Customer Reviews

Fallout 3: Amazon.com Exclusive Survival Edition

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(13)

 

 

The game is great -- game of the year material, no doubt. My only advice is to steer clear of the Pipboy 3000. It is very cheaply made. Another reviewer accurately calls it, "dollar store" quality.

One thing that has not been mentioned yet is the battery life issue. The clock will run for about a week before the display starts to dim and the batteries need to be replaced. I have changed my batteries twice since buying this clock for my game room(using brand new Duracels). I am ebaying the clock to try and recover some of my loss from buying this bundle.

Also, this battery life problem is not an isolated issue. It is happening on all Pip-boys. Fans are posting rants on message boards all over the internet. It took some time for the problem to surface because most people assumed the issue was with the generic batteries that were included with the clock. I can confirm that the problem is with the clock, not with the batteries.

Buy the collector's edition or standard edition -- just don't waste your money on this cheap "collector's item".

Fallout 3, the game, is very enjoyable & has taken up a fair amount of my time lately. However, Fallout 3, the merch, is far short of expectations.

The Exclusive Survival Edition is not worth the premium over the other versions.

1) The Pip-Boy 3000 looks & feels cheaply made. The clock doesn't have the amount of detail originally presented. It is made from creaky injection molded plastic & visually has the appeal of a dollar store item, not a $129.99 item.

Mine was also DOA on arrival, totally failing to power on after installing the *three* AAA batteries it required.

2) The bobble-head is "cute" but was not attached to the base, therefore it won't stand up.

Both of these are apparently due to poor quality control. The box was in pristine condition when it arrived, so the "damage" does not appear to be due to shipping.

Great game, however the bundle arrived late from Amazon, despite release day shipping. Pip-boy clock is garbage, arrived with a broken button, clock completely depletes 3xAA batteries in one week. For the $50 premium, one could reasonably expect a clock that works, instead bethesda support reccomends following warranty information - Just $20.00 to fix your clock that never worked in the first place! Bethesda forums are filled with people dissatisfied with this bundle.

Again, this review is for this specific bundle, the game itself is great, and even the Collectors Edition is nice, but the premium "Survival" edition, intended as a treat for fans of the franchise, is a piece of junk.

First of all, this is the best game ever. I'm a big fan of the whole Fallout series and this one is the best so far. I just wish I could play it with a friend. Hopefully they'll add that in some future download. If you liked Bio Shock, then you'll probably like Fallout 3 (unless you love first person shooters and hate role playing games).

Second, this package is expensive. The Pip-Boy 3000 "clock" is pretty cheap, as in dollar store cheap. If it were a squirt gun, it wouldn't be your average Super-Soaker, it'd be a cheap, no-name, drug-store, made-for-toddlers, leaks-like-a-sieve, bargain-bin, piece-of-crap. It drained the batteries in a few days (I'm not sure how old the batteries were, but I had expected them to last longer). It doesn't even have an alarm, let alone a radio, and honestly, for the price, it should have those things just like all the other $20 clocks do. At least some sound effects, for Atom's sake! I'm much more satisfied with my Halo 3 Legendary Edition helmet (which I can't wear and it doesn't light up, but at least it's got a unique number). Still, I kinda like it... the Pip-Boy... call it childish inspiration, like a Lego kit.

Also, the bobble-head isn't nearly as good as the one I have of Kane from Command & Conquer: Kane's Revenge. It's almost as cheap as the clock, but more like a trade-show-freebie or a gift-store-goodie. BUT, the lunch box, art book, and DVD mini-documentary are pretty good. Sure, I "remember" my lunch box being pretty big and heavy in grade school, and this one seems small and fragile by comparison, but I'm a lot bigger now, and besides, there's enough room in it for a sandwich and some jet (just not enough for a Nuka-Cola).

Only hard-core fans of the series and collectors should find this worth their hard earned dollars... Some may find the extras just take up space.

Another Broken Pip-Boy 3000. What else is there to say? $50.00 for something that broke within mere days. Hopefully Amazon will help me with this, as they've always been great to me in the past.

The game is great, buy it now!

The Amazon exclusive pip-boy clock is a hunk of junk. Mine worked for 5 days and then the clock started fading until after one week of opening the package it was 100% broken. I was left with a cheap plastic replica and a broken clock that I paid an extra $50 for. I shipped the whole thing back for a refund and bought the game from a local store.

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.

Save the cash and buy the collector edition if you want the swag...stay away from the busted cheap POS that is the Pipboy 3000 "clock" looks like it cost $1 to make works like it will cost you an add'l $20 to get it exchanged under warranty...and I use the term loosly as you may or maynot get a working unit back...even then doesn't live up to the hype on the blog about how awesome they were supposed to be...

I could really use a "Quantum Nuka-Cola" right about now...Maybe someone at the assembly line forgot to take their menstats...

Epic fail. /:-{

Let me start off by saying that I've been a Fallout fan for the last 11 years so when I heard that a third Fallout was in the works I was ecstatic.

The game looks, feels, sounds, and plays like the previous two, just in 3D. The V.A.T.S. (Vault-tech Assisted Targeting System) that was implemented works very well, better then I thought it was going to be.

And just like the previous two, there is a ton of replay value based of the decisions and choices you make.

Fallout 3 is definitely a must have for the RPGer.


Now onto the extra that come with the Amazon.com Survival Edition.
While the PIPBoy 3000 clock is cool, it's pretty cheaply made and in normal room light the time is unreadable.

The lunch box all of this comes in is pretty cool, but unless you collect them, you'll find it just sitting around collecting dust.

The Fallout Boy bobblehead is probably the best part. He's made out of a quality resin, well painted, and bobbles!

The art book, eh... kinda cool but you'll look at it once then put it on the shelf.

All in all this Survival Edition is not worth the money for the extra stuff unless you are a serious collector of game memorabilia.
Personally I'd recommend that you just buy the game and not waste your money on the extras stuff.

Pros:
Great game.
Well made bobblehead.
Fun to look at PIPBoy replica.

Cons:
PIPBoy clock absolutely unreadable in anything less then pure darkness.
PIPBoy clock cheaply made, feels like it'll break (and that's the only time I touched it was when I replaced the batteries).
Art book and lunchbox pretty worthless, fun to look at, then you are like "where do I put these things...?".
The extra items do not warrant the price tag.

Fantastic Game but this survival edition is a piece of Junk. All it came with was an alarm clock and its really crappy. Was totally not worth the extra money. Just but the collectors edition instead. i will never again purchase an amazon.com exclusive collectors edition again based on this purchase.