Title says it all. What was your athmosphere and feeling when you got to play FO3 for the first time, and how did you get it?

Mine:

So I ordered Fallout 3 from a netshop a week before christmas (monday), and that week was alot of pain. I waited and waited for the game to come and every day I sat on my computer watching FO3 videos and my hunger was growing all the time. Then, on the damned thursday, the game come... but I could not get it. It became to the nearby post office and sadly when I got the ticket in my postlocker to get it from there, the office was already closed. Well, next day after school, my parents decided we're going to my sister to throw the x-mas presents to her kids (I actually couldn't skip the trip).... nooo, still not on to play. I at least quickly ran to that post office to get the game. The cartrip was loooong, and every second of that trip I readed the FO3 manual book and the cover, growing my hunger still more up. After a long day I finally got to play for few hours (it was night already) and the athmosphere was... unbelievable. My red christmas lights on the wall, the x-mas tree in the corner, everything dark, snow everywhere outside... I simply can't forget the feeling I got out of the Vault to explore the wastelands.

Ha ha, long and boring story... but tell your feelings please!

I got my copy at the start of the summer holiday this year. I put in the disc and watched the intro. I couldn't believe it. I got goosebumps! No game, movie, book, or anything else fictional had ever made me "goosebump" before. A moment later my best friend comes online and we played some Castle Crashers. No more Fallout that day... The next day it was the same deal. My friend was playing CC and I joined again. He never wants to play it, so I had to take advantage of this one time. Then, on the third day, I finally got to play it! I ran around trying to figure out the setup of Megaton. It took quite some time, and it all looked the same, frankly, so it took some time to figure it out. I went out of the settlement and reached Springvale School. I shot the raiders there and went inside. I had never entered a pre-war building in Fallout before, so it was an experience. I remember thinking: "I need to get the hell outta here!" Seriously, it was like being there myself! It was intense, it really was.

Well, I had just gotten my ps3 of Rent A Center, we went directly to gamestop which was across the street from RAC, bought it for 20 bucks got home, started playing, as soon as I got out of the vault, my jaw dropped, it was freaking awesome. As I continued playing, a combanation of fear,adranoline rush, joy, helplessness, loneliness. So freaking awesome ^-^

Haha, and also at the first months I started to think everything in real life the Fallout way, I imagined I pay with Caps instead of euros, or drink Nuka-Cola instead of Coke etc etc.

My "First atmospheric" impression probably shouldn't count because I hated walking out of the Vault and having to use V.A.T.S to even get a kill and I guess I hadn't gotten any gun skills BUT.
I went back about a year later and now my first impression was pretty heavy because I walked into Springvale and was like "Wow.... this place is GONE"
I was more or less enthralled by the "rolling" dust when you view out into the distance, but springvale sold me.

When I first played the game on Xbox360, I was just amazed with how beautifully the scenery was even though it was a massive wasteland with all sorts of dangers wanting to murder you. When I was started to play it I was a little scared and stayed it in Megaton for a little while then I left and started to explore everything that I thought was "scary" and in the end I sorta conquered my fear of Fallout 3 and was enjoying it with all the things you can do and how one bad/good action can change how everyone treats you. When I finally finished the game I was pretty happy. Then I got rid of Fallout 3 for the Xbox360 and Fallout 3:GOTY edition for the PC.

It almost felt depressing.

To go from this place where the dangers of the outside world were never apparent, and then you walk through that door. to nothing. Its all gone, yet few buildings are left standing. Then I came across megaton and fell in love <3.