+1 gragt.

I am new here, so feel free to complement your opinion-bashing with an extra dose of newbie-bashing if it makes you feel superior and compensates for whatever horrible things people did to you when you were a child to leave you such an ass.
Anyway...
I am a fan of all three Fallout games, though I do vastly prefer the original two. Fallout 3 is a fun game in its own right, though I will agree it mostly fails when analyzed based on "pure" RPG criteria. As an action game with a few RPG elements, it is enjoyable, although the AWESOME MEGA GOOD VOICE ACTING AND STORY WRITING (/sarcasm) I've coem to expect from all Bethesda games does limit its value substantially.
As to the realism of finding items in abundance two hundred years after a nuclear holocaust... technically, it would be pretty easy to find items, since the whole premise of the series (that humanity could survive a massive global nuclear war) is just wrong to begin with. In addition to the millions/billions killed instantly in the bombings themselves, you'd have climatological damage on such an irreparable scale that, if the point of the series had been realism, the entirety of all the games would consist of staring endlessly at a vast, frozen desert in which nothing lived. So the realism argument against FO3, while certainly understandable in any other post-apocalyptic situation in which industry and manufacturing ceases to exist, is really just silly when referring to massive nuclear hell, and *technically* fails since the sum total zero survivors after a few years would, in their nonexistence, fail to loot or scavenge much of anything.
Of course, the argument could still be made against your character finding the items, given the lack of viability on his part as well, so... stalemate?

I didn't mean to offend you in any way. I'm not a "bethesda bashing fallout 1&2 fanboy". I have Fallout 3 installed on my computer and I enjoy it. I just cannot stand calling F3 an RPG. You do understand what RPG stands for? Role-playing. There isn't any in Fallout 3. You can't make a diplomat character. You can't make stupid character, because no matter how low you sink your intelligence and charisma stat there is no difference whatsoever in gameplay. No matter what you do with your character you'll still and up being an overpowered max stat superhero. It's not roleplaying. Sorry.
As for the other aspects the dialogues are horrific. "Have you seen my dad a middle age guy"
Please. Give me a break. It's disconcerting. Sometimes i spend ages trying to figure out what dialogue option should iI choose because all are so pathetic that choosing any makes me feel embarassed.
When it comes to realism. Well, people expecting any realism in that sort of games just got the wrong address. It's supposed to be unrealistic, so who cares? I mean after 200 years all environment would be flashing green and water would have purified itself. But then it wouldn't be a wasteland. Let's leave it as it is.

Let's see.... the game is translated into a FPGG (first person grinder game) and the NMA types go BAWWWWWWWWW. Predictable.
What did you expect? Fallout 1/2 gameplay does not translate well to an FPS environment, but overall, I thought the game was fun. It's even better with mods.
When you approach/play a game, play it as a stand-along game. It makes all but the most horrible (Action 52 horrible) games fun enough to play through.
Otherwise, you're probably going to take the game far to seriously to have any fun with it.
Also, Classic Enclave Advanced Power Armor mod + all of the classic weapon mods.

Repeating myself but Fallout 3 still has RPG elements. The dialogs use a lot of skill checks, and some even allow you to bypass a quest if you want. But the execution is minimalistic and often crippled by bad writing. Old games, like the first Fallout, handled skill and character checks better, and newer games like Arcanum and Mask of the Betrayer, improved on the formula.
I'll also add that role-playing doesn't simply mean that you can create any character you want but that your type of character should limit your choices but at the same time open new options. Take the old exemple of entering a guarded tower: a warrior could try to kill the guards, likely raising an alarm, and fight his way through; a smooth-talker may attempt to bluff his way in by pretending to be someone he isn't; a rogue could try to sneak past or climb the walls; a wizard could attempt to use a teleportation or levitation spell; etc. It also means that a true RPG depends on the character's skills to determine the outcome of an action and not the player's reflex, though some games successfully showed that the two styles can be mixed.
As for the "realism"of finding ammo, it's just not believable design. Sure the premise of a futuristic 50's inspired post-apoc setting isn't very realistic but it works, as long as the world is coherent with itself. After all, arts have always pushed past the boundaries of reality to explore ideas and concepts — and no, I'm not starting a "games are art" discussion. Fallout 1 didn't have ammo scattered everywhere, and if you found some in a cave or vault there were clues that someone else came before you and died there, it even had the gun runners creating new ammo so people wouldn't run out of them. That's coherence.

Believable design in a video game is.. laugable.
Besides, is it believable to be limited by "action po-
ints because I had to reload then fire my pipe rifle?

well the action points were just there for a "cool factor". They didn't have a purpose in all truth, because the combat was broken.

That's two different concepts there: setting and turn-based combat. The setting in Fallout is believable because it stays coherent from start to end and benefits greatly from it. That's why, among other things, you do not find items in inappropriate places, each of the locations has a theme that fits well with a post-apoc setting, most characters fit their locations and aren't too over-the-top — excluding joke characters, etc. You can see the difference with Fallout 2: that game had almost no coherence and did not have a believable setting. Not all games need it, certainly not a shooter like Painkiller, but it can add a lot to a game that lets you explore and interact with the environment, and that at the same time tries to tell a story.
On the issue of turned-based combat using action points, maybe you mixed the words "believable" and "realistic" up? Because turned-based may not be realistic but it doesn't impact the coherence of the setting. And if anything, it's a good indicator of your character's growth in power.

rated poor. its people like that who dont deserve quality games.

Seen these yet?
New Perks :D.

haha I want Ron Pearlman. We should request a massive mod from bethsda.
If only if only the woodpecker cried....

Hehe, that would be my selection of perks. I'll definitely pick those on my next playthrough.

shitty dialogue choices, the fallout series are known for a deep storyline and turn based strategy rpg, but what bethesda gave us was so unlike a fallout game..
shitty story, and fps, totally is not fallout. sorry.

and they still try to convince themselves its a good game. sad, isnt it?