I just got off Vault 101. I took a bunch of screenshots of the worst moments. I'll state what I enjoyed first ("Oh my god, he actually enjoyed something?" the fanboys will say):

-Conversation between NPCs. Examples being the birthday party, Jonas talking with Stanley the Pacient, and Andy (the best NPC of the lot).

-The whole birth thing is good, though the mother voice actor wasn't very great. It's still an improvement over Oblivion's three voice actors.

-The GOAT. Actually, not the GOAT, but the way it was presented. I skipped it through dialogue, I guess that's a plus as well. But I enjoyed watching the teacher present the questions to the students with the projector slides.

Ok now to what I didn't like:

-Pipboy 3000. Pulling that huge piece of crap all the way to my damn eyes every time I want to check my items is jarring, and I got a headache as a result. Well, that and the searing light every 5 minutes. And the fact that all of those screens could have been reduced to one or two full page sheets. But since this is primarily a CONSOLE game (since the original games WERE! on the console and everything...), Bethesda thought it best to put a million screens in the pipboy with very little data.
Also, using it pauses the game. Just like Bioshock's hacking minigame. Don't worry, I won't bash Bioshock, it's actually one of my favorite games

-Gone are the item descriptions. Those were actually great back then. Now you get the CND (what the hell is that? ) and damage, not much else. And the icons are okay, though why do they lack color? I suppose its to fit the Pipboy metaphor. The old inventory was much better though.

-Characters are generic and bland. The Dad is obviously styled after Christ or God and will probably sacrifice himself near the end. Your own character is completely generic because animations totally suck.


-No reaction to a 10 year old girl dropping her clothes during her party. I remember Oblivion having reactions when you walked around naked, or was that only Morrowind?

-On my very first shot with VATS, I ripped the head of the first guard I encountered. So much for being a novice, eh?

-Luck doesn't affect critical chance like the previous games. My luck is 1, and I keep hitting them critically. And seeing that stupid pipboy head grinning all the time got me pissed fast.

-A Ca-shing sound when you gain XP? Really? Do people really need the incentive of likening XP to cash in order to play? What were they thinking?


-Guess the Vault dwellers know all about Mutants. Even though in a report that I found in the Overseer's office they are wary and are just finding out about them.

-Radroach invasion. More like the god-damn Radroach PLAGUE.

-I kept hitting Dad and Jonas with the BB gun and in VATS. They fell and got unconscious. Too bad, Bethesda had a chance to really make a difference here if they allowed you to MAIM that damn Dad figure. But he only kept going "I'm your father, I assume you know the rest."


-Hand holding. The game telling you to check the Overseer's bedroom? Do you guys appreciate this sort of stuff? Sure this is the tutorial area, but damn. It's not like there were many more rooms to explore...

-Combat is dreadful. The guards shot at me as if they were lighting firecrackers, ducking and standing up, but not really moving away or dodging.

-The animations totally suck.

-They changed the scale of the skills. Previously you started getting real good at 85% upwards. The maximum was 200. You couldn't shoot crap with just 30 on Small Weapons. Now they lowered the scale, I guess. Sure, I know someone will comment saying "what does it matter?". Well, why was it changed? Because the game is basically a retextured Oblivion?

-On that note, armors adding skill points makes absolutely zero sense. It's just some idea to make the various clothes useful, until you get to the Power Armors.

-Random encounters in the Wasteland (I did play a little bit there) are crap. You start hearing firecrackers at you and then there's this raider openly walking towards you, shooting from the hip. He doesn't say anything. At least the guards in Vault 101 had barks. The original games had hundreds of lines during combat, by the way.

-Vault 101? More like "little hole in the ground 101". Terribly scaled. The original game's Vault was much bigger than this. And you only got to see three levels of it. And it had rooms, not just big corridors. And lots of characters. And optional quests!

-The Radio. Why? Does everyone have working radios in the wasteland? Instead of trying to rebuild Mankind some idiots decide to put up a radio station? The Enclave radio is pointless anyway. They should be DEAD. The Chosen One killed them in Fallout 2.

-I found a mini nuke within 5 minutes of Vault 101. Don't have the nuclear catapult yet.

-Bethesda Ruins. Yes, they certainly deserve a cameo in their own game. No one knows about them. They sure deserve it for their hard work. If anyone knows of a cameo from the original developers, gimme a holler.

Yes, I am analyzing every detail. I think this usually happens with games or movies or books that are a translation or continuation of something that is already established. People pore over it and debate every little detail.