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even with the original release, i experienced tons of glitches, lots of freezing and plenty of restarts resulting in hours of lost game play. the glitches and freezing i experienced during the majority of the expansion packs, however, made all the b.s. i went through on the original release seem like a mere inconvenience.

throughout all the expansion packs (with the exception of mothership zeta, which i didn’t bother playing because i heard that was the worst of the bunch) it seemed i couldn’t play for longer than 10 minutes without out freezing or extreme lag… and when i say extreme lag… i mean EXTREME… like entering V.A.T.S, selecting my targets, hitting X and then waiting for as long as ten minutes before anything would happen. if i was lucky, i could get up, get a sandwich, let one of my pugs out and get back to the game just in time for it to un-freeze. i’d say a good 50% of the time, however, there was no recovery and i would be forced to restart my system resulting plenty of wasted hours and more than likely extra stress on my system. personally, i found “the pitt” to be the worst. i experienced the least amount of issues during “operation: anchorage” though i still had my share. especially towards the end.

i have heard many people come to bethesda’s defense. the biggest excuse i hear is that “people need to let this stuff slide. with a game of this magnitude, they shouldn’t expect perfection…”

bullcrap.

i don’t think anyone’s expecting perfection. i have no problem with the minor glitches (having raiders spin in mid-air after they’re shot, having enclave soldiers shake violently on the ground after they’ve been killed, finding a vicious dog embedded in the street) i can let that stuff slide, no problem. things like the lagging and freezing, however? not acceptable. at all. i shouldn’t have to interrupt my game play every ten minutes to save just because of all the freezing.

what’s even more unacceptable is that bethasda hasn’t / won’t even address the situation or issue an apology to the thousands of fans they’ve duped out of hundreds of thousands of dollars.

the freezing and lagging didn’t just happened in V.A.T.S. it frequently happened when i would try to enter a room (especially in the pitt). it would happen when i was walking from point A to point B. sometimes it would even happen when i was standing still doing absolutely nothing.

it really is a shame a game of this caliber is so flawed. a game completely worthy of 5 stars will forever live in my mind as a 2 star game.

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And so the story continues with 5 new DLC’s, which add new items and locations to your already large choosings.

But alas, this game feels as though little to no testing was done in the game. It is plagued with glitches, frame rate issues, lag issues, freezing issues, amongst other annoying problems I hadn’t experienced in my initial Fallout 3 experience. I believe that the game froze my PS3 at least 15 times across all 5 DLC’s, this also included exploring some areas from the the original copy. These problems occur often, inspiring a new found hatred for the game. To be short, the problems are terrible, annoying, and large in number.

But despite its problems, the game does manage to do a lot of things right:

1) You can use you saves from the original copy if you still have them!

2) New weapons and items are (mostly) very useful and powerful

3) Point Lookup continues the game’s-experience with many side-quests and sandbox gameplay

4) The level cap is raised to level 30.

5) The game can now continue after the main-quests are over!

6) You can find a lot more ammo for the Alien Blaster!

7) The quests from the DLC (while they are nothing special) add a few more hours of gameplay

$110 worth of games for $60 is a great deal!

The DLC’s are solid, but are not great. They feel like the main game’s side quests to me, as they feel unimportant, but the rewards are worth playing for. My favorite weapons and apparel are from the DLC including: Winterized Power Armor, Tesla Cannon, Gauss Rifle, Samurai Armor, Samurai sword, Auto-axe/ Manopener, infiltrator/perforator, tribeam laser rifle, double barreled shotgun, level-action rifle, Alien Disintegrator I would have like to have seen more length and depth to each DLC, as no single DLC took more than 3 hours to complete (with the exception of Point Lookout’s side quests and exploration)

I’d be hesitant to recommend this to anyone but hardcore Bethsda and Fallout fans, until a patch comes out that if not eliminates the problems, at least minimizes them.

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So I decided to go ahead and purchase the “Game of the Year” retail package instead of downloading the individual episodic content. The “GOTY” edition of Fallout 3 comes with all the content released on the Playstation Network and XBox Live packed on the disc – Broken Steel, Operation Anchorage, The Pitt, Point Lookout and Mothership Zeta.

Unfortunately for PS3 owners it seems that once again we’re getting a sub-par product. Shortly after booting up the game and starting the “Broken Steel” content I encountered some terrible frame-rate issues and eventually game-ending freezes that required a reboot of the PS3. These same issues have progressively gotten worse with each new episode. Parts of Operation Anchorage are borderline unplayable. I’m dreading the next quest – The Pitt because of the same problems.

The worst part of this all is that my regular copy of Fallout 3 rarely froze. Now even when just exploring the Wasteland – not even doing anything related to the GOTY content – my game will freeze. I would say in any given hour I’m restarting my PS3 on average 2 or 3 times. Over and over.

I really can’t believe that any company would stamp their name on such a poor product. Bethesda should be ashamed to have released this product as is. As others have said, until there is a patch, STAY AWAY!

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Now, I had already been an owner of the base Fallout 3 game, and when I found out the GOTY edition was going to be released, which included all five “expansions” (Operation: Anchorage, The Pitt, Broken Steel, Point Lookout, Mothership Zeta), I knew I had to have it! This is especially considering PS3 owners had to sit back and wait while XBOX360 owners had them available months and months ago. Each of these expansions were selling for $10 for 360 owners, but now we can have the original game ($35) plus the DLC ($50 total) for $60 (total savings of $25). Not too shabby.

People have a few concerns with loading time, crashing, and save files not carrying over. I haven’t experienced any issues with crashing (my original Fallout 3 crashed once in my 30+ hours of gameplay), but perhaps I can help shed light on the other two concerns.

1.) Long load times – When I first exited my house in Megaton, the game took about 2-3 minutes to load. This is *much* longer than usual. However, this is because the new content is initializing. Instantly, Point Lookout and The Pitt showed up in my quests. Next, I fast-traveled somewhere and again the load time was 2-3 minutes. Upon arriving at my destination, the remaining three quests (Broken Steel, Point Lookout, Mothership Zeta) became available. After this, load times were back to normal. Also, there were some frame rate issues at first coupled with the game freezing for one or two seconds periodically, but this ceased after about an hour or two of playing. I attribute these issues to the new quests being available and the game syncing up with your particular save game.

2.) Save files not carrying over – This is a regional issue. In the U.S., most players are not having difficulties. However, in Canada, I’m hearing a lot about how they only have an option to start a new game in the GOTY edition. This is because they played the Canadian version of the original Fallout 3 and it appears that saves generated by certain Canadian editions of the game aren’t being recognized by the GOTY Edition. This is obviously a glaring problem for Canadian players, so we can only hope that Bethesda releases a patch to address this issue.

All in all, each DLC quest will add anywhere between 3-4 hours of additional gameplay (so about 15-20 more hours total). There are also new enemies and weapons introduced. The most significant DLC is Broken Steel, which adds an additional 10 levels to achieve, 14 new perks, and 6 new achievements to unlock, and probably the largest addition to gameplay time. As for sheer enjoyment, Point Lookout and The Pitt offer great excitement due to their intricate story lines and engaging environments.

If you are a PS3 owner and Fallout 3 fan, this is the compilation that you’ve been waiting for! More missions, more guns, more enemies, more perks, more hours of fun! Even if you own the original copy, I would advise you to re-sell it and pick up a copy of the GOTY edition. Also, keep in mind that the issues people are having are only a patch fix away. I feel these are rare (or just misunderstood), and your gameplay experience will not suffer in the least. The 2008 game of the year just got better in 2009!