Fallout 3 
The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion Overall Comparison 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.
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Agreeing Users
gunblade111gunblade111 Level 9
Disagreeing Users
CommandantCommandant Level 9
ubiquitousubiquitous Level 7
Comments
Bethesda made everything in the game simple and removed many good armours, spells, skills, etc. (Bone Armour? Levitate? Throwing Weapons?)
To me the levelling system makes a lot more sense. You hit someone with the sword, and you get better at it. Not you kill someone with an assault rifle and suddenly your a master at hacking computers.
Also a knowledge of local towns and cities would be quite logical. You weren't always a prisoner in Oblivion, and so you must of had some sort of sense of direction towards landmarks and towns. Where as in Fallout 3, you have been inside the vault for your entire life, and have not had the resources to study the local geography.
Don't forget that Baurus also pointed you in the right direction after leaving the sewers while in the vault you had to fight your way out without much of a goodbye or debriefing.
Also as a last note, I had thought prior that more content in a game was usually better as you can play as much as you want and still have things that you can enjoy doing. I do not enjoy, however, having to reload previous saves because of a dead end main storyline or being capped at max level halfway through the game.
That is all. =]
I actually didn't complain about being able to fast-travel to the main towns initially. I'm actually quite thankful for it.
And yes, Oblivion does give you a better sense of where to go first than Fallout does. However, if you do just a little bit of research when escaping the vault, all you have to do is read the Overseer's terminal report to learn that they had visted Megaton before, and that gives you a pretty good starting point.
I still hate lockpicking on Oblivion, though.