This review is a tough one for me to write. Most games I can talk about, whether I loved them or hated them. Fallout 3 is different though … with Fallout 3, I have hard time managing anything more than slapping on caps lock to scream ZOMGEPIX!!!!1, while caressing my collector’s edition Pip-Boy bobble head and crying with joy.

Seriously.

Some background: The original Fallout came out 10-odd years ago and became an instant classic. The post-apocalyptic setting was fresh and unique for the time, and with a dash of retro-futuristic art design, it entered a class all its own. Dark humor, memorable characters, excellent role playing, and murdering Super Mutants all rolled together to make a fantastic game. It was followed by a sequel and a spin-off or two. The game is based on an alternate history of the world which splits from reality in the 1950s. In 2077, World War III broke out and America and China launched nukes at each other until there wasn’t anyone left to push the big red buttons. Only a few survived, and most of those were the ones lucky enough to secure places in deep underground vaults. While this could be an incredibly dark, depressing game, the magic of the Fallout series has always been how lighthearted it is about the whole nuclear situation. The 1950s optimism is injected into the disaster and a darkly hysterical hubris is born.

Fast forwarding in time, the rights to the game are picked up by Bethesda, makers of the inconceivably awesome Elder Scrolls series, and Fallout 3 is born.

I’m not going to comment on the excellent job Bethesda has done retaining the feel of classic Fallout while still managing to update it to modern standards – That’s been done to death. Neither will I talk about how Fallout 3 feels vaguely like Oblivion – if you think that’s a bad thing, you should immediately go to the ER and have your tongue surgically replaced, because you clearly have no taste. Lastly, I won’t waste time talking about how incredibly beautiful it is – the graphics are, in a word, breathtaking.

What I’d like to talk about instead is how ZOMGEPIX!!!!1 this game is.

No. Seriously. It is.

From the opening scene to the closing credits, Fallout 3 is hands down the most atmospheric and fleshed out game I have played in a very long time. From the its very first moments, you are in the world. You don’t start as a young adult as in most RPGs. The game begins at birth as you emerge from the womb (not nearly as weird as it sounds, I promise). Your father, voiced competently by Liam Neeson, fawns over you for a few minutes before you skip ahead a year to find yourself a cooing toddler, and so on through your tenth birthday party, your school exams as a 16-year-old, and it finally ‘begins’ as you emerge from the vault as a 19-year-old, searching for your father who left mysteriously without explanation.

I won’t ruin the story for you — suffice it to say that it is very good, and though the ending may leave you longing for more, it is appropriately Fallout.

But the story is only a small fraction of the game. Once you step out of the vault, you’re free to go anywhere you please. The game suggests that you head towards the town of Megaton, but if you’d rather plod in the opposite direction just to be anarchistic, that’s fine. The world isn’t quite as large as Oblivion, but it feels much  more complete. Every location has its own story to tell, even if it’s just through the recorded journals of past inhabitants you find scattered about on the floor. There is no generic dungeon, town, or landmark. Each place has been crafted with incredible attention to detail. Exploring in most RPGs can often get boring and dry after a few hours — not so in Fallout 3. Every area has a tale to tell to the carefully observant explorer, and this is what makes the game so ZOMG. The world is destroyed, radiated, and ruined — but it is complete, believable, and fully realized.

There are a few minor niggles. The level cap is frustratingly low — you’ll reach maximum level long before the end of the game — and there are a few bugs. The only thing that really has me upset right now is that I can’t play it, because my video card died in an unrelated event.

From a content perspective, Fallout 3 is very appropriately rated M. Language, gore, and the occasional mild sexual reference land this game solidly in the not-for-kids category. There are a few disappointments—the inclusion of a prostitute is both saddening and intensely pointless (you can hire her if you choose, but there’s nothing even mildly offensive about it other than the concept itself); there are a few points where children in the game use language that would shock their parents, were they alive; the use of foul language in general, while perhaps appropriate considering the setting, is often used in tasteless and needless fashion; and the violence level. It’s over-the-top to the point of absurdity (however macabre it might sound, watching your enemy’s limbs fly off in six or seven directions Monty Python style is genuinely funny in this game … you kind of have to see it to understand). But, Fallout 3 is not for everyone.

This game lands itself in the category of M-Neutral, according to me. M, because it is not to be confused in any way with something appropriate for kids or young teens; Neutral, because while not being actively anti-Christian or anti-God in any sense (the game’s only reference to religion is a bunch of crazies in Megaton who worship an undetonated nuke), neither does it promote anything positive in that sense, either. It is neither pro-Christian, nor anti-Christian.

That’s not to say that there aren’t moral messages of any kind. Your actions within the game are measured by Karma — perform an evil action (murder someone, steal something) and your Karma shifts towards evil. Perform a good action (free a slave, give water to a thirsty guy) and your Karma shifts towards good. It’s an overly simplistic system from a moral standpoint, but it serves its purpose well enough. While evil actions aren’t necessarily punished, every choice you make as a player has a consequence. If you murder someone, everyone else will go vigilante and attempt to serve up justice via a hail of bullets. The consequences aren’t as heady or as appropriate as in other RPGs, such as Knights of the Old Republic or Bioshock, but they are there, and serve to illustrate the point that all actions have consequences. Taking the quick and easy path often results in a lot of hardship down the road.

Fallout 3 isn’t a heavy hitter in the ‘moral of the story’ department, and neither is it for kids. But for those mature enough to digest its themes and content, it can provide hours of pure escapist pleasure and a great story to enjoy. I strongly encourage everyone who fits in that category to go out and spend your hard-earned money on it immediately, because it is worth every penny.

After all, it’s ZOMGEPIX!!!!1

Seriously. It is.

Jerod Jarvis is an independent gaming journalist and founder of Duality Games. He maintains gaming columns for The Washington Times Communities and for The Outpost. When not blogging madly about games, he freelances for the Spokesman-Review in his hometown of Spokane, Washington and attends school at Whitworth University. Check out his presence on Facebook and Twitter to stay up on Duality Games updates and the inside scoop on the gaming news you care about.