warranty work done on it, you must send in money, and the clock, to some company in California that no one's ever heard of. So for yet more money you lose possession of a broken clock that originally only cost you $50. Compare this sort of "service" to the defective Gears of War 2 Amazon.com Exclusive Lancer. When the NECA Lancer had its own battery issue, similar to the one described above, NECA and amazon.com worked to fix it somehow. NECA sent out replacement parts, for free, in a timely manner if you contacted them. amazon.com handed out $10 coupons good for the next purchase on ANYTHING they sell. Wither that level of customer service from amazon.com and Bethesda SoftWorks for this quasi-defective clock?

All in all, SAVE YOUR MONEY. The Collectors' Edition gives you so much more value, with the lunchbox and bobblehead being the best collectibles this year. With incredibly poor workmanship, lack of attention to detail, unknown warranty service from a company whose reliability can't be ascertained, and overall price point, this clock simply is not worth the extra $50 price.

I love the Fallout series and purchased the Survival Edition for a few reasons:

1. Because I am a fan.
2. Because it sounded interesting
3. Because I can.

With that... I feel bad for those that did (including myself). The Limited Edition would have been worth it for the artbook and the lunchbox. The Pip-Boy replica is a cheap piece of crap and I can't believe they justified charging more than $10 for it. It is made out of cheap plastic, it *ONLY* has a clock (no date or anything else), and the clock isn't readable. It also has a broken compass. It has a hole in it, and it opens, so you could wear it if you wanted. For grins I tried... Apparently my arms are too buff for the thing.

If I hadn't opened it, I would have returned it. I may ask if I can anyway. I, once again, feel ripped off. Amazon should really take a good look at the crap they call "Exclusive to Amazon."

Oh..the game... It's great!