Bethesda... I bow to your excellence.
Oblivion was one of the most excellent games ever made, in my humble opinion. It was the only game I have -ever- played where you could get into it... And just explore, going wherever you felt like going, and not only that, but you would find new things at every turn.
Well... In Fallout 3, they have not let us down. Once again you enter an immersive, open world, but this time the other characters are far more interesting and intriguing. Think Oblivion with the characters of a Knights of the Old Republic game. There you go. Did you cheer? I did.
Fallout 3 feels like Oblivion in a number of ways. You jog around the countryside with a variety of weapons, items and armor. You come across random things that, because Bethesda goes above and beyond the call of duty, have tons of effort put into them even though you may have never seen them had you not randomly stumbled across them. You find hundreds of quests for different people that you can take in whatever direction you want. There are thousands of things like books, or radio broadcasts, or the stories of other people, that are there just because Bethesda seems to love creating actual -worlds-.
But there's more to this in some ways. You also have a sort of good/evil meter referred to as Karma. Good acts, such as denying payment for saving someone, disarming a bomb, finding a boy a home or rescuing a citizen cause you to gain Karma. Evil acts such as saving someone only to demand everything they have in return, detonating a bomb, selling a boy to slavers or killing a citizen for fun cause you to gain negative Karma. Depending on your Karma you gain certain benefits and detriments, such as hitmen trying to kill you, or random citizens giving you gifts, or even specific characters who may follow you and fight alongside you.
But there's also combat in this game, like any good game, except this time it's focused on FPS. Guns are your main weapons here, from pistols to rifles to SMGs to chainguns to rocket launchers to laser rifles to flamethrowers to shotguns to... Okay, let's just say there are a -lot- of guns. But there are also melee and fist weapons, too. And if you're not good at FPS games, then you can use those, or make use of the VATS system, which allows you to go into a mode, select body parts as targets, and attack. Say you have 90 AP (ability points), and you're using a hunting rifle that costs 29 AP. You can choose three shots, say, an arm, the same arm, and their head, just in case. Each body part, depending on weapon, position and distance, has a specific chance to be hit. The game then unpauses, and your character fires at the targets specified, which often times results in the -best- slow-motion head-exploding you've ever seen.
There's also a depth of RPG elements here. You level up, you put points into skills (the standard strength, stamina, charisma, etc, again, think KotoR), and you choose Perks, though these can range from anything like upping skills, to gaining special abilities like cannibalism for health, special dialogue options on the opposite sex, quieter sneaking, or even a perk that causes enemies to sometimes explode in bloody chunks when killed.
And all of these things make a difference. So... Let me spell this out for you.
If you like First Person Shooters, get this game. If you like Role Playing Games, get this game. If you like the Fallout universe, get this game. If you like Oblivion, get this game. If you like games, get this game.
Look. What I'm trying to say is, if you don't have this game by now, at least rent it. I can almost guarantee you'll be going for a copy of your own after a day or two. Oh, and yes, the downloadable content? Yeah, it's all worth it. Now -that's- impressive.