Some bugs and a few instances where the game crashed my 360 is all that's keeping me from giving this game a perfect 10.
===Story===
The game opens with a pilot light twitching on, following with the Ink Spot's "I Don't Want to Set the World on Fire" playing as the camera slowly zooms out, revealing that you are looking inside a city bus. The camera eventually leaves the tail-end of the bus, and continues to zoom out, eventually showing a Brotherhood of Steel Knight. It then goes to a speech, narrated by Ron Perlman (who also apparently narrated the opening speeches for the other Fallout games), beginning (and also ending, after the speech is done) with the infamous line "War. War never changes." He then goes on to explain the Lone Wanderer's backstory and life in Vault-Tec Vaults, specifically Vault 101. Once the cutscene is over, you hear your character being born. Humorously, your father, who is conducting the child-birth operation, asks if you are a boy or a girl. You are then given the ability to choose your name and appearance. After that, you witness your character's childhood, going from when you're one year old (this is where you determine your S.P.E.C.I.A.L. stats) to ten years old (when you receive your Pip-Boy 3000) to sixteen years old (when you determine your tag skills) up to nineteen years old, when you wake up and endure a series of events ultimately leading to your escape from Vault 101. From here on out, you write your own story.
Each quest has its own story, even the unmarked ones, but the gems here are the plots for "You Gotta Shoot 'Em in the Head" and the main quest. I won't spoil anything. I will say that the stories have, for the most part, been done before, but... I don't know, they're passable. The biggest point behind the game is for you to write your own story, so have at it.
===Graphics===
This is a bit awkward to point out. The graphics, at times, are great, but they aren't the best. The animations are good, but could be better. A few visual glitches here and there, but the number of those compared to the sheer capacity of the game makes any visual glitch forgivable, if at times annoying. People who know me know that I don't judge a game by its graphics, so I'll just say that they're great and stuff. If you're that stereotypical gamer who only plays a game if the graphics are new, steer clear, because you will choose not to like this game, even if the graphics are only slightly dated.
===Gameplay===
Crap, where do I start? Well, I'll start with the combat. You can play in third-person or first-person, and you can switch between the two perspectives with the simple push of a button. Depending on your play style, the weapon you're wielding, and whether or not you want to actually see your character, you may want to be like me, and constantly switch between the perspectives. I find it best when I use third-person for casual wandering, looking around corners, and melee weapon-using, whereas I switch to first-person when I use a firearm in real-time (such as when I have no AP for V.A.T.S.) or when I'm trying to pick something small up when it's hard to do so in third-person. V.A.T.S. is a great system for people who have shaky aim, or for when you're unsure if you want to take the shot in real-time and run the risk of missing. It's also great for ensuring that you land a few hits in your "turn" in the case of melee attacks. It's possible to cripple limbs (the torso and head count as limbs) and even to shoot an enemy's weapon right out of their hands. And that's about it for combat.
As you kill things, unlock stuff, hack stuff, convince people, finish quests, etc, you gain experience, much like almost any other RPG. After a set amount of experience is gained, you level up, and you are then allowed to add a certain amount of points (determined by your Intelligence in S.P.E.C.I.A.L.) to different stats as well as choose a perk. It's your choice how you bring your character up, but it's rather unfortunate to say that some stats are more vital and effective than others. Big Guns, for instance, is a path only an evil character should dare take. This is because of many things: big guns (miniguns, Tesla Cannon, Missile Launcher, Fat Man, etc) typically have an area of effect and might hit friendlies, which often doesn't end peacefully; they are also extremely expensive to keep in good condition and to maintain a decent ammunition capacity, and since caps are easier to come by for an evil character, that stat is likely more geared for those kind of people. However, you can survive without it. Stats that are especially vital in the game include Sneak, Science, Lockpick, and Speech. Sneak is pretty obvious; science allows you to hack computers and mess around with robots; lockpick is your ability to open locked containers with nothing but pure skill and a bobby pin; and speech determines your effectiveness at convincing people to share information they wouldn't initially want to share, or to make them raise the price of favors you do for them (typically not in the sexual way). With those four skills at 100, plus Enclave Hellfire Armor (literally the best armor obtainable in the game), your character will become a deadly phantom of war that can do whatever the hell he wants.
Perks come with a wide variety of functions, ranging from simply adding a permanent bonus to a skill or two, increasing your efficiency in V.A.T.S., making you less susceptible to radiation, or even make you go kaboom in a nuclear explosion when your health goes below a specified margin. Every level, you get to choose a perk, but there are other perks that can only be earned through the player's actions throughout the game.
Difficulty in the game is entirely up to the player; the default setting is Normal, but that's in the dead center of the five difficulty settings. The first time I played through the game, I had no idea you could alter difficulty, and it wasn't too difficult. You can change the difficulty literally at any time during the game. Any time. Just from the pause menu. The lower the difficulty, the less experience you receive from anything. On Very Hard difficulty, you will be served on a silver platter if you don't have a good Sneak skill. Just a heads-up.
As this is the Game of the Year Edition I am reviewing, let me offer a brief review on each DLC pack:
---Operation: Anchorage---
A great little game that offers some amazing rewards. Those of you who like Call of Duty will love this Alaskan adventure.
---The Pitt---
A great expansion with some fine rewards. The one thing that hampers the game immensely is the constant freezing, even if playing the game from the hard-drive.
---Broken Steel---
A must-have for Fallout 3 players. Before this expansion, your character would die at the end of the game regardless of your decision. But this expansion allows you to continue after you've finished the game, also offering a few satisfying quests and a level cap increase (from 20 to 30) as well as introducing the two demons of Fallout 3: The Albino Radscorpion, and the Feral Ghoul Reaver (and a new, overpowered Super Mutant variant as well, but it isn't as much of a demon as it is an imp). I'm all about adding to the challenge, but those two enemies, and to a lesser extent, the Super Mutant Overlord, are so ridiculously overpowered that you will wonder what steroids Bethesda was on while developing this expansion. Oh, and it also introduces the Enclave Hellfire Trooper, who sports the Enclave Hellfire Armor, literally the best set of armor in the game you could possibly receive.
---Point Lookout---
A bit iffy on this one, I might say. This one literally takes what I initially thought of Fallout 3 itself and reminds me of how wrong I was while simultaneously showing me exactly what I thought Fallout 3 once was. I hate the atmosphere of this expansion, but it does offer some nice stuff and a few satisfying quests. It also should be noted that this is by far the toughest expansion to endure out of the five that come with this package, unless you count the Feral Ghoul Reavers and Albino Radscorpions that Broken Steel shoves into your face.
---Mothership Zeta---
The most disappointing of the expansions. Honestly. While it does show some bizarre new alien weapons that will prove amazing down on Earth, it is otherwise... just bleh.
And now, to the bugs. Ah yes, the bugs. The most common bug is the sudden freeze-up. Happened to me about ten times. Installing the game to your hard-drive roughly cuts the frequency of occurrences down to about one-third, however. Other bugs are far less prevalent. Most of the bugs plague the Xbox 360, while the more bizarre ones affect only the PS3, and the deadlier ones reported only on the PC. Go to the Fallout wiki, and look up anything about Fallout 3. A place, a person, anything of that sort. No matter what you look up, I assure you that there is at least one bug reported on that page related to the subject of the article. While the bugs do not appear often, they hit hard whenever they do decide to pop in and say hello. This is ultimately forgivable, and I cannot blame Bethesda for this, because I am certain that they debugged the game thoroughly. It is just a price paid when you make such a massive game. However, the sudden freezing and the numerous (even if rare) bugs coupled with the aforementioned visual glitches are truly the only things that keep me from giving the game a perfect score.
===Sound===
The sound effects are great, the music is awesome, especially the songs taken from the '30s and '40s (they were actual songs), but the voice acting is a bit iffy. I think it's accurate to say that it's a mixed bag. Some of the characters sound great, but others are just meh. You can easily tell that Bethesda only hired a certain number of voice actors for the game after only playing about three hours of the game. Old men all have the same voice actor, for example. I'm not complaining; the writing saves that flaw and practically overshadows it until it's nothing but a forgivable mess-up.
===Replay Value===
I started playing Fallout 3 in the middle of last month. In three weeks, I already spent over 100 hours on it. Since then, I got Mass Effect 2 and BioShock 2, but I rushed through those and quickly went back to this game. Just three days ago, I started a new file of the game (to be an evil character this time) and I already spent almost 30 hours on it.
What was that about replay value?
===Fun Factor===
In this case, replay value goes hand-in-hand with the fun factor. I can't stop playing the game. I play other games, but I quickly beat them and return to this. It is simply an amazing game. I imagine it will keep me occupied until Fallout: New Vegas comes about this year.
Buy this game. If you're not offended by violence, slavery, drugs, alcohol, sexual themes, and swearing, you will find the game fun. I forgot to mention that the game is actually supposed to be a dark comedy as well, and a funny one at that. Andy, the Mr. Handy in Vault 101, is comedy gold when you speak to him during the quest "Trouble on the Homefront".
But anyway. I will reiterate: BUY THIS GAME NAOW.
*ahem*
That is all.
Ultimate Ridley out.