Fallout 3 is a fun but shallow romp through the wasteland. It's RPG fast-food that will never nourish your soul.
You start the game by literally being dropped from your mum's vagina. You live in Vault 101 with your dad who raises you. As a toddler you find a children's book and from there on you create your character using the SPECIAL system known from the first two games. Vault 101 acts as a tutorial much like the first dungeon in Oblivion. It works really well in Fallout 3 and you get to try out various forms of gameplay like stealth, combat (VATS), Pipboy etc. It's really immersive and it pulls you into the game. The downside to this tutorial is that it hurts replay value a bit because going through it again is not as fun and you can't skip it. Soon your dad (voiced by a brilliant Liam Neeson) leaves the Vault and the main quest is that you must escape and find your dad.
When you first leave the vault and step out into the sunlight the view is spectacular. The wasteland has never looked better and the view distance is greatly improved from Oblivion. The engine is the same from Oblivion but is optimized better to fit Fallout's setting. The graphics look pretty good but they still have some of the "blockiness" from Oblivion. HDR looks good but like many new games bloom is overused and it gives everything a "shiny feel" that's a bit out of place in a wasteland setting. Faces are better but they still have that stiff stare that makes them look unnatural. Character models also look good but there are some clipping issues and texture pop-ins from time to time. For an RPG the game looks really good and the toned down colour palette helps building immersion and running around in the wasteland will treat you with destroyed houses and cars, ruins, burnt bushes and roaming monsters like rad scorpions, molerats, super mutants etc. and everything looks appropriate.
Sound is much better than Oblivion. Liam Neeson deserves special praise for his voice work as your father. His calm and authoritative voice really brings the world to life. The only bad thing is that he really doesn't have much "screen time" and is underused. Some of the same voice actors from Oblivion show up in Fallout but they generally do a better job. They also hired more voice actors this time so you will not hear many repeating voices. The ghouls of the game especially are well done from a sound perspective. Guns and explosions sound epic and overall sound is well done by Bethesda.
The big question when it comes to gameplay is if Bethesda could recreate "the Fallout experience" from the first two games and in some ways they succeeded and in others they failed. The first thing you will see is the change in perspective from an isometric view to a first-person view. Some Fallout fans feel this is a betrayal of the series and of the RPG roots but I personally like the first-person perspective. It helps create immersion because it puts your right in the centre of action unlike an isometric view where you, the gamer, are more detached from the game. Exploring the wasteland around Washington DC is great fun and there are a lot to do. In the Bethesda tradition much of the fun comes from simply running around this big open world and explore the setting, killing mobs, solving side quests, collecting loot etc. This is where Fallout 3 is at its best. There are numerous side quests ranging from disarming a bomb, making a wasteland survival guide, solving a dispute between ghouls and humans in a tower, to collecting holotags or finding a home for a lost child. The side missions are the generally good but the quality of the writing is subpar and often it's downright appalling. Because everything is voiced the number of options you have in a dialogue is limited and it gives conversations a disjointed feel. The main quest is the weakest part of the game and is almost nonsensical. Suspension of disbelief can only take you so far and Fallout 3 oversteps this. To make matters worse the game has the worst ending I have ever seen in a game and further more when the story ends so does the game. You can no longer continue to play like you could in the first games. The game also continues the annoying trend in modern RPG's where your actions during the game almost have no influence on the ending. The main storyline and ending is terrible and I hope Bethesda will spend more money next time on some decent writers.
The core of the old Fallout games was the SPECIAL system (strength, perception, endurance, charisma, intelligence, agility, luck) that allowed some true role playing. Fallout 3 also uses this system (a modified GURPS) but it's much watered down. Charisma doesn't influence how many NPCs that will follow you, intelligence doesn't give you smarter options in dialogues (intelligence only give you the obvious facts), luck only have a minor impact on critical hits etc. Another change is that you now get a perk every level. A perk is a way to improve your character with specific abilities. You can get perks like: better criticals, more XP, carry more weight, improve hit points etc. But again Bethesda fails because everything is so dumbed down that your avatar can do pretty much everything anyway. You will get lots of critical hits no matter what your luck is and you will do massive amounts of damage no matter what. During the game you will also get plenty of ammo and medkits (I ended the game with 215 stimpacks) and money that most enemies will not give you much of a problem. You will also have tag skills like small guns, big guns, speech, barter etc. Just like in Fallout 1 and 2 you will pretty much end up with a small guns, speech, and something else kind of character. But unlike the first games replay value is really not that good in Fallout 3. You can create a different character but the experience will be pretty much the same. The game simply doesn't allow much variety and the use of the more specialized skills like energy weapons, barter or science is too rare to be of much use.
Combat in Fallout 1 and 2 were turn-based and in Fallout 3 they have tried to imitate that with VATS that lets you freeze time and make targeted shots directed at certain body parts like the head, torso, legs etc. Then the computer takes over and you see the shots in third person and if you hit and kill the enemy then you will see some gory deaths. It works well and it uses your skills in small guns plus luck (or whatever weapon you use). But VATS makes combat seem disjointed because it takes control away from you and changes perspective. If you try to fight in real-time like a FPS then you will be frustrated. You can at close range empty entire clips into a super mutant's head and not kill it. It's almost like the game is trying to punish you for not using VATS. So VATS end up being the lesser of two evils and that's a shame. Let me say that combat in this game is not really bad but it's not good either – it's adequate/mediocre. Role playing is also weak in Fallout 3. Often people will not respond to what you have done. You can shoot people but if they are essential to the plot they will just fall down and then get back up again and tell you to don't do that. Often the moral choices in the game are so black and white that it becomes a choice between Jesus and Satan. A middle ground would have been nice and the first two games had that. As an RPG Fallout 3 is rather weak and there are always ways to improve your karma or decrease it.
I never buy new games but I made an exception with Fallout 3. Now I know why I wait and it's because of bugs. This game (even with the 1.1 patch) has numerous bugs ranging from texture pop-ins to CTD to stuttering and frame-rate drops. Sometimes when loading a save game your character will freeze and you can not move him and you will have to load a previous save. None of these bugs are game breaking but they are annoying. VATS can also be buggy if you come too close to an enemy. You will then have to exit and step back a little and then re-enter VATS. So my advice is to wait until more patches have been made before you buy the game. Its clear Bethesda used the famous "ship now – patch later" mentality.
All in all Fallout 3 is not a bad game. It just feels shallow compared to the classics in the RPG genre. It's a much better game than Oblivion and doesn't have the annoying level-scaling system from that game. Through the 60 hours it will take you to do most of the quests in the game you are for the most part well entertained. It's a fun rump through the wasteland killing and exploring. But the hand-holding that the game has soon becomes annoying for those of us who grew up with Baldur's Gate, Planescape Torment, Fallout or even Morrowind. Fallout 3 is empty calories – its fast-food for a lazy and overweight generation who don't want to work too much. Fast-food can be fun and enjoyable from time to time but eat too much and it can kill you. Play too many games like Fallout 3 and it can kill the video-gaming spirit in you.