Well, after a week of more playing, I have to say that Fallout 3 is indeed a good game despite its obvious shortcomings. Let me list some of them:
- SPECIAL stats have less meaning than in previous Fallouts. You can get almost all perks with just having 6 in every stat, which is easy to achieve.
- There is no real benefit in maxing out one or few of your SPECIAL stats, your character is "average" no matter how you spend your stat points. The only noticeable difference is intelligence as it really does help in the early levels by giving you some extra skill points to spend.
- Skill points are capped to 100 which is not bad in itself, but it is too easy to get ALL skills way past 50 if you spend your time exploring and acquiring skill books and have comprehension perk. There are 25 skill books for each skill, meaning 50 free skill points if you have comprehension perk. Also, stat and skill bobbleheads can give you +1 to stats and +10 skills. That is +62 to skills, plus 15 points you start with you already have 77 points in every skill.
- By the game's end, characters are bound to end up being way too similar skill wise. The only way to make actual difference is to play a game through differently. Not because your character lacks necessary skills, but because you yourself want to play differently. This I believe will be quite an annoyance to role players. Well, you could also intentionally cripple your character by not picking up skill books or bobbleheads, dunno if you can start the game with unspent SPECIAL points.
Without skill books (especially with comprehension perk around) and bobbleheads you would actually have to spend your points more carefully. But as it is now, Fallout 3 has been dumbed down to suit casual (console) gamers. The game is definitely much easier on the RPG element than the old-school Fallouts. However, at the same time combat elements are also easier to experienced PC gamers. I don't know how difficult combat is on console pads, but it is definitely child's play on PC.
Still, even though F3 has been dumbed down as seems to be the trend on every modern sequel of classic games, F3 is still a good game and worth its price tag, at least when the price has dropped a bit. Anyway, F3 does not require you to type in serial key to install or play the game, it does not need the DVD to be in the drive while you play, it doesn't even seem to have any noticeable copy protection. This alone is a good reason to support the game and buy it. If for nothing else than to show example that games without copy protections can sell well.
I still have positive feeling about the game, despite the fact that its critical elements been dumbed down. The game is fun to play. But for how long, that I don't know.
