I thought Fallout 3 was a good game. It definitely exceeded the low expectations Oblivion left me with. The story was engaging enough the first time through, and I liked that it allowed some flexibility (for example, when Three Dog told me do a bunch of dangerous stuff for him in exchange for one tiny piece of information, I was able to tell him to fuck off and managed to find my dad without his help). The environments looked nice and perfectly evoked the feeling of devastation and ruin. The fact that it could be modded so easily was another great feature.
To be honest, I would probably have been singing its praises if it hadn't had the Fallout name because that's where it fell flat on its face. Fallout 3 is a good post apocalyptic game. It isn't a good Fallout game. It completely failed to recapture the feel of the first two games (unlike Fallout: New Vegas, which nailed the feeling perfectly). Fallout 3 tried to include as much stuff from the first two games as it could (vaults, the Enclave, Harold, pip boys, stim packs, the Brotherhood of Steel, etc.), but most of it just felt contrived, like they made a game and then stapled a bunch of Fallouty stuff to it and said "look how Fallout we are", without ever managing to capture the spirit or feel of its predecessors.
So, yeah. Fallout 3: good post apocalyptic game, bad Fallout game.
To be honest, I would probably have been singing its praises if it hadn't had the Fallout name because that's where it fell flat on its face. Fallout 3 is a good post apocalyptic game. It isn't a good Fallout game. It completely failed to recapture the feel of the first two games (unlike Fallout: New Vegas, which nailed the feeling perfectly). Fallout 3 tried to include as much stuff from the first two games as it could (vaults, the Enclave, Harold, pip boys, stim packs, the Brotherhood of Steel, etc.), but most of it just felt contrived, like they made a game and then stapled a bunch of Fallouty stuff to it and said "look how Fallout we are", without ever managing to capture the spirit or feel of its predecessors.
So, yeah. Fallout 3: good post apocalyptic game, bad Fallout game.