I prefer a contest of dicks to a contest of visions/ideas, I am a more simple minded person as in I prefer simple plot lines and explosions to complex plot lines and complocated reasoning. I thought F3 had a great story, it was thr essential good vs evil, this entire morally grey/complex motivations bullshit bores me. I love good vs evil storylines.
If Fallout 3 is a good vs evil story, how is the hero from the good side ? You murder, in cold blood, innocent people just to get out of the vault and look for your dad. That's what a psychopath would do. The guys are just doing their jobs, they want to bring you to the overseer for a very understandable questioning, and your immediate answer is to shoot them in the face ? People who went to your birthday parties, defended you against bullies, people you know by name and grew up with ? At this very moment, you're no longer from the good side of the story. You're on the side of the raiders who hung corpses above their beds for some obscure and not very hygienic reason. Oh right, they killed Jonas. So ? Jonas could have tried to take their gun, as far as you know. You have zero moral evidence that would justify the killings.
And then after that, you willingly participate in a war against the super mutants, while having zero intel on the reason of the said war. For all your character knows, the Super mutants were here for two centuries and didn't even cause a threat to Megaton until the recent arrival of the brotherhood. For all your character knows, you could be taking part in a racial genocide with no second thought. (yes, super mutants are evil in the end, but when you have the proof, you have already taken part in their extermination as a blind judge, jury and executioner, laughing when the brotherhood mentionned how funny it is to make their heads explode. In any case, that makes the lone wanderer a blind mass murderer, even if he doesn't blow up Megaton or kill Tenpenny's residents because he dislikes dandies and the victorian era.) Yes, in the end, it's all worth it for the clean water and everything. But until you know that, you are given ZERO reason to pile corpses upon corpses on the path to James.
And about James. How is he from the good side, if this is a good vs evil story ? He abandoned you for a water purifier NOBODY needed. One of the only civilized place is Megaton, which has technology to pump clean water from the ground (which means that the groundwater is full and clean. Just saying...) and robots to produce a shitload of gallons of water per day with only ambiant moist. If scientists of Rivet City can work a GECK, which works with freaking cold fusion and food replicators, surely they could make moist farms or enhance the Megaton's purifier, which is something that WORKS, as proven by the first hour of the game. A lot of water leaks on the ground of Megaton and nobody cares, because nobody is thirsty. Except a beggar, who litteraly lives 10 meters from a city he can walk in with no problem, with clean water dripping on the ground for freaking free.
James kills four people in cold blood simply because he's too proud to see the Enclave succeeding in what he has failed for decades. After he doomed the project by freaking leaving, and after he almost doomed you to death by leaving you in a hostile area. And after he sent you, his only child, to face a freaking army of raging Hulks willing to eat your brain for fun. And if he finds out that you are actually a genocidal maniac who unleashed nuclear hell on innocents for fun, he just says "Well, I guess that's not a very nice thing to do but I still love you". That's what a crazy psychopath would do, not a "good" guy.
How is the Enclave evil ? Yeah, their IA is also a crazy mass murderer, but as soon as he voices his intentions, he kills himself and we find out that nobody ever followed his genocidal plans in the first place. The Enclave wants to repair a device that is built only to help people, even if the said people don't need it. Maybe the Enclave needs the technology for another thirsty place, who knows ? But what's the hero's response ? Yeah, blow up their house, because they were a bit too british to his taste. Convince an invading military force to bring hell on them and push the button before they do, otherwise... the water purifier gets repaired ?
Even on its fundamental elements, I cannot see how Fallout 3 could be described as a good vs evil narrative, like Star Wars or Hunger Games. The "good" people are crazy raiders with white knight excuses, while the "bad" guys are just british dudes doing their jobs, and the two clash to see who will push a button first, to repair a thing nobody ever needed in the first place.
Now, I'm not trying to convince you that it's a badly written game. You love it, it's fine. I'm happy for you if you have fun with it. I just disagree on the "good vs evil" description of the story.
, I agree with much of what was already said around here though.