Now, before I get started, I have only played FO3, so cut me some slack. I have, however done massive research on the net about FO and FO2, and although this IS Fallout 3, it seems like Fallout plus Fallout 2.
In Fallout you had the to stop. In Fallout 2 you Had . And in Fallout 3.....you get both. Instead of being creative and making a whole new enemy (seeing as this game is totally unrelated to the first two) Beth pretty much said "Okay, we got FO and FO2 as the basis for a good game, and TES seems pretty successful, lets mix these three games!" and out popped fallout 3....
I honestly feel like, as a relatively new player (about a year now) I have little right to complain, but after seeing how awesome the original two were...I just feel disappointed about something I never got. I mean. FO: . FO2: FO3: ....yea, real creative.

Well, you're not wrong in that they haven't added any new major enemies to pit you against in Fallout 3.

The other thing to keep in mind was that they knew going into this project that this game was going to be very closely scrutinized (to put it mildly) by us fans of the original games. It could (and has been) argued that really the only things that have stayed the same in the transition between this game and the previous ones were things like the Enclave and Supermutants, etc. It was pretty much a done deal from the start that a lot of people weren't going to agree with the direction Bethesda went with the franchise. However, to make any more changes would have been to further risk Fallout 3 not being accepted as a Fallout game, at all - that it would be viewed as not a worthy addition to the franchise.

You also have to keep in mind that (I'd imagine) a large portion of their target audience was going to be people who'd never played the previous Fallout games (and likely wouldn't have even heard of them before now.) There was already going to be the task of introducing these new players into the world of Fallout - adding more stuff into the game would be an even bigger task. Fallout 3 being in many ways a sort of "reboot" to the franchise, anyway. Sure, they already had The Joker in the very first Batman movie - but now that they're going back to it's roots and "rebooting" the franchise with Batman: Begins - could the same be said for the new Batman movie having another actor playing a role that was already featured previously?

Now that they've established themselves and the setting with Fallout 3 - I'd imainge that we can expect to see a lot more new content in (the hypothetical) Fallout 4. Fallout 3 was sort of a rehashing of previous themes and archetypes for a new audience (in sort of the same way the new Star Trek movie was, even...) Now that everyone is on the same page from Fallout 3, they can introduce new elements without the added worry of facing quite as much criticism for it.

Well... I'd say that since Fallout 3 can be considered a reboot of the series, the revision of the old, successful concepts was to be expected.
The inclusion of the enclave, super mutants, raiders, bos etc. doesn't bother me - since I consider its purpose to be introducing some of the main concepts, that made the old Fallouts such loved games, to the 'new generation of gamers' that hadn't had a chance to play them.

(My main gripe isn't so much with the inclusion of these enemies, but with the presentation of them - super mutants in particular used to be freeking scary in the old games - organized, smart (some of them at least) and very tough, in FO3 they are just a bunch of mindless freaks that if they hadn't figured out how to handle miniguns, they would be nothing more than a little nuisance for a level 2 character)

I would, however, expect some fresh ideas to start appearing from the next game on.


EDIT... nu_clear_day beat me to it by a few seconds... now my entire post goes to waste and I might as well delete it and just quote his entire post instead

I didn't even think of that, you make a really good point there, I'm thinking of cutting Beth a lot more slack over FO3 now, thnx for the input!

Let's keep these sorts of comparisons to one thread please.
http://www.gamesas.com/bgsforums/index.php?showtopic=1053797