Fallout 3 - Preview @ Top Ten Hammer

This blogger's enthusiastic look at the Fallout 3 preview in Liepzig may be of interest as it appears to come from a MMOG player's perspective and seems a good indication of the kind of response to expect from someone who has never played the original Fallouts:

 I came in with a few reservations about where the game could be headed, and I came out with the biggest grin on my face. The best way to describe Fallout 3 can be summed up in this way:

Fallout 3 is Oblivion on steroids. With nukes.

In a step away from Oblivion and Morrowind, Bethesda decided to make Fallout 3 an XP based game. Both those games, which were in the Elder Scrolls series of titles, featured advancement based upon use of skills rather than how many times a creature was killed or a quest was completed.

With Fallout 3, Bethesda wanted the game to remain fairly close to the standard system used in the other Fallout games, but they also determined that having a level based system was an opportune way for Fallout to differentiate from the Elder Scrolls games...

Checking the status of your character has once again been delegated to the illustrious Pip-Boy; this time the Pip-Boy Model 3000 that was given to you by your father. Bethesda took extra special care to make this particular Pip-Boy look outstanding, and Hines joked that “there are more shaders on the Pip-Boy than there are in Oblivion.”