Story
It's a pretty basic story, however, it is not the only one. As you move through the wasteland you will find different factions who will give you side quests that will either have their own plots or contribute to the main story.
Gameplay
Gameplay is very similar to Fallout 3 with the only addition of a "grab" action that really didn't have much use for me. Your inventory is still limited by weight, which is determined by your strength, you still have the V.A.T.S. shooting, and you still have attributes like speech, sneak, and science. Shooting in the game is changed a bit by having the option of iron sights for weapons when you zoom in, but don't expect to be the shooting as refined as you would have on a FPS.
Your interactions in the wasteland are determined by your character's attributes and perks, which you gain upon leveling up. For example, the "sandman" perk allows you to instantly kill any character that is sleeping. Overall the game controls very well, although jumping is a bit iffy at times, and trying to jump onto objects can get frustrating.
A huge part of the gameplay is conversations with NPCs. These conversations play out through a typical dialogue screen, but your character traits can unlock different options. Have a high enough speech rating and you could sweet talk your way out of tough situations.
The biggest drawback of the game are the glitches. There was a patch available when I bought the game so I can't compare and say if it made things better, but there were definitely times where the game either froze, shutdown my PS3, or my character was stuck in the background. However, considering that the game auto-saves whenever you enter a new location, the frustration of having to re-play a huge section due to a glitch is avoided.
Presentation
The game supports 720p although there isn't much eye candy there. With very few exception the game will look post-apocalyptic: gray, desserted, and vast. The most prominent visually gratifying aspect of the game are the slow motion kills.
The music in the game helps add to the nostalgic atmosphere and you have the option of listening to the radio using your pip boy as well as from radios scattered throughout the wasteland. Although there are a couple of different stations, they are only differentiated by their hosts as the music will stay the same across the stations, perhaps only a few vinyls survived the war.
Aside from the music of the game, the sound effects are spot on. Carving into a large fire ant sounds real enough and there are parts of the game where the sound helps add to both the tension and horror of the situation. There is one section in particular where I had to mute the game to check whether the whispering voices where coming from the game or not.
Recommendation
This game is for compulsive side quest completers. While you can finish the main story rather quickly, it would defeat the point of this type of game. A large portion of the story content can be found in conversations, notes, and terminals. The game can move from being funny to making you regret playing it at night with the lights off, I can honestly say there where times where it made me jump and not because of a cheap startle scare.
Also, because of all the factions, characters and options, you can play through this game more than once and still feel like you're playing a new game. The game does a good job of making you weigh every option because you feel like they will have actual consequences.
