I really don't get what's so good about this. Before you think it, no I am not one of those guys who hate mainstream games just because they're popular; I can backup my argument. First, I'll discuss the graphics. Besides Persona on the PSP, this has the worst graphical presentation I've ever seen in a game. It's just a bunch of bricks and trash and vomit that all look the same throughout the game. You don't get too much music throughout the game, either. If you turn on the radio you hear civil war music, even though it's supposed to be 1950-ish. SNOOOOORRRRREEE. The enemy design is cool, though. Another thing wrong with this game is the level design. I've played Onechanbara, I've played Nocturne, I've played ODST, but this game has the worst level design of any game I have (and I've got millions). The biggest problems are that you can't tell if you're going the right way, and there is NEVER ANY COVER!! You could argue that they were trying to simulate a realistic enviroment, but that's a broken argument. Grand Theift Auto 4 is realistic and open-worlded and you can still take cover pretty well, there. Also, if this is supposed to be a dangerouse post-appocolyptic world, you think someone would put something up for defence incase of an ambush. If you run into enemys, you'll have to back up into an empty room for cover or take them head on and hope they die before you, which is some wishful thinking because your weapons are crazy inacurate and do as much dammage as throwing balls of tissues and lint at them. They also break, which makes them even worse. Everything just sucks. More things I would complain about is that if you're a person who likes getting 100% complete in a game, you're out of luck because you can't. You always have to go through missions, all of which have varying results. They all take too long, too; there's no sence of accomplishment. I can't say too much on the story because I've stopped paying attention to it due to all the other presentation elements. All I know are that the characters you meet are all a bunch of ugly d*ckwads who take offence at anything you say. You have a bunch of boring diolauge trees to painstakingly go through, and if you're discussing a mission, choosing the evil option is always the only one that has any merit. Really? Imagine if in Bioshock the little sisters you don't harvist send you no adam-filled teddy bear for saving them. You're only option would be to kill them all, which is exactly what this game makes you do to everyone if you want to advance. Also, as far as items go, you're not going to have much fun. As I mentioned, they degernerate. Also, the game is scattered with a bunch of trash that you'll never pick up, and the ammo you'll find comes about as frequent as in Resident Evil 4. I generally don't like Western RPGs, but I don't think the problems I have are genre set pieces. The shooting feels like you're moving through a bag of rocks (speaking of which you can barely hold any items), and the overall game structure feels either way to limited, which is bad for a ROLL PLAYING game. At other times the structure feels way to vague, which is different from a sense of freedom. It gets a 1 because the enemy design is good, as I said, and it's fun for about a week. That's it, a week. When you get bored, it is about as fun as getting grenade spammed by a clan of campers in Modern Warfare 2. Just thinking about it makes me sick. IT'S MAKIN ME SICK.… Expand

MIND BOGGLINGLY BORING! If you want to spend hours and hours searching boxes in order to pick up the same old things (scrap metal, hose nozzle, fission battery, abraxo cleaner etc) which you then have to dump because you are overloaded, before travelling to sell them, in order to buy more useless ammo and items, before going searching for more useless items and selling them all over again. Utterly pointless and unbelieveably repetitive are the names of the game here. You wander around, shot people in an unsatisfying and unskillful way, collect more junk, sell more junk and then try and get improved junk before repeating it all over again. And again. The 40s music is novel, but the rest of the music and effects is woefully poor. Graphically this game is a disaster. Repetitive, dull and lacking in inspiration. The post-apocalyptic imagery is so boring and uninspired, I wonder if any of them had watched Mad Max, Cherry 2000, A Boy and His Dog etc. The verbal interactions would disgrace a 5 year old's story book. The story is boring and fails to stir. I really wanted to enjoy this, but it is like Oblivion which is just as dull and boring. An awful, overhyped load of garbage.… Expand

What game are you guys playing?? This game is horrible. Its slow and targeting system is stupid. This game is the worst game that i have played. Its the biggest disappointed, so much hype and this is it. I have both the 360 and ps3 and have or played every game worth buying or renting and this is the worst and i mean the worst game ever.

This game contains no fun whatsoever, seeing as to how the smallest moves, from eating to walking, require so much advance planning and strategy that any amusement and spontaneity is completely drained from gameplay. Want to engage in some post-apocalyptic combat? I wouldn't recommend it, not with a game engine that suggests you plot your combat down to limb you wish to strike. It actually works this way -- you choose the limb you want to strike. There has never been a more stunningly boring game to play -- or rather, not since "Oblivion," which is based on the same poor game engine.… Expand

Fallout 3 is probably one of the worst (hyped up about) games you could waste your money on. 3 contains many of flaws that shouldn't be in a action-role playing game. First, in the first 3 hours of playing the game, you don't shoot anything. Mainly, Fallout 3 provides us with a huge free roam availability (in other words, the free roam is to big that you easily get overwhelmed and search the wrong places in a "mission"). Lastly, Fallout 3 is not very much of a role-playing game its a strategy game, the first 2 hours of playing is doing the GOAT test and talking to people in your vault. Overall Fallout 3 is a waste of money and time.… Expand

In defense of Bethesda, many people have said that Fallout 3 manages to capture the spirit of the first two games. To this, I completely agree. That is, until you get to the ending. Once you do, you'll see what I mean. It is in no way even close to the quality of the endings from FO 1, 2 and especially Tactics. Tactics had by far the best ending because it was heavily nuanced and had very many shades of grey. You decided the outcome for several different groups of "people", the direction the Brotherhood would take AND how those ends would be achieved. There were many different images that varied greatly depending on your choices. If you haven't played the game and would like to see what I mean, check this out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y4ewKOcVW2E Now compare that to the ending of FO 3 if you've finished the game. Not even close is it? Lets look at the numbers shall we? The ending for Tactics is 3:24 long. The similiar "this is what happened" slide show ending for FO 3 is only 2:26 long, ignoring the cutscene. To sum it up, FO 3's ending lacks both the depth and substance of Tactic's or FO 1 and 2's endings as well as the length. In this respect, Bethesda DID NOT capture the "true spirit" of Fallout. Fallout is about a story. A deep, interwoven, complex story with many shades of grey. It engages the player and forces them to consider their actions. Thats part of the games' charm and mass appeal. Fallout 3 did a very poor job of emulating this kind of ending not to mention a shallow story line. I mean really, the "big choices" only really look at one event in the game. "Did s/he do this or not?" On only one event! There is no complex discussion of the consequences of all the other places and people the character interacts with. To try and say otherwise just makes you look like a sad devoted fan/fangirl. Because of this, it is no wonder FO 3 is quickly becomming known as "Oblivion with guns". Not just as a Fallout fan, but also as a critical thinker evaluating the breadth and depth of the story, I can unequivically say that FO 3 does not live up to its predecessors. Yes, it looks amazing, but I value actual quality over a cheap shallow "pretty looking" game. This is why FO 3 is only a "good" game and not a truly "great" game. Its just sad because it wouldn't take that much more effort to do the ending right. I don't know why Bethesda played a great ball game only to drop the ball and lose in the last two minutes of the game.… Expand

i dont understand all the great reviews for this game. sure it may have a great story in thier somewhere and gives you huge amounts of freedom but the A.I. is terrible and the actual gameplay in the fighting is poor in comparision to straight out fps games like cod4. and as for the graphics. they are good in places but in 3rd person mose it looks like your character is not really in the world. in the 1st person view the guns look terrible and the monsters you fight just look like old.old gen characters and their A.I. is on par with games such as Deus Ex which was a great game in its day but doesnt match up to, say gears of war or call of duty. very dissapointing… Expand

An incredibly dull game filled with bugs. I'm surprised that they've released it in the stage that it's in. It's poor animation, terrible models poor conversation/storyline and extremely bad lighting are just a few things that make this game painful to play.

I REALLY wanted to like this game and had no idea I would end up despising it. I hate this game for a couple reasons. 1. After playing this game for a few hours, mostly unimpressed (except for the behemoth I fought, that was pretty bad ass, and I also liked the 50s music) I made my way to whatever that ghoul town in the museum was called; at this point I'm getting bored, but hell I spent $60 so maybe it will get better. Anyway, I get the contract for the slave, go talk to him, he says he has to take care of something (I'm pretty sure what it is), he walks over to his previous owner's bed as he (the bartender) is getting up to go to work...... and the former just continues standing at the bed. I go to melee (forget which character) and all hell breaks loose so I run away and autosave decides it's important to remember that. So at this point I can't go back to the ghoul town for provisions I require for the mission as they all want me dead... super. 2. There are sever other game ending glitches in this game which is damn inexcusable. I don't understand how this Bethesda can stand behind this product and furthermore, can't understand how it gets such great reviews. 3. Boring landscape, inappropriate invisible boundries 4. Villian graphics were cool, everything else was ugly and bland. If you can overlook all of these superficial flaws, there's also the crappy dialogue and drab storyline to contend with... but if you can overlook all of THAT, this is clearly the best game ever. 4.… Expand

This is a game that is unlike it's brother, Oblivion. What Oblivion provided (mainly lots of dungeons, lots of quests, and lots of cities) Fallout 3 ignores to the bone!

After 20 hours of playing (and being partially impressed at this point, a few fun quests, a few sight seeings, ect) I checked my Data log. Only 20 quests completed!

That can't be right, I went to all of Fallout 3's main cities, which isn't hard because there are only like 4 of them. And only 3 of them can be actually called cities. First off that is BS because the wasteland is so boring that without cities we have no quests or interesting people to talk with.

Paradise had 1 person to officially do a quest with, the rest were just generic "slavers" BORING.

Megaton, the first city you go to has only 2-3 quest givers. With one of those asking you to disable a bomb (which takes 1 second *boring*) and another asking you to fix leaky pipes. Again, very very boring.

The side stories were fun, like the run away android, but despite all the talk the quest could be done really quick.

I didn't like this game. The wasteland was incredibly boring with little side quests that made it worth while. I'm thinking Bethesda's thought process was just giving us the bare BS with weak main story quests and giving the rest up as DLC. lol… Expand

This is a crap game on the XBOX as I have had nothing but problems with it either hanging or rebooting the console. Tried it back at the store and it works fine so they will not refund. It may be my XBOX playing up again. My mate has it on his PS3 and he loves it. My warranty has run out on my XBOX so I will not be able to get it fixed again. Might be time to bin it and get a PS3 or a Wii.

Bethesda is misleading gamers into thinking this is a shooter. It is not. It is a RPG with a sloppy shooter element added on. V.A.T.S. is an interesting concept but it should not take two point blank headshots to kill someone. Free aim is sloppy. The graphics look washed out even in high def and the skin tones are off. Animations are stiff and when speaking to one character, none of the other characters move and thusly look like a painting. If you like RPG's you will like Fallout 3. If you are expecting even a half decent shooter, look elsewhere.… Collapse

What an absolute piece of crap. I don't really care what the rest of you think. If you played the first Fallout & the 2nd one, you would understand what I mean. Bethseda I hate you guys. Every game that you have ever made I have disliked heavily. Oblivion, garbage. Morrowind, garbage. And yet we get this game 'Oblivion with guns'. Could you not have fixed the engine? And made it so it wasn't so much like Oblivion? NO you can't. I can't express how mad I am at this game. I got 10 hours in, and it is the very first game that I have ever taken back and sold. I hated it. Graphics were okay, nothing special. Gameplay was Oblivion with guns. And traveling was stupid. Overall I still stand with my disgust to you Bathseda, I hope someone burns your companys building down so we don't have to see your wreck another game franchise. You're the "Uwe Boll" of video games.… Expand

In comparison to the earlier Black Isle Studios Fallouts, Bethesda's Fallout has: One-dimensional, illogical and forgettable characters with little to no personality. Simple, linear, unoriginal narrative. Poorly-written narrative. Poorly-written dialogue. Poorly-voiced dialogue. None of the series' trademark moral ambiguity. No real freedom (there are unkillable NPCs, unavoidable combat etc.). No real choices or consequences. Tactical combat has been removed. Importance of skills/perks/traits removed. Traits removed. Psychologically and emotionally complex quests no longer present. Nuclear power was a feared thing in post-apocalyptic Fallout, and the issue was dealt with intelligently with much subtle social commentary. In Fallout 3, you can shoot nuclear-powered cars with your nuclear catapult (early in the game...), in a town built around an unexploded nuclear bomb. Fallout 3 fails to deal with any of the interesting human issues that Fallout did. The game lacks any semblance of thoughtfulness. It's also shorter. And easier. The game abuses and contradicts established lore. Fallout 3 fails to even pathetically imitate it's decade-old predecessors' design, originality or meaningfullness. Let alone exceed it. Even when considered, unfairly, outside the context of being a sequel, it is an exceptionally arrogant, incompetent and poorly designed game all on its own. The animations are clunky and awkward. AI is atrocious. Combat is awkward. World textures and character models are ugly and lacking. Art direction is poor. Much of the crowded (who would have thought nuclear winter would be so claustrophobic?) "wasteland" is sloppily and lazily copy-pasted from place to place. The musical score is uninspired and in the style of LOTR-esque epic-fantasy (in fact it sounds very similar to Oblvion...) - which is completely inappropriate in this game's setting. To top it off, the whole thing is buggy and poorly optimized. And Bethesda's attitude towards the original games' fans has been utterly pathetic.… Expand

As per the recommendation of one of my friends to buy this game as it was descibed as "Oblivion with guns", I was expecting a game to be of similar caliber as Oblivion. Boy, was I wrong. I haven't played the first two Fallout game so I can't compare it to them, but from a standpoint of someone who is completely new to the series, I can say that this game was mildly enjoyable at best. The first gripe that I have about this game is the short and anticlimactic plotline. In fact, the entire game seemed like it was rushed out for the holiday season. The landscape is completely devoid of any interesting features and the graphics, a slight improvement over Oblivion's, did not help that problem at all. I often found myself traveling the entire landscape just to find enough money to keep my weapons loaded for 2 opponents. Moreover, the lack of viable transportation other than walking and fast travel turned out to be a pain in the long run and was probably on purpose to extend the poor excuse of a mail plotline.… Expand

I like some aspects of this game and didn't like others, I am an original Fallout fan but I judged this game on it's own merits as if it wasn't a Fallout game at all. The reason for my score is simple, the game was bugged into unplayability. After about 20+ hours of roaming the wasteland, having fun but being disappointed in the dialogue and story, I was unable to progress. Upon trying to enter the vicinity of Jefferson Memorial (which is required to beat the game) my game crashed, I reloaded and tried again... crash. I then shrugged and went to a backup save (I always keep several) made my way back and got the same result. I tried every save I had, even going back several hours, and I still could not escape the bug. It's clear that something is seriously wrong with this game, Bethesda had no excuse for releasing this in it's present state and I doubt they will patch it beyond what is necessary to sell more DLC. Oh and I also found other people online who had the same problem so I know it isn't a 1 in a 1000000 bug. I would advise anyone who really wants to play this to get the PC version as I'm sure fans will patch it into playability, as Bethesda relies on. Don't buy console versions from a company known for making buggy games and not fixing them, it seems they still haven't learned their lesson.… Expand

9/10? You honestly believe this game is 10% away from being PERFECT? This game had all of Oblivion's horrible animations. It was just a reskin. The whole sliding walk cycles, defying gravity crouch walking, and the stupid AI and extraodinarily deep combat "swing repeatedly to kill". How epic, you fight giant cockroaches, and the "advanced" facial animation, what with auto-lip sync? So unpolished. Looks like it was made by QANTM students. I hate the whole, pick up every item you see. How many police uniforms do you need? Oh but that's "interactivity" isn't it.… Expand

Eric, the main quest is linear. You've obviously never played Fallout or Fallout 2. *compared to Fallout 1/2* the combat IS less tactical. You really _cannot_ reasonably rationalize the nuclear cars, eithe. First of all, putting a bullet in a reactor wouldn't initiate a fission chain reaction. It doesn't make sense. If it did then a simple car accident would cause large-scale nuclear devastation. To say this makes sense indicates that you really are a blind fanboy. Furthermore people would not *choose* to build a town around a live nuke. Nuclear winter has worn off after 200 years? Why are there still wooden houses standing after all this time. Hell, they weren't even in Fallout 1/2. Your point about World of Warcraft would make a little sense if World of Warcraft had been marketed as "Warcraft 4".… Expand

INSANELY BOING!!!!! Thank you Richard S. for agreeing, this game is horrendous, the game auto-saves every two seconds and the beginning of the game is a waste of time! I was insanely disappointed when I bought this game. Instead of wasting your money on this piece of electronic crap go out and get "Gears of War 2" (which is a great game), or "Left 4 Dead" which is supposed to be also great. This game is a waste of money, and time!… Expand

I really, really wanted to like this game but it failed on virtually everything apart from a few praises I can throw at this gaming failure. First the praise : It's a huge game with lots of roaming and places to explore. The criticism: It makes it unplayable at such a slugish pace, over controls designed by a moron which leads to much frustration, battles that are cumbersome and tiresome. The Bioshock series did it better - Fact.… Expand

I was advised by a friend who adores this game to get it myself, I did so, however this game is simply a hyped up modern version of Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, which is a game I love however Fallout 3 is simply missing something more and it never really hooked me

for what was a very creative and fun game series, fallout NV and 3 set an all time low. Sure, fallout 3 and NV pulled the series to 3d and open, and i admit it was kind of fun, but that fun was ruined by the major bugs, freezes, glitches and crashes i experienced on my copy. it happened on my PC,ps3 and 360 copies so its not my system. This is a very crap game that does not deserve a sequel. If 4 gets made, it must not be developed by obsidian and not use that crap gamebryo engine. I cant even tell you how bad the DLC makes it. Its unplayable after 3 hours gameplay. its like it purposly freezes to tick you off!… Expand

This game doesn't deserve even a 1. You may spend a ,long time walking from one side of the map to the other, only then to feel de ja vu, as you are sure you have just been here, and the reason for that is, you have. The whole map looks the same with little variation, Voice acting in this game is horrendous and is a bore, making it unbearable to go of trying to find side quests, which are boring in themselves, and the story is boring and also a lot of the people in this game say exactly the same thing making the experience even more dull and boring. fair enough I haven't completed the story and it may get better towards the end but, because of the games flaws I don't think i will ever be able to reach the end, One more thing, within the 10 hours that I have played this game it has crashed my xbox 4 times, giving me no choice than to turn off my xbox and turn it back on reverting to my last save which can be a long time ago. a waste of my time and my money.… Expand

I played this game for a little while, completed tutorials and i thought "Hey, this might have potential" so I go to the first city, the quest tracking is terrible and leads you to places you shouldn't be, the combat is really flimsy, and the quests are kind of ridiculous, first real quest after tutorial: Blow up a nuclear bomb or disarm it after talking to someone who should help you, but ends up dying by some bad guy first. Terrible game, would not recommend it. Not to mention you actually need to gain skills up before you can perform such alternate ways of playing the game, inventory management is poor, and the mechanics / story is poor itself.… Expand