Landscaping the Capital Wasteland must have been a tremendous mission, and much credit should be given to the team for their attention to detail in major landmarks and important game areas that mimic real-world places in Washington, D.C. However, areas in between those detailed landmarks look photocopied and uninspired—buildings in particular. This was most obvious to me in and around the D.C. area, and if you’ve had the pleasure of actually visiting the nation’s capital, you know it is anything but uninspired.

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Outside the D.C. area, the landscape did very well at immersing me in the feeling of wandering the grounds of a nuclear holocaust, especially playing as I do with the lights down and headphones on. With upwards of 245 above- and below-ground places to discover, simply paying attention to the compass markers and walking in any direction will bring you to possible adventure. I think the variety of areas to explore was also nicely done, from survivors in small camps to larger settlements, You might encounter raiders in makeshift outposts, radio broadcast towers, and small urban towns now gutted and abandoned and crawling with monsters straight out of a 1950s sci fi movie. Scripted and random encounters happened anywhere and often result in a combat action of some sort, almost always easily handled even if caught by surprise.

In fact, very little did catch me by surprise, which in itself was a surprise to me. After all, as a character I’m a 19-year-old kid fresh out of Vault 101, and my only combat training thus far is shooting a radroach with a BB gun. And yet I am able to survive going up against these terrible denizens of the Wasteland who have been tempered by struggle and strife on a daily basis for longer than I’ve been alive! I’m saying that the enemy AI was more than a bit crude, making combat a rather easy affair, even after just leaving the vault. The most difficult problem I encountered at first was obtaining a quality weapon and sufficient ammunition for it. That event only happened once, with my first character. Subsequent characters have not had that as a problem, since I know now where to go immediately after exiting the vault to better equip them. Overall, Fallout 3 is a much easier game to play than the previous editions, and while I’m sure such gameplay caters to some players, I and other solid fans of the series remember that those earlier games were more challenging, and that element is sorely missing in this edition.

From the very first announcement of Bethesda doing Fallout 3, much debate has been about whether this game would be a proper addition to the series or merely "Oblivion with guns." I was most certainly hoping for the former, but my opinion now resides with the latter. I can’t compare it with any other Fallout game. I just never got the same vibe here as with the previous games in the series, including Tactics. While playing Fallout 3, I kept having fleeting thoughts of comparing gameplay with the most obvious games, Morrowind and Oblivion, but also with elements of Half-life, Bioshock, Deus Ex, and even Silent Hill. Not once did I ever get the same or even a similar thought or feeling that it compared to the former Fallout games, and that’s a very sad contemplation for us fans who were hoping for exactly that.

Now, taking into account all that I have said until now, I think Fallout 3 is a megaton of fun to play! I’ve created three different characters according to physical appearance, S.P.E.C.I.A.L. points allocation, and unique Skill choices, and went through the main quest with them all, and it just hasn’t gotten old, whether I’m sneaking up on a Super Mutant and stealthily dropping a Nuka-Grenade into his pants or sniping Raiders from the height of a broken, crumbling freeway overpass; taking on Deathclaws while armed with only a Powerfist, or craftily setting up elaborate minefields amongst a bunch of nuclear-engined cars and luring a party of Talon Company mercs into the trap. Everything I do is quite enjoyable, in spite of the bevvy of programming bugs.

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