I only played a bit of Oblivion so I can't really honestly compare the two, but for what its worth I enjoyed the hell out of Fallout, even got the GOTY edition on sale so I could get all the DLC packs cheaper.

I also enjoyed New Vegas, though it wasn't as satisfying as 3, but I am eagerly anticipating Skyrim, so once I get my hands on it i'll be able to give an honest opinion of which current Bethesda WRPG franchise is better, Fallout or TES.

fair enough, but just to be clear, no one in their right mind would want to live in the Fallout world. I might be able to deal with the radiated, horrible food, but the draw the line at the roaches, the size of cats

I like sci-fi as well, but Fallout 3 was rather lacking in advanced technology.

Well I completed the main storyline and I have to say it was pretty underwhelming. The ending was nice, but what it took to reach that point was tedious. They wh**ed the oblivion gates like anything, and for some reason I don't think its actually possible to play this game on the highest difficulty. The levelling up system is really broken, enemies scaling up to you is really trash to the point where they end up being stronger than you were before many times.

I know that fallout has a scaling system as well its just that the only enemy that had any kind of noticeable effect were the mutants.

so 2 people open a rpg thread but they hate rpg's? "how to waste your time" or what?

hhmm. good question. I enjoyed both as world explorers. I will say I think Fallout 3 was a bit more polished from a developer stand point even though there were some obvious glitches in spots.

Overall I would have to go with Oblivion. I personally like fighting with medieval type weapons and using magics along with potions. I used to love making my own potions, visiting dark dungeons, obtaining interesting bladed weapons, ect. The story progression was a bit choppy, but overall I think I enjoyed oblivion better than fallout 3.

Personally I'm not a fan of either (they both just feel so generic to me) but I definitely like and respect Oblivion more.  I definitely like Oblivion's setting far better, too.

Fallout seemed a bit more polished, but Oblivion was over two years earlier. To put it in perspective, I'm interested in checking out Skyrim, whereas I couldn't care less about a new Fallout game.

I like the world of Oblivion more, but fallout had better game play. The brown post apocalyptic world is just boring brown though. Nothing real about it, nature doesn't care about nuclear warfare. Enslaved had it right.

they have laser guns, power armor, planes, mini nukes, GIANT robots, regular robots, i think they do alright, considering the world was devastated by a nuclear war. If anything they might have too much tech.

i didnt even know there was a scaling system, but as you said its only noticable on mutants, even then i found they were not hard to kill as i level up. Especially when i got Fawkes and when i throw dogmeat in the mix, i barely have to fight, the only enemy that stayed a consistent pain in the ass was the deathclaw