The review most people around here have been waiting for is up. Here's what VD had to say about Bethesda's attempt at making a Fallout game:

<BLOCKQUOTE>The main quest is one of the game's biggest weaknesses. It doesn't make sense. The water contains radiation and thus isn't safe to drink. Maybe if people stopped playing with nuclear catapults and blowing up nuclear cars, the situation would improve… Anyway, even though it's relatively easy to purify radioactive water - see the quote above - top East Coast scientists, including your dad, have been trying to find a much more complex and unnecessary solution, known as Project Purity. They fail miserably at first, then you dad enters that "shall never be opened" Vault 101, raises you, but after watching a Blues Brothers rerun, decides to put the band together again and leaves the vault. You have no choice but to follow him, so the "shall never be opened" vault is opened again.

You spend some time searching for your father, asking everyone "have you seen my father, the middle-aged guy?", and that's the best part of the main quest and the game. Once you're reunited, the game hops on rails and takes you on a magical tour through one of the most idiotic game endings in the history of video games. Investing into a pair of good writers and story-tellers should be the top priority for Bethesda. The drop in quality, comparing the game to Daggerfall and Morrowind, is very noticeable and painful to experience.</BLOCKQUOTE>

There's some maths on Page 2 which compares numbers to the game's predecessors and other fun stuff to enjoy, like this:

<BLOCKQUOTE>Towns and locations deserve a special mention. Megaton, the first town you see when you step out of the vault, is basically the only real town in the game. The rest of the humanity is more than happy with 3-5 shack settlements, old hotels, and museums. Nobody does anything and how the hell these people survive remains a mystery. Exploring different towns and different ways of life was one of the most interesting aspects of Fallout, but sadly it’s not present in Fallout 3.</BLOCKQUOTE>

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