Customer Reviews

Fallout 3 Collector's Edition

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This review is solely on the extra items included in the Fallout 3 Collector's Edition.

In addition to the Fallout 3 game, this box set includes the following:

(1) The Art of Fallout 3: Conceptual Imagery, Volumes iii-xiii
(2) Vault-Tec Lunchbox
(3) Vault-Tec Bobblehead
(4) VDSG Holotape: Making of Fallout 3, Historical Series (Volume I)

Let's go into each of these items in more detail.

The Art of Fallout 3 - This is a 95-page hardcover booklet with conceptual drawings and artwork that cover several aspects of the game, with artist's notes included.

Pages 4-12: Pre-Production - Includes sketches of cities such as D.C., Rivet City, Project Purity, Wasteland, and Paradise Falls.
Pages 14-16: Pip-Boy - This section shows several concept sketches of the Pip-Boy device.
Pages 17-32: Costume Design - Here we see designs for wastelanders, raiders, slavers, merchants, Vault suits, and more - see how 50's brand clothing gets a post-holocaust treatment.
Pages 33-44: Creatures - Brahmin cows? Bloat flies? Deathclaws? They're all here, in their irradiated glory.
Pages 45-52: Robots - From the Protectron to Liberty Prime, every robot and their arsenal make an appearance.
Pages 53-60: Weapons - This section shows the more exotic and homemade weaponry of Fallout 3 with intricate detail.
Pages 61-70: Hardware - Everything from fission-powered automobiles to stainless steel bomb-protected buildings gets a sketch in this section.
Pages 71-90: The World - Several of the key locations, environments and structures are reviewed here.
Pages 91-95: Storyboards - Here, we see the storyboard sequence for the intro movie and a small battle segment.

The Vault-Tec Lunchbox - There's no shortage of artwork here. The top has the Vault-Tec mascot leading an exodus into a mountainside vault, the sides have S.P.E.C.I.A.L. attribute pictures, and the bottom shows an idyllic family picnic with the mascot reminding everyone to "Prepare for the Future".

The Vault-Tec Bobblehead - I must confess; I was a little disappointed at first. While the bobblehead was cute, the base had come off during delivery, but it was nothing a little super-glue couldn't fix.

Finally, the Making of Fallout 3 video.

The main video is 39 minutes long, made up of 4 sections:

(1) Fallout 101
(2) Retro-Futurism
(3) Duck & Cover
(4) The Art of Noise

Throughout the video, we get to hear from the following people, who offer a deeper and richer understanding of the time and effort that went into making Fallout 3:

Todd Howard - Game Director
Emil Pagliarulo - Lead Tester & Writer
Gavin Carter - Lead Producer
Steve Meister - Lead Programmer
Joel Burgess - Lead Level Designer
Istvan Pely - Lead Artist
Adam Adamowicz - Concept Artist
Pete Hines - Project Manager
Ashley Cheng - Production Designer
Grant Struthers - Special Effects & Gore (oh yes, that's his official department!)
Mark E. Lampert - Audio Director
Liam Neeson - "Dad"
Malcom McDowell - "President Eden"

The Special Features Menu offers the following choices:

(1) Official Fallout 3 Trailer
(2) Teaser Trailer for Fallout 3
(3) Poster Art - includes 8 pictures
(4) Concept Art - includes 35 pictures from the Art of Fallout 3.

For the hearing impaired, there are 5 language choices for the subtitles.

And what's the icing on the cake? When you use the Pop-Up Menu option on your Blu-Ray player, it opens in a Pip-Boy window!

There's a lot to love with this edition. If you like the game and want to know as much as you can about the creation, development and production process, you'll be in hog heaven with the Making of Fallout 3 DVD. For the aspiring artist, the Art of Fallout 3 is simply amazing to look at and offers a unique glimpse into the process of taking retro-50's concepts and projecting them 200 years into the future. The other extras are purely for the collectors - but if you'd like to be the envy of your classmates with a Vault-Tec lunchbox, or decorate your cubicle with a Vault-Tec bobblehead, go for it!

Now, the only difference between this edition and the Fallout 3: Amazon.com Exclusive Survival Edition is the Pip-Boy clock. I would NOT recommend buying that package because there are numerous reports of the Pip-Boy clock malfunctioning. I personally haven't had any trouble, but several people have noted the low battery life.

Dial 888-4VAULT-TEC to reserve a spot for your family: operators are standing by!

I just beat Fallout 3 (PS3) in around 20 hours. I did not mean to.

With Oblivion, I could give a damn less about the story. The game was decent enough, but the story was blah blah blah to my ears.

Fallout 3, the story is actually engaging enough that I ended up only wanting to complete the story missions. And in the end, I think I only completed maybe 3 side quests. And as I said, I beat it in roughly 20 hours. Too short, in my humble opinion.

But, that's just the main quest. And I was an evil bastard the entire way. It was fun, but now I'm going to go through and be different, and once I'm out of the vault, I'm putting the main quest on the backburner and doing nothing but side quests. Looking at the strategy guide (after I beat the game), there seem to be just as many if not twice as many side quests as there are main quests.

I finished the game the first time halfway through level 15. I didn't even have all the perks unlocked, and never did find any ammo for a Fat Man, or fight a Super Mutant Behemoth after that initial encounter with the Lyon's.

I don't know why they offer 3rd person perspective: It sucks. The animation is horrible and the over the shoulder type view just did not work for me. Luckily, 1st person view works just fine.

The felt very immersed in the world of post-nuclear war Washington DC.

The graphics, the gore, the sound effects, the story, the gameplay, were all done very well. Though nothing is perfect: there were occasionally NPCs sinking through floors and as I said, the animation is sometimes just stupid and stiff.

Plenty of guns, not a ton of but a good amount of various enemy types, a myriad of quests and character builds will have me playing for months to come.

It's just fun.

Enjoyed it from beginning to end, and beyond. I didn't realize the main storyline was as short as it was, so I was surprised when I finished the game (high karma ending). I've since gone back to an old save and am taking my time exploring the world. I've easily doubled, maybe tripled my play-time by doing more of the side-quests and uncovering new bits of the map.

The environments are bleak, sometimes oppressively so. The world is designed to be a nuclear wasteland, after all. Traversing the landscape feels lonely and dangerous. The world feels huge and it's amazing to see something off in the distance and just be able to walk to it.

This isn't going to be fun for people expecting a precision FPS, but it does scratch some of the shooter itch. Feels a lot like Mass Effect to me, in that regard.

Length:: 1:30 Mins

This review is specific to the items within the Fallout 3 Collector's Edition, and not the game itself.

I currently own more than a few Collector's/Special Editions. Some of these Collector's Editions I have reviewed here on Amazon.com and in my personal opinion none has been a better value for the money than the Fallout 3 Collector's Edition. Just about every aspect of this Collector's Edition is of high quality and does not disappoint.

The first thing to mention is the Vault-Tec Lunch Box that holds all the Collector's Edition items. This has to be one of the coolest items included with any Collector's Edition I have seen. Now I realize this not the only game that has had a lunch box as a Collector's item (or even a preorder gift), but this one makes the most sense. I say this because the lunch box is an item you will actually find within the game itself. Personally I always prefer to get or own Collector's items that have some direct connection to the game itself, and this one clearly does. The artwork on the box is also great with some pretty good detail. Just a few words of warning, the lunch box can be damaged easily, especially the paint-job/artwork. A good idea would be to place it in a safe display area to avoid damage to it.

The next item in the Collector's Edition is the Vault Boy Bobblehead. Again this is another great item since throughout your time playing Fallout 3 you will find Vault Boy Bobbleheads that look very similar to this one. The Bobblehead is 5" tall and it has a nice paint-job.

Next up is one of my favorite items within Collector's Editions, the Art Book. This is an excellent Art Book that is only second to the recent BioShock 2 Art Book. The Art of Fallout 3 is broken into 9 chapters: Introduction, Pip-Boy, Costume Design, Creatures, Robots, Weapons, Hardware, The World, and Storyboards. Every chapter of the book contains an introduction by the artists who worked on the game, and the book itself is 96 pages long. I can not express just how well put together this Art Book is, it is easily the best item within this Collector's Edition.

The last item within this set is the Making of Fallout 3 disc. On the PS3 you actually get a Blu-Ray disc with the content all in HD. The main feature on the disk runs for 39 minutes. The disk also contains 2 trailers and 2 art galleries for the game as special features. This making of disk is actually pretty good when compared to most of the other making of features on the market right now, but it still has one problem. Throughout the 39 minute run time of the making of documentary I got the impression the game was being promoted or sold to me. Very rarely did I feel the making of feature was a detailed look at the creation of Fallout 3. Don't get me wrong, the documentary is still worth watching and it is especially nice that for the PS3 it is presented in HD on a Blu-Ray disk. I just personally wish it was a little more detailed and perhaps less promotional in nature.

The Fallout 3 Collector's Edition is an excellent set that is worth everything you pay for it. Even now with the Fallout 3 Game of the Year Edition available I would still highly recommend buying this Collector's Edition. Personally, out of all my Collector's Editions this set is easily my favorite.

I was a HUGE fan of the original Fallout game, and when I lost about 4 or 5 months of my life to Morrowind. I'd say that both are ranked among my favorite games of all time. When I found out that Bethesda was making Fallout 3, I new it would be great! I pre-ordered this one (the collector's edition, no less! a very rare thing for me to do!) and I'm really glad I did. Opening it up when it was delivered was about as fun as Christmas was when I was a kid! The lunch box and bobble head doll were a nice touch. But more importantly, the game itself is simply AMAZING! Graphics, sound, story, character interactions... all phenomenal! Anyone who's played Morrowind or Oblivion with a controller will also feel right at home. They did a great job with the real-time combat, as well as the VATS. This is a must have for anyone who likes CRPG's, and possibly fans of FPS (provided they have the patience to play a RPG.)

Before I even saw footage of Fallout 3, this collector's edition was too cool to pass up, and I got it simply based on the lunchbox packaging (and reading nothing but good reviews for Fallout 3 of course). A lot of games have been getting special editions these past couple of years, and very few of them really deserved to have anything to get a couple more bucks out of you. But with Fallout 3, this set is definitely worth your money.

First up is the Vault-Tec lunchbox. It's a standard tin lunchbox but with that charming art style to it, and looks like something straight out of the 1950s. Be a little careful with this if you use it as your lunchbox- since it's tin, it's likely to get damaged easily. But as a display piece, it works perfectly. What you see for the product's stock image is actually the protective slip that goes over the lunchbox- the graphic is entirely different.

Next is the making-of disc, and it's more than most documentaries like this for other games, at 39 minutes long. It covers a lot of what made Fallout 3 what it was, from the art to the sound, and we get a lot of interviews from people working in different departments. As an added bonus, the special features for this include posters, concept art and even trailers.

There's also a very well-done art book included, and this sucker has TONS of great artwork. Character designs, outfits, creatures, robots, scenery and weapons...you're bound to find something cool in here that you'll be staring at for a few minutes. I especially liked the sword that was made by a flattened crowbar attached to a bike handle. This book isn't just a few pages, but kind of a smaller version of the 'real' art books you see for games like Final Fantasy.

The thing everyone probably wanted this set for, the Vault-Tec bobblehead, is sadly not made as well as your standard bobblehead. It's very flimsy, made of light plastic, and if you drop it once, it's probably toast. Mine also suffered from a bad paint application, but that's quality control for you. It's still cute, but when you see how much these things go for, it's pretty easy to part ways with the little guy.

Finally is the game, which is a modern masterpiece. Really, if you haven't played it yet and are reading this review (which is good, since that means you're not someone who goes around reading reviews for things you already know about, right?), you should just put your money down for this collector's edition. It's still available at a lot of places and is worth your money, unlike say, the 'ultimate' edition of God of War 3. That was a joke. For any Fallout fan in your life, this would make an excellent present.

I received this as a Christmas gift and noted that upon start up a patch was downloaded. Subsequently, I have not seen any NPCs fall through anything.

As for the "Collectors Edition" items. I like all of them. Watching the movie was cool and the bobble head doll is cool. I could live with out the art book but it is OK.

The game shows improvement in the engines used from Oblivion IV. At this point in time, however I still prefer Oblivion as the learning curve seems less steep and therefore easier to just pick up and play for a few hours then leave for months.

I beat this today, and didn't mean too like some others, since I didn't explore but half or less of the world. I was also a bit nervous about buying it because of the bugs some people have had, but the only problems I had were two lockups and seen enemies showing through floors and walls here and there.

That being said...This is a great continuation of the originals and maintains the flavor and fun of the first two installments. There are numerous references to the past games. My favorite is Harold from Fallout 2, who had a tree growing out of his head, who is considered a talking tree god now that the tree rooted him in place. Too bad he's gotta die in one way or other.

The graphics are almost too good. There's so much detail that it takes time to pick some things out and see what's going on. A little lag here and there caused some things to appear halfway across the horizon, but this was limited.

The only real disappointment I had is that the numerous vehicles laying about can't be repaired and driven. Maybe that will be addressed in a later installment, which I'm sure Bethesda is already thinking about.

Fallout 3 is truly a great sequel to the previous installments from the 90's. There is so much depth in this game, the details and gameplay are quite amazing. Fans of the last 2 Fall out games shouldn't miss out on this.
The one little gripe I have is that the PS3 version which I have has some graphical inconsistencies compared to the Xbox and pc version. But the gameplay is still the same. Fallout3 is huge, you'll most likely spend 40 hours or so to find out all the nooks and crannies of the game; unless you stick to the main story, but you'll also miss out on the whole fun of the game.
Get this game and you won't be dissappointed.

Fallout 3 Collector's Edition

The product I am reviewing is the Playstation 3 platform of "Fallout 3: Collector's Edition. I would like to start with the game itself. Fallout 3 is a game that you either are going to love or hate. There is no in-between or mixed emotions for this game. I believe it is one of the best games ever created and I do hope they continue developing future Fallout games in 2012 and beyond.

The items in the collector's edition are packaged inside a Vault-Tec lunchbox. Whoever thought of this idea was very smart because it ties into the game and is very unique. Inside the lunchbox you will find the standard Fallout 3 game - meaning that it is not the Game of the Year version. You will find a 39 minute "Making of: Fallout 3" DVD. Between a scale of 1-5, with 5 being the best, I would rate the DVD a 3. My reason for this is because I feel that there is more information about the game that wasn't discussed, but the DVD isn't a major factor.

The next item is an artbook of basically everything in Fallout 3. The world, enemies, weapons, locations - its all there. On the same scale, I would go up a number and give this a 4, maybe possible a 5. The last item is a Vault-Tec bobblehead - similar to the boobleheads you find in the world of Fallout 3. I consider this a great collector's item, as well as the other items included in the collector's edition.

Overall, if you are a Fallout fan like myself, I would highly recommend picking this up. I'll keep my collector's edition stored away for just that reason - as a collector's item. If you've never played Fallout, pick the regular game or the Game of the year version up on Amazon and try it out. If you soon become addicited the the wasteland like millions have become, you won't be disappointed in this item.