Fallout 3 takes all the best of First Person Shooters and the best of RPGs, and presents itself extremely well.
The first 30-40 minutes are a little dull and slow moving, sort of like the "tutorial level" in Oblivion. You're still in Vault 101 and you see you''re child in a series of "flashbacks". You will also develop good, bad, or neutral karma. It's sort of like in Fable, only your appearance won't vary. But on to the real game.
When you step out of the small wooden door beyond the Vault door, you will see a massive land. Only one thing... It's a nuclear holocaust. It was ugly that it was beautiful. You can even see the Washingon monument in the distance, which is slightly blown apart. There is a nearby settlement called Megaton. (This is when the creativity starts to really kick in.) The town is built of scrap metal! The houses will have pieces of huge, jagged sheet metal on them. The walkways are various metals. (One of the "bridges" is actually the hull of a schoolbus.) And there is an Atomic bomb in the center of town. And there are people there!
So, I went into one of the stores, the general store. I was asked to go to a Super-Duper Mart, which was about 3-5 real life minutes away from the town I was in. When I got there, I heard a gun battle going on and since it was nighttime, I saw flashes of light. When I got closer, I saw several bandits, dead. So, naturally, I searched them to see what I could recover. To my wonderful surprise, I found a hunting rifle. Also, I found some weak bandit armor that proved to be useless. So I equipped the rifle and went inside. I won't tell you the extent of what I did because I don't want to ruin it, but I came out with a TON of weapons. (A sawed-off shotgun, an assault rifle, a Chinese pistol, a couple of frag grenades, and a laser pistol. Plus ammo to boot.)
This is a good example of how the game plays out. You can go into a random house and find useful things. I went into a house to find health and I came out with a Chinese assault rifle. (What the game's deal with Chinese weapons is, I don't know.)
There are other weapons, too. Two weapons I found unique were a police baton and a pool cue. Not exactly the most effective, but interesting to use, nonetheless.
You're probably wondering what you can wear, right? I only know a few things but I'll let you know what I've seen. There is leather armor, combat armor (it is what the mercenaries in shops wear), I've seen a radiation suit, you start out with a jumpsuit with 101 on its back, the bandits have several styles of armor you can take, and I've even seen a hockey mask. There is obviously many, many more items than this.
All in all, Fallout 3 is a beautiful game that is fun and has a good storyline to it. The voice-acting is done well, graphics will blow your mind, the story is pretty good, good variety of equipment, and a post-apocalyptic "paradise" to free-roam in make this game worth your time and money. Check it out, especially if you were a fan of Oblivion.