I think the ending was sad in two ways (edited due to end of game spoilers - BSD)

but overall it was a great game, the AI wasnt perfect (and annoying sometimes) and I hate those kids in lamplight cavern.

btw. i wonder if uncle joe has to do with a quest or something?

Sorry mate, but I've edited your post. If you're going to give away what happens at the end of the game, at least make sure that you make it clear that it contains spoilers. Not everyone will have played it all the way through yet, and some might not even have started...

sorry, didn´t think of that.

No problem, just explaining why I'd edited it

I don't know. I have ordered Fallout 3 for the Xbox 360 and I'll recieve it in a few days

Fallout 3 is worth every dollar in my opinion.

I love the game-it's exciting, scary, funny and and sad, and sometimes a combination of these (try hunting ghouls while listening to Galaxy News Radio's drama-great stuff). The VATS system, while looking a little clunky on paper, actually really helps the gameplay and adds some brilliant movie style moments to it. AI's still a tad off key at times, but by and large it's good.

But if you go into the old abandoned vaults, I recommend wearing brown underwear

Thats where I felt that the game lacked. The other vaults didn't seem like they'd been opened hundreds of years ago, actually they seemed like they hadn't been open for more than a few days.

So many interesting things could've been done with the other vaults but I was a little let down by them.

I didn't mind how the vaults looked... what I did mind, is that these things were supposed to hold a thousand people, yet in no Fallout game, including this one, do the ones you visit look like they could hold even a hundred people. Hell, the ones in FO3 would be pushed to hold 30, judging by the living quarters. But the vaults in FO1 and 2 look like they'd hold maybe 50 if they crammed people in. Just something I've always thought a little odd.

Other than that, I think the game is great fun. Can't wait for the DLC, especially Broken Steel... should be interesting to see how they're gonna get around the end of the main quest, especially if they just rewrite it.

I'm just saying that some of the vault scenarios don't make sense if you take into account that the events that forced the people into them were supposed to have taken place hundreds of years before.

I just realised something.

I've just played through practically every quest, poked around pretty much everywhere in the wasteland, and all in the space of a month, and I haven't even been playing it constantly-most of the time I've been distracted with COD5.

I feel...dissatisfied with that.

Don't get me wrong, I still love the game, but I've had Oblivion for six months now, and I'm still finding new stuff to do. And as for Morrowind? I've had that for a year now and I still haven't gotten round to completing the main quest (mainly because I haven't played it for yonks).

But an RPG that promises a massive world, but doesn't give you one, leaves me feeling really rather disappointed. Anyone else feel that way.

Don't know... it will not play on my current PC. Thought maybe a graphics card upgrade would do the trick, but Farcry 2 ALSO will not play and recommends a faster CPU.

So it looks like I will be building a new PC sometime in April/May. Which is actually not a bad thing...

I loved Fallout 3.

One of my favorite things about it were the perks. It was a great addition to character building and made it so that you wanted to play again to put different combinations together.

A lot of quests took me by surprise too. Like the oasis one.

I started playing again this morning, did some poking around and now rescind this statement. I will go on a re-education course to correct the glaring error in my ways.

Don't download the new DLC yet, its so glitchy you will need a patch just to start playing it. Seriously hardly anyone can play it and those who do have serious problems.

"The Pitt" is another prime example of Bethsoft's 'patch it later' philosophy.

They've actually taken it off Live and are fixing it up before they put it back up

I must download operation anchorage to F3 when I get that damn expensive antenna to the 360.

Yup I can't wait to see the finished product. In the current version a lot of objects are missing and there are huge red exclamation marks everywhere, borders are missing allowing you to walk outside the cell. Buildings glitch in and out and half the time and you can rarely pass through doors without the game freezing. That said, what I have seen that wasn't super glitchy seems to be top notch.

Yeah apparently the English version got corrupted somehow when they uploaded it to XBL, or something like that. Fixed version should be out in a couple of days or so, with any luck

Well I downloaded the working version of The Pitt on the 25th and I've got to say, its not bad, though its not incredibly memorable either. It has everything a game add on should have, a few new weapons, some clothing/armor, a fairly interesting storyline, and a few choices along the way. I had alot of fun playing but I was a little let down by it as well. It was good, but the developers didn't do anything new and it just didn't feel like I'd really accomplished anything at the end.

Spoilers below

There wasn't much choice involved, there were basically two ways to finish the storyline, kill the leader of the raiders, or kill the leader of the slaves. The first way is siding with the slaves, if you do this you'll have to shut off the floodlights protecting the upper city where the raiders live, letting a bunch of the new mutants inside with them...you can go back to that district if you want but you're not likely to survive since there are tons of them there, I was killed within seconds of returning. That basically blocks you from finding/looting things in the uptown area unless you are incredibly good at fighting and have heaps of stimpacks. Then there's the option of siding with the raiders, which you have to kill the leader of the slaves...its not an interesting fight and then thats it, you're done if you choose that path. The quests leading up to either choice are simple and you'll fly through them if you've ever played this game.

There are a few side quests but they mostly pertain to finding things and if you have no interest in searching through a multi-level maze of old buildings and scaffolds, you probably won't care enough to do them. The npcs are pretty bland and the story contains no real surprises. You can travel back and forth between The Pitt and the main game but there isn't too much reason to do so, unless you just want to remember how you spent that ten dollars it costs for the download. You gain the ability to use the ammo press at The Pitt as a reward for completion but if you're like me and have already played for a little while you'll have practically no use for it, because you probably have more ammo than you know what to do with anyways.

The last thing that I thought was annoying was the amount of time Bethsoft said that it would take you to finish this. 4 to 5 hours was the quote from them and I figured they would be about right on the money, since it took me about as long as they estimated to beat their last DLC. Now I did everything there was to do here, even the collection quests where you have to go out and search for steel ingots spread out radomly guarded by packs of mutants and crazed survivors and I still got from the first quest all the way to the end within three hous. Thats not a large chunk of time for the money you have to pay for this. I even screwed off and walked around, absorbing everything there was to see, and still finished this in less than three hours.

After all those gripes, I still liked this add on. It was a decent waste of a few hours, but it wasn't many hours and if you download The Pitt you'll probably be able to finish it in one sitting. I thought it was good, just not worth the money. I'm planning on buying the next DLC as well, I just hope its a lot longer.

There would be much to say about fallout 3. The game engine is much improved since Oblivion and the Geck is much, much better than the TESCS. It is a real pleasure to write mods for this game with such a tool and all the new features available in game.

But this is the problem. Playing GECK is far more fun than playing the game itself.

Due to the limitations of the game I returned to Oblivion with new moddding ideas to improve the game after using geck for a while, and Oblivion is much more interesting than Fallout.

Besides, I was baffled by the graphic quality of Fallout at first, but I installed Oblivion on a new computer and raised all the graphic options to max, tweaked the .ini and used some better textures and the game is beautiful. Better than Fallout.
And Oblivion is a real game, where unmodded fallout3 is an improved FPS, nothing more (in my opinion) and the DLC is far from knight of the nine or shivering isles.

Too bad, the great potential of the game was messed by a poor scripting and a short game. One game lasts about 120 hours shooting at ridiculously easy foes and trying to figure a way in the metro or city maze where Oblivion takes 400+ hours and offers a great variety of situations and ways to deal with the quests. In fallout you have no choice but get the bigger gun and fight your way through hordes of radscorpions and feral ghouls to find the monomaniac "dad".

But to be positive about this, when I see the evolution of the game (and I repeat myself, the editor) I am now eager to see the next TES V with an even more improved engine and editor.

I fell in love with the game after playing for about 20 minutes. But my 360 died so I can't play right now. *runs to friend's xbox* Let me play! Too bad they don't have xboxes. Oh well.

Don't know why it took you 400 hours to beat Oblivion...it was much shorter than Morrowind in my opinion. It took me much less time to complete everything in Oblivion than in Morrowind and even less in fallout 3.

400 hours is a minimum. I just looked at an old save on the previous computer. level 27, game time 562 hours, and i did not even finish the game (because I don't play the main quest anymore)

Did I mention i used the TESCS a lot (much more than the game itself in fact), so with all the additional custom content it takes a long, long time to play, not including the thousands hours testing the mods.

Oblivion is extensible to small worlds and it adds a lot of new places to explore. Of course, sticking to the main quest makes a rather short game.

However, you are right. Vanilla Oblivion is shorter than vanilla morrowind, and not as immersive.

Well I'm sure that both games have nearly endless replayability on the pc but I play on the xbox360 so how long I can play before getting bored is much more limited.

I find it difficult to try playing alternate characters in Fallout 3, and if you don't use VATS the FPS element is crummy. Some of the backstories are intriguing, but the gameplay gets monotonous after awhile.

Pretty much this ; But...

In Fallout they finish the backstories of everyone, all the little holes are neatly sealed and filled like the base of the average coperate funded building, and while this is nice, and you really feel that these people did something... it just lacks the mysterious worldly feel of Morrowind. You'd find so much of the backstory, and then realize, there's random patches or the end of it never revealed and you just NEED to find that last missing tidbit... Which isn't even there.

Oh right, yeah it's a good game. A little hard though. And the raiders got aimbot

All I know about Fallout 3 is that it overheats my vid card *lol* - till now I haven't been able to play more than 1 hour... It's a pity cuz I love the graphics-environment of the game

I love Fallout 3, one of my all time favourite games easily. I have almost every DLC. Although it crashes occasionally due to my uncannily small 1GB of RAM (hey, my computers eight years old, lay off. ) I still love the game. I haven't played for quite some time though, might get back into it soon.

-Liam

Definitely enjoyable.

I really liked it, but I got bored with it pretty quickly. It got to a point where it was so easy it felt like I was just running around the Wasteland for nothing.

I got myself FO3:GOTY for my birthday, and within a week Ruth had finished the main quest. Thank bleep that's out of the damn way, I thought.

Much of the main quest action seems to take place on an axis running nor'west (Raven Rock) to sou'east (DC), which got old pretty quick. Heck, it almost takes place entirely in the DC ruins, so I got bored of that.

The characterisations get annoyingly thin after a while. Nevertheless, the lack of near-constant babbling between NPCs is a serious relief - but somebody please get Three Dog some more records!

The Broken Steel DLC extended the MQ a bit, but was more of a coda. A hard as coda, but it felt fun, and at least the albino radscorpions and overlords keep the excitement up.

The Pitt and Operation Anchorage really disappointed me, since they were so self-contained; all right, there were some good hairy ambushes in the steelworks, but the disconnection from the rest of the world was a turnoff. (For some reason the isolation of the Anchorage simulation wasn't as jarring.)

Mothership Zeta was more fun and an incredible challenge, thanks to the powerful weapons the aliens tote and the fact that you're inevitably forced to use same. Personally, I doubt the crew are the actual aliens; I think they're more like the Garys and that the original crew are long gone. At the end I was left with a pile of alien weapons I can't sell.

Point Lookout is more immersive, although again the whole thing felt annoyingly linear and purpose-built. Even at level 20+ the running battle through Calvert Mansion was getting me slaughtered until I picked the Pyromaniac perk - and I was still getting a battering!

When I started, I missed my shields and detect life spells. Now in Oblivion I miss VATS and the perception markers. I think VATS could be used in a melee situation, perhaps in conjunction with styles of combat (e.g. increasing percentages for certain sequences of swings.)

But for now, I might try again with a new character, since Ruth's maxed out and sitting, as Yahtzee put it, "on a pile of treasure worthy of a post-apocalyptic Croesus". There's so much more to the Capital Wasteland I haven't explored. But that suite in Tenpenny Tower isn't worth it.

To be honest I've grown to love Fallout more and more every day. Fallout New Vegas seems to me very promising and I'm looking forward to it alot.

The reason I love Fallout so much is probably the relaxing feel it gives me to roam free in the wasteland killing raiders, picking up side quests and whatnot...
I have created like maybe 15 different characters just to play through the vault in all different ways. Having evil, neutral and good characters, trying out all perks.

From what I've heard, New Vegas will come out October 19th in America and October 22nd in Europe.
For me, that's a perfect release date because Halo Reach comes in September and Black Ops in November.

This is what I found so much fun in Fallout 3. I explored almost every inch of Wasteland including the waters - treasure hunting mostly, but that was where I found my best enjoyment in the game.

Other than that, Raven Rock blowing up and crossing the bridge behind Liberty Prime on the 360 - with the controller nearly jumping from my hand it vibrated so hard - those two are the greatest moments I have ever had in any game. I loved all the DLC for it too, each really added to the game and gave new areas to explore.

I got it for Christmass 2008 and played it for a couple weeks but I found myself bored with it rather quick. I never bothered finishing the game but started a gazillion new characters on OB and MW in stead.

I got it a few days ago. One thing I find very interesting is that it runs smoother than Oblivion, in spite of being a newer game, with better graphics. I am wondering if that is because FO3 was made to take advantage of multi-core processors?

FO3 has its good points and bad points. The graphics are good, the action is very exciting, especially because of the cinematic feel that V.A.T.S. brings.

It is very similar to Oblivion in that it gives you an open sandbox to play in, where you can just wander around to your heart's desire and never do the main quest if you do not want to. Likewise many of the quests have the same kind of feel to Oblivion, although in the Fallout universe the fetch and carry nature of them makes a lot more sense. As one npc says "Hey, if traveling through the wasteland was easy, I'd do it!" There seem to be more encounters, but that might just be from me spending a lot of time in downtown D.C., which is a warzone. I like how there are many other factions out there doing things at the same time you are. Between the super mutants, the BOS, raiders, and Talon Company there are always shootouts going on that have nothing to do with you.

Thankfully the leveling up is not broken as it is in Oblivion, so you do not have to worry about leveling too fast and becoming too weak for the monsters. In fact, leveling up is nice and simple with an old-fashioned experience point system. Which is nice because you can just play the game and not worry about using skills just to level them up, or what is a major and what is a minor.

Being able to make new weapons like the dart gun or bottlecap mines out of junk is a neat idea that I really liked. It has me looking at every innocuous thing in the game and wondering if it might be a weapon ingredient.

On the downside the sameness to it all is evident after just a few days. Everything is grey and brown, inside and outside, all the time. So in spite of all the obvious work they did hand-placing many things in the world like destroyed cars, tricycles, etc... after a while once you have seen one piece of wasteland or subway tunnel you have seen them all.

The whole way repairing things goes just annoys me to no end. I prefer something simple, like it is in Oblivion. You just fix the darn thing and that is that. So I have been using console commands to fix items I pick up and a mod that keeps them from degrading.

The face making is less robust than it was in Oblivion, and it is hard to see what you character is going to come out looking like in the little tv screen window they give you. At least they fixed the issue of everyone having gigantic lips like in Oblivion (which seems like a world filled with Mick Jagger-spawn).

I don't think I've commented here, though I have played through Fallout 3.

I agree with SubRosa on the levelling, it works, and what you choose at the begining actually matters as to how you play. The slightly less pinned to you leveling of other things was good too, quite often at higher levels you'd anhiliate them but occasionally there'd be something which was a real challange.

I also like the shortage of ammo at low levels (though they certainly prepare you for the end game which was rather too easy really). Starting that escort in the tunnel with about ten rounds made for some creative gameplay and actually meant that not hitting mattered.

The final two things I liked over Oblivion were the faces which look better (though I agree were a bit of a pain to get right) and the repair system. I like it, it makes sense that for complex things you need to harvest components from a smiilar one rather than just magicing it better. It can be a nusience lugging around extra weapons for repair but it also downpowers rare weapons because they're so annoying to mend.

The things which annoyed me were how difficult it is to play in different ways. Sneaking around with small guns and explosives worked so much better for me than anything else, ammo for big guns is too hard to come by, and early on there are almost no energy weapons availible. It also got rather samey to quickly, some factions would have imporved that no end.

Saying that it's stability is vastly better than Oblivion, it exits without crashing and doesn't leak memory wildly (though some of the fire graphics get a jittery long before other things as I turn the settings up).

I’m with Olen on the repair system. There is something very satisfying about scavenging the parts needed to keep your weapons in working order. And, while I can appreciate the streamlined simplicity of the leveling system, something about the micromanagement of skills in Oblivion and Morrowind fits the OCD that manifests within me occasionally. The perks are an inspired addition that makes creating new characters fun and keeps the game from becoming stale IMO.

I also love the little things that add ambiance to the wasteland. Chief among these is Galaxy News Radio (though I agree with Box that Three Dog needs more tunes). How cool is it to come back to Megaton at twilight with Dogmeat at your side and the Ink Spots in your ears?

V.A.T.S for me is a double edged sword. Some of the cinematics are great and pausing the game to plan your moves tactically never seems to get old. But COME ON!! Why is it that one can decapitate and sever limbs regardless of the weapon being used? I should not be able to take a raider’s arm off with a pair of brass knuckles. And a single shot from a hunting rifle at fifty meters should not be sufficient to remove a Super Mutant’s head from his shoulders!

But even that is tolerable compared to my only real issue with the game. That is the character of the father, James. I don’t mind his dialogue or his inexplicable actions that set the story in motion. I don’t even mind Liam Neeson’s voice coming from my African-American version of him. What beefs my Wellington is that they didn’t bother to change the character model. They just darkened his skin and tweaked his hair a touch. Even his eyes are the same color! I know they paid Neeson a lot of money for his voice work so, by all means, keep that. But, honestly, would it have been so hard to create four different versions of James for use based upon the players preferred racial make-up?

I know, small potatoes. But it does irritate.

Daddy's skin color changes based on your race? I will have to try a different race and see. So far I have only played an Asian. To be honest though, I have trouble telling the Asian, Caucasian, and Hispanic people apart in the game. They all look alike to me. While the graphics are better in FO3, they seem to be using a lot less controls to actually make faces than they did in Oblivion. In the very least there seems to be a lot less variety in what I see.

I just figured that the reason you never see your mother in the opening of the game is so she could be assumed to be whatever race you were. That way Daddy Liam could be the same race all the time regardless of what you pick.

That leads me to one of my gripes that I do not believe I mentioned. I was a little disappointed in the races you can play as. You only get four to pick from, and three look almost exactly the same, and all four have the same attributes. After coming from Oblivion with all of its different races, each with their own abilities and unique appearance, it was a letdown. I was hoping to be able to play at least a ghoul, if not a super-mutant or deathclaw. A robot could be fun too. Not necessarily an android, just a Protectron or Mr. Gutsy would be interesting. You could recruit all of the latter for your squad in Fallout Tactics. I guess they would not fit into the background story they give you, but it would certainly enhance the re-playability of the game. Thankfully I am on PC so I can just mod the game.

I would love to play as a ghoul! That might be the only way that I could ever justify owning the Tenpenny Tower suite. Playing as a super mutant might be fun, but only if you were somehow limited to using melee or big guns. Something about a super mutant with a hunting rifle is just wrong! Playing as a deathclaw seems like it would be a lonely experience. How would you interact with anyone? The only people who would want anything to do with you would be the Enclave patrols trying to throw you into a cage (hmmm, come to think of it, that would be an interesting roleplay).

Well, some of the deathclaws could speak and were intelligent in other Fallout games. In some cases because of further FEV experiments, but also apparently spontaneously evolving that way as well. In FT they join with the Midwest Brotherhood of Steel. So it is not too much of a stretch to RP that another brood on the east coast did the same. Given that the Enclave is kidnapping and mind-controlling Deathclaws, they do have reason to team up with the Brotherhood to wipe them out and free their brothers and sisters.

Hey Rosa, that is not fair!!
The repair system is what it should be, an offshoot of the broken down dream that America turned into after the Chinese nuked the place. Weapons have been lying around for 200 years and the state of decay fits in beautifully with the storyline. If you are using console command then you are not playing Fallout properly.

I have put 500+ hours into both Oblivion and Fallout 3 and I would have to say that Fallout is head and shoulder the better game of the two. All the those annoying levelling issues are not in Fallout, and the weapons and perks are a blast.

What keeps my coming back to Oblivion; however, is the ability to have so many different races and character types. I love the Orcs, Nords, Elves, Argonians, etc. It makes every character feel unique and different. Fallout is just too boringly the same. Beth should have made only some perks available to each race.

I loved the repair system in Fallout 3 - not only the fun of foraging for equipment to repair mine, but it kept my load lightened so I could continue traveling the wasteland. My only problem was I had to be careful I didn't lose some awesome "Terrible" for the generic by accident.

They actually did build the Lone Wanderer's mother into the game. She even has a S.P.E.C.I.A.L configuration. But they must have decided to pull her at the last minute. Too bad, because she reminds me of my own mother! Check her out!

Some more thoughts I had when on Facebook.

I agree wholeheartedly with this assessment of the differences.

I think they did an excellent job on the five DLC for Fallout 3. In Oblivion, I loved SI, KOT9, Mehrunes Razor the best. The added real estate DLC were all great to have, just wish there had been more quest to them than buying the furnishings.

Love this game, it has a great atmosphere! I remember being fresh out of the vault, totally scared of what might lurk out there! As I ran for Megaton with my pistol at the ready, I prayed I would make it there in one piece!

I did quite a few quests but just like with any Beth game I never did the MQ. I prefer my own quests like collecting as many Quantums and bobbleheads as I can!

I remember completley missing Megaton on my first couple of playthroughs! Don't know how I managed that. Lol. Fallout 3 is amazing (not as good as NV IMO).

There are some good locations to explore, (loved the high school near the vault exit!). I was disapointed by some of the DLC, also the way companions were handled, (again, much prefer NV in that aspect)

But despite all of that Fallout 3 is and always will be one of my all time favorite games!

How did you ever miss Megaton?? It´s right there for crying out loud!


When I was new, I could never fully explore it. I thought it was so scary so I just sneaked around the entrance and collected what loot I could get, and ran my butt off to Megaton again!


I have never tried any DLC but I liked what companions I got, Dogmeat being the obvious one. But I really think he should have been essential...


Same here! I have some great memories and I still make new discoveries! Just today I found a weapon I had completely forgotten to pick up after a non-journal quest I finished several months ago!