The Capitol Wasteland is an extremely diverse and interesting place to spend a good 50+ hours in.
The game takes place in a post-apocalyptic Washington, where you're safely confined in one of the Vault-Tec Vaults scattered throughout the Capital Wasteland, Vault 101 to be exact. Fallout 3 places you right in the womb of your Mother, where upon your birth, you are asked some unusually important questions like; what sex you are, what your name is and how you think you will look in 19 years time. You're then eased into the gameplay by completing 'missions' related to key events in your childhood.
You play through events such as important birthdays (receiving your Pip-Boy 3000) and school exams in Vault 101 and everything seems to be going rather well, aside for the occasional bullying. That is until you are all of a sudden awoken to be told that you're father has opened the vault door and scampered into the wastelands. The game-proper begins when you exit Vault 101 to look for your Dad.
It's when you first step into the Capital Wasteland, the sheer vastness of the game hits you and you can tell it's going to be a long ride. Much of the land before you is flat, with the vast majority of the architecture destroyed and sitting in rubble while the last remaining droplets of society assemble at scattered locations across the wasteland, but there remains a decent variety about the landscape and you even may come to relish the prospect of hiking from one side of the map to another just to take in the sights, and of course, kill some of the mutated animals along the way.
The amazing thing I found about the Fallout 3 world was that it is almost believable. It often had me thinking of how things would really be in a post-apocalyptic world, with most cases I concluded that the game probably wasn't too far from the truth (aside from the blood-thirsty mutants of course). As in everyday life, there's those that do good and those that do bad, with a fair amount of those on the fence. However, given such a world to live in, there is little room for do-good'ers and a whole lot for those willing to exploit the weak. This is why you will encounter many Raiders, Slavers and Mercenaries along your travels that will do any number of evil things if it in anyway benefited them.
You can choose to become the white knight for those good people still left, or you can join the ranks of the Raiders and Slavers and do whatever it takes to get what you need. This is one of the ways in which you choose how you play the game. There are effectively 5 levels of Karma, ranging from Very Evil through Neutral to Very Good and depending upon your Karma level, people will react to you differently and your actions may (or may not) have radical consequences on the game dynamics. The actions you take, the attributes/perks your character has and items you acquire determine your path to the end.
Another choice you get is to play in first or third-person view mode. I strongly advise playing in the former, as the character animation is somewhat horrendous in the latter. Combat is also made easier by choosing this view, but this is one area where Fallout 3 does disappoint slightly. The combat feels a bit cumbersome and the VATS system, where you can pause time and choose a limb you wish to aim at, can make just about any encounter a walk in the park in the later stages of the game. The upside is that slaying many of your foes in this way is very satisfying, and although I thought watching a mutant's head taken clean off his shoulders in slow-motion time and time again would get stale, it really doesn't!
It is worth mentioning that during combat, your weapons and armour do deteriorate and their effectiveness wanes as you continue to use them. However, it is possible to repair them either at a shop or by yourself using parts from duplicate copies of the weapon you wish to repair, which may be dropped by one of your downed enemies. As with most RPGs, Fallout 3 employs a Health Points system to determine your status, with health bars attached to each of your limbs. You may have to deal with a crippled leg (inhibiting your ability to run), a crippled arm (lowering your aiming accuracy) or even a crippled head, which can lead to blurred vision and disorientation. You can heal yourself with stimpacks, of which there are many strewn around the Capitol Wasteland.
There are many other titbits to mention about this game, like the hacking and lock picking minigames, being able to decorate your house, finding companions, collecting bobbleheads and solving many side-quests, but I feel I have waffled on for far too long as it is!
You will meet many different and interesting characters in Fallout 3, and the vastly diverse scenery you will encounter is often a treat and the backdrop of audio is also top-notch, making Fallout 3 an extremely satisfying videogaming experience. I have never played any of the previous installments of the Fallout series, so I cannot compare this game to its predecessors, but I wholly enjoyed Fallout 3 as a stand-alone title and I'm sure the vast majority of gamers will as well; it's comes from me highly recommended, despite the few graphical and audio glitches on the PS3 version.