So I played Oblivion some (the leveling system was literally backwards to me) and put a ton of time into Skyrim, and I've had FO3 sitting on my shelf for years and it never dawned on me it was a Beth made game, boy do I feel stupid. Post-apocalyptic games/fiction/movies are pretty much my favorite genre, so I've had a ton of fun with FO3 on 360 (only the 100 locations perk needs to be unlocked) and have made several characters, and I'm wondering if people agree with my observations:

1. SPECIAL isn't special at all. Each point in it only means a difference of 2 in skill, and as long as you have a decent INT and LUCK, you're all set. Comprehension, Educated, and skill books along with +5/+5 skill perks make it so where the difference between a 5 score and 10 score is not even really noticable.

2. Following #1, Charisma, Speech, and Barter are pretty much useless. You might get a few more caps or the occasional quest, but they could have made it so much better. I made what I thought was the most expensive character I could using a Gatling Laser, Mini Nuke, Plasma Rifle, Power Armor, and Grenades, and I looked up that mini nukes are lowered from 400 to 250 caps with 100 barter. You can level up Speech still pretty easy with a 1 charisma anyway. Would have been cool if like they had a morale score on the raiders that worked on Charisma Score x Level and they would flee from you or not want to fight if your rep was high enough.

3. Small Guns, Repair, and Lockpick are the only real skills you need, Sneak if you want to be that way. Melee is completely useless, unless you want to strap a gas tank on your back and an oven mitt on your hand. Some expansions seem to address this, but overall both melee and unarmed seem to have gotten the shaft.

4. I have an almost unnatural amount of fun with grenades. They're light, powerful (especially if you perk them up), and can basically completely take the place of big guns.

5. After playing FO3 for 100+ hours, I realize that the ES games would benefit greatly from limb damage. There's a lot of tactics in disabling someone's arms or legs, rather then just the block, bash, attack routine that seems to be the best way to go in Skyrim.