Oblivion with more than just a twist.
My goal, focus on main quest and play it through. After about 33 hours or so, I finished and have a very different opinion of the game now than first 5 hours or so.
The first part of the game in the vault sets the pretext for story and gets most of the tutorials out of the way. That being said, how you choose aspects of your character have a decided impact on the rest of your game once out. On stepping out of the vault the game really begins.
And for someone who played Elder Scrolls these first hours of the game seem like you are playing Oblivion ES 2 as you recognize all the similar mechanics and dynamics in play, just he world looks a impressively wasted by the the war that besieged it.
After you get your bearings and get into the first few quests the story takes shape and for me the game changed into Fallout from OES.
I played 4 of the sidequests along the way and did enough random wandering to get a taste of what is out in the world and I have to say while not as filled with wonder in some parts as Oblivion, the scale of the world is boggling. I am guessing I saw maybe 30% of it. And that 30% was a gas.
The combat systems are good, not great and are really dependent on how you have built your character up as some of the fights can be a bit rough early on. The VATS combat system is fun and has some of the best pure action moments and visual treats in the game. VATS as a whole feels a lot like slow-mo in FEAR, as a way to pull yourself out of some bad s#@t, but a nice option.
The Pip-Boy 3000 and the attendant screens to manage all of your resources and status take a little bit of learning, but once you get the hang of it and have your D-pad programmed for each situation works great.
I can't say that I liked this better than Oblivion, but if you are put off by the scale of the game I am here to let you know, if you want to focus on the main quests you can have a gas and get it done in 30 hours or so.
Highly recommended.