The incidental voices are disappointing since many characters are given identical voices and phrases and personally I would have liked them to have simply given me more voices in the minor characters. Most surprisingly the 'big ticket' names don't have much to do and I was surprised by the lack of impact of Neeson McDowell didn't have too much more time but he added more I felt. The characters are pretty well designed but the acting for the majority of them is only so-so.

The idea of an alternative world frozen in the 1950's and then destroyed by nuclear war sounds daft but yet it works wonderfully because whether it is music, iconic items or the way people speak, the 'All-American' feel of it contrasts really well with the reality of the wasteland the adverts looked cool but the whole game captures this and uses it very well. The design of the game is also key outside of game-play. The lock-picking and terminal hacking annoyed me at first but soon I 'got' them and enjoyed using logic and skill to do them. The key thing is that all of these aspects are combined and mixed well so that you never feel like you are totally in a RPG or totally in a FPS etc and it is surprising how well they all work together to pull you in. The FPS aspect is not as good as dedicated shooters, but the VATS system is good and free-firing is reasonably good. The use of dialogue choices and the range of ways to interact with people also makes it interesting – you can kill almost anyone you want, be rude, be polite, be helpful or be unhelpful, you can ask questions or simply ignore people all of them will have ramifications (however minor). The exploring, trading and building up a character's skill makes for a great RPG feel without ever becoming a chore or really detailed pain. Of course many of these places will also produce side-quests for you to do so it is very easy to suddenly find yourself struggling to decide what to do next as your options are so vast. Or, if specific quests don't take your fancy, you can simply head out into the wild where the many, many places awaiting you include abandoned drive-in cinemas or complex buildings overrun by mutants or human gangs. To do so would be a mistake though because there are a very strong collection of side-quests – some of which involve you going to one maybe two places, others (such as the Wilderness Survival Guide) take you to loads of places and defy the term 'side' quest by taking many hours to complete. I guess it must be possible to rush the quest and, although you'll be poorly equipped throughout, it might be possible to ignore the wider world and just push on this one path. The main story is quite linear and your decisions and actions in it will only vary it so much – this was fine by me as I didn't want to feel I was missing out on loads by taking a certain path (missing out on a friend or a specific weapon is OK). These side quests not only get you out exploring the world but also earn you money and experience which you need to build up your character to be better equipped for the wide world. You have characters in there that progress the main story but you have more characters that have side quests that you can do.

The first town you enter is a potted summary of the entire game. Eventually, over two years after release, I got it and wondered what the fuss was as I had to take baby steps to learn controls and design a character I didn't care about or even know if I would stick with – this feeling only lasted a short time because the story gets moving, the action starts, ramifications of decisions are felt and it is not long before you are out in the open, facing a massive landscape and with an entirely blank map. I had thought about it but all the stories of the many bugs put me off and I had also heard people describe the game as 'walking through an empty landscape for 30 minutes'. Hard to believe that I didn't even hear of this game when it came out and it was only a colleague telling me it was 'my thing' that made me aware of it.

Fallout 3 the pitt endings