[FrancescoNoir]

....I rate F3 amongst the very great & good of the genre. Let's have some serious love for this title guys.

This game leaves me lost for words in terms of its quality, depth, fun-factor, length and overall presentation.

Coming from a massive long term fan of the old-school of American RPGs such as those from the stable of Black Isle, Looking Glass, Warren Spector and latterly BioWare etc, F3 is ranking up there with the best. I was privileged to play over 15 years most of the Ultima games, Fallout 1/2, Baldur's Gate, Elder Scrolls, Planescape Torment, Deus Ex and System Shock and latterly the like of KotOR and Mass Effect. Not to mention Warhammer & D&D tabletop/dice/book games (sssh) and a raft of decent & inferior RPG computer titles from other houses.

Damn the naysayers. F3 gets better and better with every hour that I spend with it (currently level 17 with 45 hours played) and even a hackneyed old cynic is prepared to overook the faults towards the vision that F3 is.

There are criticisms. F3 to my mind has a wonderful set of characters and a very involving script, but this never matches up to the thought-provoking wild imagination of the original Fallout games. After a huge amount of interaction with the universe of F3, I don't see the game really falling into the 'canon' of Fallout. It's a very different beast and the atmosphere, scripting and humour of the game does not quite gel with the prior titles. Of course, the dialogue has a small cast playing many many lives in the world which does detract from the overall believability of a 'cast of thousands' that the game requires. The main storyline comes too little and too soon. The perks (bar a few) could have used some further balancing and imagination.

Overall however, Bethesda really have performed on this title and every step on the journey feels like a labour of love. After a fair few lean years, what with Mass Effect & BioShock last year and F3 in 2008, I feel very optimistic for the future as an RPG gamer.

[Noggleboggleman]

I agree that it is brilliant. My two favourite games ever are Morrowind and Deus Ex, and this is like an amalgamation of the two. Absolutely brilliant and completely engrossing.