As Paul Semel's recent interview with a company rep demonstrates, comparisons to Oblivion come fast and easy, and Bethesda isn't much interested in entertaining them. Yet playing the game, the lineage is impossible to shake. What will happen when a vast public with hours of Oblivion experience and no working knowledge of the Fallout series gets their hands on the thing?

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So why am I so unsatisfied?

Maybe it's that this demo did little to show how Fallout 3 is truly different from Oblivion. Ok, the lock-picking mini-game is slightly different (and better) but the dialogue trees, skill breakdowns and overall feel seem so much like Oblivion, at least in this early stage of the game, that the untrained eye could mistake it for a mod.​

It seems ridiculous to have to form some kind of informed opinion based on a two hour toe-dip into Bethesda's stunning post-apocalyptic world, given the gargantuan nature of this sci-fi RPG, but that's what we're paid to do, so here goes. Haters be quiet - Fallout 3 is shaping up to one of the best games of 2008, and, fingers crossed, could be one of the best RPGs ever.​

The mod scene: We fully expect to see an eventual attempt at a mod that converts the entire game of Fallout 3 into the classic isometric version of the originals, complete with a classic user interface. Whether or not it works or is even good is yet to be seen, but we're sure that such a mod will in fact happen. That's how crazy-strong the mod community is for PC games that embrace it​