Folks, last night I.. I broke up with Fallout 3.

I was in Old Olney, having a cup of tea with a Deathclaw when he told me, quite wrongly, that Nuka Cola Quantum tasted better than turpentine. There is only one proper response for such a slight to a true gentleman like myself - and that would be turning him into dust with my Metal Blaster. I fired a shot, only to have the game pause for me for 5 minutes as I did. I fired off another shot after that, and the game obligingly paused for another 5 minutes. Then, the game crashed.

A quick check of Bethesda's PS3 support forums shows complaint after complaint about the constant freezing and crashing in the PS3 GOTY version of the game. In other words, I have a broken product that Bethesda felt comfortable to release into the wild anyway.

I swallowed that disappointing news, but I decided to soldier on. So, this is a rough timeline of my gameplay after that:

20:06 - Blew another Deathclaw's head off with my blaster. Game decides to take a siesta.
20:12 - I come back from answering the call of nature. Oh, look, I can move again!
20:13 - I take a few steps in Old Olney, and the game decides it's time for another break. In the meantime, I decide to grow a beard.
20:21 - Game's back from the Land Before Time. My new beard would be the envy of fake Santas everywhere.
20:22 - I try to quit to the main menu, and Fallout 3 looks at me sadly and says, "I don't think this can work out." So it stops right in the middle of loading the title screen. It's like Bullet Time! With no bullets!
20:25 - "Can we still be friends, Fallout 3?" There is no response. The loading clock taunts me.
20:53 - Still no response from the game. Maybe.. maybe it's time for me to move on. I decide to trade the game in for Borderlands.

I may still buy the PC version of Fallout 3, someday, but for now, Bethesda has broken my heart. I will now play sad country songs on my guitar and look dolefully at the moon. To avoid my fate, do not buy the PS3 GOTY version of Fallout - it is a bug-ridden mess that should not have passed through quality assurance at all.