NYHoustonman said:
Ultimately, yes, I think my opinion is by far the more common one - just not on this board (and no, that doesn't make it the 'right' one, no need to twist my words that way), and that's what bothers me.
"This is one of the highest-rated games of the year, far from the 'waste of time' so many of you make it out to be."
That sounds more like a statement than an opinion. And that's what bothers me.
NYHoustonman said:
It just seems as if most of you aren't giving the game a chance. I've seen some legitimate criticisms (often blown out of proportion when you consider the entire game, though), but I've also seen a lot of nit-picking and downright ridiculousness (Half-Life 2 - the original - has better graphics? Give me a break. Best game of all time, but no).
I still say the overall quality of the graphics in Half-Life 2
is better. That includes lighting/shadows, textures and animations.
Fallout 3 doesn't have object shadows at all. Bethesda also seems to think that light works like this:

No matter what time, even at night, the sun shines vertically through cracks in the roof.

Yeah, right. I guess there are some spot lights standing in front of the windows.

The whole room is well-lit.

His skin looks like he just survived spontaneous human combustion.
And some of the textures are just ridiculous.

You can find this one on nearly every building in the city.

Interesting read.
There are clipping errors all over the place, hands clipping through armour parts, guns clipping through environment, heads clipping through doors, feet clipping through rocks, dogmeat clipping through the street.
Lots of stuff/cars/people is just floating above the ground.
Many objects also seem to float because of the total lack of real shadows in this game.
Most animations are atrocious. Characters seem have only one facial expression what makes the voice acting seem quite odd at times. The gore effects are absolutely ridiculous and get old very soon.
Mind that I did not specifically look for stuff like this because I wanted to find flaws at all costs or something. It just hit me in the face while I was playing. All of this has nothing to do with the game being untrue to the Fallout franchise, it's just the icing on the cake. It also doesn't necessarily make Fallout 3 a bad game, I just don't see where all that fits into a 10/10 review.
I am quite unsure if I am enjoying the game. I really don't know. Sometimes playing Fallout 3 feels like a chore to me. "Alright, time to start Fallout 3 to get into subwaystation X for quest Y. Then I get item Z from location V for NPC W. On the way I'll kill some Super Mutants and some more Raiders for loot and XP while finding a few new locations on the map that I will check out later on." The game is repetitive and unique moments are scarce.
This game doesn't give me anything near to the feeling I had when I was playing the original games. They have some stuff that looks similiar to their Fallout 1/2 counterparts but overall it doesn't look or feel like Fallout to me. Not at all. That might spoil my game but I can't just switch it off or something. It's there and I can't ignore it.