I watch ZP every week.

Yeah, too bad it gets tiresome after a while.

Wow, I guess this site is too is populated by the "if it's new it's automatically bad" crowd. Just to let you people know I'm 21 years old, my first game syatem was an NES and I've been playing games ever since I was 4 years old. I'm not some 13 year old who's never had to blow on a cartridge or deal with dial up connections and I still think that for the most part games made today are better than a lot of the old classics.
I liked Fallout 3, I thought it was a great game, so I decided to give this one a try knowing full well that it wasn't anything like Fallout 3. I've played slow tactical turn based games before and I've liked a lot of them. But Fallout was just boring and overcomplicated and in my opinion overhyped. I gave a review based on my experiences and expertations of the game and I get laughed at and made fun of by a bunch of gaming elitists. I can go to GameFAQ's and get that crap. I expected that there would be older gamers here and that age would equal maturity and an acceptance of opinions that said gamers may not agree with, but apparently that was too much to ask.

Or just people who don't like Bethesda.
Oblivion straight up stinks.
and in comparison Morrowind fails to Daggerfall.
It's clear Bethesda is aiming at making the worst game possible.
I'm confused though, because Fallout 3 is actually better than Oblivion.

cyhort, i have bought CE of Failout 3, i have played this game for more than 50 hours, it is NOT bad game, but it is BAD fallout game, and bad RPG game. That is my problem with this game, and of lots of people I know. I liked those old "overcomplicated" games, because for me they weren't overcomplicated but "well done", nowadays there are still good games, but most of them are easier, shorter and more "mainstream console kid" orientated. They call F3 a new gender god of RPG, i am really looking forward to dragonage:origins and what will people say about it. Because its bioware game, i hope it will be oldschool RPG and I see those reviews - too complicated, too hard, too much chitchat there, too many posibilities......

I disagree, Oblivion at least had its skills retaining some semblance of usefulness and importance, low Blade skill means you'd do jack shit to most enemies.
In Fallout 3 you can kill five Supermutants in a few mutants with a Combat Shotgun to the face even if your skill in Small Guns is only around 20.
They completely neutered the RPG aspect even more than they did in Oblivion, it gets worse with each one of their games, no matter how hard they try to hide it.
And that's why people don't like Fallout 3 Cyhort, as an RPG the stats don't mean much of anything, and if they don't then there's no real roleplaying involved at all. Wonder where the word "role" comes from in an RPG? It comes straight from the fact that numbers are how you form a unique character.
Of all methods that could provide the player the ability to customize and create his own character, math is the most versatile. It's easy enough to say that a character is Strong but Dumb, but the instant you add numbers to the equation Strong becomes 10 Strength and Dumb becomes 2 Intelligence, rather than two stoic definitions, there is now a clear scale of effect, as in real life, people aren't just singularly stupid, or weak, or clumsy, they're clumsier than other people, or they're slightly stronger than other people, there's a scale, and numbers is the only way to provide that.
The numbers don't matter much in Fallout 3 though, because that scale is so tiny, many people think it's enough for a lot of those numbers to exist, but they're worthless without any significant effect based on their relative quantity.
Changes brought about from increased stats and skills in Fallout 3 are so small that they no longer represent a clear specific scale that allows a player to fit many variations of a single attribute, rather, they now only represent Dumb or Strong in some vaguely loose manner.
It's idiotic, and the mechanizations behind the design of Fallout 3 are even worse. I'm surprised that someone at your age hasn't noticed this before, people who game all their life find the problems in games so obvious, so apparent, all because they've seen them before countless times. They understand exactly how the games work, they understand why stats are so important in an RPG, they know that math provides the greatest breadth of customization and unique instances than any other possible format because they've seen it working underneath the hood and they've seen the possibilities it spawns.
So how come you haven't noticed that? Or perhaps you're attempting to deliver your verdict of "over hyped" upon the originals while praising the moronic, watered down, tepid stupidity of Fallout 3 because you've never experienced the games that make this genre, despite your assertion that you've been playing games ever since the NES.
Were you actually playing any RPGs? Did you ever touch an Ultima? A Wizardry? A Might & Magic? A Bard's Tale? A SSI Goldbox game? I assume you were busy playing sidescrollers and beat 'em ups, because those "slow tactical turn based games" are all slower paced than Fallout, Fallout's combat system is far faster and more instantaneous than most TBS games.
Just because you've been playing games for a long time doesn't immediately make you an expert in every genre.

Perhaps it would have been better to say the leveling system is better than oblivion, on the sheer fact that it isn't as leveled as Oblivion was..
for example, the enemies outside of the main quest do not level with you, as opposed to oblivion where all enemies leveled up with you.

I'm over 30, and have been gaming since I was young as well, though I haven't played very much in the RPG world until now. While I'm new to Fallout, I've played both the PS3 version of Fallout 3, and have also been simultaneously playing Fallout 1 on PC. I like them both for different reasons. Seeing them both fresh at the same time, I can't honestly understand why there is such a level of resentment for Fallout3 amongst many of the Fallout PC purists. From what I can tell so far, they took most of what people really enjoyed about Fallout 1 and 2 (with the exception of turn based play) and expanded on it. A lot of people seem to think that since they added a FPS element to it, that it's nothing like F1 or F2, but honestly - you don't even have to be good at FPS due to the VATS system working very much like the targeted weapons in the original F1. What, to me, is even better with the VATS system though, is that you can strategically place your shots to disable an enemy's weapon, take out a leg to cripple, or go straight for the head - all in one thought out and planned sequence, as long as you have meter left to do it. That makes for great fun and throws a bit of the old style play into it as well. There is a lot of dialogue for a first person RPG/Shooter in F3, and a lot of leveling up and inventory management (though I see some are disappointed with the noticeable effect of those leveled increments). The graphics are amazingly beautiful, and really gives you the sense that you're exploring a real post-nuclear wasteland, and that you could potentially run into anything along the way. Traveling is another complaint I hear people making about F3, but once you've been to a place, you can transport back to it instantly, as long as you're not carrying over your weight limit. To me personally, F1 seems more restrictive regarding what you can carry at once than F3 does, but both are completely manageable, and both are done in a really fun way. Why is it that so many who love F1, F2, and FT seem to be against F3, when it not only introduces a whole new group of people to the world of Fallout who never really even knew about it before, but also it seems to stick largely to it's roots, while making use of the great capabilities of today's consoles (and still offers PC a version as well)?
Forgive me if there's something I don't understand yet, since I'm somewhat new to it all, but having played both old and new at the same time - I think all of them are great titles, and each of them stands as a great achievement in the presence of their peers.

Fallout 3's a good game, don't get me wrong. On it's own it's fine. But... I believe I would have a lot less of a problem with Fallout 3 if there was no "3" involved. Possibly as a Fallout : <Subtitle here>.
It's not a Fallout. It's literally Oblivion with guns. Try playing a melee character and you'll shit yourself on how it feels like you're playing Oblivion...with a sledgehammer. All the gameplay is the same, all pretty visual elements aside. Remember how Oblivion got way too easy and you were a god character by level 40? You were good at EVERYTHING? Started out as an archer character and now you can swing a sword and wear heavy armor? Well minus about 20-25 levels off of that and you have Fallout 3. Replace archer with "Small Guns" and swing a sword and wear heavy armor with "Swing Sledge" and "Big guns". Even on Very Hard it was still easy. SO somewhere between level 16-20 skills and stats are pointless and the game becomes a shooter with people who talk alot. Just how Oblivion became a game where I stopped bothering to sneak and arrow enemies in the back, and just ran in with a big sword and slaughtered everyone w/o breaking a sweat.
The stats? Pointless. It may matter when you're in VATS, but if you just hold down that "Fire" button with the crosshair anywhere near the enemy, eventually they'll die. Especially since I have a retarded amount of stimpaks that i never get addicted to, can use as many as I want in one sitting, and drugs that I can just head back to my house and clean up the addiction in a 1/2 second flat.
The main storyline doesn't make sense if you know anything about Fallout. I'm pretty forgiving if it's a good game, but some things are just too much. I can accept the Brotherhood of Steel back story in D.C., I could see that happening. GECK as a water purifier? Really? Forced sacrifice? Get the hell out. Some of the things they said in the game is up there with "Vault 0" on my "that doesn't make any damn sense" meter. There's way too many inconsistencies that aren't explained / don't make sense.
The best thing I can compare it to is taking Halo, making it a Real Time Strategy game, changing the story to say Master chief is a heroin addict who found a suit, and then calling it Halo 4.
PS: Not to mention I wanna pop my eardrums with pencils when I hear Liam Nieson sleep through his lines.

I bet the game would have been better received if it had an original name and was marketed as a "spiritual successor" rather than the long awaited sequel ......
Bethesda shot the name in the foot while they are reaping the profits from people who don't bother to examine the 2 kinds of games. Jet?? In the East Coast?? Even though only ONE count him ONE person could truly make it and he was, let me see here *flips through the Fallout wiki* DEAD. And the Jet thing is ONE of the many inconsistencies that Bethesda has graced upon us.
Why did Bethesda not bother coming up with something original within the Fallout world? It's not like the Fallout world is that goddamned restrictive in what you can do with/in it . They wanted a drug? They could have made one up, provided some background on how it was made, gave it some Fallout-ish name and presto! instant originality. They had this big world where anything within reason was possible and they decided to be lazy arses about it instead.
There's just too many things too count on how many things they have done wrong but really this post of mine is already TL;DR so i will leave it at that.

Interesting thread :
Quite a lot i dont agree with here, but I`m old enough to have accepted the fact that people I dont agree with arent always "idiots"...
Quote : "opinions are like assholes.... everyone`s got one, and nearly all of them stink"
Here`s mine (I`ll be as brief as I can)
I can recall in 1983 playing a text based game called collossal caves, and being immersed in a virtual world that transfixed me for weeks. The graphics? None!
It was a black screen with white text based on a "verb - noun" input sequence.
I was hooked.
CRPG`s were then my addiction.
Baldur`s gate (and subsequent sequels), Icewind dale, and a couple of others came along in the 90`s and wiped the damn floor in the crpg genre... and they came out of the Interplay studios.
they also released a very strange game called Torment.
This , if youre interested, was the first indication of a crpg that would step aside from the usual "Heroic" storyline , and allow for a much more realistic series of human choices. Moral dilemmas abounded, and the penalties for being a tad "evil" on your "heroic" path were less dramatic in their consequences.
then I found Fallout 1
then I found Fallout 2.
And despite some really enjoyable, immersive, excellently programmed and beautifully graphiced , Fallout 2 just became the seminal crpg. (same group of programmers who had brought the world the Baldurs Gate and Neverwinter Nights series)
FO2 though was... singularly "out there".
Adult themes, adult humour that appealed to the kid in us all. Amazing storylines and quests, and as such I fire it up at least once a year and revel in nostalgia.
My (adult) daughter bought me the collectors edition of FO3 for christmas just gone... I almost fell off my chair when I got my very own pip-boy bobblehead figure, but I installed it with great trepidation.
I played Morrowind to death, and actually really enjoyed Oblivion (as a first person hack-em-up) , but the idea of Fallout 3 (was this really..gasp...Van Buren???) I dunno... I have scoured the internet for 10 years for news on the so called follow up to Fallout 2 that I felt like I was about to meet "god".
Meh!
I refused to read up on FO3 when I heard it would be mostly first person, so I knew nothing about a level cap or the VATS system, so when I installed it and fired it up, I was open minded.
HUGE shock when I completed it within a couple of days... following the core Quest line will basically wipe out 95% of the world you can explore.
The graphics really are stunning, and I can forgive the many holes in the storyline to a certain degree, so I`m left now with a rather sad conclusion.
Fallout 3 inst Fallout 3 at all.
Its a Franchise purchase.
It has the surface "Look" of a fallout game...with the vault suits, the pip-boy, the period music etc... but no, this isnt a Fallout game at all.
It IS an entertaining shoot-em-up...albeit a short one.
But for me? Its like most things nowadays, and sorry if I offend some of you younger folk (anyone under the age of 30...I`m talking to you).... its dumbed down, sanitised and oversimplified.
Throwing in a Dj who says the occasional "F**k" is not what Feargus Urquhart was aiming for in FO1 and FO2.... using Bullet-time video sequences is novel a coupla times, butultimately just makes me realise how much gamespace and programming was sacrificed for the audience who have the attention span of a goldfish.
What`s sad is... the page was blank... the money was there.... they built a Fallout world that looked and felt just like it did in 1&2, and then grafted on Duke Nukem ...and forgot about the "ROLEPLAY" aspect.
FO3... Im glad I played it, and if I switch off from what it should have been, its like many 1st person shooters.... mindless blasting fun.
But as Three Dawg would say...
"WOOOOOWEEEEE....did someone fart down there?"
Yep, sadly, they did.

I'm still semi-optimistic that a random group of people will decompile/modify/do something full of win to that Van Buren demo and release the completed product as the real Fallout 3 for free just to mess with Bethesda. Of course, I am hoping for too much here so I know that won't happen. It's too bad that Obsidian didn't buy the rights since they have some of the former Black Isle employees in that company.

I'd like to see Fallout 1 redone in the Fallout 3 engine..
of course, fix the obvious issues...

Like the crappy FO3 engine??? Besides I think NMA is spearheading such a project if I recall. You might want to take a look at the Fallout 3 Nexus site and just search for NMA.
No offense Weclock, but hasn't the franchise been raped enough?