Poll: I'm about to play Fallout 3 for the first time, and I'm in a bit of a pickle...

[Palfreyfish]

Do what ever you want. Its up to you, dont know why you even care what any of us recommend.

Also a good point, but I've played previous Bethesda games and never modded them straight away, so I was curious to see if there was any insight people who've played and modded it could provide. Also I can't ask my IRL friends because they all have it on console...

 

[The Last Nomad]

Play it first with no mods, then maybe add some lighting mods or high res textures if you don't like the look of it after a few hours. You should play the game as it is first though, but that may take you a long time. I've spent nearly 200 hours on it minus mods or DLC. You could easily enjoy it without any game changing mods. I'd say try to go through the main quest (and a few others) without mods and then maybe go mad with it...

Only reason to add mods is when you stop having fun with the 'vanilla' version.

 

[Moonlight Butterfly]

And I was thinking about playing as a woman for a change, are there any downsides to being either gender, or is it literally that perk that separates the two?

It's just that perk really but since about maybe 80-90% of the enemies are male the perk (Black Widow) that gives you extra damage really helps out.

In combat, you do +10% damage against male opponents.

 

[Palfreyfish]

And I was thinking about playing as a woman for a change, are there any downsides to being either gender, or is it literally that perk that separates the two?

It's just that perk really but since about maybe 80-90% of the enemies are male the perk (Black Widow) that gives you extra damage really helps out.

In combat, you do +10% damage against male opponents.

This seems useful, I shall use this. Might even try and make the Avengers version of Black Widow to fit the perk. That could be fun...

 

[pspman45]

play the game once vanilla
once you reach level 20 (or 30 if you have broken steel), go nuts