IMO fallout 3 was one of the most boring game I ever bought. I tried to love it, I finished the game. It did nothing for me. Save your money.

It depends if you like post apocalyptic setting or not. Can't tell you much about of the main story since I am not far in it. It also depends if you can tolerate uncanny valley or not since this game suffers from stiff animation and unconvincing facial expressions. It's not as bad though since they don't use the same three actors through out. The voice acting itself is great. Hope you like music from the 1930s to 1950s because this game is loaded with it. This game is no mere catwalk since heath potions are sparse enough. The VATS system is great, especially since playing the game as an FPS is to put it gently....not very good with poor aiming.

If you like Mass Effect but hate Oblivion, then I can't see you liking Fallout 3.

It is a better game than Oblivion, but then personally I would say they are both quite a bit better than Mass Effect.

The only areas I would say ME trumps Oblivion are the writing, voice acting, character designs and overall presentation, which are all impeccable. Oblivion falters in all these areas and unfortunately F3 does little to improve any of them save for the overall presentation (better menus, fewer rough edges etc.) The dialogue is still terrible and the cast all sound like they are reading from cue cards, except for Malcolm McDowell.

The biggest problem I had with Mass Effect is that it presents a whole galaxy for you to explore, but all the planets are fundamentally the same, all the buildings have the exact same layout, and all the loot is generic. F3 on the other hand, provides a gameworld that is beyond anything I have ever played before. It's not quite as big as Oblivion (maybe if you include the expansions) but the world is a lot more cohesive and has a lot more fine detail and hidden surprises.

Another area in which F3 is notably better than ME is the karma system. It is far from perfect, but unlike ME (or most other Bioware games) it actually does make a difference to the gameplay.

Apart from being Sci-Fi themed RPGs, the only notable similarity between ME and F3 is that they both have crappy combat that makes too many concessions to the shooter crowd.

For all its flaws, however, I would still say that F3 is easily one of the best games released this gen.

I love Fallout 3 but yeah, FL3 is basically a futuristic, depressing version of Oblivion. As for the horror, some of the enemies are creepy (deathclaws, bears) and there's a vault where you have mysterious flash backs if you go inside of it.

But yeah, I'd say go for it. It's an awesome game

I hated Oblivion with a passion, I loved Fallout 3. That's all I can say!

Interesting. I should probably say the reason that I hated Oblivion was because of the combat, I only left the sewer, then I just had no desire to continue with the awful combat. I didn't think the ME combat was great, but it was fine. I do like the idea of a gigantic game world to explore..

Ah.  You might well like Fallout then.  Combat in Oblivion was a bit rubbish I'd agree (even though the lure of the big world was enough to get me past it).  In Fallout 3, combat without VATS is a bit rubbish too.

However, combat in Fallout 3 with VATS (i.e. basically more or less ignorning real time FPS combat and going RPG orientated) is actually pretty good.  Probably 90% plus of my combat was VATS with only some last minute true FPS panic when I ran out of power to use VATS during a big fight.

With VATS, Fallout 3 is much more enjoyable than Oblivion IMHO - I prefer the setting too, so that's worth bearing in mind when you judge my comments.

This represents exactly my impressions of the game. If you like VATS and the setting you will love this game!

Munkeh, I'm sure you'll love Fallout 3. Its a very good and deep game and with the GOTY edition coming for £30, its a steal. You won't regret it.

Fallout 3 combat is also done very nicely with the combat, you'll love it.