For a Post Apocalyptic First person shooter is a good game, something different for the genre. Nothing big.
The graphics are nice, seen it before, and of course looks the same engine as Oblivion, not so polished engine if you asked me but still is ok. But what wins it is that it can handle a lot of junk in it, since the game do carry a lot of detail o the aspect of the destruction of the destroyed cities because of the nukes.
The storyline is ok, could have been better tho, kinda short without the quests, but also or at least there is the quests that fill the gaps and at least the game maintains a descent karma system, be evil or good. But the karma system doesn't describe in which town you're good or bad.
The difficulty and combat, sometimes it could be quite challenging in some aspect but also easy in others. The Vats can have some letdowns, an sometimes repetitive, making battles easy, sometimes i use it if i'm in a pinch or low in ammo. The challenging part is when your low on ammo, quite fun sometimes but annoying, since sometimes some enemies takes a lot of shots to take em down or the gun or the player have a nasty aiming ratio. This part is tolerable and easy to forget.
Oh and including, part of the combat, the vats system, as it seems Benthesda created a Mature Rated game but in the VATS they have a semi Teen Rated system, as they took out the shooting or hitting the groin, testicle, or genital shot, it could have been fun to see how the NPC would react or say.
Music and sound, this is ok, nothing much to say, its goes well in the ambient and the music part of the 50's modern era as it is on the fallout storyline. They could have been some use similar to the music like the old fallout in which had some rare ambient music but nice ones.
And now comparing to the old ones, is a so... so... , half of it do fallow the type of game that is Fallout 1 and 2, but sometimes it lacks the humor, the stupidity or goofiness and of course the sexual theme but that might be a little to graphic still it doesn't have to be show off. Also saying the conversations, as they where funny, some of them in F3 is ok, but here in Fallout 3 same as Fallout 1 and 2 there is those words like the M word, the F word, all those kind of words, but here in Fallout 3 many things are replaced to fit in those words, it seems kind of... pushed. IN many ways it doesn't make a good game in many aspects. The final word on this, Fallout 1 and 2 wins in many ways but looses in some ways and aspects.