This is an oldie but a goodie.  I recently finished this game in a quick 3 days, and not because I was playing all night.  While the single player campaign can be finished quickly, there is a skirmish mode that keeps this game going for as long as you like.  And while the poor graphics might cause one to pause (this game’s just begging for a remake, hear that Activision), the gameplay is outstanding.

The three things that make this game so good are the atmosphere, the ease of changing your car, and the combat.  This game is called Interstate ’76 for a reason.  It is just like an action show out of the 70’s.  Even the intro plays like a 70’s show with pictures moving across the screen, cool music, and scenes from the show.  This plays out through the cut scenes between the missions.  Again, even though the graphics don’t do the game justice, the voice work and dialog are good.

Throughout the game, you fight other vehicles during missions.  Just like in a Mechwarrior game (some have even compared this game to Activion’s classic Mechwarrior 2 series), you can collect parts from the vehicles you have beaten in a variety of conditions.  You have a mechanic who can repair a certain amount of parts between missions so they will be ready for your next mission.  The grouping of different systems, though, is easy to understand even for a non-mechanic like me.  You have different tires, engines, brakes, etc.  You also have different weapons and, depending on the car, are limited to how many and what kind can be mounted.  The weapons range from standard automatic guns, to missiles, mortars, mines, oil slicks, and turret mounted guns that can shoot at your enemies even when you aren’t facing them.

The weapons and the ease of driving are what really make this game fun.  I decided to play it with a gamepad, but you can also play it with a steering wheel, keyboard and mouse, or joystick.  Although I am not a big user of gamepads these days, this controller fit the game very well.  I mapped some basic commands to the buttons like fire and changing weapons and used the keyboard for other commands like using nitrous.

The single player campaign is pretty good, although there are a few missions that are rather dull (driving through a gauntlet of enemies and guns, taking on a number of more powerful police cars), but the ones that are the most fun are when you fight other vehicles that are equal in ability to your car.  That’s why the skirmish mode is so nice: you can pick what car you want to drive and what terrain to fight them on.

This is definitely a Windows 98 only game, although I’ve read about people trying to get it to work with XP (which shows you how good this game is that even with poor graphics by today’s standard, they still want to play a 12 year old game).  If you have an old 95/98 system and can find this game, give it a try.  And keep hoping somebody can make a modern version of a vehicle combat game like this one.

Despite all the die-hard fans of the previous Fallout games boo-hooing this one, I am actually enjoying this game a lot.  First, let me state for the record that I have indeed played Fallout 1 & 2 as well as the less well-received Fallout Tactics.  I loved those games when I played them, but Fallout 3 is a different animal and should be judged as such.

The most obvious difference between the old and new games is the viewing perspective: the old games were played from an overhead isometric perspective like many older RPGs.  I enjoy playing these types of games still.  Fallout 3, on the other hand, is played from a first or third person perspective (3rd person for console people, 1st person for PC gamers IMO).  But the tone and game world are similar.  In fact I think Bethesda has done a fine job capturing the look and feel of the Fallout world from this perspective;  it truly has a feel like you’re there atmosphere to it.

The combat is either real-time or turn-based through a pausible system called VATS;  VATS is similar to the previous games in that you have a certain number of action points to do what you want, but you are not penalized anytime during combat for changing weapons or healing – in fact, this pauses combat (since it can only be done during real-time) and makes it a lot more accessible.

Some other nice features include a world map that is not “blacked-out” (you just can’t see locations unless you find them or are told about them) and the ability to fast-travel to places you have been (a real time saver, but unavailable if you are over your carry limit, which also prevents you from running).  The main interface uses a compass system to show which direction you are moving.  If you are on a quest that involves going to a place, the world map will show a dotted line from where you are to that place and the compass will have a solid arrow to show what direction to go to get to the place.  As there are many random and not random locations to find in the world, Bethesda has included a nice feature on the compass of using small triangles: solid triangles show a location in a particular direction where you have already visited and hollow triangles show places you have not visited, which makes finding them easier.

Fallout 3 also includes mini games for lock picking and hacking computers.  A nice part of this is that you are told the difficulty of doing these tasks when you put your pointer on an item and, if you are not skilled enough to try breaking-in, you are told what skill level you need to try so you can come back later if you like when you are more skilled and try again.

There are many side quests besides the main quest and a lot less hand-holding then the previous games.  You can just stick with the main quest and finish the game fairly quickly (as my son did) or explore and do side quests and just have fun with the game as I am currently doing (my son actually went back to a previous save after he won to play the game more).

Some of the coolest things I have seen so far in my 20-30 hours of playing the game include fighting 2 super mutants, killing one of them who was shooting a mini gun at me, then having the other super mutant pick up his friend’s mini gun and start shooting me with it.  I also went to a mine-filled town where this guy kept shooting at me and at cars around me with a sniper rifle.  When I was close enough to barely see him (about a block or two away and 2 floors down), I crouched, pointed my hunting rifle at him, and fired.  Sneak critical hit (or something like that) flashed on the screen and I wondered if I just got an incredible kill-shot off.  After climbing the building where the guy was, I did indeed find him dead – that was pretty cool.

Fallout 3 is not for everyone: there’s plenty of gore and cursing, but it is Fallout of course.  But if you like immersive RPGs or had fun with the previous games, give this one a try with an open mind;  you will not be disappointed.

I ran across an article about this site in the November issue of PCGamer.  Good Old Games will be selling old, classic PC games for either $5.99 or $9.99.  Not only that, but the games will be updated to make them XP and Vista compatible and will not include any type of DRM.

For someone who loves to play older games (mainly because it takes me a while to get to the newer ones since I have a real life with work and family obligations), I think this is a great idea.  So many great old games become unavailable except on eBay or places like Half Price Books if you are lucky enough to live near one.  And the price sounds right.  I also love the DRM-free thing.  I hate that people who actually buy games are penalized because publishers think DRM somehow stops people from pirating the games.  It is ridiculous for me to have to have a key code (which can be lost or not included as in my NWN:SOU game) or have the CD in the drive to play or worst of all have some crap spyware/rootkit installed to my computer so I can have the privilege of playing a game I just bought (I’m talking to you EA).  Quit screwing the people who actually give you money and try releasing games I can still play 5 years from now and not have to worry about you shutting down your activation servers.

Enough ranting, just check out Good Old Games (currently in beta) and play some classics on your XP or Vista PC for a great price.