As a relatively young gamer -also essentially a console gamer- I never played Fallout when it was released. I downloaded the game out of curiosity having played and loved Fallout 3, and I must say I was extremely impressed. There is so much depth to the game, starting with the character creation, and the sheer number of ways you can approach a given situation lead to a staggering amount of replay value. For example, at one point you must free a captive from some raiders. To do so, you can just try killing everyone, trading for the captive, challenging the leader to a one-on-one unarmed fight, bluffing the leader, and so on.
The only downside is the technical aspect. Having come out so long ago the sound and particularly teh graphics are rather outdated, but if you're on this site chances are you already know you're willing to overlook that.
The verdict? Absolutely download if you like old-school, open-ended RPGs.