The things that initially attracted Bethesda to the Fallout franchise are the same things that make the Elder Scrolls games so appealing. Though you have a tremendous range of choices, your actions also matter a great deal in both series and the worlds will respond to your choices in very realistic ways. The work that Bethesda put into Oblivion is already paying off in the design of Fallout 3.​

To create the world of Fallout 3, Bethesda simply took the future as people in 1950s America imagined it and then dropped a nuclear bomb on it.​

In case it sounds like Vault 101 is built solely around tutorials and character creation, there are plenty of quests and meaningful interactions to be found during the hour or so that you spend here. Those very bullies who showed up at your tenth birthday eventually develop into a gang of obnoxious greasers who delight in terrorizing young girls and you'll be confronted with a decision about whether or not to intervene.​

Loads of mutants, giant ants, slavers, death claws and rat scorpions are scouring the wastes looking for others to prey upon and you definitely don't want to become their latest victim.​

...the impressive Vault-Tech Assisted Targeting System (VATS). The feature is essentially a more detailed version of the combat system in Knights of the Old Republic. ... Using a pool of action points determined by your Agility, you'll queue up fire actions to the targets you want to hit on your enemy.​

All those pointless rocks and Barbie heads you find on the ground can be loaded into a makeshift Rock-It Launcher and put to good use.​

To get the Protectrons up and running, you'll need to hack into one of their control terminals. Once you find one, you'll have to play a short mini-game to gain access to it. The game displays a list of possible passwords and you're given a certain number of tries to guess the correct password before you're locked out of the system. Each time you guess you'll be told how many letters of the password you selected match the letters in the correct password. If you're smart and lucky, you can narrow the field down with each guess until you arrive at the right password.​

The main Brotherhood group here is the Lyons' Pride Platoon, led by Sentinel Lyons. They'll be patrolling the bombed out buildings, plazas and alleys of downtown DC, taking out mutants wherever they find them. The platoon members are equipped with powerful laser rifles and if you stick with them long enough you're bound to be able to loot one of these impressive weapons. In addition to taking direct shots at the mutants, you might also consider making use of the derelict cars that line the streets. Some of the still have a bit of juice in their nuclear-powered engines. Hit them just right and BOOM! Instant mushroom cloud.​

To take out the abnormally large Super Mutant Behemoth, you'll probably want to shoot at him with more than just your laser rifle. If you're lucky enough you might be able to get hold of a Fat Man, the game's personal mini-nuke launcher. This is essentially a bazooka that fires nuclear bombs. Even with the small mushroom clouds sprouting up right on target, the Super Mutant Behemoth doesn't go down that easy.​

Your basic stats aren't going to change much during the game (except as a result of radiation poisoning), but

you can collect bobble heads found throughout the game to bump the stats up a bit.​

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