I got it today and have been playing for a few hours now. I’m a die hard Fallout fan and here are my initial impressions:
The game is INCREDIBLY dark. Too dark in my opinion. Very difficult to see anything unless the light is at your back. As you increase the in game brightness the lighter areas become TOO bright.
The graphics are not too hot. They look on par with Oblivion.
Speaking of which the game play is much like O.
The voice acting of the big name voice actors is good. The voice acting of the general populace is wooden as hell.
VATS is implemented perfectly. Anyone who complains about VATS hasn’t ever played the original Fallouts as it’s implemented the same way.
All the skills, perks SPECIAL and etc… are the same as you remember them.
The dialouge is well written so far too.
All in all, after my first 2 hours or so with the game, I’m disappointed with the graphics. Not as much the resolution, but the overwhelming shadows on anything that is not lit directly head on. The story seems to be good so far, but I just got out of the Vault so I don’t know how good it will keep being.
Oh, this game is 75% Oblivion so if you didn’t like Oblivion, and you didn’t like Fallout, don’t waste your time with this game because you won’t like it. I’ll have to wait to pass final judgment on it.