Difficulty:

Hard

Time Spent:

10 to 20 Hours

The Bottom Line:

"Mixed reactions"

A beautiful post apocalyptic world worth exploring filled with interesting NPCs. Creating immersive environments with great sub story arcs surrounding the main story is something bethesda is good at. But fallout 3 missed something with me. I found it extremely hard to really get into the game. Its not the story, nor the environment, its the gameplay. I hate the VATS system personally, although it can be cool, its almost a live turn based game (i know how ridiculous that sounds). Which is okay, but with the inability to make the shooting part of the game actually fun, the game looses much of its built up potential. What really draws me to bethesda games typically is the exploration, and even though exploration can be interesting, it is not always an easy endeavor. Although that is a great representation of a post apocalyptic world (it shouldnt be easy right?), but being helplessly torn apart by enemies with the only gameplay mechanic you can truly rely on is a percentage base VATS system is what really infuriates me. If fallout 3 had a better shooting mechanic it would be a totally different story for me. If you love bethesda for the environments and interesting NPCs, fallout has them, but as they also prove time and time again (getting better recently) is that they often provide one dimensional combat mechanics. I dont need an action game, but i do need something to be able to work with.