Before my chance to see Fallout 3 at this year's E3, I wouldn't have believed the concept of time travel was possible. Much to my surprise, however, Bethesda managed to create a time travel machine with their latest offering – Fallout 3. Fallout 3 not only transports fans back to the olden days of the franchise's heyday, but you'll also find yourself exploring the world, wanting to try one more thing out, and the next thing you know thirty minutes have gone by in what only seems like ten. I literally lost all sense of time when playing the game. Read on and learn why Fallout 3 was the best game of E3.

I Guess That Car Is Going Nowhere

It had been a year since I last saw Fallout 3, and even then we could only watch one of the developers demonstrate it for us. At this year's E3, however, Bethesda was ready to let foaming at the mouth fans like me actually get some good one-on-one time in with the game, letting us do whatever we wanted in their post-apocalyptic war. I can only hope Earth's inevitable apocalypse will be as fun as the world Bethesda has created.

I was like a deer in the headlights when entering into the world for the first time, because all I could do was marvel at the graphics, which are the best the 360 has ever seen. The world is a dump, complete with cracked roads, abandoned gas stations, and bridges half broke into two. Debris lays scattered about the world as the sun tries to shine its way through the haze of a radioactive morning. The game is a tragic mess, but I mean that as the highest compliment. Unlike the storybook splendor of Bethesda's Oblivion, the world of Fallout 3 – the ins and outs of Washington, DC – is as visually appealing for its horrid squalor as Oblivion was for its breathtaking beauty. The game was so incredibly detailed I just couldn't take my eyes away. I wanted to explore every nook and cranny, checking out everything from a flayed body to the crumbling mounds of a school, simply for the fact that it was all so fascinating I had to soak it all in while I still had the time. Also, much like Oblivion, I could roam around the world either in the first-person or with an over-the-shoulder third-person perspective.

I Love VATS

I desperately wanted to try out the combat for myself, so when I saw the ruins of an old school, I decided to adventure on in to see what I could potentially find. The school looked like what you'd expect from a ruined school, complete with chalkboards, overturned desks, etc. The school also featured a ton of savage barbarians who weren't too happy to see me. The combat of Fallout 3 plays like the combination of a FPS with the turn-based system of a RPG. It's theoretically possible to play the entire game like a FPS, always running and gunning and properly moving around to avoid fire and flank your enemies. Though fun, the game is meant to be played with the VATS system, a lovely little gameplay mechanic that gives you a set number of action points in order to individually target the parts of your enemy. Once you fire the VATS up, the game will pause and zoom in onto your enemy, giving you a chance to really look them in the white's of their eyes and find their weak points. The VATS system will also automatically calculate the potential success of an action, helping you determine if you should go for the gruesome headshot or something a bit more realistic.

The VATS system worked wonderfully! It was great to get a headshot in and watch the enemy's head explode into chunky pieces of meat in slow-mo, but other VATS assisted moves were just as enjoyable on a strategic level. For instance, as one enemy fled the scene of the battle, I used my VATS in order to zoom in on his legs, fired one shot into the calf of each leg, and watched as the enemy dropped to their knees. The enemy was unable to flee from the battle, so I hurriedly ran up to him and capped him in the head. Was it gory? No, not really, but it was so satisfying to screw with my prey and cripple them. Other enemies weren't so easy to takedown, as some of them had armored faceplates and chest protectors upping their defense. I could still shoot at their armored body parts if I wanted to do so, but it wasn't going to help me that much. The game was actually quite hard at times, as I died once after trying to take two enemies on with low health.

I didn't experiment around with the menu system too much, mainly because I wanted to see as much of the game as I was afforded in my thirty-minute allotment. I did get to bring up my system long enough to checkout some of its features, namely allowing me to see the SPECIAL system, Perks, and a variety of Skills. Players will use the SPECIAL system to increase traditional stats such as Strength, Intelligence, Charisma, and Agility to name but a few. Improving these traits will make the player better at using certain guns, mastering science, and much more. Perks, meanwhile, will grant players unique character traits, including the ability to have everyone die in horribly gory ways, letting you smooth talk the ladies, or increasing your ability to swing melee weapons. Skills act like Perks to a degree, but are less specific and more general in how they will affect your character. Increasing Small Guns, for example, will allow you to wield guns like pistols and rifles with better proficiency, while Speech will help you get more info out of NPCs by chatting with them.

Ewww

With my hands-on time rapidly winding down, I headed out to look for civilization, wanting to tryout the dialogue system of the game. I managed to work my way towards Megaton, a little shantytown built around a nuclear bomb that didn't explode. The town looked amazing, as the gates were two airplane wings that pulled up to let me in. I said hello to the sheriff, checked to see what was going on in the town, and then as I made my way down to the actual bomb, the next thing I know my time was up and I had to leave. Life is unfair.

When Oblivion came out for the Xbox 360, it didn't leave my system for many months. I loved exploring the rich world that Bethesda had created, and there were so many quests and things to do it felt like I would never have to leave. I didn't think it was possible, but Bethesda has outdone themselves with Fallout 3. For the second E3 in a row, Fallout 3 is my pick for Best Game of the Show. I take immense pleasure from the fact that it won't win E3 next year, as the game is scheduled to ship in only a few months, and I can't wait to own a copy for myself.