all games are not created equal

Both of these games came out at the same time, so some people had to figure out which one to play first.  I played Fable 2 first.  However, after starting to play Fallout 3, I wish I had played that first.

The weird and great thing that Fallout 3 makes me do is talk to the people that inhabit the world.  I find out about their backstory, why there are here, how they feel about things and whatever else I can ask them.  This level of depth was totally missing from Fable 2.  I actually care about characters in Fallout 3, including the small ones.  In Fable 2, I could care less about every single character in that game.  If they died, oh well, I'm sure there will be some other character with the same exaggerated accent talking to me later.

I have a thing in my heart for turn-based combat.  Fallout 3 does cater to this need with the VATS system, which is totally awesome.  You can fire your gun at someone in real time like a FPS if you want, but if you really want to aim for a specific part of the body or see your chances of hitting an enemy, just activate VATS and the action stops so you can figure out what you want to do with those action points of yours.  I always end up aiming for the head, but aiming for their gun, arm, or leg could be just as beneficial in certain situations.

Fable 2's combat system mostly consisted of pressing a button over and over until everything on the screen was dead.  Maybe cast a spell or two.  No depth or skill to the fighting.

Fable 2 was enjoyable while I played it, but afterward, there is nothing memorable about the game.  There wasn't much I would talk about to a friend who had also played the game, aside from "that game was a little too easy". 

Fallout 3 has so many elements and choices to make that impact the world around you.  A village is build around an atomic bomb you say?  How interesting.  So you can disarm it for one person or receive money to detonate it for someone else? That's a pretty big choice to make. Fable 2 had the same concept, but it was a lot of the same little thing over and over again to get people to like or hate you. 

Depending on the type of gamer you are, Fable 2 might be more you're cup of tea.  It's still a pretty decent game for what it is, but for more mature gamers, I would highly recommend Fallout 3 over Fable 2.

Both of these games are amazing.  Both were very enjoyable for every hour that I played.  However, the one thing that Fallout 3 has over Bioshock is replayability.

Once I finished Bioshock, I felt like I was most definitely done with the game; that I had experienced everything.  For Fallout 3, the second I finished, I wanted to play it again, to find all those little things that I may have missed the first time through.  And then maybe even the second time through, I can do all the evil things that I avoided doing the first time through =)

Bioshock is a linear game with a fantastic story and atmosphere.  You learn about the main characters of the game as you play through and learn more of the backstory through audio tapes.

F3 does have a linear storyline, but this isn't where the real storytelling is.  The real storytelling exists all throughout the Capital Wasteland, the main area in F3.  As you explore and talk to people, you learn about what happened, why people are where they are, how they feel, what the problems are and so on.  It's this non-linear storytelling that really makes this game quite enjoyable, that is, if you want to know the story.  If you don't then you are just as welcome to run around and kill everything, complete the main storyline and call it a day.  But you will be missing out on some great gameplay.

Hard to do this to Bioshock, but Fallout 3 has you beat on this one.

Just glanced over at the top ten games and noticed that it says that TF2 is better than Fallout 3.

I don't think so =)

Both games are a ton of fun when you're playing them.  Team Fortress 2 has an advantage because, since its multiplayer, you can play it endlessly and always enjoy it.  Fallout 3 does have a much more limited play time. The big difference though is the memories of my experience playing these games.

TF2 gives you memorable moments like "that one time I rocket jumped and did that thing" or "when i set up that thing over the thing and that guy thinged".  But with Fallout 3, I remember stuff like "I hate those stupid kids that call me mungo" and "I wish I blew up megaton so that stupid guy next to the bomb would shut up".  The entire game was a unique experience that left me with vivid memories, which I think is pretty rare with games now. 

I remember feeling a certain way when I had to make certain decisions in Fallout 3.  Now that there is a lot of DLC coming out for Fallout 3, your experience doesn't have to end when the game ends.  TF2 is still an awesome game, but everyone seriously owes it to themselves to play Fallout 3 if you haven't already.

Both games share the same engine (though Fallout's is a little more improved), but Fallout 3 does a lot better. Better 'dungeons', a more diverse overworld, a better levelling system, and more interesting characters make the game a lot more fun to play, and a whole lot less repetitive.

Counter-Strike Source is a game that's become synonymous with online PC gaming.  It's physics and graphic engine is based off the Half Life 2 engine, making it a huge improvement from the original Counter-Strike.  As a first person shooter, it's still one of the best and has a huge following.  This may be a lot different from Fallout 3, but it sure deserves to be considered up there for one of the best games of all time...

Not that this comparison has been done to death, but now that I've actually spent time with Oblivion, I wish to give my two cents.

We all pretty much get the idea between Fallout and Oblivion.  Oblivion is a quest-oriented medieval fantasy FPS/RPG with axes and swords and spells, and Fallout is the same in a post-nuclear apocalyptic wasteland with guns and bazookas and lasers.

Oblivion offers plenty of customization options for your character, and you level up your abilities by doing, as opposed to the classic experience-earning system of Fallout 3.  In Oblivion, if you run around alot, you level up your athletic skill.  Hop like a maniac to level up acrobatics.  Hell, even if you get wailed on, you'll still level up your armor skill.  With Fallout 3, you complete quests and kill things, you earn experience and you level up whatever you want to.

After the initial dungeon in Oblivion, you're given a huge beautiful world to explore, with fields and forests and lakes and clear blue skies.  You have a map that lists all the major settlements that you can instantly fast-travel to, and even a main quest to point you in the correct starting location.  After that, you take and complete quests as you see fit.

After you escape your initial Vault in Fallout 3, the door opens to a to a huge, horrific and disgusting apocalyptic wasteland, filled with waste barrels, rocks, dead fields, and tin-cans that used to be called homes.  Your initial quest is simply "Find Dad", with absolutely no sense of direction on where to start first.  You can still take random quests as you see fit, and there are plenty of settlements to explore.  However, no settlement has been discovered by you initially, and therefore it is up to you to run the entire way to get to where you need to go the first time.

My issue with Oblivion is it tries to do too much.  There's an overwhelming array of spells and weapons and armors.  There's different guilds to join, random quests to do, and quite frankly I don't exactly understand the leveling system.  I picked my class as a spellsword (or something), completed probably around 6 or 8 quests, and I'm still a level 1 character.  Huh?  Then suddenly I take a quests that involves me killing orcs, and I can't do crap-worth of damage to them. 

Oblivion is certainly a good game, I can see that.  It'll probably get even better as I continue to play.  But simple things like bartering and talking to people is even overly complicated.  Picking locks is insanely ackward and it's best just to use the auto-picking option until it works. 

Bethesda certainly learned from Oblivion when they were making Fallout 3.

I've loved the Fallout games since Wasteland.  Yes, I consider Wasteland as part of the Fallout universe and will still play it with DOSBOX occasionally.

I can not say enough good things about Fallout 3, really.  You can complain if you wish that there aren't a HUGE load of quests to do, but that doesn't mean that there isn't much to do at all.  There's so many small civilizations to see, including the Citadel, Rivet City, Megaton, Little Lamplight, Big Town, and The Republic of Dave.  The characters all have good voice acting, although you'll hear the same voices repeated many times through different characters (ESPECIALLY with the Brotherhood of Steel). 
The weapons are fun and look fantastic (I love the shishkebob myself) and give you plenty of chances to gore people.  VATS works wonderfully, while the real-time action leaves some to be desired.

Fallout 2 had a great story, and also a great land to explore.  You met a couple characters from Fallout 1 for nostalgia sake, but everything else was terrific.  Enemies were interesting and exploded if you poked them with a spear, and the quests had you dealing with some puh-retty interesting people.  Also, at one point you get a car that lets you travel across the map and skip the annoying random encounters you normally put up with.

However, Fallout 2 didn't improve on Fallout 1 as much as people had hoped.  For one, the game was pretty hard.  It wouldn't be uncommon for someone to save after every single encounter with an enemy.  Also, the random encounters became tedious, and the final encounter felt uninspired and seemed pretty tacked-on.  It wasn't at all as epic as The Master from Fallout 1.
Fallout 3 failed to deliver on epic encounters, however.  You don't really have much for bosses, though there ARE behemoth mutants scattered very friendly, and the deathclaws are probably one of the most nerve-wracking enemies you'll ever encounter in a game, period.  There is so so much detail put into the game that actually made it feel like a real world.  There is so many places you can go to that serve absolutely no purpose to the main story, but have their own background.
One of my favorite places in Fallout 3 is either vault 106 or 108 (I forget which).  It contained a cloning lab where you will fight many clones of a vault dweller named Gary.  It provided some pretty funny dialogue, but somehow made the place very creepy.

Anyways, both games are great so you really can't go wrong either way.

There are so many ways to describe how Fallout 3 is better than GTA 4.  Instead of doing a long drawn out comparison, let's just do some quick hits.

Character Customization:

Fallout 3 - Stats, armor, facial construction and haircut
GTA4  - A few clothes, two different pairs of glasses.

Story:

Fallout 3 - Vault dweller first steps out of his underground home/prison, finds an apocalyptic wasteland and fights for survival and eventually saves humanity
GTA4 - Niko Bellic arrives in America to visit his cousin and eventually reveals his own objective to find the man that betrayed his troop in the military.  It's actually a refreshing change of pace from the old tired "Start small and work your way big" storylines of Vice City and San Andreas.

Weapons

Fallout 3 -Rifles, pistols, shotguns, machine guns, gattling guns, lazer rifles/pistols, rocket launchers, junk-shooters (not THAT kind of junk ;) ), mines, grenades, knives, swords, flamethrowers, hammers, flame swords, animal claws, single-handed chainsaws, nukes, and molerat exploding sticks.
GTA4 - Rifles, pistols, rocket launchers, shotguns, sniper rifles, knives.

Violence

GTA4 - Drive around Liberty City, running over people.  Beat up people.  Crash so hard into someone that they die.  Shoot up everyone
Fallout 3 - Kill virtually everybody.  Shoot kids.  Watch people's heads explode in slow motion.  Shoot more kids.  Put grenades in people's pants.  Throw grenades at kids.


I think I made my point :D

I'm comparing these games because they're basicaly the same thing and same concept, you go around, doing whatever the heck you want. while following the main storyline.

But fallout 3 is easier to follow, I'm having a little trouble in farcry 2, I've had the game forever and i JUST found out that my objective is to do local missions until something comes up...

fallout 3 has a prelude that gets you pumped.

farcry2 just kinda puts you in the game after you select the character you want. oh AND your being forced to work for someone because you killed one of their men.

fallout 3's music is better, and for me that's a feature a game has to have, good music.

I played these games in the same time period, but despite being new and shiny I preferred Fable. I compare these games because Fallout has a karma system similar to Fable's. The problem is that Fallout 3 has no real repercussions for being evil. Certain people will start to hate you but nothing in the plot really changes, except the main plot might become unplayable. With Fable if you are evil or good the plot continues and choosing good or evil in the primary missions actually changes game elements with and evil reputation people run away screaming or if you are good people love you. Fallout 3 has many unique elements but I found that many of the uniqueness is just kind of tacked on. The VATS system is really cool but it is basically an easy way to kill people at close range and at long range it becomes unbearable. Fable allowed me to be any type of hero and while the game without the lost chapters ends abruptly it was still a solid game with solid feeling progress, while fallout 3, I found, became a confusing trip in the subway without any reason. Also Fallout 3 I found that I could have climbed over some of the barriers between sections of the city that are cut off  by rubble.

This was a tough one... And i know a lot of people will disagree with me here!

'Oblivion' is a vast open world fantasy RPG that gives the player plenty of places to explore, items to pick up, as well as a vast array of weapons to hack the enemy to pieces with. Fallout offers the same, albeit in a post-nuclear world that is more realistic and sci-fi than fantasy.

'Fallout 3' is a great game. A really great game. Bethesda have expanded the game engine to bring greater details to the environment, the tunnels, forts, vaults, etc etc all vary in atmosphere and detail. The scope of the game itself is also incredible. However, the main issue is that the main quest is pretty short. Additionally, the main quest is possibly one of only a few quests that are interestingly put together - many of the other quests i found myself embarking on were, although not unimaginative, a little bland.

Quests such as Oasis were bold and striking in comparison to the Fallout environment, and were a pleasure to play, but these quests were few and far between. In Oblivion, it was the same, there were a few quests here and there that really opened up the environment and highlighted the imaginative ability of some members of the Bethesda team. Garridans Tears was eye opening, and The Dark Brotherhood plot line was eye opening and full of twists. Although both games seem to suffer from this, Fallout seems to suffer the worst: There seemed to be more small interesting quests in Oblivion that kept me playing than in Fallout.

Now, i understand that this next arguement is alittle unfair. SHIVERING ISLES! Now Shivering Isles, the expansion to Oblivion is the most honed, imaginative, addictive thing i have played by Bethesda. The added expansions to Oblivion like Shivering Isles opened up the game world; adding to its replayability. Shivering Isles is what i think every Bethesda game should be like. The Bethesda titles are great games, but seemed to get bogged down in the mundane, whereas some of the expansions they release would almost be great enough as stand alone products.

Nevertheless, Fallout 3 lacked enough uests to keep me interested, in Oblivion, a good amount of NPC's had some small quest to do, or something to tell you, whereas, in Fallout alot of the people seem vacant and useless. There is one major quest, and about 8 minor quests, and then a further 30 or so minor minor ones which simply involve you talking to people, finding people, or shooting things. In Oblivion, I felt that the quests were far more extensive..

I THINK THE UNIVERSE JUST EXPLODED!
HOW COULD ANYTHING POSSIBLY BEAT FALLOUT 3?

Oh, but this is a cool video game. Cool video games always win.

(Seriously, who submitted "Cool Video Game" as a game?)