The name explains it all just comment on what you think makes Fallout 3 an awesome game.

Exploration, and modding (which is why I highly suggest this game on the PC), as with Oblivion. The dialogue and quests generally make me puke but there are some good moments there as well.

In my case, I can list two major reasons:

1. Interesting setting. We aren't in the space year 3045 fighting the Reapers to save humanity from Lord Giganto Dong and we aren't in some kind of alternate reality Medieval Europe where Tolkein has re-written reality and where everyone needs 5 Badger pelts in order to prevent reality from exploding. No. We are on Earth, in a not-too-distant future trying to survive the collapse of society. That alone makes for an interesting game.

2. VATS. Damn. Just....DAMN! No matter how many times it happens, I can't help but smile every time the camera shifts to get that perfect angle of some sucker getting his grey matter scattered to the four winds by my shotgun. That is art my friends.

When you come out of the womb, you find Liam Neeson is your dad. Why couldn't that happen to me in real life?

WHY?!

Thanks for the idea i shall get rid of the post immediantly

Lol, I love playing a variety of different builds to find all their individual strengths and what not.

Of course did the first time standard guns runthrough

Then did a Melee stealth build which is my personal favorite, love one shotting masters ;)

Did a unarmed deathclaw guantlet run which was very interesting.

A laser weapons run which comes in close second that dam A3-21 rifle is insane!

lol going to try a heavy weaponry next lol, Can't wait til i get the DC though add in a whole new demension for me to ol

bagodix:

Fallout3Forever:
What is it about Fallout 3 That really makes it worth playing?

Good question. I stopped playing after ~6 hours because it was so shitty.

Sorry but if you didnt see the thing i wrote before this i dont really care for you. Your a hater.

Fallout3Forever:

bagodix:

Fallout3Forever:
What is it about Fallout 3 That really makes it worth playing?

Good question. I stopped playing after ~6 hours because it was so shitty.

Sorry but if you didnt see the thing i wrote before this i dont really care for you. Your a hater.

Just because he dislikes a game doesn't mean he's this bad person. Yes, he did phrase it badly but don't take offense because someone's trashing your favourite game. It's "you're", by the way.

Not. A. Thing.

It is a weaker version of Oblivion wrapped in graphical elements shifted from the Fallout saga. It lacks the variety and the sense of humour of the two first entries. It doesn't know if it wants to be a turn based game, a shooter or a real time RPG, and it fails on all three counts.

Why can I still shoot in real time when I run out of VATS, for instance? What's worse, why can I run backwards really fast in real time, avoiding damage, while I wait for VATS to recharge? It is such a stupid game mechanic: Shoot people in the face in slow motion, run backwards for a bit, shoot more people in slow motion.

The story is superfluous, I can't name a single likeable or memorable character off the top of my head and playing it just isn't fun.

So yeah, it's a big game. It's a pretty game, if you consider endless grayish-brown flats pretty. It shows a remarkable amount of skill and foresight to keep the game going on even when you decide to kill a story-relevant character (although it often does so by stuffing their entire dialogue tree in a note in their pockets most of the time). But it is not fun and, to me, not worth playing. It sits unfinished and DLC-less on my shelf.

What makes it a great game??

The game itself offers up to 120 hours of endless playing if you go after all the interesting secrets and discover hidden location, I had it for a year and played it for about 320 hours(at least) and I thought I discovered everything. However, yesterday I ran into a hidden ant liar with friendly ants that get attacked by invader ants and I had to defend them, I had never known this even existed. The DLCs add some essential fun too.

Graphics are good and interaction with NPCs is interesting and always fun. Manual shooting needs some work but VATS makes up for it with its many amazing animations.

But the best thing for a PC user is the modding, I have installed a mod Called Marts Mutant mod which makes the game a lot better and adds a whole new level of insanity to the game. Also, I installed a mod called FOOK2 which overhauls pretty much the whole damn game into a more realistic.

Follower NPCs such as Sergeant RL3 have a gang ho attitude as well as funny remarks at kills and enemies. He is one of the most memorable characters in the game due to his weird sense of humor as well as Cerberus in underworld.

The game is buggy at times but I can live with it.

I can never stop playing this game, I have installed radio stations that play "War what is it good for" and Vietnam war era music while I do quests.

Nothing makes it a good game, it's p boring

I loved it for the setting, but that was about it. It's unpolished and generally very boring. I put a decent amount of time into it, but I experienced the same problem I did with Oblivion: It didn't immerse me and it felt like a chore to play.

It's not "High Fantasy" it's on Earth.

It reeks of Nostaligia with it's music etc

Killing people brings a very satisfying feeling

It's a little better in the writing dept and animating dept than Oblivion

Fallout3Forever?

....yeah, I don't think this thread was necessary. I love Fallout 3 but come on.

Nils:
When you come out of the womb, you find Liam Neeson is your dad. Why couldn't that happen to me in real life?

WHY?!

does that also inevitably lead to you losing your mother?

Mamawoopie:
I loved it for the setting, but that was about it. It's unpolished and generally very boring. I put a decent amount of time into it, but I experienced the same problem I did with Oblivion: It didn't immerse me and it felt like a chore to play.

these are about the same irks i had with it. it's like their trying too hard to immerse you and not trying hard enough with story, dialogue, and character evelopment. the excuse is oh there's tons of side-missions so the real quest doesn't need to have good writing.

I haven't played it but I heard that the main plus is the multiple ways you can solve each situation. Oh and the fact that you can nuke a chick with a fuckin mustache (eeeeeesh).

Pararaptor:
The Experimental MIRV.
You were all thinking it too.

Oh yeah, that too.

bagodix:

Fallout3Forever:

bagodix:

Fallout3Forever:
What is it about Fallout 3 That really makes it worth playing?

Good question. I stopped playing after ~6 hours because it was so shitty.

Sorry but if you didnt see the thing i wrote before this i dont really care for you. Your a hater.

Of course I am. It's a shitty game.

It never hurts to elaborate when you use such a general term.
Fallout 3 is great because it's incredibly atmospheric and immersive, and it's fun to just explore the world, uncovering all sorts of little details. It's an original setting with an original story, and the whole thing just feels so expansive. I love it.

Yokai:

Of course I am. It's a shitty game.

It never hurts to elaborate when you use such a general term.
Fallout 3 is great because it's incredibly atmospheric and immersive, and it's fun to just explore the world, uncovering all sorts of little details. It's an original setting with an original story, and the whole thing just feels so expansive. I love it.

Wait, how is "atmospheric and immersive" more elaborate than "shitty". All three are pretty generic blanket adjectives that don't really say anything objective about the thing in question.

Also, how is Fallout 3 a game with "an original setting with an original story" when it is the third game in a series and it is not developed by the same guys who did the two (far superior) first games? I mean, if it was still the same dev team you could argue that it's just one ongoing original story, but as it is, Fallout 3 is as much of an original story as the "Up" videogame adaptation: some guys take somebody else's creative story and setting and make a derivative game about it.

Look, I'm not saying Fallout 3 is terrible. It just happens to be less compelling than both its two prequels and the original games Bethesda develops.

It has so much depth.

Aah, I love it so much.

Oblivion is better, but mainly because it's prettier, gives you the ability to shoot fire from your hand and has a setting that interests me more. Aside from that, I like Fallout 3 for the same reason I like Oblivion; It is fun open-world exploration, that allows players to feel in control and pretty much do whatever they like, unlike linear games where you never get to do what you want to do because there is always something that your character has to do.

It is immersive in 1st person, but you can also switch to 3rd-person and see the character that you have completely customized to look like either you, or a person you can relate to, chances are. I vote we make this feature standard in most games.

Modability is a major consideration for me, and Fallout 3 and Oblivion are pretty much the most modded games out there. I think that high modability should also be standard.

The only thing Bethesda needs to do now is stop their engine from crashing so frequently.
Then I would say we should make it a standard.

It's basically a better version of Oblivion since it corrects Oblivion's main flaw - a boring world. Oblivion's main failing was an uninspired world that was blandly designed and just felt unimmersive. Fallout provides a much more interesting world with actual places you might want to visit. Also, the combat is better, though this is mainly due to a shift towards ranged weapons. Melee combat is the same crap that Oblivion had, but it's marginalized.

Basically, it's a proper open world RPG with a weak main story (still better than Oblivion's main plot).

Noelveiga:

Yokai:

Of course I am. It's a shitty game.

It never hurts to elaborate when you use such a general term.
Fallout 3 is great because it's incredibly atmospheric and immersive, and it's fun to just explore the world, uncovering all sorts of little details. It's an original setting with an original story, and the whole thing just feels so expansive. I love it.

Wait, how is "atmospheric and immersive" more elaborate than "shitty". All three are pretty generic blanket adjectives that don't really say anything objective about the thing in question.

Also, how is Fallout 3 a game with "an original setting with an original story" when it is the third game in a series and it is not developed by the same guys who did the two (far superior) first games? I mean, if it was still the same dev team you could argue that it's just one ongoing original story, but as it is, Fallout 3 is as much of an original story as the "Up" videogame adaptation: some guys take somebody else's creative story and setting and make a derivative game about it.

Look, I'm not saying Fallout 3 is terrible. It just happens to be less compelling than both its two prequels and the original games Bethesda develops.

bagodix:

Yokai:
It never hurts to elaborate when you use such a general term.

The writing is bad, the voice acting is bad, the combat is bad and the graphics didn't exactly make me stand up and take notice.

Fallout 3 is great because it's incredibly atmospheric and immersive, and it's fun to just explore the world, uncovering all sorts of little details. It's an original setting with an original story, and the whole thing just feels so expansive. I love it.

It's not original, it's based on the first two games that were created by an entirely different studio.

Ooookay. I know quite well that the first two games were not developed by Bethesda. It's still an original story, even if Black Isle came up with it. I mean the entire series has an original plotline for an RPG, that isn't just "space marines shooting space aliens in space" or "Lord of the Rings by a different name."

I apologize for using general terms. If you'd like me to elaborate, so be it. There is an intense amount of detail put into every visual, and it's very evocative of the Cold War culture it's based on, what with the Vault-tec billboards assuring safety in the event of Armageddon and the abandoned cars that ran on nuclear power. The music, both the standard soundtrack ambient stuff and the old songs from the 40s and 50s, mesh together well to sort of set the mood for exploring--and listening the the Andrews Sisters while blowing a zombie's head off is rather hilarious.

I'm not going to beat up on the old Fallout games since I've barely played them and can't develop a cohesive opinion, but I don't get why people hate Fallout 3 for not being exactly like its predecessors. It came out about ten years after Fallout 2, which utilized a style of gameplay that hasn't been used since. Gaming as a whole had moved on in between the two titles, and if a sequel was to be made it would end up being noticeably different. It would only have been the die-hard Fallout fans who would buy the Van Buren version of the game. Now, it's become one of the most popular IPs in recent years, thanks to Bethesda. Now, I'm all for quality of gameplay over popularity--for example, I can't stand the Call of Duty series because it's so bloody generic. But as a latecomer to Fallout, I find myself enjoying the 3D, real-time world of Fallout 3 far more than the isometric, text-heavy gameplay of the first two (I have tried them out.) Gamers today have different standards than gamers of a decade ago, and Fallout 3 is simply what today's gamers want to play.

Sorry for the wall of text--I just thought it would be best if I clarified what I said.

Yokai:
SNIP

All of that are valid points, I'm more than willing to agree to disagree. I only have a couple of details to clarify:

I don't hate Fallout 3 because it doesn't follow the two first games' gameplay, but I do hate that it fails to reproduce the same sense of humour and style of writing and characterization.

What I do hate about the gameplay is that it swings wildly between turn based and real time and the real time sections play like combat in Oblivion (i.e. making you move in an stupidly unrealistic way to exploit the limitations of the AI and the underlying stat-based RPG combat) rather than like a real time FPS. In my opinion, Borderlands does a far better job of doing stat based FPS shooting. Bethesda should have either gone for turn based combat full on or given up on the VATS altogether in favour of either Borderlands realtime or Mass Effect-like active pause systems.

If they thought that vestigial turn based combat was going to be enough to attract series veterans... well, then I guess they were right, because I bought the game despite turning out to hate it. But it is still bad design.