Have you played Fallout 3? I've not finished it, due to a glitch that just annoyed me, but apart from that it's awesome, basically Oblivion with guns. Fantastic stuff. If you've not played it, try and get it cheap and get it. Well worth getting, and that goes out to everyone!
Got it on PS3 and 360 and will probably buy the GOTY version on PC when/if it comes out. I think it's an excellent game but not a great one...
F3 improves on the Oblivion engine in many ways (or rather, addresses a lot of user gripes about Oblivion) like doing away with active levelling, which I've never had a problem with, etc. The character design and animation is a lot better and VATS is a blast to use.
A few things bug me about it - the level cap and the game ending when the main quest is completed, no matter how many side quests are remaining being the two biggies. I know they're consistent with the Fallout universe (I've owned the first two Fallout games since release) but I think things have moved on in the last decade and we really can go towards a true 'open world' experience. I know the PC version has mods which overcome this (and give some real downsides to adiation exposure, somehting underused in the vanilla version) but it shouldn't be up to a highly talented modding community to improve a flagship title like this to such a major degree.
The PC Oblivion mods are great too but I think they serve to tweak the game for specific playing styles (such as those who prefer static levelling) rather than fix something major - I can get just as much enjoyment with the vanilla Oblivion as I do with a heavily modded PC version.
I'm beginning to ramble.
The Tatty Rating - Fallout 3: 8/10, Oblivion: 9/10
John - So just plugging a 360 in and connecting it to any visual output, switching it on and it working is more of a pain than holding a PS3 power button down, waiting for it to boot then wading through two or three menus? Add to that the aspect of sound - again, on the 360 it 'just works' when you plug it into an amp or leave it on TV speakers. The PS3 has to be configured all over again every time you switch. Your blinkers are starting to become amusing.
The PS3
should be a great system some day but all the promise in the world stands for Jack Sh*t if companies can't get their products running well on it. It might be different in 12 months but I remember saying the same thing 12 months ago.
Getting back to Fallout 3 for example - I gave the pS3 version another chance when Bethesda released the patch. No more freezing when someone signs into your PSN, sure, but there's still major slowdown in places and I've found random freezes (which need a hard reset to overcome) when coming out of area loading screens. My console runs everything else perfectly and the disc is pristine so I can only assume that it's another fault with the port.