Fallout 3 sucks

I think this horse has been beaten to death... but I enjoy fruitless grinding (IE, I play World of Warcraft) so here's my turn!

For those not into rpgs and PC gaming, the fallout series of games has been an interesting if rather unpredictable ride from the awesome cult classic CRPG games Fallout 1 & 2 to the mediocre tactical squad action of Fallout Tactics to the insipid and utterly forgettable 3rd person shooter that is Fallout: Brotherhood of steel... Now we have Fallout 3, a spiritual successor to the original FO 1 & 2 games in the same way that the Doom movie took Doom 3 as it's inspiration.

...and it SUCKS.

Why? Why does it suck?

Well, first... it was made by Bethesda; which means it's in an buggy engine that crashes regularly, it isn't finished and it has a story that is uninspired.

BUT WAIT!!! THERE'S MORE!!!

The story is worse than uninspired! It rips off both of the earlier RPGs, water is the focus of FO3 and FO1, the GECK comes up in FO2 and many of the factions are ripped straight out of both of these stories, particularly the enclave from FO2 and the Brotherhood of Steel. The presence of these factions MAKES NO SENSE in this new setting! It's almost as bad as the writing for the star wars prequels! ugh... what were they thinking?!?

The Karma system is a joke; "all actions have a consequence"... that statement means nothing. If I eat baked beans, there is a consequence... People suffer from methane poisoning. If I walk forward 10 paces there is a consequence; I'm 10 paces closer to the garbage bin with this bloody game in hand! If I do something bad in FO3, people don't like me... then I do something good and they like me again. Um... yay? Consequences! It's an insult to the interesting and diverse Karma system from FO1 & 2 which could cause you to be labeled for many of your actions irrespective of your overall evil or good leanings. "Child killer" "Grave robber" "Sex god(ess)"... just a few of the amusing titles you could earn from Fallout 2. The Karma system in FO3 is so shallow as to be non-existent... more like a shiny decal on a rust bucket of a burned out car.

The ending to the basic game is keyboard snappingly stupid. I won't go into the specifics, but the writing for this part of the game is SO retarded it makes you want to go back to a previous save to soak up the relatively less horrible parts of the story... or, you know, delete the bloody game and write a rant about it 6 months later.

The difficulty curve is the worst one to have, hard at first... then easy street. This puts off RPG newbs and bores the leet rpg players... like me. :3

...and on the matter of the RPG system... there isn't one. Anyone willing to put in a bit of time can become a Fallout GOD in Fallout 3... all stats maxxed out, almost all skills maxxed out. I can do anything I want, I can melee Super Mutants 4 times my height and own them, I can turn trash into makeshift weapons Macgyver would be proud of, I can hack any computer, pick any lock, talk my way out of anything, I can be Rambo with a huge chain gun or I can be a Predator or I can just be a nutter with a knife and kill anything I want.

In short, I don't have to make any choice I'm not forced to... and even then I can choose to not choose. There's no challenge left in the system... and it's not hard to get to this point.

So: is there anything good about fallout 3?

It looks OK?

It's kinda fun for a little while before it gets boring...

There's a lot of potential in a 3D Fallout (Look at the mods and Fallout New Vegas!).

Final word: Bethesda; take some time to fix your useless engine and spend some money on some decent writers before you rape another franchise, 'k?

Anyone else have an opinion on this ABOMINATION against good gaming?