seeing as the drugs are negative effects and the prostitution isn’t anything really, it isn’t GTA where you get rewarded for this stuff.

i have played some of it on a friends’ computer, and have found it quite fun. my parents are somewhat okay with that, but they don’t really like it, and i need something good that doesn’t sound like whining or sound rude to help them convince them of my side.

Prostitution: Curious to see what would happen, I paid a prostitute once in Megaton. She sleeps in the same bed with you, fully clothed. That’s it.

As someone who has played about 75hrs of Fallout 3, including a few hours in the Anchorage DLC, I can say I agree 110% with just about everything you say here. Here is my point-by-point breakdown.

The graphics/sound are what you would expect from the company that made Oblivion, spectacular. The soundtrack is great and I love listening to the radio while trekking across the wasteland. I often found myself, especially in downtown DC, going to places to see the view. Some of them were quite breathtaking. All that said, the game does suffer from some of the technical issues that plague Oblivion, such as some strange camera angles and clipping issues, but nothing that can’t be overlooked.

The combat system is, well, interesting. I think you summed it up pretty good by saying it is flawed, but fun. Some of the slo-mo shots when using VATS look like they are straight out of a movie, while some of the FPS shots are frustrating as you miss when your mouse is right on the target. However, the end result is a combat system that works and is fun.

One of the things that people loved about Fallout 1 & 2 was the writing and the stories. The quests were well written and sprinkled with liberal amounts of dark humor. Bethesda tried to get the same, or at least a similar, feel in Fallout 3 and fell short. Many of the side quests are fun and well written, but just as many will leave you feeling let down. The main quest is somewhat frustrating at times. There were many a time where I was wondering “Why am I doing this again?” That said, it was still a fun game to play. I think if Bethesda could have gotten the level of writing that Bioware does for it’s games, it would have been an amazing game.

While the controls on the PC were better than the pathetic options you have with Oblivion, they were still lacking. One of these days a publisher will do it right when making a multi-platform title, or porting a console game to the PC. Lionhead did a good job with Fable: The Lost Chapters with allowing the PC folks to customize the controls, but all to often (Assassins Creed, the Lego games, Oblivion) the controls are just the console buttons mapped to keys. Keys that the gamer can’t change.

The Dialogue and writing were good, but not on par with Bioware games. Of course, that is a pretty high bar to use for the standard, but why should we expect less than the best? Though there are plenty of gems in there that had me laughing.

I can’t even add more to what you said about the RPG Elements and mini-games, you said it perfectly.

Fallout 3 is an excellent game, flawed, but excellent. I do not feel like I wasted my almost $70 on the collector’s edition at all. I am currently playing the Anchorage DLC, which is good but seems to crash and lock up much more than the game did. As I said, I have spent around 70 hours playing the game and still haven’t visited every location. And I haven’t completed my 2nd run through as an “evil” player yet either. I would say anyone who is a fan of the original Fallout or an RPG fan should pick this game up. Unlike Call of Duty:World at War, which I totally wasted my money on, Fallout 3 is a keeper.