Fallout 3: Game of the Year Edition

I haven't finished the main storyllne yet but having the GOTY edition with all the DLCS means the game won't just end, if I do, so it's ok either way. That said, I came close enough to the end before the game crashed to see what was what, and am going to do some other things first.

I'm a completionist, like to do everything I can rather than run through the game at top speed, and played Fallout4 GOTY obsessively, got all the achievements but that one maximum settlement happiness, so you could say I licked the plate clean on Fallout 4.

There was nothing left to do, but try Fallout 3 and I actually find it better than Fallout4!
I can't really pin down why, but somehow it just seems more real, more immersive. More exciting.

VATS (Vault-Tec Assisted Targeting) was something I didn't bother with in Fallout4, found it interrupted the flow of combat too much for too little gain. In the early game of Fallout 3, I learned to used VATS. It was that or die over and over. Went back to not using it, and went heavy on a sneak/snipe playstyle once I got strong enough.

But I think it's safe to say Fallout3 is more challenging. Also more dark in my opinion. It doesn't pussyfoot around with language and content. It's not a kid game, and it unabashedly aims at adult sensibilities in a gritty post-apocalyptic world, which I appreciate in recent times where it seems like swear words are a no-no evern in ostensibly mature games. Fallout3 lacks the irritating sense of being childproofed and sanitized.

Part of the map are open to exploration, and other partrs are annoyingly closed, (a lot of metro stations prevent you from simply climbing over rubble piles and going around; you MUST go into the station or get nowhere) so I dislike any part of a game map funneling me, but it is what it is. There's still ample open barren wasteland to traverse in search of new locations, never fear.

After getting deeper into the story, it does feel like Fallout4 is a watered-down version of Fallout3.

Don't get me wrong, I spent more hours than I'm proud to admit, exploring every nook and cranny and ending in FO4 and enjoyed every moment of it, But of the two, 3 is more exciting, I think.

4 has a settlement system, and deeper crafting. That can be a pro or a con depending on who you are.
At least in FO3, I will never have to hear Preston telling me another settlement can't wipe its own arse without my personal assistance!

Might update once I complete this game but so far it has been tons of fun.

This version is the perfect training ground leading to Fallout 4. It expands well into the story of the fall of civilization and permits players to deviate from the story line. I suggest roaming the map and exploring. Learn to live the game and "off the land". Controls are simple and game play is entertaining even this many years since the making of this chapter. It's never the exact same twice.

For it's time it was a great single player shooter, adventure game. I will never forget my time playing this game.

Arriving in the Capital Wasteland for the first time was a moment I will never forget as a gamer. All RPG fans should have this game in their library.

Fallout 4 is a better game. Less frustrating as you can use Keyboard assignments for more choices. Useful for quick access to weapons, armor, aids, map access. Control of character walking and running in Fallout 3 is cumbersome. Use of VATS is less effective. My greatest frustration in DC and Fallout 3 is the difficulty moving through the map. The massive destroyed buildings are often huge barriers. The Metro tunnels are often blocked. Lots of wasted time rather than just enjoying the game. I like the concept of the game traveling through DC looking for Dad. If less frustrating I would give it a 5.

Dear New Players (Who came from watching the Fallout TV Show)

312 Hours spent playing this game on my own PC, another 300 hours spent playing on my girlfriend's PC, Possibly more than 500 hours spent on playing this game on consoles.

That is the total of 1100 Hours of Fallout 3 spent. It was all worth it.

This game is the GOAT. IT WON GAME OF THE YEAR FOR A REASON!

If you are massively into a Dark dystopian open world RPG games with a hint of Wacky Humour.

This game is for you!

For new players, play vanilla first (Obviously) and then install TWO TALE OF WASTELANDS mod in your second run after completing the game. You will have the best time of your life.

Don't listen to those Fallout New Vegas gate keeping t*ats who hate fallout 3 for some stupid reason.

You have the right to enjoy every Fallout game without being judged.

(Spoiler Alert... Liam Neeson gets to be your dad. How cool is that)

This game is the worst of the main 3d fallout's but im not saying that its bad as its still really good but the story is really focusing on the south of the wasteland so if you rush through the story you'll probaly never go to oasis or other northern settlements and locations but that doesnt mean the story is bad as its pretty great.

it's fun but you gotta download the fall out 3 intel bypass package and drag and drop just the zipped file in Porgramfiles(86) > steam > common > fall out 3 goty

Fallout 3 is a great game, sunk 20 hours into it, must say the Main Game is my favourite part, environment, storytelling, gameplay and depth is amazing. Loved the Karma system and random side quests, loved the main story. The Pitt is my favourite DLC, and second goes to Anchorage, then the rest follow with Point Lookout being my least favourite with Mothership Zeta. Broken Steel is good, enemies just a bit spongy.

I love the story, I love the goofy NPC behavior, I love the atmosphere! Hard to complain about a game this fun and with so much to do.

I don't know why my playtime for this game won't update, but i have spent wayyy more than 9 hours playing this game. It's not my favorite fallout game, but i have played through it twice (once un-modded and once during a TTW playthrough) and it is very charming. It can feel a bit empty and tedious at times, and i wish the enclave had more of a presence in the story, but it's whatever. It's definitely the middle of the road when it comes to fallout games, not the best and not the worst.

This game lets me role play as a manipulative psychopath who is so charismatic that he can talk himself out of almost every situation.

9/10

El juego es bueno, la historia principal probablemente se pueda terminar en 20 horas en un primer playthrough.
Los DLC están bien logrados; Point Lookout sobre todo, es uno que disfruté bastante, aunque sí tuve problemas cuando explota la Mansión Calvert.
Fuera de eso, el juego empieza a tener errores alrededor de las 12 horas de juego continuas, pero nada que cerrar el juego y volver a abrirlo no lo solucione.

Fallout 1 and 2 are my favorite RPGs of all time, so I've been half excited about and half dreading this game for many years. Thus I am very late to the party. ;) Fallout 3 was good fun, despite the many crashes (about 50 or so; I play on Windows 10) and what has now become Bethesda's design signature: industrial-scale copy-paste. I think they (mostly) nailed the atmosphere of Fallout 1 and 2, particularly due to the sound design. Voice acting is solid too, even if the same handful of actors are recycled across dozens of roles. At least it’s not quite as blatant as it was in Skyrim. The performances themselves were strong.

However... Fallout 3 is bloated with filler. I was reminded of Starfield's "loot the same item from the same containers thousands of times" mechanic. For example, once while playing, I was in a room and I got deja vu. Did I accidentally load a save from before I already looted this room? Then I realized that it was an office room identical to another that I had already explored, with the same loot, the same furniture layout, the same debris, the same texture stickers on the floor, the same overturned bucket, the same boxes, and the same broken fan in the exact same fallen-over position next to the same desk. The kicker? The rooms were right next to each other. Here's a radical idea: if you don’t have the time or budget to make content worth exploring, maybe stop stuffing buildings with empty calories. Don’t waste my time.

And speaking of filler, there's a baffling quantity of content that includes none of the lore—terminals, notes, holotapes, anything—that made Fallout 1 and 2 so rich. What little there is in many areas of the game tends to be buried, as if the game is embarrassed to show it. It sends a clear (and frankly condescending) message: if you want scraps of Fallout’s once-proud worldbuilding, you’ll need to trudge through a wasteland of copy-pasted rooms and meaningless loot to find it. That’s not immersion. That’s homework.

Still, the fun was there. For fellow Fallout 1/2 fans who’ve put this one off: Normal difficulty becomes a cakewalk after the first 10 hours or so, and you’ll hit the level cap—and nearly max out every skill—well before the end, especially with the DLC. Crank up the difficulty early to keep things interesting. And don’t hesitate to play a jack-of-all-trades; unlike the originals, this game won’t punish you for spreading your points around.

Fallout 3 may be bloated and shallow compared to its predecessors, but between the atmosphere, strong audio work, and bursts of genuinely satisfying gameplay, I still found myself pulled in. It’s not a classic—but it is a ride. Just be prepared to dig through a lot of rubble to find the gold.
7/10

I would say that it's probably best to mod this game if you want to remove the bugs glitches as the fixes despite being an 2008 game or play Tale Of Two Wastelands which combines Fallout 3 & New Vegas on the same engine as some unique incredible mod make sure you install every DLC including Fallout 3's & New Vegas it doesn't work without them but enough about that here is the review.

Fallout 3 takes place on a post apocalyptic world which someone destructed everything & what's special about this game is that it's an RPG or a level up game as like the well known level up get stronger or pick your perks type of games, anyway the point is, as you explore as you do missions/quests you can see how damaged the environment is & what's left of it, unlike the fallouts before that was a birdseye view on what Fallout 1 & 2 was as you command your character by clicking where to go & fighting enemies in that view, Fallout 3 Bethesda did a 3D version of it known as Fallout 3, I wouldn't say it has the best story of Fallout the 3D Gameplay can be fun to murder some raiders, Yao Guai's, Radscopions & Deathclaws those are the main enemies you encounter later on, you also face with Feral Ghouls, irradiated humans or in this case human formed zombies, yeah the game is basically explains the devistation of post apocalyptic events, basically as you progress through doing set required missions/quest you will later on in the game meet Brotherhood Of Steel which are on your side & the Enclave who are against you in this particular game. The main experience with Fallout 3 is finding your father, like Father & Son then eventually something tragic happens when the Enclave thinks the water purifier belongs to them as it's thier authority to control it, which they have no intention to, basically the Enclave have not much use to you at this point, they are bad anyway, overall it's mediocre I would say bit better than Fallout 4 I have to say, no where near as good as the Obsidian game which was after this one anyway for DLC's.

Operation Anchorage: This DLC takes place on Alaska overall good DLC if your into the history of things, some guns you can get with this game like the Chinese Assault Rifle & the 10mm pistol with a silencer on it, you also need Microfusion cells as energy weapons to use this Guass Rifle gun which does incredible damage at a far distance, the only reason I play this DLC is the guns you can get, I could care less about the story. It's about Americans that used to battle with the Chinese, you can get cool gear & such out of the DLC that's why it's worthwhile to play it.

The Pitt: The Pitt takes place on a raiders enslavement camp as the Working Conditions are brutal for the slavers, again another DLC that's worthwhile to play, in the Raiders working area you collect these steel ignots which are like collectables, the more you get the more goods & wonderful gear you can get in the Raiders working area, get all of them you will get a fantastic Plasma weapon at the end of it that will be 100 steel ignots, you also have a choice to make near the end you help the Raiders or just murder them all as you will gain karma for each raider you get, raiders are bad people who do terrible things, so I wouldn't be helping them unless you want to do bad things but that's up to you with that's DLC, good overall DLC especially getting the Gear out of the raiders & a few quests/missions to do as that DLC.

Point Lookout: I would say people enjoyed this DLC, for me I disagree, thought this DLC was the weakest out of the package, you explore on this Island of Point Lookout, which is a misty looking beach of an island that takes place near a lighthouse, you meet this sailman & he will take you there with an ticket that you have purchased, the main DLC is a fight between a Ghoul who has vulgar words on this robotic brain who hates an ghoul & wants revenge on him, so yes there is a fight between the ghoul & the robot brain don't ask me why they both don't get along but that's the story which summarises up Point Lookout, other than that the enemies are like the ones from the 80's TV show called the Goonies & you have to explore the Point Lookout, I believe there was an achievement back on the Xbox 360 that you have to explore all locations on Point Lookout, good thing I remembered that, you also explore in cave that as a upstream river which explains the trauma of your character. Overall bit below average for a DLC I basically murdered the Robot Brain then eventually the vulgar word ghoul in the game just to end the DLC of Point Lookout so I got them both, since I don't like either of them.

Mothership Zeta: fantastic DLC better than Point Lookout that's for sure, this is where you get powerful alien guns & weapons even fix your guns by using the epoxy materials as you collect on the Alien Ship be sure to collect as many as you can, since they are handy for going back into the capital wasteland or main Wasteland, yeah this DLC takes place with Aliens, anyway the goal is to stop the main leader & get back to the wasteland since you have got captured in the game, you also defeat this other enemy Mothership at the end of the DLC with a laser beam that you are prepared to fire. You also meet five characters, an Cowboy man, an Mercenary, an man that speaks Chinese, can't understand what he says, an wasteland survivor just like you but can 100% repair your equipment lastly this little kid of a girl who is fascinated by these aliens which I'm not a fond of, this DLC is worthwhile be sure to find all the alien logs too since it used to give you an achievement back on the Xbox 360 as you find different areas to progress through the Mothership.

Broken Steel: Lastly the most favourite & ending to Fallout 3 DLC the Broken Steel, which is your duty is to finish the fight with the Enclave not like in Halo 3 by any means but in Fallout 3, as you inflitrate Adams air force base with the entire Enclave army that are also there trying to prepare the attack of the Brotherhood, it's kinda sad that Liberty Prime robot malfunctions in this DLC as the Enclave destroyed it, the main objective is to destroy the Enclave base also with the DLC you can get an Tesla Cannon with it, before you do all that you need to go to a place with Deathclaws which is a terrifying place as the Enclave do thier research on Deathclaws, can't say why but they are maniacs obviously, Enclave are sure obsessed with those creatures, you go to that place and you have to retrieve something I believe and bring it back to the Brotherhood as well, then you can prepare yourself to take on the Enclave base at the end of all of this you basically make the base explode & you are done with the DLC of the game, also murder the Enclave people who are in there since they are against you, other than that great DLC to collect all the ammo for your favourite Energy weapons of guns which can disintegrate your enemies with an deadly effect, The Brotherhood will tell you, you have won with the Enclave base is no longer to be located on Fallout 3 and that concludes all DLC.

I LOVE FALLOUT 3. For the age,the game runs pretty good. But thankfully there are console commands that can be used to help you get 'unstuck'. The biggest pain point are terminals when playing on extra wide screens (5120 X 1440 Resolution). I have to always use 'closeallmenus' to get out of a terminal because it shows up so close, the power button is clipped. Also 'fov 85' to fix how close your weapon is to your face.

The game play is incredible, and fun. I get lost for hours in this game regardless of the technical issues I encounter.

Very Fun Gameplay but the writing coluld be sop much ebetter

Fantastic classic, guns and bombs are great.

Don't let the seven hour gameplay on Steam's records fool you, I have played this game on both xbox and playstation when it came out, and played it to death until New Vegas dropped, and then played it some more.

Steam's recent seven hours of my gameplay comes from two things, that it finally works on modern hardware that is much different than what Bethesda built the software for at the time, which was surprisingly optimized really well, and that I finally noticed.

Regardless of critiques of this game by some very popular youtubers, I think they fundamentally misunderstand this game.

Fair is fair, it /is/ a little bit shallow, it /is/ a little bit moustache twirlingly evil when it gives you the option to be.
But since we're being fair to those points, I'm going to say something that surprises even me, for once, we have to be fair to Bethesda.
Bethesda bought this franchise because they were fans of it, and they understood a lot more of the design philosophy of the first two games than given credit for; however, it is undermined by developer fear that the player base would not like this new direction, and so, we get the fan service of caps as currency, super mutants on the east coast, and all the other hits, but we get little to no satisfying explanation as to why they are here.

That said, the atmosphere is bleak, and if you choose to play with the radio off, the environmental sound track is absolutely amazing.
The wasteland is also desolate and sparse, filled with hostility, with points of interest few and far between.

People critisize the whackiness, the likes of Moira Brown, but not only is she a matter of comedic juxtaposition true to the first two games, she is a good highlight that people of the wasteland view you with a apathetic disposability, if you die, she's just going to ask the next person gullible enough to say yes, she is actively taking advantage of someone who does not know what the wasteland is like, and on a meta note, also introducing us the player to exploration.

That Fallout 4 is almost the exact opposite of this is practically our own fault, a collectathon plastic result of vehement fanbased backlash, combined with lessons taken on board from New Vegas surprisingly enough.
Suffice it to say, if you want a true modern experience of the old games, Fallout 3 is where it is at.

overall positive but i accidentally beat the game after only 20 hours with no real warning, i feel the main story was very short

Fallout 3 is a worthy, if slightly flawed successor to 1/2.

Bethesda did a great job of converting the series to 3D and the modding support has allowed it to fix the wealth of bugs left behind by Bethesda.

It's a bit ugly visually, even at the standard of it's release time, but play it with the New Vegas engine through the 'Tale of Two Wastelands' mods and you can bring it up to a better visual standard.

If you plan on playing this in 2025, use Tale of Two Wastelands. You need all DLC for both F3 and FNV and It takes a while to do but its definitely worth it. Fixes most issues of both games and you can access all of F3s and FNVs content in a single save. https://thebestoftimes.moddinglinked.com/index.html

I love the game, I really do.
It used to work for me on my old computer, which ran the same version of windows my current one is using, except that the old computer had issues internally and does not work properly at times. when I try to run the game on my current pc, even with guides to fix the issues that Bethesda made, it still does not work on my pc.
I really want to play this game again, as it was my first and favorite fallout game. and I highly recommend the game if you have a decent computer that can emulate an older windows version to even let it run.
either that, or get the game on console, which would be more difficult to do considering they do not make the discs for it anymore. All I want from Bethesda, is one of two things, either fix your game, and actually make it playable, or make a remastered version on par with the recent Oblivion remaster.

I believe fallout 3 has the best atmosphere of all the 3D games in the series. you never feel truly safe out in the wasteland thanks to random encounters and wandering enemies, and the art style is done just right to make you feel uneasy in the majority of locations. I thought this was the scariest game ever when I was younger playing it, and it’s still pretty haunting at times (vault 87, dunwich building, DLC areas, etc.)

sure, bethesda’s writing isn’t quite as good as obsidian’s, but if you can overlook that, you’ll be treated to a more detailed world than new vegas. there’s something to see and/or loot just about everywhere in fallout 3, but new vegas has plenty more empty-feeling spaces and distance between points of interest. that’s not necessarily a negative but something to note at least. you’ll be finding more stuff more often in this game, and the DC ruins are even more densely packed

fallout 3 is definitely worth experiencing if you’ve never played it due to negative reviews or otherwise, just for the atmosphere alone. not many games come close to the level of “unsettling” this one does

It was fun. Be aware that if you complete the main quest the game ends so get the exploring and side quests done first.

This is pretty much a cult classic at this point. One of Bethesda's best games in the Fallout universe. I wish they would remaster it and put some of FO4's mechanics in it or at least make the characters more modern looking. However there is a charm that can't be beat.

Its good, i know most people say its better than fallout 4, but the running mechanic is unbearable, i would play it more if the guy could run like a human instead of a little girl going to sunday school, but other than that its good.

This was my first Fallout game; it has been a decade since I last played this, but the game holds up very well compared to modern games. The main quest line, while not having NV's player choice, has the player go through many fun and interesting locations and objectives. The side-quests are very memorable with the double-edged-sword of needing to explore and find them randomly in the wasteland. I would highly recommend Fallout 3 to those who love the Fallout Franchise and those who love Bethesda Game Studios games

Genuinely fun. Install some HD mods patchers and its fun. Even without the retextures its still fun.

steam doesnt work well with this game so theres no screenshots, achievements or playtime recorded at all, crashes constantly and new vegas is way better

I don't know how Bethesda made Oblivion and then went to make this game; it's really really fucking boring, the base game and the DLC just are so weak sauce compared to the rest of the series; even just compared to Fallout 4, it's just so.... boring. It's not the worst game I've ever played but the story and character progression is just a nothing burger.

This was the first RPG I have ever completed and back in the day I absolutely adored it. However, as the time passed, I realised how much flawed this game truly is.
I personally don't require top notch graphics, and I don't have much problem with playing games that are not visually appealing, even though I of course prefer quality visuals, but this game is objectively really outdated in terms of graphics even for its time. But bad graphics are passable for me.
The bigger problem are gameplay mechanics, especially the shooting and combat generally, which is just junky and doesn't work well. I know this game is built on gamebryo engine, the engine which powered Oblivion, but good god, what a miserable experience it is gameplay wise. I would argue that the combat is partly fixed in Fallout: New Vegas which runs on the same engine, but even in that game it's quite a downside. But in contrast to New Vegas, Fallout 3 has even bigger issues than just poor gameplay mechanics.
The main story is decent, even quite good in the first half. I don't personally hate the intro, where you grow up in Vault 101, because it makes sense to try to make the player attached to the character of James, player character's father. However, the problem is that James' on-screen time is extremely short, thus making the intro truly redundant, because his role in the story is just to introduce project purity and die. That's basically it. And it's a shame, because I liked James in the intro. But even without James in the first half, it's the better part of the story. Much better in fact. When I played The Witcher 3, I reminisced over Fallout 3 first half because of the evident similarities, when you search for a supposedly beloved character. The difference is, however, that in Wild Hunt this concept works perfectly, because Ciri has quite a lot of screen time after you find her and she is one of the best characters in the game with complex motivations. But James in Fallout 3 isn't like that at all. Even his morals aren't consistent, because if you blow up Megaton, he just says something like he is disappointed in you and that you will speak later seriously about that topic, WHICH NEVER HAPPENS BECAUSE HE DIES. And oh my god the part when Enclave arrives... From this point, the story is just awful. Enclave shouldn't exist at this point, for it was destroyed in Fallout 2. But even worse than the fact it was retconned is the execution, which is straight up terrible. Enclave doesn't have single interesting character, no complexity whatsoever. President Eden is supposed to be a supercomputer, but you can still persuade him so easily to blow himself and the whole Enclave base up. And colonel Autumn is equally miserable. I know Broken Steel fixed the ending itself, but I am reviewing the base game here, for I have no intention in continuing my journey throughout this mess of a game, so I just want to point out my deepest dissatisfaction with the ending, which is too black and white for a FALLOUT GAME, FOR GODS’ SAKE. Why should you be treated as a selfish or even bad guy (lol) if you refused to sacrifice yourself in the end, when there is literal Brotherhood of Steel sentinel who is supposed to do the sacrifice without hesitation (the decision of transforming the complex faction of BoS into just some kind of order of knights in shining armour with tech weapons is also kind of bad, because it removes it's sophisticated characteristics from previous titles, but hey, it's a Bethesda game, what should I expect - the worst part is, that sentinel Lyons' unwillingness to sacrifice just FO3's BoS extremely inconsistent in its core characteristics).
So, the gameplay is outdated, main story is kind of awful, what about side quests? In my opinion, this is perhaps the best part of the game, if you happen to stumble upon the, I will say, better content. There are some quests that are definitely worth your time, especially The Wasteland Survival Guide one. However, most of the side content lacks moral dilemmas and this shouldn't be the case in a Fallout game, right?
Exploration can be rewarding, if you consider as reward the endless loop of looting, bad combat, looting, bad combat, looting... Ahh, this game was truly rushed. Interiors are mostly the same, there is almost nobody in the Wasteland even though it's 200 years after the Great War and civilization should be much more present. The world of Fallout 3 just feels so dead. Even Fallout 1, where it was understandable that the world is in ruins, for the game is set just 80 years after the bombs fell, had more vibrant and living world.
The only thing I can truly appreciate is the hunting atmosphere of dreadfulness, which I really enjoyed.

Summary:
Technical state (4/10)
Story (4/10)
Side quests (7/10)
Graphics (4/10)
World and level design (6/10)
Atmosphere and soundtrack (9/10)
RPG elements (7/10)
Gameplay (4/10)

Final score: 5.6/10
I can ‘t recommend Fallout 3 because of its technical state on PC, where it just doesn’t even start without mods on Windows 11. And to even enjoy this game, you have to ignore the main story, which isn’t a good sign. DLCs are not taken in mind in this review, and they probably won’t receive their own reviews, because I have no intention to return to this game, sorry.

Pretty good game. I think it has some very good quests and it was did a big and impressive jump for the series. It has some of the coolest and most interesting side content, like Tenpenny Towers, Vault 108, Rivet City, and the expansions.
It doesn't work well on other systems and you can't side with any factions which is annoying.
Overall 8/10 definitely buy on sale

Finished Fallout 3, Used the Tale of 2 Wastelands Mod and which has a lengthy installation process to make it play in the New Vegas Engine or would use the unofficial patch and in Wanderer’s Addition and this game doesn’t work on windows and will crash and will install a mod for that. Manifest Destiny definitely enhances the enclave and gives the choice to join them compared to the base game.

The Game story is just not as good as New Vegas and starting to understand why people say Bethesda doesn’t understand fallout all that well or lack any type of story depth in their games. Majority of the worldbuilding is just 2 major settlements and a lot of the other locations don’t really leave an impression besides the vaults. I really like the Little Lamplight and Big town lore since it was pretty interesting to help them out along with the escaped slaves in the temple of union but beyond that the game barely gives you or leads you into interesting side stuff to flesh out the world and not structured to make you immerse and you really have. This game really lacks in having an abundance of notable questlines apart from the main line and it makes the wasteland feel like a barren wasteland in some of the worst ways and makes the rest of the setting left unexplored due to no questlines not taking place in less populated areas. The Main quest involves your Self-insert’s Father and is a completely forgettable character and it feels you don’t have much input as the player to carve your own mark into the world. It only takes 5 min to make president Eden self delete and you barely interact with the general which makes them forgettable antagonists and the enclave barely has presence in the wasteland in the story. The Main story will only take 30 hours to finish compared to the 62 hours I spent in the main story in New Vegas and that goes to show the amount of content difference in quality and quantity. The Only factions are the BoS and Enclave with the other enemy groups being your raiders and super mutants and it kinda gets boring fighting the same enemy over and over and it’s not offset by the somewhat bland and empty open world with barely anything to do. The Companions add some perks but that’s really it but Fawkes was a goat and kind of a success of the Vault 87 experiment.

The DLCs also vary in quality, Mothership Zeta was cool for a while and then I was meh throughout the rest of the experience but the alien weapon was cool but the story has nothing to write home about. The Pitt had plenty of weight and was the strongest in terms of story since it did Death Stranding before Kojima came up with the concept with the choice to do with the baby and the enemies was okay and choices felt interesting to explore and having to double back. Point Lookout had a cool concept but the main concept with the brain and the Ghoul left me disconnected and since it barely had depth and was more interested in the enclave presence in the area and the inbreds and what was going on with them. I had major Game crashing glitches in this area and nowhere else. Broken Steel was the best since it feels like a natural epilogue to the main story line in wiping out the enclave forces and you get very cool weapons. Project Anchorage was interesting, like getting a prequel of the American chinese war but it was just okay.

The Overall Gameplay in the NV Engine just improves the experience and using the guns and the stats does matter a lot but the speech is reduced to percentages instead numerical values which always bother due to constantly reloading save files to pass speech cheeks. A lot of the guns are great and I favor using the .32 rifle, sniper rifle, and assault rifles since they do good damage values in the VATS and are basically a big clutch when it comes to combat.

Characters in the game are not memorable.

My favourite fallout game because it was also my first. Simple story with good progression, plenty of choices, game is challenging without being ridiculously hard - Fallout 4 I'm looking at you - Immersive and engaging. I actually felt like I was in a post apocalyptic world. It's like being Lucy from the TV Show, trying to find your father, and making friends and enemies along the way.

good game currently facing launching problems but good game

My first Fallout, and still fun to play through every few years. The exploration and random encounters are the best in the series. Would love to see this get the Oblivion Remastered treatment in the future!

As others have said, this game is practically unplayable as of 2025. Game crashes upon starting new game. Installed various patches as well as configuring files and still no luck. Much older games run fine on new hardware so age isn't an excuse, it's purely Bethesda laziness that this game no longer works. How this is allowed to stay up on Steam is astounding, surely this must fail some Steam Store quality control.

Aw well, New Vegas is much better although that game is an unstable mess that is prone to crashes, but at least it starts up and plays.

Broken and unplayable as of 2025. No YouTube guides or Nexus patches work anymore. If there is not a remaster of this coming in 2026 (which lets be real is just another classic, contemptable Bethesda cash grab) then this game is well and truly dead on Steam and you are going to have to bust out your old Xbox 360 to even hope to play it anymore. Games like this should be delisted unless the publisher is going to fix it.

The best of the 3d Fallout games.
K.I.S.S.
Just make a character and go out exploring.
Good times.

Love the story, DLC's and combat but steam wont record my hours correctly

Playing this for the first time as a teenager was one of the greatest gaming experiences ever. It's still great today, even without mods.

Literally my favorite Fallout Game of all time, I had gotten it on the PS3 back in the day and being able to play it on the Steam Deck on the go is a Dream come true.
It's performance on the Steam Deck is amazing only crashing like every 5 hours or more.

This game has a massive following Honestly it needs my feedback like a insect needs to be in congress. Needless and pointless. Buy this game.

Half of the enemies don't belong on the East coast and should've stayed out of this game.
This is a fan game that got an official release.
It abandons the mechanics of the originals to be an Elder Scrolls game with a Fallout aesthetic.
You have to pay to be able to keep playing after you beat the game.

Ah Fallout 3- My introduction to the world of Fallout all the way back in 2008. A little janky, but still a good time. Word of advice: look for mods that fix the Broken Steel added enemies so they are less frustrating.

tl:dr Quite fun, yet mediocre at best

This game makes you appreciate how much work was put to New Vegas to make this formula work.

Also roaming wasteland is kind of fun with all that hectic random encounters and free for all fights.

And despite its age, it never crashed, tho there were a few quirks.

That is pretty much all good things I can say about this game.

Writing is naive, main quest feels uninspired. Worldbuilding is generic TES-pilled Good Knights vs Evil Orcs (oh and there are Evil Knights too! And even Good Knights, who are kinda bad) but in post apocalyptic setting.

Gameplay mechanics are shallow. Perks system has so much wasted potential. Alaska DLC is tedious Call of Duty Fallout spin-off, which upon completing gives you ungodly amount of weapons, power armor AND a skill, required to wear it.

Like, hello? Game is pretty much over from this point on.

I dont think I will ever want to replay FO3 again, but that certainly was an experience.

I do not recommend this game. 4/10

Disclaimers although before I get started. I played this game for the first time in 2025. I've owned the game for years, but never played it because it always crashed with the whole Games for Windows Live thing. I knew they removed that a few years ago, but I just got around to playing it. I've played Fallout New Vegas, Fallout 4, and part of Fallout 2 before this game. My perspective comes from comparing it to the others. While I have lots of complaints I will not deny the importance or impact of Fallout 3 upon release. Without Fallout 3 there would be no NV or 4 to compare it to. The innovations made in 3 guided the series along. Upon release in 2008 I know it was mind blowing, that being said however I don't find the game has aged well.

The Positive

This game has a lot of things I dislike, but I want to start with the things I enjoyed first. FO3 has probably some of my favorite vaults in the whole franchise. Vault 108 and Vault 92 being my favorite. This game also has one of my favorite DLCs in the fallout franchise being The Pitt. The Pitt had great atmosphere and actually interesting moral choices to be made. Besides that I do have to credit Bethesda with making much better improvements in character design since Oblivion in 2006. Characters look pretty good all things considered for this time period. I do have to admit that Fallout 3 innovated for the series to lay the groundwork for future 3D Fallout games. A lot of the things in this game is nice and those best parts got taken and put into future Fallout games. Cool things like the VATS system and the audio diaries and environmental storytelling. The grocery store with the looney tunes-esque booby traps in it was amazing.

The Neutral

Not really bad or good, but things I noticed is how similar thematically Fallout 3 is to Fallout 4. A lot of the themes is 3 feel expanded on in 4. I mean the whole story of 4 is just the "The Replicated Man" quest expanded. Another thing is that a lot of the radio tracks in 3 get reused in 4. In a way in makes Fallout 3 and Fallout 4 feel like they're off doing their own thing while Fallout 2 and Fallout New Vegas are doing something else. Fallout New Vegas feels much more like a sequel to 2 then 3 does. They have very different vibes from one another.

The Negative

The very first negative thing I had going was even getting the game to play. As I mentioned prior I couldn't even play the game thanks to GFWL. Even after they removed that requirement I had constant issues with my Windows 10 computer with a 4070 GPU 16GB Ram and 3.60GHz CPU. Vanilla the game would crash in the intro cutscene every time. I had to get bug fixing mods just to start the game. I spent a few hours trying to get the game to even run. Once it was running I was getting performance issues with it only running at 50 fps. Apparently the physics is tied to fps so I had to get a mod to fix that, but I was still having performance issues so I eventually had to clamp the FPS to 60. No reason for the game to run like that with my rig. Once I was playing the game without crashing or awful performance I was having other issues. Out of every Bethesda game I have played I honestly think this one is the most glitchy. It's horrible. Even with the unofficial patch I still encountered multiple game breaking bugs like being shot into a wall or important character's being dead before I even met them in a T-Pose. Besides the mods I had for bug fixing and performance I played the game vanilla to experience it, but also because the modding scene is dead. Almost all the mods are from 2009 only. Seems like as soon as New Vegas dropped the modding scene here dried up instantly. Very few mods were released after 2010. None that looked interesting to me anyways. My biggest gripe is the gameplay. It feels half baked when compared to New Vegas that used the same engine. The games play very similarly, but New Vegas really added the polish to the gameplay that it needed. Fallout 3 has no weapon mods. No weapon repair kits. No alternate ammo. The only ammo bench is in The Pitt DLC. It's missing a lot of elements I just took for granted in NV. Besides a few stand outs almost all the perks are absolute garbage. Most perks increase your skill points, but you get skill points when you level up anyways and you can easily max out your all your skill points so these perks feel absolutely wasted. Furthermore the armor and arsenal feel minuscule when compared to the other games. The map also feels tiny as well. The depth to the gameplay that NV added just isn't there. There aren't even iron sights to aim down with the weapons it just zooms in. The world itself feels pretty boring. A lot of the locations aren't too memorable. There's a lot of boring metro stations that make it confusing to navigate the D.C. area. I don't feel the same joy exploring the map as I do in other Fallout games. The town's have interesting gimmicks, but just don't feel quite fleshed out. The exploring locations feel so boring it's hard to care to explore them. They feel more like places than pieces of lore. A lot of my time playing I was only playing to do the quests and DLC to experience it. Not for enjoyment. The game does have some highlights with some locations and spectical of some set pieces, but most of it was a drag to get through. I would only recommend it to die hard fans who want to know more about the series at any cost or to experience the Vaults or the DLCs. A few good moments ruined by an ocean of nothing.

I don't know how many times I've played this game - on the Xbox 360, on the PS3 and now on PC. IMO, this is THE Fallout game. It's an atmospheric masterpiece. I've tried New Vegas and Fallout 4 and they just couldn't compete with the unique setting of Fallout 3.
However: This version is a tad more difficult to love. Return to Windows while the game is running means the game will crash (every single time). Or it will just crash randomly at any point. I still don't have the heart to give it a negative review, although I probably should. :\

This game really never gets old! There's so many choices and possibilities that it can be replayed endlessly. Fallout 3 was my first introduction into open world RPGs and its the reason of my love for the genre today! If you havn't played Fallout 3 before, don't be put off by the graphics and give it a shot. You wont be disappointed!