Out of all the games I've played I'd say Fallout 3 is the best. It's not perfect of course, but it somehow seems more consistently satisfying than any other game. Now, I'm sure a lot of people here agree that it's a great game, but in general terms WHY is it so good? To put it another way, why do so many potentially amazing games dissapoint?

Here's my attempt to summarize:
- In Fallout 3, there is huge freedom to choose how to respond to situations. The whole choose-your-own-adventure thing. Choice goes way beyond deciding whether to use a machine gun or a grenade (which is basically the only choice you get in the otherwise thrilling Call of Duty games).
- A big part of this choice is the ability to have personal politics: karma, dialogue options, a reputation, affiliation to different factions and people. You end up actually caring what happens and feeling responsible for the consequences of your actions. Far Cry 2 was brilliant, but it really played down this aspect of choice and missed out on being a masterpiece as a result.
- The setting is open world and that's great to explore. There are very few points where you get told "you can't come here yet, come back later".
- There is a huge amount of character development. All the stats and skills make a huge difference to how the game is played. Most action games just rely on your reflexes and the kit that you have.
- There is a realistic relationship with the physical world around you. Fallout has Physics. You can fall off buildings and drown. Mass Effect is a great game but it just doesn't have this. Also, Fallout 3 is very object oriented. You can carry what you like, within certain limits. You don't have a "heavy weapon" slot. Suppose you love your handguns and want to carry 5 different ones - go ahead. You find stuff just lying around as you would in real life without great big pink arrows pointing to them or messages saying "pick up the heavy machine gun and defend the fort". You can do novel things with the stuff lying around that isn't pre-scripted. Bodies don't fade away moments after death. And this is important: if you leave something somewhere you will find it later on, even years later.
- You can 'fail' a quest and the game continues. Contrast that with e.g. Grand Theft Auto San Andreas where you have to keep repeating some quest until you succeed. You somehow go back in time and end up having the same conversation (or car chase) with someone 20 times. It's so unreaslitic. In Fallout 3 you never have to repeat something unless you get killed.
- The setting is a top notch work of fantasy. Ridiculous, comical, exciting, intense, scary...not at all boring, but not too far from actual reality. You can still relate to it.

I'd like to hear your own thoughts. What is it that makes this game extra special?

Open world. HUGE, post-apoc, 50's Sci-Fi, lots and lots to do. Cool music. Cause and effect. Though some things could be a bit more tweaked (*Couch*Stealth*Cough*) I love it. I've shelfed it for F:NV so I don't get bored with it as fast

pretty much the Huge environment, open free world is what did it for me, and what makes it even better is i can turn into whatever i want with mods

Huge world, a LOT of quests and the fact that it is an RPG.
Character customization is cool to, but i could've done it without

In one word: freedom.

It looks good and the stories are interesting and the characters are enjoyable. It is a well thought out game. The NPCs are given a kind of life of their own (I hope they continue to improve this). I think an open environment that responds to the player's actions is they key to great PC RPG games. Ever since Ultima II long, long ago I've enjoyed games like that the most.

Open World, Character Customization, FPS RPG, being able to do what you want not just the main quest.

Freedom. And MODS

Perfect? Of course not... nothing on God's green earth is perfect. But if you want to get close to perfect when it comes to video gaming..? FO3 is it.

Your first remark about what makes the game so dang good..? About the freedom to roam..? Is spot on.

Sometimes I don't want to follow the Main Game quest or any Miscellaneous quest either so I just motor thorough the Wasteland to seen what I can see. Something ALWAYS pops up that will grab my attention and that always makes the game interesting and continually playable.

1. Near-total freedom: go anywhere, do anything
2. Great environments
3. Engaging characters you actually care about
4. A cool storyline
5. A wide variety of enemies and ways to kill them.

Very nicely summarized, Shambo.

I think story is a main factor in immersion in games. It goes along with graphics, voice acting, and gameplay, of course, but it's definitely one of the things that svcks me into a game world.

Now, a brilliantly made, graphically stunning "rails shooter" like HalfLife2 can be a wonderful thing, and tell one story very well, but it's still just one story. After a few playthroughs, you've seen it.

On the other hand, lots of computer RPG's rely on variations on "turn based" gameplay taken from pencil & paper RPG's. It's really hard to go back to them after a few hours of running around shooting bad guys in HalfLife2 or Halo, etc. That is some fun shootin'!

So games like GTA4 and Fallout3 are the blend of choice... and F3 is the winner, for the reasons Shambo says.
... not that there isn't room for improvement in the storytelling aspect, but that's what writers are good at.

Also the Mods rule. :celebration:

There are many factors as to why Fallout 3 is so good, sure it's not a game for everyone, many find the freedom to be too overwhelming due to being so used to linear paths and next to no freedom in games for the most part.

The setting, the story, the characters, the history of the game world and so much more all works together to make a very enjoyable game. It's not perfect, but then there's no such thing as perfect.

For me, I like sandbox games where I can go do what I want without many constraints and limits. I like a huge world to explore and do what I want in.

Games such as GTA offer this but the problem is the environment doesn't react to you outside of the main quest: you can get wanted stars and kill people but they will just regenerate a day later in the game and if you lose the wanted stars nothing happens. Ideally the police would implement new methods due to increasing crime, it would be reported in the news and the world would react to your actions.

Fallout 3 does this better than any other game I've played: different places will change depending on what you do there and how you speak to people. You can kill many characters and they stay dead and a lot of the world reacts to you. However, it's still not perfect: ideally you could react to their reaction which they'd in turn react to. So new unheard of organisations would crop up, people would move into slaughtered settlements and so forth. But to make a game that complex is far beyond technology today.

Thanks for sharing your thoughts on this, guys and girls! It's good to relate to some fellow enthusiasts.

The only other game I played that had a similar blend of qualities was Deus Ex. That's very old now of course, and that was way linear compared to Fallout 3.

Hopefully more games like this can be made - will definately be playing Fallout NV.

It's not just that it is a big and lets you move around freely - it's that there is so much to find and explore and do, and the freedom to do what you please with it. For example GTA4 is big and free-ish, nothing makes you advance the plot and stealing cars and sending them flying through the arch through pedestrians is fun, but there isn't much on any given block other than stealing cars and killing people and if you want to get out of faux Brooklyn you'll need to advance the plot. Red Faction Guerilla, again driving and killing but with plenty of destructable environment as well, but really will that help you much in advancing your character? You can get scrap out of it but that's it, you'll still need to advance the plot to get to the next bit after Dust and have it mean anything. In FO￡ you can go practically anywhere at anytime. Sure, might be very dangerous for your level 2 character to be hanging out in front of the Capitol building but it's your call. And what you do when you get there (beyond trying to stay alive from the SM attacking you) is up to you.

I consider this game absolutely incredible for two reasons.

First off, as mentioned, the freedom is literally absolute. You can never finish the main quest and just run around having random encounters and still have a great time. You can be as good or as evil as you please. You can kill virtually anyone you want to. It's a kind of total freedom of action you rarely find in any video game.

Secondly, the world is absolutely amazing. The retro-future, post-apocalyptic setting is executed in incredible fashion. I think I have yet to come across another fictional universe that I have found as intriguing and compelling as Fallout 3. It's simply incredible. Walking through downtown DC blew me away. The terrible beauty of this game is unparalleled. It's hard to put into words, really. The world is just so detailed and well-designed.

There are a few things that I think make Fallout 3 Great.

Obviously, like everyone has already said, the freedom to do what you want, when you want. Want to kill your dog? Go ahead (you heartless monster).

Also, it's like you're living another life. A messed up life, but what can you expect after a nuclear war?

And there is more than one thing to do. It's not just a main quest and a bunch of "Can you go get 'x' for me?".

A lot of folks hit it on the head. For me, a "sandbox" game, like FO3, Oblivion, or Morrowind is always preferable to a "linear" game, like CoD. Call of Duty was great fun, but constrained. You can't beat the freedom of going where you want to whenever you want to and doing whatever you want to do.

Okay, so I've played fallout quite a bit and I just can't keep myself playing it. I've got friends who absolutely love it, but I just can't stay interested. Allow me to explain my idea...

So I played Oblivion first (and Morrowind before that). I loved the game to death. I still play it and I can say it's one of my top 2 games I've ever beat. Then I got to Fallout and it just didn't have the same appeal to me. Now my friends played Fallout first and they love the game to death but they can't play Oblivion like I can. So I think it has something to do with which you get to first. :shrug:

Don't get me wrong. I don't mind playing Fallout, but there are certain things that aren't as appealing to me.

What (that was particularly good) in Fallout 1 & 2, is in Fallout 3? (besides Vault Boy)

Harold

I too enjoyed playing Oblivion before FO3 but after playing FO3 I have found I can't get into Oblivion anymore, for me it seems to lack something 'magic' that FO3 has.

Other than the good points already raised by other members I also like the random encounters and items for the house that actually have a purpose. I also like the way collectable junk when combined with other junk can create something new and makes junk worthwhile collecting. I also like the way the lighting changes and how this reflects of the rocks and buildings etc as the time of day moves on, little touches like that make such a big difference to the quality of the game play for me.

Pretty much everything I would say. The freedom of action, the daft humour, the character development, the companions, the made up drugs, the vaults, the whole 1950's meets mad max thing. And FO3 brought the series up to date technically by adding a much more intricately detailed world running in real time (rather than taking turns moving about on a sort of hexagonal grid, which looks rather quaint in this day and age).

On the negative side, FO3 did sacrifice something to make it more playable - it's quite easy unless you self limit or crank the difficulty up, whereas in the 1st games you have this very thrilling feeling of total hopelessness. Also, FO3 recycles a lot of plot ideas from the earlier games, which was unnecessary but might be excusable on the grounds that they were made so along ago.

Fallout 3 doesen't have "magic" at all, Oblivion has many different spells while fallout has none. I had to make a joke about Oblivion lacking "magic". I wish Oblivion had those Fallout 3 features and I wish Fallout 3 had the missing Oblivion features.

Two things stand out:

1. The sandbox style that Bethesda is known for (like Oblivion, Morrowind, etc). You are not forced down a linear path. Instead your thrown into an immersive world, and it's up to you do decide what to do and how to do it,

2. The unique ambiance of the worlds setting post-nuclear war, and retro-futuristic setting.


There are other nice points like quest paths, combat, perks, etc. But the above two points are the key to this game, in my opinion.