This game was my first 3d Fallout. When I was younger I used to truly love it because I was obsessed with post apocalyptic fiction (still am). The older I get the more I sober up to how poorly this game is actually designed from an RPG standpoint. If you are just wanting a brainless action shooter with a poor excuse for the "leveling" system then this game should fit your needs. However, I think that it is a very poor excuse for an RPG.
It feels as if the world was designed entirely differently from the quest system. There is no "flow" to the game as the devs basically just plop you into the open world and tell you to go explore to find the fun. This might be cool on a first playthrough or if you have never really explored "open world" games as was the position I was in when I first played this game. I have come to the conclusion however that this style of world design is fundamentally a poor design choice for RPG's. Hence why I have fallen out of love entirely with Bethesda's RPG's as I age. Paired with this poor design choice is how the main story doesn't take you anywhere fun. The main story directs you to only a few extra side quest locations and the rest of the side quests are completely out of the way from the main story. I garauntee you 95% of Fallout 3 players have missed a non-insignificant number of side quests purely because they never found them.
This game offers no real challenge as every single encounter you have will be scaled to your level. Unlike in Fallout 1, 2 and New Vegas where Death Claws and Super Mutants are actually scary and give you pause before you engage them this game takes these enemies and artificially kneecaps them to ensure the player never gets frustrated and can always win their fights.
I would have more to say but I don't really care to talk much more about this game. The main story is uninspired and thoughtless and feels more like a B-movie script than a script written for a choice based player driven RPG. The entire main story feels like it happens completely independant of the player. I never felt like I had the opportunity to meaningfully change the ending. If you "side" with the baddies you still have to do all the normal good guy quests and at the end of the game you just put a bad guy serum into the water. If you side with the good guys Sarah Lyons is the real player character. She does literally all of the things for you. Before then, its your dad who gets to do all the main character actions, and then it becomes Dr. Li briefly. It's completely nonsensical how shallow the main story is.
It feels as if the world was designed entirely differently from the quest system. There is no "flow" to the game as the devs basically just plop you into the open world and tell you to go explore to find the fun. This might be cool on a first playthrough or if you have never really explored "open world" games as was the position I was in when I first played this game. I have come to the conclusion however that this style of world design is fundamentally a poor design choice for RPG's. Hence why I have fallen out of love entirely with Bethesda's RPG's as I age. Paired with this poor design choice is how the main story doesn't take you anywhere fun. The main story directs you to only a few extra side quest locations and the rest of the side quests are completely out of the way from the main story. I garauntee you 95% of Fallout 3 players have missed a non-insignificant number of side quests purely because they never found them.
This game offers no real challenge as every single encounter you have will be scaled to your level. Unlike in Fallout 1, 2 and New Vegas where Death Claws and Super Mutants are actually scary and give you pause before you engage them this game takes these enemies and artificially kneecaps them to ensure the player never gets frustrated and can always win their fights.
I would have more to say but I don't really care to talk much more about this game. The main story is uninspired and thoughtless and feels more like a B-movie script than a script written for a choice based player driven RPG. The entire main story feels like it happens completely independant of the player. I never felt like I had the opportunity to meaningfully change the ending. If you "side" with the baddies you still have to do all the normal good guy quests and at the end of the game you just put a bad guy serum into the water. If you side with the good guys Sarah Lyons is the real player character. She does literally all of the things for you. Before then, its your dad who gets to do all the main character actions, and then it becomes Dr. Li briefly. It's completely nonsensical how shallow the main story is.