Fallout 3 my opinion

When the developers said "oblivion with guns" i thought the dialogs would be like yes/no or that we would just play a stupid mute like the guy in GTA3, but they've outdone themselves. For the most part i find the conversations on the same level as in previous Fallout games (except for the fact that there are maybe 3 different voice actors for the not so important NPCs, and every other dude looks the same with different hair - maybe they all came out one vault after all). What i find interesting that not only speech affects how well you converse. They kinda messed up the whole cursing idea, so you have regular saying fuck where there is really no need for it, while i dont remember a single raider or a talon merc curse once.

So i think the oblivion with guns statement is underrating this game. I find the combat better (altho enemy and friendly AI seems like from games 10 years ago) and the most important it has more depth, at least in side quests, i've yet to finish all the main quests. The dialogs are great and make it possible to play a diplomatic character (not the just the shotgun diplomacy), and what you say actually matters to future developments.

Two of the many funny dialogs:
funny shit
good old harold

One thing they didnt take from oblivion is the npc disposition which could be a great factor when using the speech skill or barter. Also i would prefer the karma to be displayed as a number like it was in F1 and 2. Another thing that sticks in my craw is that there is no sprint. Makes it kinda hard to fight +back snipers who start shooting at you at the other side of the town. They could make it so that you could sprint using action points, and that you could move around while in vats mode. This way action points would have a meaning. This way the vats is just a candy feature like the bullet time in Max Payne games. Also i noticed that you cant aim for body parts while unarmed, or knock out enemies (not sure what a crippled head or torso is though) making it impossible to make a quick punching machine that knocks everyone in room out before they even get the chance to react and takes things from then, like you could in previous games. Also there is no more blinding the enemies, but i do like that you can shoot their weapons away. I love the hit detection system and the body puppets, its what every shooter should look like, not like these CoD or MoH or even Far Cry 2 with their clouds of blood and indestructible bodies which dont even get a mark where they get hit. One thing that would make it better would be npcs surviving a loss of a limb, but i guess that would be another thing the publisher wouldnt like too much. Like the absence of child slaughter. But in previous games that was just to make a point that you are absolutely free.

Which brings me to another weak point of f3. You cant kill certain NPCs. They should've worked around this limitation. This i believe is a result of their linear main quest line, which kinda sucks. In previous games you knew right away what you need to do, and choose how you're going to do it. Here you dont really know what you'll have to do in the end and to find that out you need to follow a bunch of chain quests with tons of scripted events and immortal npcs. Makes all the other good stuff in this game feel like an extra, or in turn makes the whole main quest feel like an extra to the fun stuff happening in the wasteland. Also another weak point are the invisible walls. I remember boosting jump and speed skills to the max in oblivion, which was pretty cool since you could climb over almost everything and not worry about following a path, in f3 you need to go everywhere like the game wants you to go, which is especially annoying in DC, where climbing over the ruins would be the best way to travel, but why bother going over the rubble when the half collapsed ghoul infested metro tunnels are a much more logical solution. Also another thing about ghouls. They are supposed to be humans turned slow, weak and reasonably stupid by all the radiation, not some agile super strong beasts lurking in the underworld.

Another thing that creates the feeling of being in a closed box is the leveling system. The level limit makes you feel like an idiot to do a side quest after reaching lvl 20. Also the 100 skill limit makes character specialization pretty hard, considering that even at skill 100 you're not really awesome in that profession. Also you need to plan for the future with the bobble heads, books and clothing bonuses. The perks are mostly useless while before there were too many good ones.

Conclusion:

Good game, doesn't have all the freedom of the previous games but retains the gore, humor and part of the atmosphere. Definitely better than what i pictured as "oblivion with guns", better than i expected. Could be a lot better but i'd say its good enough to be called Fallout 3.

Hopefully in Fallout 4 they will change some of the stuff i whined about, and that it goes back to the west or that it connects both sides.

Yeah and Three Dog is the best character ever :)