Ok after spending even more time with it I have to say, this game is amazing. It's awesome, and so much better than oblivion. I'm not sure if enemies scale but that don't matter. Things are challenging, and never too easy, or too hard. You got a ton of ways to fight, and being a certain way effect your options when talking to people.
You can cut out a lot of goose chasing if you have a lot of charisma for example. The wife that can't tell you exactly where the person you're looking for will buckle her knees after your silky smooth words make her do what you want. Instead of following a tip on a person that may tell you, you get the direct location, and a key to open the door.
I like the leveling system so far. You get exp by killing stuff, and doing quests. The hacking stuff sucks though. I just save before I touch a computer and choose a word until I get the correct one. At first I hated the lock picking, but it's better than in oblivion after I learned what was going on. I'm not much of a thief because I feel guilty each time that music and that frowning face show up when I steal stuff. My sneaking skill is very low as a result. Also I don't think you skill up by using the skill. Instead each time you level up you get a pool of points to pour into said skills. It's alright this way I guess. Level cap is like 20 or 30 though :\
There are really a ton of way to play this game from what I see. A lot of perks, skills, and such. It's easy to do whatever you want and effect things. I never played a fallout game before and I'm liking this even though I ended up hating Oblivion. The voice work is very good, the characters look nice, and everything is just well done. If you look at my last youtube you can see me stumbling with fighting. I laid mines down to soften those raiders up (you are warned about those guys over the radio a lot. "Don't surrender to them. They'll just shoot you anyway").
That brings up another thing, there are a lot of interesting things going on. People want to kill you sometimes (I didn't blow up the city of Megaton, so the guy that I agreed to do the act with sent out hitmen to kill me), you run into the wrong gangs, and if you are a bad character authority/bounty hunters are happy to take a shot at you.
Long story short. The ideas in Oblivion done right. Plus a lot of weapons and VATs. Sweet sweet VATs. I learned not to depend on Vats now though. The FPS shooting controls in the game isn't as good as a real fps game though.
Edit: Some videos of fallout 3 gameplay and crazy stuff.
Fun on Tenpenny Tower (high class hotel. Lots of money in it)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qb0rIfa5xrsTenpenny nuke of the city of Megaton (someone went through with it), and a Tenpenny massacre.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DNsSb1oW ... re=relatedMore Tenpenny mayhem.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iAoYPu7J ... re=relatedA brotherhood of steel raid.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q0fh5L8Z ... re=relatedBounty hunters ambush.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UWVRRdSh ... re=relatedDid I mention that this game get's my seal of approval?
Some guy doing a complete walkthrough of fallout 3.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dPXE0PC7d14Edit: I forgot to mention little things like the repair system.
Quote:
The best thing about repair is that it's very meaningful and important, which only makes the skills system deeper since you have to decide where to sink your points into. You can have the greatest piece of armor or weapon, but if the durability on it is very low, the damage output will be minimal unless you repair it (or have it repaired, which can be at a huge price). This can have big impact with weapons like the minigun. You can repair that weapon and see yourself getting a boost of +10 damage from it.
I saw this somewhere, and I was passing up this skill quite a bit. So much to juggle. Science to be able to access computers (which give you exp if you hack them), weapon classes, intelligence (gain more exp, and not seem stupid when you talk to people), etc etc.
Everyone on these forums have access to play Fallout 3 most likely. Get it! I'll be buying this after I send it back to gamefly.