Customer Reviews

Fallout 3: Amazon.com Exclusive Survival Edition

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

Please note, that I am only writing this review as a warning about the included Pipboy collectible clock.

The game itself is very well done, and the included bonus features in the lunch box (mentioned in the other review) are high quality and definitely add to the experience.

The pipboy however does not. It is incredibly cheaply produced. Upon arrival the button used to set the clock was broken on mine. I managed to get it to correct time by putting batteries in it at noon. After 1 week on display it completely died on me, and even new batteries won't get it on again.

This feels like nothing more than a $5 toy, yet it adds an impressive $40 to this package.

The repair warranty inside will replace it, although you will have to pay for shipping if this is necessary.

I highly recommend this game and the collectors edition. I can not recommend paying an extra $40 however for such a cheap 'exclusive".

This applies to all 3 versions, (PS3, X360, and PC)

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.

Fallout & Fallout 2 were my favorite games and Fallout 3 doesn't fall short; in fact it feels like it was worth waiting a decade for it!

My review here is about the "Amazon Exclusive" Survival Edition; which for $50 gives you an extremely bad clock which as a very cheap plastic feeling that sucks batteries and stops working every once in a while. If you want to get it repaired you have to pay an extra $10. A refund seems to be totally out of question.

I was (and mostly still am) are a big fan of Bethesda and like shopping @ Amazon but both of them disappointed me this time.

Like my predecessors, this review is mostly a warning regarding the Survival Edition, the PipBoy Clock.
The game itself is fantastic and worth the purchase. 4.5 stars here. But I would plead to the consumer not to buy the Survival Edition for the PipBoy Clock. Firstly, for the extra $40, I was expecting a quality built ALARM clock. It's not too much to assume that. Who makes a digital clock that's not also an alarm clock. And generally, you plug in clocks nowadays.
So wrong, so very, very wrong. Why?
-It's made of such a cheap plastic, you'd expect find these sold in large quantities in the junkshops of your local Chinatown.
-It runs on batteries (really? really.) that run out after a week.
-It's just a digital clock, not an alarm clock.
-It's worth $5, not $40

In short, it's a steaming pile of crap that's been left on a lawn at dawn, wet with morning dew and still steaming from freshness. That's how bad the clock is. If you want to get an alarm clock that you plug in and is ALSO a radio *gasp*, well, those cost $20. Really, what's up Amazon? You lost some cred on this.
On the otherhand, the rest of the gear is great. Buy the next cheapest package. That's worth the money. Amazon must think we're all a bunch of chumps to buy their left over crap.

For shame Amazon, for shame!!!

Because of this poor tactic Amazon took, I encourage everyone to buy the collectors edition elsewhere. I still see those lunch boxes on the shelves at Best Buy. Go there or their website.

Shame on you Amazon. Shame on you.

Here's another review warning about the awful, awful clock included with this exclusive edition. Save your money and just go with the collectors edition. Based on the pictures, I was very excited for the clock, because the one I've been using was one that I've had since I was a kid, and so the Pipboy was intended to replace that. Like everyone else has said, the batteries last for maybe a week, if you're lucky. The build quality is abysmal. I say again, the build quality is ABYSMAL. From the pictures, it looked to be quite solid, but this is completely opposite of the case. Even with the shoddy battery life, if the build quality was better, I wouldn't be writing this review. I'm considering just selling off the clock to try to recoup my losses, but even then, I would feel guilty selling this thing for even $10 dollars. It's simply not worth that much.

Again, just stay away from this edition. It's worth maybe $5 more than the Collector's Edition, but no where near the insane price of $130.

As for the other goodies and the game itself, I have to say they're worth the price. The lunch box, art book, bobblehead, and the "making of" Blu-ray are all put really well together. I was actually surprised to find out that the "making of" featurette was a Blu-ray and not just a regular DVD.

The game itself is one of the funnest I've ever played. I'm completely addicted to it, and all I've been doing are sidequests. It's incredibly in depth and immersive, to the point where you can lose track of time and see 5-7 hours of your life fly-by. I HIGHLY recommend this game, and this is coming from someone who isn't a huge fan of RPG's.

In conclusion, if you're going to buy this game, I highly recommend the "regular" Collector's Edition or just the game itself. Those are well worth the purchase price

this game is great but it is not worth $10,000 get the standard edition for $10. If you buy this you have to be the worlds greatest Fallout fan

Fallout 3 is a great game taking place in the Washington D.C. area. It's RPG elements and abundance in quests will keep a gamer playing for days. However, the game is buggy and have not been fixed since the game's launch. Sudden freezes and CTW errors really dampen the game. I personally believe that Bethesda should first release patches to fix critical problems in their game than create a new Survival Edition or release a map editor.

The game is awesome, even more so with all the dlc's that eventually came after. With the freedom to create your own mods it opened up limitless new addons and worlds to the game. All in all it's amazing though I never found a use to pay extra to get the collector's items. All the other reviews on here are really useful as well but i'm surprised that noone else has mentioned that this particular seller is selling this item for $10K. I figured that it would get a few laughs or other rediculous comments already so I figured among my two cents on this wonderful game I would add that particular tidbit.

Fallout 3 is just awesome. There is so much to explore in this game that you could spend days trying to do all the side quests. The actual core quest of the game is probably less than 20 hours if you skip all the side quests. But that would be a waste of a game. You can customize you character to suit your taste on gender and skills/perks as you level up. People that have played the previous Fallout games on the pc will be familiar with the skill/perks.
Also you can be as good or as bad as want to be or be neutral, things you do in the game affect your karma which can go up or down depending on your actions. But you won't know exactly how much it goes up or down. So you can do a few playthroughs in Fallout 3 to experience what it would be like to be evil or good, the game plays differently for evil or good characters.
Gameplay aside the graphics are decent for the PS3 the Xbox 360 graphics are slightly better and if you have a really powerful graphics card for your pc, the pc version dominates in the graphics department. Aside from the graphics you may occasionally experience a game freeze, it's rare though I've only experienced it 3 times since I've been playing, I've already put in 50 hours in the game since I got it. Lastly if you want to really experience everything this game has to offer, I highly recommend getting a game guide. You could buy one (Prima had a Collector's edition) or download one from Gamespot or other game site.
The Prima guide is the most complete I've seen so far, I have one and don't play without it. I do also check out some guides online for specific info but they aren't complete sometimes. For any gamer that's into RPG's this is a definite must buy game.

game was amazing but the exclusive plastic tonka clock which kills fresh batteries in 2 days no joke 2 days is a piece of nonsense. get the regular edition. this thing is garbage. BUT GREAT GAMEEEEEEEEEEE.