Fallout 3 is a successfully crafted hybrid of first-person shooter and role-playing game.
The action of Fallout 3 takes place in 2277, 36 years after the events of Fallout 2 and exactly 200 years after the world was covered by the blanket of nuclear explosions. The player's character is a child of Vault 101, a quaint place with an iron curtain policy. "Born in the Vault — you will die in it too." However, for the father of the main character and for the main character themselves (as well as, as it turns out later, for several other people), this rule had an exception.
Of course, upon finding themselves on the surface, in the Wastelands, the hero immediately sets out to save the world. Or not quite save it, depending on the decisions made.
Fallout 3 received very positive reviews from players and the press, although in spirit it does not have a very direct relation to the Fallout series. It is appropriate to say that if you want to play a real Fallout 3, it makes sense to install Fallout: New Vegas, created, firstly, by the makers of the original two Fallout games, and secondly, according to their original ideas, as well as in accordance with the canon of the series and the universe as a whole. Well, as for Fallout 3, the game turned out to be "good, solid," but somewhat not in the spirit of the earlier parts of the series.
The downloadable content (DLC) didn't take long to arrive. As of now, Fallout 3 boasts five:
Operation: Anchorage, a story about virtual reality and the simulation of a Chinese invasion of Alaska;
The Pitt, an excellent offshoot that tells about what Pittsburgh has turned into and how to deal with it;
Mothership Zeta - a rather straightforward affair filled with aliens, representatives from various time periods, and a wild amount of lead per cubic meter of air;
Point Lookout - perhaps the best addition available. Here the player is thrown into a place filled with Lovecraftian atmosphere, including an abandoned city, a military base, a lighthouse, swamps, swamps, swamps, and some smaller locations. This addition has become the most atmospheric, the most developed, and perhaps the most challenging of all types of Fallout 3, including the base game;
Broken Steel — a continuation of the base Fallout 3 plot, telling about how the Brotherhood of Steel cleans up the remnants of the Enclave in all places it can reach. Among other things, this DLC raises the level cap from 20 to 30 and concludes the story of Fallout 3.