Second, this game lacks the heart of Fallout. As a friend put it, it lacks the "apathetic reaction" to situations that was so endearing about the originals. If you don't do anything in Fallout 3, nothing happens. Bethesda doesn't seem to understand that the Fallout world keeps happening no matter if you're there or not, whether you do anything or not. Everything is triggered by the player. It's sad. Part of the fun of the older games was just sitting back, grabbing popcorn, and watching an event unfold without lifting a finger. Then, if you felt like being a real bastard, you'd clean up the remainder. Plus, this game doesn't focus on natural allies/enemies. If I randomly kill ghouls outside Tenpenny, the ghouls inside the museum don't give a shit and they're still cool with me - until I kill one of them.
Your past actions have virtually no consequence on your present, so long as you don't go back to that one spot where you mass murdered some people. I haven't tried this with the Brotherhood yet - and it's probably different in their case - but that's not enough. Fallout is about real consequence; if I act like an asshole early in the game - and trust me, I did - I want that to affect me down the road. Where was my penalty for nuking Megaton? That was a supremely dick move and all I get from it is some sass talk from that prick DJ (whose time on Earth is limited in my eyes). Even that clueless research lady is still cool with me, even though I turned her into a fucking ghoul. No one outside the people who gave me a reward for the quest seem to care that I obliterated an entire town just for shits and giggles.
There is something missing from this game... I haven't put my finger on it 100% yet but there is some underlying theme from the earlier games that just isn't present in Fallout 3.
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