Any word on length? I'm still debating wether or not I should pick this up.
The main quest is anywhere from 12-15 hours, I've read in reviews. I've barely been sticking to the main quest, since I got out of The Vault 101. Yes, I got this game today -- CC didn't get FO3: CE in for the PC, so I flew over to BB and spent outdoors for The CE.
So, I'm 5 hours and 50 minutes into this, according to my last game saves. I finally decided to take a little bit of a break for this one. I had to tear myself away from this just to write this post. Yeah, my eyes are fried -- and I need a break.
Got the game running on 1024x768 -- most stuff on Medium or High, which is what the game configured it at itself. Had no problems with this game, technically or anything. The game is incredibly detailed and gorgeous. Draw distance is insane. God, The Wastelands just have never looked this good before.
VATS is awesome. Nothing's more satisfying than making a few called shots and then watching a bloody mess of a death in dramatic cinematic style -- whether you use a knife to ginsu someone's arm off or blow a head off with a gun from a distance. It's grotesquely violent; absolutely beautiful music to my ears.
In combat, I find myself mucking around a lot. Maybe start with a few shots in VATS, then make a real-time kill. Maybe do some real-time shooting, then jump into VATS to make some called shots to hopefully end the battle off. I find myself very satisfied with combat, whether I'm using VATS or even using real-time. Sometimes action gets so frantic in real-time and I'm so into it, I just don't even get the chance to click on VATS.
I find myself managing inventory all the time, since just about everybody you kill drops whatever loot they have in their Inventory (a la Oblivion) -- especially since your weapons and armor do get weaker and stuff. If I make a kill in combat, I see myself often taking their gear if it's better and wear that. I find myself getting taking loot and dropping lots of loot I had in the gameworld.
I find myself sticking mostly with first-person view. Sure, I might jump out for third-person mode for a bit, which is a hell of a lot better than it was in Oblivion since there's a crosshair on-screen. So, that solves all my problems there that I had with Oblivion.
Yeah, I wandered into the school, too. Before I went towards Megaton. All filled with raiders. Great action in there -- and great way to try out combat -- real-time and VATS. I also wandered my way into a Super-Mart, which was also filled with bandits and whatnot. Again, more great combat to be had in there.
Megaton -- Sheriff Simms & Mister Burke Quest **Spoilers**
Pretty much, the guy who runs the bar and Sheriff run the city of Megaton. Who's in power? Depends who you ask in town. These two are striving for control of it, basically.
So, I told Mister Burke I'd help him blow up Megaton -- little did he know I already agreed to disarm the bomb. So, he gave me the bomb activator and I took it right to the town Sheriff. Sheriff had me come with him to arrest the guy, Burke shot him, I took Burke out right then and there.
The whole Megatown town acts and talks about Sheriff Simms being gone and that he died, if I bring up a dialogue tree with his name in it -- even the son of Simms. It's a very nice touch, to see them speak about him in the past tense.
**End Spoilers**
I should note this -- signing yourself into G4WL to do Achievements and stuff for your profile; these saves profiles are different from your offline save profiles. Like GoW PC, your offline profile and G4WL will be different -- so if you sign in as your G4WL account, you'll have one profile for saves. Don't sign into G4WL, you'll have a totally different profile for saves. Right, so you can't upload your saves from G4WL to offline or vice versa.
So far, it's pretty awesome.