Fallout 3 - Xbox 360 Game of the Year Edition

I'm not going to go in depth about the gameplay, visuals, sound, etc., because a lot of people before me have written extensive and thoughtful assessments of those features, I'll just illustrate my experience with this game. When it comes to Bethesda, I've played (in order) Morrowind, Oblivion, Skyrim and finally this, so I didn't play it in the order it came to the market. There are some similarities between this and Skyrim. The cutscenes that were included in FO3 were added in Skyrim which was a good look, commendation to Bethesda for that. Also, one of the music numbers in FO3 was included in Skyrim, I don't know whether it was to save money or time, but I welcomed it because it bought me back to the Elder Scrolls series and the numerous beautiful sceneries of Skyrim. My expectations for this game were dismal and I didn't expect much because I get disappointed easily, but everything from the original V.A.T.S. shooting system to the clever and practical decisions in dialogue when conversing with NPCs in the game to the refreshing contemporary setting in which the plot takes place (as opposed to the medieval time period with Bethesda's Elder Scrolls franchise) made FO3 more interesting and enjoyable. I picked up this Game of the Year edition for $20 and it included the five expansion packs/downloadable contents. "The Pitt" and "Operation Anchorage" are fun to play, especially the latter. And Broken Steel is cool for two reasons: 1) it allows you to level up from level 20 to level 30 with some new exciting "perks" and 2) it'll permit you to continue playing the game even when you've completed it (which wasn't the case previously and received a lot of criticism for). The other two-Point Lookout and Mothership Zeta-were generally a little too mundane and tame for me. I have to point out though, in Point Lookout, the quests surrounding the Calvert Mansion and Desmond are some of the most thrilling quests, not only in the expansions packs, but in the totality of the game. If you're looking for a game that will give you hundreds of hours of pleasurable content, but don't want to spend a lot of money, this has to be it. I hesitated and waited for about four years until I broke the seal and popped this into my console. I put in around 200 hours-easily-and I'm still planning to put more in to collect the various Vault Boy Bobbleheads and also to discover the rest of the map.Tip: Save often, don't rely on auto saves. And when you do save, spread them out as opposed to overwriting them. That way, if you're dissatisfied with your choices or the path your character is taking in the storyline or whatever the case may be, you can chronologically go back and pick up where you've left off. Also, I haven't had a lot of problems with the game freezing up early on, but more recently, it has occurred. Some of this "freezing" up occurs in V.A.T.S. mode when you're in the middle of a cut scene. Also, it's very rare, but it's happened with me where my character was stuck between two objects rendering him immobile. So, again, save often.

As a long time gamer, when I stop and look around at the landscape of gaming, I am truly amazed.From the Atari 2600 to the XBOX 360s and PS3s it boggles the mind.I spent much of the 90s getting back into gaming after a layoff while I went to school and was busy with all the things you get tied up in, in those years. I gamed mostly on PC, and the Fallout, Fallout 2 and Fallout Tactics were replayed countless times in my house. When I heard the franchise was being revived on the current generation of platforms, I had mixed feelings. I was worried the game might become another series of yearly almost identical releases, that just melt into one another. I need not have worried.Having played the originals on PC, the post apocalypse RPG aspect is what I found most interesting, and that part translated without a hiccup to the current platforms. Some of the humor didnt make the jump. For example - you spend 50 or 100 hours in Fallout, looking for a water chip to keep your vault going - it is the whole point of the game. So in Fallout 2, while looting containers you come across a room with HUNDREDS of water chips loaded into almost every corner of the level.In a pull out your hair kind of way, that is FUNNY!There are no Dr Who phone booths or encounters with King Arthur in the wastes of Fallout 3. You will not come across a spaceship with a ray gun and velvet Elvis painting, nor will you have to recreate the Monty Python bridge keeper dialogue to save being cast into the void.On the plus side, you will also never find your Highwayman trunk randomly appearing with no sign of your car at all, or vice versa.... And when it comes to freezing up, I do not think Fallout 3 froze up in all my PC and XBOX playthroughs (15 or 20 of them) as many times as Fallout 2 did the first weekend I played it. SAVE EARLY SAVE OFTEN is a mantra for a very good reason. Although I did did "stuck" in a subway tube between a wall and train once or twice - the bugs were kept to a minimum in my experience.I am glad I stuck with it, because even as a fan, I have to admit, this game starts out SLOW while you are still in the vault, setting up the story to come. I dont know how a game and the music and radio in it can make me feel nostalgic for a time I never experienced, but this game pulls it off - all while shooting up ghouls, raiders, super mutants, and mis-guided para-militant survivor groups.And talk about a sandbox game, once you are out of the vault, you can do whatever you want.For something different you can even just wander the wastes, ignoring the story and killing every thing, and every one in sight.So, if you have a couple hundred hours of your life that you dont have any plans for, and you have never played this game - what are you waiting for?