Fallout 3 offers what all Sandbox RPG fans have been craving for years and Bethesda presents it in all it's glory.
Okay so let`s talk a little about what the stories about. In a quick summary... James, the protagonist`s father leaves Vault 101 (one of many Vaults scattered across the Capital Wasteland) in hopes of retrieving information on Project Purity. James` son, the protagonist(who you play as) then also escapes the Vault through means of either violence, pursuation or kindness. What surprised me during the first run through was the diversity that the game offers when it comes to decision making. Everything you do will utterly effect the outcome of your character`s development and how he is seen among others roaming the Wasteland. Think of it like this. You start off with a clean slate and every single thing you do, if its to punching Bruce or calling Amata fat rather than saving her from the Tunnel Snakes effects said characters emotions in the future. Okay enough rambling, in summary, James, your father escapes from Vault 101, you, the protagonist, chases him in hopes of finding your Father and for the first half of the main storyline, you`ll be chasing down key individuals in hopes of retrieving information about your father`s whereabouts and so fourth.
Let`s talk now about gameplay schematics. A new introduction to the Fallout series is the use of VATS, a in-game targetting system which allows for much more accurate shotting and will save you tons of ammo if you constantly rely on VATS for killing your enemies. Basically, it`s extremely helpful. The wide variety of decision making is what sets this game apart from the others. Bethesda implimented a lot of ideas from Oblivion. What try to fix what isn`t broken right and damn, Bethesda did an awesome job at transitioning concepts from an ancient timed game into a post apocalyptic future. The wide variety of friends and foes in the game also takes into account. From Ghouls to Slavers, from Raiders to feral animals, from the Brotherhood to the Enclave, and a huge variety in between, Fallout 3 offers more than enough to satisfy the average gamer. Depending on your path, many of these factions will either veto you out or accept you with open arms. Enough about enemies, I don't want to give much away, so now lets move onto character customization and point distribution. Whenever you level (20 is the current cap), you're presented with 15 skill points and a perk to be distributed into your characters personality. There are so many skill traits in the game that you'll be debating with yourself if your character should focus more on Small Guns or Big Guns as an example. It's extremely difficult to max everything because this involves finding every book in the game (some 250 of them), finding the bobbleheads (21 are currently known) and perfectly distributing them as you level. Personally i don't exactly have enough patients to be doing so because I'm more of a casual gamer when it comes to these widescaled RPGs. Perks overall effect your characters performance and some perks even effect the performance of NPC characters, examples being the animal perk (forgot name), which will make animals passive at the first rank and then even attack your enemies at later ranks. Also, throughout the Wasteland you can obtain certain Weapon Schematics from NPC's which allow you to make custom weapons (OMFG NUKAGRENADE FTW) which just offers a little more customization to the game that not many other games offer.
So far we've covered core gameplay/storyline, Perks, Leveling, Targetting system, decision making, weapon making... what am i missing, oh ya, let's talk briefly about graphics.
What they were going for in Fallout 3 is the distance in which you can see other buildings/towns/settlements, etc and damn they did it well. Standing on the top of Pentenny Tower had given me this realization that Fallout 3 is truly a masterpiece of modern game engineering. The enemies and the NPCs look great, bringing back some Dejavu from the days of Elder Scrolls.
Sound. Sound is authentic and sounds great.
And right about now im tired so i think ill stop writing xD
(Little hint, don`t kill the Overseer, you`ll miss out on a quest later on in the game)