For those with concerns about NPCs and dialog...your concerns are warranted. It's not a game-breaker by any means, but the NPCs do get stuck often. Your own model isn't any better -- I tried using the third-person view and went back after only a couple of minutes. The animation is terrible and the angle is almost vertigo-inducing. Facial animations -- though better than Oblivion -- still look bland and out of sync. The expressions are nothing like the happy/angry extremes you saw in the originals.
Also with the dialog, the options aren't nearly as unique and smartassed as those from the original, but they do have some good variety. You can always give a smartassed remark if you choose, and the additional options based on skills are both useful and risky. Having a diplomatic character could certainly be powerful; I've already encountered a few quests where a sufficient speech skill would have saved me from having to wade into combat. Still, the tongue-in-cheek humor isn't as powerful as it used to be.
I should also mention that I had it crash on me 3 times in the same number of hours. My video card does sometimes cause hiccups after prolonged usage, so I can't pin this on the game. On the upside, the autosaves are performed on a regular basis and at key intervals, never leaving you far from where you started. The game also loads quickly and doesn't make you sit through several minutes of intro screens (like most EA games).
Issues aside, this is an amazing game for several reasons.
I was a fan of the turn-based strategy of the original games, but the new real-time/VATS combat style works very well, perhaps even better. It certainly adds an air of panic to every encounter, while allowing you to use your heroes abilities (rather than your own inabilities) to decide the outcome of combat. And no, not every NPC is out to get you. Creatures aggro like they did in the originals (and then hunt you down!) and only the ruthless NPCs like the Raiders will shoot everything that moves.
The travel mechanism has changed greatly. You no longer click on the map and "walk" to your destination, possibly stopping for a random encounter. Instead, you literally walk across the landscape. This seems slow the first time, but it quickly amounts to both a true feeling of the desolate wasteland and reminds you that you are always vulnerable to attack. Scouring the wastelands reminded me of slinking down a hallway in Resident Evil -- it seems empty, right until the point that a dog jumps at you from out of nowhere.
But don't worry; travel doesn't always have to mean several minutes of walking MMO style. Once you've discovered a place, you can quick-travel to and from it. As far as I can tell, this doesn't result in the potential for random encounters, which is actually kind of nice.
I also haven't noticed much in the way of the extremely fortunate encounters you sometimes had in previous games, though I have wandered into several caravans during my treks; one of which was selling weapons for a fraction of their regular price. Perhaps it's still there, just much more subtle.
This is definitely a non-linear game. Normally I hate those, because I never know where to begin or what to do, but I think Fallout 3 balances this very well. As you talk to people, they may end up asking you to do something for them or mentioning somebody else who needs help. This gives you your quests, which you may or may not finish, as you wish (very few are essential to the main storyline). So far, there are many ways to complete individual quests, and the progression of quests is different enough that you don't get the feeling of being another WoW grind quest. The quest system doesn't hold your hand like Fable II does, but it does give you some subtle clues when you need it. If you were told where to go (as you often are in the beginning), it will be marked on your map. You can use this, or place any marker on your map, and your compass will show you which way to head. Beyond that, finding routes and avoiding encounters is up to you. And you don't always get to know where you're going -- sometimes you need to ask around to get clues.
The Fallout franchise was well-known for their ability to show your continual impact on the world, but most virtual world games miss that mark entirely. Thankfully, Fallout 3 manages to keep up that feeling. NPCs reactions and dialog will change depending on what you've done, who you've talked to, and where you've been. Even Galaxy News Radio gives late-breaking news about you and your father leaving the vault and other such occurrances. It really helps to keep up the realism of the world around you.
Fallout 3 isn't the top-down isometric TBS game that the other Fallout games were, but that style just wouldn't hold water a decade later. Instead, Bethesda has successfully managed to remake the Fallout world, character, and mechanics with more modern interfaces. It's not without bugs, but it faithfully continues the expose of a vault dweller stepping out into the barren wastelands to try and survive. Every RPG fan should try this game and every Fallout fan will certainly want to see it for themselves. It may not be exactly what you remember, but you'll still enjoy playing it for all the same reasons.
As much as I like dogs, in the real world, they aren't all that bright 