A few hits, a few misses. Overall though Fallout 3 is an engaging experience.
The story follows the same timeline as the originals. Somewhere along the line, the USA went to war with Communist China, and once we started winning the bombs began to fall. Of course we retaliated, but since Fallout 3 takes place in America we have no idea how China (or the troops that did get trapped there) are faring. Judging from the fact the majority of the DC Wasteland's inhabitants only survived by living in Vaults, it doesn't look good.
While the story takes place in the east this time, it's not a whole lot different than the west. While the Brotherhood isn't such a bastard anymore, and the gangs have been condensed into "raiders", it's pretty similar. Unfortunately for the tale the dialogue can't live up to the setting. The script can be embarrassingly stupid. And while most NPC's are fine, your dialogue prompts are horrid. Voice acting doesn't help much, suffering from a large amount of sub-par repeats.
Despite these issues, the actual tale is strong. You play as a Vault-Dweller, like in the first game. The game follows your birth, childhood, and eventual escape concealing a clever character creation process within them. When your father leaves the vault, you see no reason to escape and set off to find him. You soon discover your father's true purpose, and the story gives you some powerful emotional choices, especially in the ending.
Here another problem presents itself. For a post apocalyptic world, things sure seem easy. By the time you leave the vault you'll have some decent armor, a melee weapon, and a 10mm pistol overflowing with ammo. The problem persists in the wasteland. Enemies drop rather large amount of money and ammunition, and if you get the perks that increase this as well, you'll never have a problem. Since ammunition doesn't have weight, it's common to carry around six or seven guns and have over six hundred rounds for each. You never feel like you have to survive, rather just like you exist to dominate.
The lack of harshness exists in other areas. Radiation for example isn't deadly at all except for when the game has to keep you out of a story area. You gain radiation very slowly, and it takes over one thousand rads to die. With the common absorption rate it can take upwards of eight minutes to die of radiation, and only if you stand at the source. Of course drinking it would kill you faster, but drinking gives so little health it's not worth it.
Besides the lack of overall difficulty, the actual level mechanics are solid. It's fun to choose your S.P.E.C.I.A.L.'s and skills as well as match perks to them. Unfortunately another issue exists. It's extremely easy with the DLC (specifically Broken Sword) to max out your character. At level thirty a perk becomes available called "Almost Perfect". The perk raise all your S.P.E.C.I.A.L.'s to nine. Assuming your patient, you can wait until level thirty, take the perk, and then collect all the bobbleheads in order to have the perfect character. While this won't bug most players, and of course you don't "have" to do it, a little more balancing would've been appreciated. This problem can't hold a candle to the customization though.
The last major problem I'll mention consciously is the combat. In short, it won't please roleplayers, and it won't please shooter fans. Movement is clunky and the shooting suffers from auto aim, which not only reduces your weapons accuracy, but also allows for rather abnormal things to happen. For example, bullets "rise", and it's impossible to hit a guys arm due to the fact that rounds zero in on enemies torsos. There are no aim down the sights and you'll be lucky to hit anything at a distance. Unfortunately, removing auto aim makes weapons far too accurate. In short there's no potential solution to this problem. Fortunately, Bethesda has created V.A.T.S.
V.A.T.S. Is a good system. It does capture that turn-based feel and it does make up for the clunky shooting; however it suffers from it's own problems. In V.A.T.S. You can target any body part, but in practice there's no reason to shoot at anything other than the head. Crippling limbs has almost no impact, and since head shots do more damage, there's no reason to aim for anything else. It's also ridiculously overpowered, taking the same weapon that you couldn't hit squat with, and suddenly you're a sniper. The problem is further compounded by the leveling enemies. Since enemies scale with you, you never really feel like you're getting that much more powerful. While there are caps on areas so it feels like some areas are more dangerous than others, it's not perfect. By the time you're level thirty there are still enemies that can one hit kill you, and super mutants take almost six or seven headshots. Disappointing.
So what does the game do right. Well for one you have an expansive, detailed game world. The capital wasteland is a joy to explore, and there's plenty of areas to get distracted by. Every major town has some sort of quest, so you'll be sure to find work. Everything looks lived in and has purpose. Even in the DC Wasteland it's common to find a sloppily set table, usually with the skeletons of it's long past family residing. Detail abounds and it's a joy to spot it all.
Quests are another thing done well and are extremely elaborate. One of the best examples it the hunt for an Android. Clever player will be able to find a way to get both rewards without anyone being the wiser! Unfortunately, most of the moral dilemmas in these quests are rather simple. Only the decision to save or blow up Megaton has any lasting impact on the actual gameworld. Still, the dilemas are there, and the questing is good fun.
As I mentioned earlier, many of the actual systems are done well and I'd like to reinforce that here. Stealth in particular is very well done. Skill has a large effect on it, but you're never completely invisible (unless you have a stealth suit). If you're directly in front of an enemy, he will see you. It' makes being stealthy rather easy, yet not frustratingly unrealistic. Minigames are also much better. Hacking is annoying, but lock picking is realistic, and pretty fun.
The XP system is less traditional as well. Complaints abound at the speed of which you level up. No complaints here though! More grind? No thanks. Due to the fast rewards, every action feels as if it's contributing to your constant progression. Besides with Broken Sword's added ten levels it will take a good while to reach the cap. As before you'll gain XP for everything, not just kills, which helps carry on Oblivion's ( a much lesser game I'm afraid, FO3 is superior) tradition of open play-style.
Lastly I wanted to mention the games incredible modability. There's a unlimited number of mods out there that can not only fix nearly every problem I've mentioned, but also add thousands of new features, improve graphics, increase lethality, remove leveling, and more. If you don't like this game I encourage you to buy it anyway as there's probably a mod that will fix every quibble, minor of major, that you have with it.
Graphically the game is a disappointment. While there's some good art direction and incredible view distance, everything else is ugly. Textures are horribly bland and almost offensively low resolution. Animations and character models are just as bad, being blocky stiff, and limiting. The lighting is also rather static, and noticeably unimpressive. While the detail makes up for this, it's obvious that Bethesda's engine needs to be put out to pasture. I highly recommend again seeking mods such as FO3 Re-Animated, or NeilMC's Texture Pack to breathe some life into the game. Another great mod is the Outbreak's Wasteland Moods. Chose Rust for a dusty, red look. There's enough themes in his pack, each radically changing the Atmosphere of the game.
Sound Design is passable. Inon Zur did a pretty good job with the music, but it is noticeably generic. Voiceacting repeats far too often as well. While I would expect some repeats in a game of this scale, in Fallout 3 it's a tad too common. Weapons are also disappointingly weak, but the old Fallout nostalgia compensates.
Fallout 3 misses a lot of it's marks. Imagine a shooting range, where a guy takes three tests at different targets. He misses the first one, kinda hits the second one, and almost makes the bulls-eye on the third. That's Fallout 3. While it never strikes the bulls-eye, it's solid, occasionally poor, and briefly brilliant.
Keep an eye out for updates. I will be expanding this review to include the DLC soon.