Alpha Protocol ahead of Dragon Age: Origins and The Witcher 2 with Mass Effect 2 not even on the list? wtf. Don't agree with that poll. 

Shacky - You know that Fallout isn't a action shooter game, right? 

I know, but why make it a FPS then? 

When I play a first-person game, with guns even, I expect to be able to hit stuff with my weapons relying solely on my player skills. If I have to abide by dice rolls and character skills or go through some terrible system that has no place in a first person game then I'm sorry but the decision to make it a first person game was terrible and whoever was in charge of that should think twice next time. 

Fallout 3 hater! I love the game. It is what it is. It's not a shooter per-sey. It's an RPG. But I think, despite your attempts to discredit the reputation of Fallout 3, that it's a game with a lot of fans. And I'm one of them. 

It's an RPG but it's still a shit RPG. No choice & consequence, no way to have fun with the systems and with abysmal replay value. Fallout 3 is loved by people who have never touched the originals, just like people who love Thi4f. May I remind you people that Fallout 1 is the game in which you can finish the two main quests without ever meeting the villain and can even drive him to suicide instead of fighting him. You can kill everyone in Fallout 1 and 2 and still finish the game. You can play a character so stupid no one will talk to you and people will laugh at you, or some will try to enlsave you. You can join slavers and some people will shoot you on sight while others will welcome you with their arms open. Kill children and you'll get your ass handed to you by most people, and those who don't want to slit your throat will damage your reputation in other ways. You have almost none of that in FO3. 

Fallout 3 is an utter failure on every imaginable level. It has a completely shit storyline with almost no choice and consequence, an ugly and buggy engine (I can't believe they're still using it), almost none of the humour present in the earlier games (especially FO2), shit writing, abysmal gameplay and the fact that Van Buren got canned for this terrible game makes me really mad.

Where do you start with a statement like this....

utter failure on every imaginable level

Er, OK, so multiple Game of the Year awards don't count for anything.

completely shit storyline with almost no choice and consequence

The storyline seemed OK to me, quite rich really, and there are loads of choices and consequences (blow up Megaton, let the Ghouls into that tower, be evil, be good, become a slaver, liberate the enslaved, off the top of my head...)

an ugly and buggy engine PS3 user maybe? Seemed OK to me, I mean it was buggy at times, but they managed to get the Capital Wasteland onto an XBox, which is an achievement really...

almost none of the humour present in the earlier games

There is a lot of humor though.....

shit writing, abysmal gameplay and the fact that Van Buren got canned for this terrible game makes me really mad.

Subjective, subjective, irrelevant. 

That Fallout 1 and 2 were crappy isometric games, and Fallout 3 is fully 3D?!??!

"Dude none of these games are a PATCH on Space Invaders!!! Old skool FTW y'all!!!" 

Would explain the hate levels perhaps. 

I don't even ... Did they ever say that the storyline would branch and react to your choices? No? Then why is it a mark against the game that it doesn't do that.

Quake sucks because it doesn't have a skill tree. See how that's silly?

Fallout is about the world and the side quests and your characters progression. The main storyline is something you can do when you get bored of the rest of the game.

The first thing I do when I emerge from the vault is pick a random direction and start walking. 

I'm not even going to reply to Ricky since he doesn't even understand or try to understand what I'm trying to say, but whatever.

Willem: I use that against the game because you could do the quests in the earlier Fallout games in any order you liked, and they all had meaningful impacts on the storyline and your character and his/her reputation! You could visit cities in any order you liked as well, just pick a direction on the map and go ahead until your find something, do quests and see what happens. The fact that this disappeared in Fallout 3 is just another evidence of its failure to understand what made Fallout great, but that's the case with all Bethesda titles after Morrowind.

And I don't see why you're using Quake and skill trees. That's completely irrelevant. Quake isn't an RPG and never prentended to be one. Fallout 3 was meant to be the successor of one of the most sprawling and complex RPGs ever designed and it utterly failed. 

It failed at continuing to be an isometric hardcore RPG for that small hardcore fanbase.
But it succeeded in creating a much bigger fanbase, bringing in so many more gamers that prefer first-person over overhead isometric, and more action. The sales stats don't lie - Fallout 3 sold more copies than all 4 previous Fallout games combined (includes the spinoffs). New Vegas set new sales records for Bethesda.

You could say they went "commercial" with F3, but it certainly worked for them.

I also don't think the viewing type (isometric vs fp) should dictate what the gameplay should be. Why shouldn't a dice-roll type combat system be in a first person game? Just because it hasn't happened previously? I love that most RPG's these days are not isometric - that's what put me off most RPG's in the past.

I think F3 is probably in the top 20 games of the last 20 years, simply for breaking down some genre barriers. 

" I use that against the game because you could do the quests in the earlier Fallout games in any order you liked, and they all had meaningful impacts on the storyline and your character and his/her reputation!"

The reputation thing, sure, that's also in Fallout 3.

Can you give an example where the quests had a meaningful impact on the main storyline in the old Fallouts? I don't remember a lot of that beyond some basic dialog changes - which the new games do as well.

"You could visit cities in any order you liked as well, just pick a direction on the map and go ahead until your find something, do quests and see what happens. The fact that this disappeared in Fallout 3 is just another evidence of its failure to understand what made Fallout great,"

That's exactly what I do whenever I play the game.

I think the core issue is you don't like the switch to FPS or something and are justifying it by saying that the game design changed too much or something. I see little difference between the modern fallouts and the old ones. They are, essentially, the same games just from a different camera position. 

The most obvious quest that has a deep impact on the storyline is the water chip problem. If you decide to join the water merchants and reveal the location of Vault 13 to them, they'll get a stock of water to the Vault that will give you more time to get the chip, but on the other hand the Master will be aware of the location of the Vault and will send his supermutants way faster. If you're not aware of this the Vault can get destroyed.

Another one is still regarding the chip in the Necropolis, if you steal the chip without repairing the Ghouls' water pump beforehand they'll turn hostile and want to kill you even if you freed them from the supermutants above.

If you join the Khans in Fallout 1 your reputation goes to the ground and you obviously won't be able to be on friendly terms with Shady Sands. I think Killian in Junkcity doesn't even want to speak to you if you do that.

If you optimize the power plant in Gecko in Fallout 2, Gecko and NCR will be on good terms but Vault City will hate your guts more than usual, and they'll send troops to destroy Gecko.

If you destroy the Shi Emperor in San Francisco everyone will hate you and you'll have to kill them. This makes the game obviously much harder. However if you do the contrary, that is to kill AHS-9 you get lots of good rep and lots of experience. Basically if you help the Hubologists most people will hate you, which makes acquiring the boat to get to the Enclave oilrig harder.

The FPS switch is indeed an issue because the system doesn't work for me at all, as I've already explained. I'm far from being the only one complaining about this. The gameplay is way too rigid and random, which doesn't work in a first-person perspective. Even in System Shock 2, that had character skills, you could kill stuff with weapons you had almost no stats for. It was hard but it was definitely easier than in Fallout 3. Seriously, not being able to score a headshot when I'm at close range is utterly ridiculous. 

I'm out of my depth now and will bow out. Your encyclopedic knowledge of the original Fallout games has overpowered me. :) 

"Can you provide an example?"

"*provides several*"

"Whatever, aspie :)" 

I can continue to argue against someone with who has a clearly better grasp of the topic than I do, or I can bow out. I know internet tradition dictates that I start calling him names and swearing, but I'm opting for a different way. :)

I still love Fallout 3 and I think it's one of the best games ever created. Yeah, I said it. But I don't remember the quests by heart or their outcomes and effects and I can't spend the time to go dig it all up so ...

I'm out! 

Good convincing argument dude. I'd left Fallout 3 New Vegas to one side, but I'm definitely going to start playing it now :) 

I haven't played Fallout 3. 

I loved New Vegas, the writing was excelent, and it had great exploration. Fallout 3 was ok.
I agree with most of what skacky says, but the size of the world and exploration is enough to make me enjoy those games more than most FPS anyways. 

I really think the "S" needs to left off of there when discussing Fallout. It's first person, yes, but a shooter it ain't... And expecting it to play like a shooter is going to lead to frustration. 

CombinationVille at Planetphilip was recently released. why not check it out? CombinationVille download 

Although ugly, Fallout 3 and NV are great games. Admittedly, the karma system doesn't work nearly as strongly as 'hard-coded' consequences (even though there are some of them as well), and it seems to be biased towards the good side - relatively easy to become a 'good' character; some effort required to become 'bad'.

It's an FPS but that doesn't mean it necessarily has to work on player skill alone. This is where the RPG elements come into play, so you do have to spend some points into your shooting tree in order to make better hits. A sensible system in this context, imo - similar to fantasy RPGs where you need to improve your sword skills.

otp: We get it, you don't like Willem. However, interpreting every single one of his posts in the most negative way possible just to have an opportunity for a personal attack actually makes you look like the cunt here. 

I haven't played New Vegas (even though I own it... Steam Sales...), but I remember thinking FO3 wasn't bad when taken on it's own merits. I don't think it is the greatest game ever made, and likely won't ever replay it, but it was decent.

But it's not Fallout or Fallout2, which are games I adore and have played several times.