As much as I hate to say it: Oblivion with guns, but is that such a bad thing?
The game's set in Washington D.C. in the year 2277, 200 years after the world's been reduced to a wasteland by nuclear war. You start off the game in a vault filled with the descendants of the people that hid there to shelter from the war. As with many WRPGs, you start off customising your character. Sex, race, face and hair are all fully customisable so you really can get your character to look however you want. After this, you get to customise your S.P.E.C.I.A.L. (an acronym of the game's base stats) stats, as well as your skills (big gun, medical, melee etc.). The great thing is the way the game handles this. The game takes you through different stages of your characters life to make these choices. For example, gender and appearance are chosen at birth and skills are chosen through an exam taken at school. It all helps to add to the fantastic atmosphere and immersion in the storyline that the the game spews forth effortlessly. While on the subject of story, it's not going to win any awards, but it's more than adequate, which I won't spoil here.
One of the game's highlights is the combat. The game's combat can be played in 2 ways: as a semi-tactical RPG or a full blown shooter. As a shooter, it's competent at best. You get a selection of guns, point at the enemy and shoot. Nothing strange or wonderful. The combat comes into its own when you enter V.A.T.S. mode. Upon holding down the V.A.T.S. button, the game scans for enemies and pauses the action. Any enemies in the vicinity are then highlighted. When you choose an enemy, you can then choose which body part to target. Depending on your skill with your current weapon and distance from your target, a percentage is displayed beside the body part, representing your chance of hitting it. A health meter for the part is also displayed. Once the health meter is depleted for the body part, it's crippled. Shooting and crippling different limbs have different effects: do you shoot for the head for a quick kill but risk missing, or do you aim for the arms / gun to disarm them, but deal little damage? This combined with the wide range of guns (you can make some weird and wacky guns with the Repair skill) adds tactics to the combat. It's a shame that you never really need to use much thought beyond this though, as the enemy A.I. does little more than run at you and shoot. The RPG is where the game really comes into its own though.
Your S.P.E.C.I.A.L. stats, which can't be changed once you leave the vault (but can be increased/decreased with equipment) change certain gameplay elements: how much you can carry, how many skill points you receive at level up, how far from the enemy you have to be to detect them. It really makes for a unique character, as do the skills. From big guns to small guns, from bartering to speech, there's not much you haven't seen here before, but, as with the base stats, they help define your character, as do the perks. Perks are special always-on abilities, one of which can be selected upon levelling up. These range from doing extra damage to characters of the opposite sex to having a mysterious stranger appear every so often to blow your enemies to bits. These are where the RPG elements shine, and without them the game would seem duller. One thing that isn't dull, however, is the atmosphere and world.
The graphics are stunning. From facial expressions and characters look great, as do the landscapes, desert-like though they may be. The samey environments seem repetitive after a while, but they don't break the game. One negative that is truly disappointing regarding graphics, however, is the animation. Your character iceskates instead of walking, so 1st person is preferred over 3rd.
The comparison with Oblivion comes with everything else. From the way the game zooms in on a character's face when you speak to them, to the way the game looks and plays in 3rd person, it's easy to mistake the game for Oblivion. This makes the game seem like a clone, and really impacts the charm and atmosphere. Still, it's not such a bad thing as Oblivion is an impressive game, but recycling the engine with Fallout 3 seems like a bad idea, and the game becomes over-familiar before it's barely started.
So there you have it. A great game, 100s of hours worth of content, miles and miles of land to explore, but the experience is dampened by its over-familiarity. Well worth it, but has its flaws.