Even though I have an old tiny CRT TV and not some fancy HDTV, I've found only marginal difficulty reading dialogue text in what is otherwise the most addictive game I've played since Katamari Damacy: Fallout 3. Maybe it's the bleak grey-brown alterna-future, the 1950's art design, the payoff for exploration... I have a very hard time putting down the controller at 2:00 a.m. and coming to bed.

It is very much like WoW in it's constant-quest-giving nature. There's always just one more thing to do before you take a break. Unlike WoW, the quests feel substantiative. Although I know I'm wasting my life, I don't feel like it so much. Perhaps it's the lack of online play, though, that makes it better. It's post apocalyptic; You don't expect to see a ton of other people out trolling the wastelands. Well, maybe one or two, but that's what makes them fun to run into... There's only the one.

The one thing I am certain of, Fallout rewards exploration with oodles of eye candy. There is huge incentive to straying from the path you were on to check out that neat, oddly solid looking building beside that pile of nondescript rubble. You may be rewarded with creepy tunnels filled with glowing purple soda and giant crab monsters that don't really care if you shoot at them... it just pisses them off. Quick, go get the missile launcher! Dark Cloud 2 I liked a lot for many of the same reasons that I like this game. However, we can thank developers new propensity for catering to "hard-core gamers" (i.e., adults) for delivering a game which is worlds more mature.

Fallout 3 wins in it's character flexibility. It's a true role-playing game. It gives you tools and flexibility to play as any disturbed, unbalanced personality you can come up with. So you want to play an alcoholic pacifist? Great! Go for it! It's in there.

Bethesda has made a fantastic game, in a setting I actually want to play in, with characters I like, and enough content to screw with your head for months. Don't tell my girlfriend. She thinks she's getting me back eventually.