For the first time in a Bethesda game, the main quest is actually the most interesting one! Always preferred the simple mystery of this to Fallout 4's trite, restrictive, and crushingly boring parental angle. But the latter just smokes this in the gameplay department - playing this on PS3 feels like a constant ticking-clock battle to finish it before it corrupts beyond repair. Like others I was totally absorbed with this in high school but had to force myself to complete it this time around. Doesn't help that the number of worthwhile characters in this entire game you can count on one hand and its karma system - while intuitive for its day - is rather naive and feels like it limits this more than it aids it. Still sporadically fun in that Bethesda way akin to letting a kid into the PlayLand and telling them "Go nuts" but holy fuck is a lot of this map just abysmal to navigate - very 7th gen in that a lot of its ugly greens + greys completely blend into each other leading to samey areas alongside already generally terrible layout. Excels when it focuses on how pre-war preventative measures lead way to post-war malaise - and the different ways in which people's minds choose to preserve themselves in the face of it. One of those games where you start out wanting to do everything but check out quicker than you'd expect.

Games I Dislike That Everybody Else Likes

Fail to understand what people see in this over the likes of Mothership Zeta, Point Lookout, and Operation Anchorage. More macho toughguy "life is hell" bullshit from the late 2000s - complete with a stained toilet bowl color palette and sharp-turn moral dilemmas that completely crack open Fallout 3's annoyingly black-or-white karma system. There's no nuance measured whatsoever in these choices - despite there being lots of little moral/ethical intricacies involved you're still only either really good or really evil. But like... no?? Then again these FO3 DLCs never had the most interesting writing to begin with - difference here being that the map is also a chore and the gameplay is barely there. At least this is one of the better running ones, but that's cold comfort when you don't really want to play it that much even when it does perform well. Ugh, don't care.