Fallout has been about interacting with different communities a grim and dark world, making important decisions that affect you and the game world. Characters weren't entirely good or entirely bad, they are some exceptions. There were multiple approaches in the game to where you could get stuff done: for example there is a locked door and you had multiple options - find the key, blow it up with a bomb, pick the lock, or find another way around. Your armor actually protected you and could even stop bullets. Bullets and medical supplies were extremely rare and even some weapons were hard to find and expensive to use. The game has followers that possess unique skills like shooting, healing, locking picking, sneaking, act as merchant, or turn into tanks. You could make your party members use there skills, so if you weren't a thief, you could make your party's thief pick a lock for you. At the end the game you were given a slide show that showed you how your actions affected each community.
Fallout 3 takes the 1950's thing to the extreme by adding in stupid stuff like the mini-nuke and liberty prime. The story is stupid and everything looks like the bombs were dropped yesterday. Guns are numerous and bullets grow on trees. You spend most of your time pick up assault rifles and fixing them while consuming stimpacks that also grow on trees every 2 minutes while going on repetitive dungeon crawls. Your armor barely protects you and breaks like card board, power armor is everywhere despite being rare and is also made out of card board. Almost all the characters are either evil bad guys or good guys who want to save the world. Beth basically took the selfish Brotherhood of Steel and made them literally into white knights with English accents and the Enclave as the evil empire with and armor of dark knights. At the game the game your actions made meaningless as you were given a brief slide slow that tells you that you either made the water safe to drink or it killed everything. The world is populated with annoying characters like in little lamplight and the tunnel snakes, and Amata. Gameplay is also dumbed down, if you run into a locked door, you either have to find the key or pick the lock. You can't talk yourself out of a fight like in the old games, you basically are forced to take lock pick and science if you want to make anywhere in the game. The game also has companions like in the older games, but they are useless and only get in your way. They can't pick locks for you, they can't do anything except shoot stuff and give you are few perks and buffs. The games engine isn't all the great either seeing has how often I find myself crashes and having to go back to a previous save.
