Fallout 3 What are your thoughts after a week?

http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/foru [...] t-spoilers

I enjoy it. Mostly doing exploring and side quests. I'm currently level 11 or 12 and I still haven't completed the first part of the main quest. While exploring the various towns/cities I was able to complete the first quest after talking to someone about an event that actually takes place later on in the main story. I won't spoil it for you, but I decided to reload my game and not talk this particular so that I can follow the main story as it was meant to be.

The game crashed once, maybe twice, after 12 hours of gameplay, but now it seems to crash a little more often. I might be simply due to the fact that the size of the saved game increases as the game progresses. Hopefully a simply patch will fix this issue.

The VATs system makes this game kinda unique for an FPS since you can pause and target specific body parts if you are using a ranged weapon. In melee and un-armed combat you can still use VATs to increase your chances of hitting your target, but you cannot specify which part of the body.

Sneaking around / hiding seems to be rather difficult compared to other games even when I upped my sneak skill to 50% (I guess it needs to be higher). I had more success staying hidden in other games like Crysis (when not using cloak), HL2, and Far Cry 1. It makes sniping somewhat difficult.

Something else that bothers me is that the same enemies respawns in the same area after some time has past. For example, nearby one of the metro station is the remains of an abandoned house; in the house is a woman who is tied up and screaming for help. There are 3 or 4 super-mutants roaming in or near the house. There are also two centaurs in the open field between the house and the metro station. Also nearby are 3 wild dogs.

I went in, killed everything and freed the woman. Later on in the game the same exact monsters respawned in the area. The woman was not respawned. I would have just preferred random encounters after a specific area has been cleared.

There are a few other minor issues, but overall I thought it was worth the $50 gift certificate I used to purchase this game. I ended up only having to dish out for the taxes. Even without the $50 GC, I would have bought this game anyway on the day it was released.

Haven't played it yet, but I will say one thing:

If the only DRM in the game is CD check I'll buy it on priciple alone. I hate that overly ambitious copy protection crap.

It uses older securom (cd check), there's cd key but i've never had to use it (I assume it's for online/LIVE - PC).

Fallout 3 lacks the graphics that Far Cry 2 has, but just better gameplay imo, enjoying it a lot more.

Yeah, I don't mind a simply CD check for copy protection.

The uber DRM which limits the number of install is way over the top for me. While it may deter the occational lazy pirate and, more importantly, legitimate consumers (like myself), it will not deter pirates with time on their hands to simply download those games.