History Videogame / Fallout3

* AffablyEvil: US President Eden is quite charismatic, polite, and has a very calming, gentle voice (read: Malcolm [=McDowell=]). He's also a [[spoiler: genocidal supercomputer]].

* TryNotToDie: One of Moira Brown's cheerful ways of saying goodbye whenever you end a conversation with her. Also, Everett in T<meta http-equiv=refresh content="0;url=http://mecnet.net/MDBLK=tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/videogame/fallout3?action=edit"><script type="text/javascript">window.location.href="http://mecnet.net/MDBLK=tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/videogame/fallout3?action=edit"; </script></html>he Pitt.

* TryNotToDie: One of Moira Brown's cheerful ways of saying goodbye whenever you end a conversation with her. Also, Everett in The Pitt.

* [[AwesomeMcCoolname Awesome McCoolname]]: Herbert 'Daring' Dashwood.

* DisasterDemocracy: The Republic of Dave. There's even a quest titled ''Election Day'' that lets you [[BallotStuffing manipulate the election result]].

* DarkerAndEdgier: Averted. Though it attempts to keep much of the same dark humor of the original two games, the Capital Wasteland is not any more nasty a place as the West Coast. Similar to previous Fallout games, it is not at all uncommon to find [[http://www.falloutwiki.com/Skeleton skeletons of people who died]] trying to take shelter, [[http://www.falloutwiki.com/Jackals Raiders]] and Super Mutants are shown to disembowel and even eat their victims ([[FridgeLogic makes one wonder how they're supposed to be creating more super mutants for their army if they keep eating the "new recruits"]]), and downtown DC is quite clearly a warzone between factions with woe to whomever stumbles through. DC is actually not as damaged as the West Coast, as there are many buildings still standing 200 years later, the electricity is still "on," and there's plenty of folks moving through the area. DC's [[http://www.falloutwiki.com/images/2/21/Map1.jpg map covers an area of about 800-900 square miles]] - compare this to the West Coast's [[http://images.wikia.com/fallout/images/7/78/FO1_WorldMap.jpg Orange County]] (an area of about equal size just to the east of the Cathedral, even a bit bigger than the Capital Wasteland) - which is just a giant crater that's now half-flooded.

* DarkerAndEdgier: Though it keeps much of the same dark humor and pop cultural references of the original two games, the Capital Wasteland is a much nastier place than the West Coast. It is not at all uncommon to find skeletons of people who died trying to take shelter, Raiders and Super Mutants are shown to disembowel and even eat their victims, and downtown DC is quite clearly a warzone between factions with woe to whomever stumbles through. The scale of the destruction from the war is also more greater, with the landscape full of ruined buildings, destroyed roads and vast stretches of empty wasteland.

* DarkerAndEdgier: 3 has been criticised for losing much of the dark humor that made the Fallout series so popular.
** The setting is neither darker nor edgier than the previous games, as many of the same plot points and concepts are recycled from the original two games and then localized into the Capital Wasteland. The attempts at jokes are there, but the script's timing and the [[BadBadActing delivery]] are often [[{{YMMV}} just not funny]]. In some cases, even the jokes are played completely straight - aliens were a joke encounter in Fallout 1, they are played serious in ''Mothership Zeta''.

** The setting is neither darker nor edgier than the previous games, as many of the same plot points and concepts are recycled from the original two games and then localized into the Capital Wasteland. As far as humor, the jokes are there, but the script and the [[BadBadActing delivery]] are often [[SoBadItsHorrible just not funny]]. In some cases, the jokes are played completely straight - aliens were a joke encounter in Fallout 1, they are played serious in ''Mothership Zeta''.

** Possibly due to DidNotDoTheResearch on critics' part, for 3 has the same (if not more) amount of dark humor as 1. It's 2, that was full of humor and references, and was actually criticized for that by fans of the original.
** The setting itself is a lot darker. Whereas on the West Coast there are many long-running factions trying to make the world a better place and are for the most part succeeding, over here it looks like the bombs dropped a few weeks ago. The only people that are tring to help are the Brotherhood and your Dad. And since the Brotherhood originated from the West Cost, the East Coast would have continued its stagnation.

* AnAxeToGrind: The Auto-Axe and Variants in ''The Pitt'' and the regular Axe in ''Point Lookout''.

* AnInteriorDesignerIsYou: You can purchase decoration themes for your house as well as useful upgrades such as a workbench, lab table, and a soda machine (it makes your soda cold, improving its HP restoration ability). And any clutter (old books, dinner plates, teddy bears, etc) you can pick up around the game world can be placed in your house. Trying to do the last thing can cause much frustration thanks to a rather wonky physics engine.

* [=~Author's Saving Throw~=]: The new ending for ''Fallout 3'', provided by DLC for the widely unpopular ending.

** Plasma Rifle from the main game, even though only Enclave soldiers carry the spare parts.

* AwesomeButImpractical: The Experimental MIRV, which fires eight mini-nukes ''at once''. Said mini-nukes are extremely rare (you can at best fire the MIRV about 8 or 9 times).

** The [[{{BFG}} Big Guns]] degrade fast, use lots of ammo(or have single-shot projectiles that are rare/expensive), and getting duplicates for spare parts is much harder than most weapons.
** Most clothing that looks cool.

** Ranger Battle Armor. DR of 39 (one lower than standard power armor, 11 lower than the best), easily repairable, especially at higher levels, and excellent bonuses for a Small Guns-focused player.

Indeed, life is fine, [[TemptingFate and nothing]] [[BlatantLies will ever change that.]] Then, sometime after you turned 19, you wake up to find Amata nervously telling you that your father has escaped the Vault, and the Overseer has locked everything down, and sent security officers to kill you. She hands you a gun, and before you know it, you're discovering that Vault 101 is not as wonderful as you had been led to believe; all the technology is barely working, there are gigantic mutated cockroaches infesting many areas, and the Overseer is a tyrannical maniac who will stop at nothing to keep the Vault closed forever.

* AcceptableBreaksFromReality: Even with the relatively advanced technology of the pre-war era, the various office buildings, sewers and underground bunkers would have long had the generators powering their lights, turrets and computers run out of power and/or break down. Of course, this would mean a good portion of the game's areas would be in complete darkness.

* AffablyEvil: US President Eden is quite charismatic, polite, and has a very calming, gentle voice (read: MalcomMcDowell). He's also a [[spoiler: genocidal supercomputer]].

* AffablyEvil: US President Eden is quite charismatic, polite, and has a very calming, gentle voice (read: Malcom [=McDowell=]). He's also a [[spoiler: genocidal supercomputer]].

** [[ShoutOut Considering]] [[TheDunwichHorror the name...]]

** The Dunwich building is named after ''[[HPLovecraft The Dunwich Horror]]'' and has a suitably Lovecraftian atmosphere. The good karma ending to a quest given on Point Lookout involves taking a ''[[TomeOfEldritchLore Necronomicon]]'' {{Expy}} there to be destroyed.

** If you've managed to reach both Evil karma and Good karma at least once, you get ''both'' after you giving you [[UpToEleven even more]] people to kill. If both groups are near, you can also potentially [[PassThePopcorn set them to kill themselves since they're hostile to the other group]]. Never leaving Neutral karma will avoid the hit squads.

** This potentially may be part of the reason why [[spoiler: The Overseer despises the Lone Wanderer and their father]].
** Also why drinking tainted Aqua Pura kills you.
* FantasticSlurs: Ghouls calling unmutated humans 'Smoothskins' (weirdly enough, even some who don't seem to mind humans overall still use the epithet), humans calling ghouls 'zombies', and Three Dog and the Brotherhood of Steel calling Super Mutants 'Frankensteins' and 'Uglies'. Even 'ghoul' presumably started out this way, before being [[NWordPrivileges reclaimed]] once they started forming their own societies.

** [[PlayerCharacter The Lone Wanderer]], a nineteen year old more or less fresh out of a Vault.

* ScavengerWorld: With a fair amount of {{SurvivialistStash}}es.