It was nice to see that levelled nonsense go away too, I like getting my arse kicked occasionally. And it was absolutely bloody fantastic that resources were rare, so it had this survivalist feel to it. And since it is a post-apocalyptic game, it really should have that feel. I always felt as though I were too well off in Fallouts 1 & 2, and that everyone else was too. Things actually seem worse in 3, and the people seem more… craaazy. So I loved the atmosphere.

And Three Dog won me over simply by being Three Dog.

I do have my complaints though: The face zooming, the talking about important quest objectives in very open and public places (I hate that, so much!), and how silly VATS seems at times. I still want to be able to target crotches, but I’ve had to accept that I can’t… it makes me sad, but I can just about live with it. Pneumatic crotch-groping, we hardly knew ye. Invulnerable kids is mildly irritating (MUST KILL RIVET BOY) but they had to do that due to bloody age-rating/censorship nonsense. Oh and the fact that I can sever someone’s neck with a pistol… FIX THIS BETHESDA, PLEASE? The animation is unforgivable in every area of the game, but this is a Bethesda game so I knew this was coming and it’s simply something I had to deal with. I try to kill things before they can move too much.

So it’s not perfect, but it’s a hell of a lot better than I thought it would be, and most of it is in how well the stats system is implemented and the overall feel of the game. When I’m wandering around out in the Wastes it really does feel just as I’d hoped a modern Fallout was, and this makes me happy.

So I admit that I was wrong about Bethesda and Fallout 3, everyone’s wrong sometimes.

So yes, it really does deserve to sell as much as it could.

FAO Bethesda: DON’T SCREW UP TES5, this doesn’t give you a free ticket to completely mess up your next game with me. Fallout 3 had atmosphere, depth, and culture. It wasn’t filled with the colourless and entirely without personality dolls that passed for people in Oblivion. Don’t do that again. Set the next one in Elsweyr, the Black Marsh, or somewhere interesting like that, and make the people as interesting as they were in Fallout 3. And I’m still mad at you for having shitty multi-platform (serious issues have been found in the PC version, as well as the PS3 version) programmers and animators, get that sorted too, eh? Thanks.

It could use some more humour though.

It got mixed reviews.

I like the bond games.