No news is good news, right? Well, maybe not when it has to do with games for the Mac. When there’s no news about games for the Mac, there’s nothing happening. Usually. It’s entirely possible that Apple have bitten into the Way It’s Meant to Be Played by NVIDIA and are securing ports of Left 4 Dead, Fallout 3 and Mirror’s Edge, but I somehow I doubt it. More likely Apple is discussing what colour iPod would make the world a better place.
So where does that leave me? Me being the worlds largest (not meaning I’m fat) Fallout fan evar? Roaming the post-nuclear holocaust landscape, that’s where! How? Because I can boot into Windows, that’s why! I’m a dirty, dirty Boot Tramp! I don’t need my stupidly expensive Mac Pro for Mac games, that would be stupid!
And breath. In. Out. Feels good? Pure, wasteland air. And that’s what Fallout 3 in a mutated nutshell is: a breath of fresh air, filtered by your friends at Vault-Tec. Out with the old isometric, cartoon violence and in with the new fully 3D world; dust particles catching the light in abandoned factories, Enclave Eyebots roaming the wasteland spouting propaganda, steaming pools of irradiated water, ruined super highways stretching off into night, the call of Feral ghouls in abandoned metro systems, the thump of your heartbeat, faded monuments stretching into the sky…
Bethseda have succeeded in bringing Fallout to the 21st century. Atmosphere, humour, that 50’s future that we all love - it’s all here - spread out across a huge world teeming with life, horror, story, uncovered by exploration and chit chat. It’s great to be able to say Fallout 3 is a masterpiece, some of us were quite worried. Would it be Oblivion with guns? Would it feel like a Fallout game? Would Harold be in it?
Every special and original feature of the series has been polished, re-designed, made shiny (but rusty!) and new. SPECIAL is ridiculously clever, Perks are more rounded and interesting. The details of the old games, the ability to look at anything and get a description is carried over to the 3D world with the ability to pick up anything. Be a trash man! Explore tricycles among the debris, pick up bent cans, broken hoovers, empty bottles, climb over rusted cars, sneak through derelict factories - once high technology, now junk. In it’s bleakness, Fallout 3 is beautiful. As the sun sets over the distant mountains and light streams through the collapsed pylons, you feel awe, sadness, hope - the whole spectrum of emotion. If you’re lonely out there in the wastes, if you haven’t found Dogmeat yet, open up your PipBoy and tune into a radio station. Be haunted by the sounds of a long past age.
I see Fallout 3 not as a game, but as a training for the inevitable nuclear apocalpyse. So you’ll be glad to know it’s not just all sitting and watching the sun rise and set across a ruined landscape. There’s mystery, intrigue, exploration and old fashioned shotgun justice. Be it blowing the heads off mutated Molerats or running away from Deathclaw. And yes, Fallout 3 deserves it’s 18 rating. It’s rather violent - there are naughty words and adult themes. I used to laugh that Fallout advertised itself with “cut your victims in half like a blood sausage”. Well, Fallout 3 isn’t that crude. It’s dark, there is real menace in the Wasteland and you can be part of it, if you like.
The guts of what fans loved about the series is all here; it’s clever, dark and original. What Bethseda have brought to the series is polish, beauty and to be honest, brains. They’ve taken the gameplay of Fallout and carefully nurtured it into something that breaks the boring level idea. This time around you can explore, you can fight the big guy at whatever level you want. I’m not saying it will be easy, but there’s freedom this way. VATS at the beginning felt pointless, but midway through the game it’s hilarious and downright handy; watching your foe’s head spin away like a frisbee or illuminate like a candle when hit with a Laser rifle. Thankfully Bethesda haven’t forgotten the previous two games. The story regarding the FEV, mutations, Vault-Tec, the Enclave, have all been given better context in the world and carry with them real and quite disturbing consequences. People are largely oblivious, disconnected, merely trying to survive. As you uncover secrets and stories, some forgotten (that possibly should have stayed that way) you do become a saviour. Like in the old games, towards the end, you become so powerful through your skills that you’re largely unstoppable. This to me is not a fault - it’s a feature! I love walking into a room, sizing up the enemy and firing hot laser death at them. Meh, not even a scratch…
I’ve been reading all manner of reviews about Fallout 3 and they’ve largely been positive, with some complaints. Many have said that the engine (the same that powered Oblivion) is dated and just doesn’t cut it. You know, the same was said about HL:EP2 when it came out. With games like Fallout 3 and HL:EP2, up-to-the-minute facial tracking or real life shaders are not that important. Super Brain Michael from The Brainy Gamer thinks otherwise, that the wooden characters detract from the apparent road of realism that Fallout 3 tries to tread. I disagree. With any computer game, a good part of acceptance or enjoyment is illusion. Can you believe, can you forget about the daft voice acting or silly AI? Games (like any medium) will never achieve perfection or perfect simulation, simply because they are not what they attempt to be. Any game that manages to trick you or suck you in for 50 hours is good enough. And really, that’s what it boils down to - Fallout 3’s graphics are good enough. The sum of the game - the atmosphere, the landscape, the music - is one that is hugely entertaining and interesting. It’s not Crysis, but then Crysis had zero atmosphere. HL:EP2 was the same. Granted, graphics weren’t cutting edge, but stylistically, Valve succeeded.
I can’t tell you what Fallout 3 is other than a masterpiece, a credit to the original games. Oblivion with guns this is not; Fallout 3 is the wasteland, it is the haunting, exciting return that I’ve quite literally been waiting for years. So breath in that wasteland air, you’ll be here for quite a while.
(And Harold is in it. Just wait and see what’s happened to him.)
Boot Camp performance
The ATI HD3870 in my Mac Pro plays Fallout 3 well on High, but not above that. I also couldn’t run the game in a high resolution like 1680×1050, I had to run at 1280×800, which is a shame.
Bottom line is that we need to see some updated cards for our Macs, if we want to be able to play the latest games at high resolutions and at high quality. I remember playing BioShock on my first generation Intel iMac; there were practically no water effects or light refraction. As games rely more and more on technology to create immersive worlds, you need the technology to keep up. If you don’t have it, you’re not experiencing what’s been intended.
Hmmm. I’m trying to run fallout 3 on my boot camp…It’s the only reason I GOT boot camp and installed xp.
Settings were auto-detected and set to low at 800 x 600, and all settings were set to minimum levels, even then I’m dropping lots of frames. That baffled me on my dual quad core 3 gig mac pro with an nvidia 7300 gt and 2 gigs of ram.
VATS is terribly slow when I call it up.
Still despite my technical issues, the game does indeed live up to the Fallout name. I was worried it wouldn’t after seeing how much marketing they were doing to pimp this game, but I am not disappointed at all. I just wish I could get out of the 1995 graphics mode I’m stuck in.
Get yourself an 8800GT in there or a HD3870 and you’ll be able to run at a higher resolution with all settings on High.
I’m glad you enjoyed the game. It’s thoroughly enjoyable - easily one of the best games of the year.
Well when I heard that Rome: Total War was being ported to mac (which it is as we speak) I was pretty sure that this would lead to the fact that Fallout 3 should be released for Mac as well. Of course, it doesn’t happen.
What I plan to do is wait for snow leopard and then download the Windows 7 beta. On their forum they have a list of basically ever amazing game that came out for windows ever working, including fallout 3! (and bioshock, mass effect, etc.)
With the flawlessness of windows 7 and the speed and power of snow leopard (hopefully the windows side recognizes the full potential of the computer) Fallout 3 to the max on the mac will be possible!!
Btw, I am also guilty of being a boot tramp.
BioShock, Mass Effect and Fallout 3 are some of my favourite games too. Easily some of the best ever.
HI,
actually you can try running the game at this resolution 1680×1050.
Doesn’t matter how good your computer is, when you launch Fallout and want to choose a resolution nobody can turn into 1680×1050 because its just not available as an option, this has nothing to do with the performance of your computer.
To change the resolution you have to go to “My Documents” -> “My Games” -> Fallout 3 and open the file (with Editor) FalloutPrefs.ini
Now look for the line where it says this:
iSize W=1280
iSize H=800
Change it into:
iSize W=1680
iSize H=1050
And Voila, you can Play fallout in the best resolution ever. Again keep in mind that to choose this resolution in the Fallout menu even wouldn’t have shown up if you have the best computer in the world. This is a bug or something I don’t know, but to choose that kind of resolution you need to do the things mentioned above. Keep in mind that if you have all the system requirements mentioned at any game, you can play it just like in any PC or windows computers who have the exact same graphics, processors and so on.
I wish you well exploring the wasteland with the new wonderful resolution.
I can run at 1680×1050, but your options at startup will probably depend on how Fallout 3 detects the resolutions your monitor supports.
I wouldn’t suggest running Fallout 3 at a higher resolution than your monitor supports.
Now the options don’t depend on what your monitor supports. For example Leopard sets every time I install it new standardly at 1680×1050 and every game I install.I have a 20′ inch Imac. A friend of mine who has a very good monitor and a High end (windows-) pc also couldn’t set it to that resolution in Fallout from the option menu.
This is a Fallout thing you can google it and see how many people have problems with that by searching for: fallout 3 resolution 1680
And your graphic card is definitely good enough to run Fallout 3 under that resolution.
2 months ago i had a late 2006-imac, with 1 gig ram and 2,16 ghz intel core 2 dup, and a radeon xt1600 with just 128 mb of video memory and i was able to run fallout 3 with 1680 and Low settings (Ok the VATS was sometimtes a little bit slower, but it was ok).
Greetings
Oh sorry the first word I meant “No” instead of “Now”. And I forgot a sentence after the first sentence: My monitor definitely works with that kind of resolution, you can say it was build for that resolution as every Imac since at least 2006.
P.S:
It’s really a shame Fallout isn’t out for the Mac. I tried it to port it with Cider but it just didn’t work (Oblivion works by the way… really weird). The only thing is when I start the FalloutLauncher.exe under Mac it opens up, but I can only hear music and see nothing. When I directly start the game it closes directly during the startup.
Anyone tried to get it work with cider?
@ Ben: For example Leopard sets every time I install it new standardly at 1680×1050 and every game I install
Are you meaning when you’re installing under Leopard or XP/Vista?
I’ve not tried under Cider, but I’ll have a chat with a couple people and see if they have any suggestions.
No I mean that for exmple I install my whole Mac system new, like Leopard, and I have the system OS running with all the default settings it is standardly set with that resolution (1680×1050). The same happens when I installed windows. After I installed the Bootcamp-drivers the Windows OS sets itself to that resolution. And when I install new games under Windows, they check my performance and set themself to the best resolution which is always 1680×1050 on my computer. What I want to say is that it’s a Fallout Bug that you can’t choose HD-resolution at the Option menu. It has nothing to do with the performance of your computer or of your monitor.
My monitor was built for that good resolution.
So I would suggest you should try running fallout 3 with that resolution and see if it works. If you have a good and new Mac, 1680×1050 definitely works with your monitor.
Please let me know if you have news about running Fallout 3 with cider, because it would be great not to have to boot everytime into windows.
By the way theres new downloadable content for Fallout: Broken Steel.
It’s extremly good. It continues the Story of Fallout 3. It takes Place after the ending. a new main quest and a few more side quest you can do. And the new level limit is at level 30.
Great game..
Yeah, I’ve been playing The Pitt - rather short, but has a great moral dilemma.
For those who were talking about Oblivion, I have downloaded it onto my MacBook (someone ported it) and I can play it without any bootcamp or anything. I’m wondering whether they will port Fallout 3 as well. If you want to take a look google: fallout 3 mac pirate bay.
By all means talk about it, but no links to pirated software.
I believe in supporting devs, not pirating their property.
Yes, Fallout 3 is a masterpiece. long after my tendons have almost snapped from playing it, the images stay fresh in the mind. It’s genius really is what it is. But it needs to be on Mac. Please. Apple and Bethesda can really promote the hell out of each other too.