Fallout 3 is one of my top 5 favorite games and easily my favorite Fallout game. Try to talk about Fallout 3 anywhere, though, and you're in for a bad time. Extremely vocal idiots will crap up the conversation with rants about how Bethesda ruined Fallout and New Vegas is better and blah blah blah. Shut up, idiots. I'm gonna talk about why I love Fallout 3. Read more and watch gameplay here.
One huge argument people make against Fallout 3 is that it isn't a "real" Fallout because it's a first / third-person shooter instead of a dumb isometric turn-based strategy RPG. Sorry kiddos, but the first two fallout games (and Tactics, and Brotherhood of Steel) are extremely hardcore niche PC crazy loony nerd games that only sold a fraction of what Fallout 3, New Vegas, 4, and even 76 did. They might be great games, but they have the mainstream appeal of dirt. Most people didn't want to play them when they came out, and certainly don't want to play them now, so stop trying to make fetch happen. I, and most of us mainstream plebs, would much rather play Bethesda's brand of Fallout than the old stuff.
As far as Fallout 3 vs. New Vegas, they're both good. New Vegas has better writing, but much worse quest design (way too much Point A-B-A-B-A-B-C backtracking with tons of load times in between). New Vegas has better shooting gameplay, though it still sucks without VATS. My other problem, besides the quest design, in New Vegas is that the world itself isn't interesting to explore at all. Fallout 3's Capital Wasteland has recognizable landmarks and stuff you actually want to go visit. New Vegas' Mojave Wasteland is just a big empty desert with basically nothing noteworthy to go see or do. New Vegas is also full of invisible walls that halt exploration and way, way, way too many areas made inaccessible due to cazadors, deathclaws, or giant radscorpions that ruin your fun super quick even if you're decently equipped and leveled. New Vegas isn't as fun to explore or as fun to play overall, even if other aspects might be technically better. I'd rather play 3.
It isn't as if I love everything about Bethesda's take on Fallout. I think it's stupid that mankind hasn't recovered at all in 200 years. It is totally ridiculous that there is still any pre-war food around. It is dumb as hell that there are still fucking SKELETONS lying around all over after 200 years. Or the fact that supposedly long abandoned shacks or caves will have lit cigarettes sitting in ashtrays. I suppose some of it can be attributed to "Oh, people didn't want to touch stuff because of radiation" or something (even though your Geiger counter never goes off ...) but a lot of it is just dumb and lazy.
What about Fallout 4, you say? It's fine. The story is dumb as hell, but I don't mind the rest of it. With mods it can be amazing. I'll probably do Fallout 4 and New Vegas at some point for Eric Vs. 365, so stay tuned for those.
