It's been a decade since the last Fallout release, and a lot has happened since then. In 2004, Interplay shut down, leaving many fans thinking the Fallout franchise could be gone forever. With the formal sale of the Fallout IP to Bethesda last year, the franchise was reborn and the next generation of the Fallout series is finally here. The real question is with all the fanfare; can it live up to the hefty expectations and rekindle the fond memories that so many of us have from so long ago?

Fallout 3 takes place roughly two-hundred years after a nuclear war devastated the planet. While the series originally started in Southern California, this time around you'll find yourself in a post-apocalyptic Washington D.C., better known as the Capital Wasteland. You are a resident of Vault 101, one of a series of fallout vaults built to protect its inhabitants from the harsh conditions in the wasteland. As the story goes, in Vault 101, nobody enters - and nobody leaves. Raised as a child in the vault, the game begins with you as a young lad learning to take your first steps and continues as you grow older (this portion of the game is used as both a training mission and to build an affinity with your character). It isn't until you wake up one day to find the vault in chaos - your father has somehow left and it's up to you to follow him into the wasteland - where the story really begins.

The Capital Wasteland is a harsh environment, littered with radiation and mutant foes. Raiding parties are common and extremely dangerous early on in the game. Much smaller than the world in Oblivion, the wasteland is densely packed with towns, abandoned cities, and various ruins from a world long ago. The developers have done a fantastic job in following the look and feel of past Fallout games; devastation and destruction are everywhere, land mines are prevalent, and the landscape is a constant reminder of what lurks in the shadows. Many areas of the downtown D.C. area are inaccessible above ground: you'll have to travel through old, dark metro tunnels to reach these isolated areas.

The main quest takes you throughout the Capital Wasteland in search of your father, to uncover why he left the vault, the secrets about your past, and discover a mission that could change humanity. Along the way you'll interact with friends and foes from past games such as the Brotherhood of Steel, a self-governing group attempting to bring civilization back to the land, and the Enclave, a shadow government organization that believes in eradication for all mutants. In all, the main quest really only explores a small portion of the Capital Wasteland. It's also surprisingly short (it could easily be completed in six to eight hours), and once you've finished it, unlike Oblivion, the game ends. Fortunately, the last few missions are some of the most fun you'll have, and even after you're finished you can always go back to an earlier save and continue through the large number of side quests available.

One of the most talked about features in Fallout 3 is V.A.T.S. - the Vault-Tec Assisted Targeting System, and it's slick. During combat, V.A.T.S .allows you to freeze frame the action, and enter a targeting mode to queue up attacks on your foes. Given a certain number of action points, you're provided hit percentages on different parts of their body, and once activated the game enters a slow-motion cinematic perspective that shows the debilitating hits in gruesome detail. If you enjoy gore and lots of it - this is where you'll really have some fun. Once consumed, the action points will slowly replenish themselves. As such, V.A.T.S. really needs to be used sparingly to be most effective. Outside of V.A.T.S., the real-time combat system is solid, albeit less predictable in terms of damage delivered. Third-person combat is a bit of a mess, and the game does offer a few cheap tactics (like the ability to run backwards at full speed), but all in all the combat system works. Besides, you'll never get tired of watching Super Mutants explode into a bloody pile of guts.

The central menu system in the game is through your Pip-Boy 3000, a watch-like device that provides access to your status, equipment, inventory, maps, and quests. Throughout the Capital Wasteland, you'll find hundreds of items, and like Oblivion, if it's not bolted to the floor; you can pretty much add it to your inventory. One of the really interesting elements if the ability to construct improvised weapons based on items found in the wasteland. If you have a set of blueprints, you can go to a merchant that specializes in custom weapons, or build them yourself with the necessary repair skill

While parts of the wasteland and certain cities are practically free of radiation, many areas of the game are still heavily irradiated, notably the water sources. Radiation is a cumulative effect; as you're exposed you'll slowly become poisoned, increasing in levels until you reach a critical point (you know, that lovely thing we call radiation death). However, radiation exposure can be managed through the use of drugs: items like Rad-X helps to provide a temporary increased resistance, and RadAway is used to reduce your overall radiation level. As you progress through the game, you'll rely on other drugs like Stimpacks, Jet, and Psycho to provide effects like health regeneration, additional action points, or damage modifiers. Just be careful not to become addicted, as you'll begin to feel withdrawal symptoms not long after addiction sets in.