There has been much debate raging here, and many other places too, regarding the validity of the new Fo3 game.
A few (like me) enjoyed the new game as a fanboi 1st person shooter, but HATE it carrying the title of "fallout 3"...feeling it is criminal to dupe the hard core fans into believing it really is the 3rd installment of the Fo series.
Many just hate it, full stop.
Many love it as late-comers to the genre , and it has spawned some new fans of the originals.
This post, is to hopefully fill in the gaps that some of the "Fans" of the new game seem to be missing in wondering why us hard-core die-hards are so rabid about this NOT being Fallout3, but just an Oblivion-esque game with the setting of Apocalyptia grafted on top like a cheap suit.
When 1 & 2 had garnered a large fanbase, we ALL drooled at the idea of when Part 3 would hit the shelves, and we sat, and sat, and sat, and waited ... trawling the internet for news....of "Van Buren", the pre-release codename of Fallout 3.
Sadly, history , and the following article I`m about to post, will fill in the gaps.
Here is a link to a Q&A session , pulled from the archives of NMA, with one of the head honchos who was working on Van Buren.
This article, on its own, will explain perfectly why so many Fallout fans believe that the new incarnation is NOT a "fallout 3" game at all.
Read on:
http://www.nma-fallout.com/article.php?id=1594
And just in case you miss it , or selectively ignore it, let me paste one single quote here from that article.... it actually sums up the whole debate , right from the mouth of a developer concerning the Van Buren Engine called Jefferson:
"“You can't take the camera into the large intestine of an enemy and navigate through its body, either. If people want to play a first-person action RPG, they can go buy one. Jefferson is an isometric third-person RPG.” –J.E. Sawyer"
Enjoy, or weep, at the article.
This is what we lost fellow Wastelanders.

No... No.
The lack of an Isometric camera is not the single most important reason why all Fallout fans that don't like Fallout 3 don't like Fallout 3.

How about the gross ripoff from the previous games? It's like they played the last 2 Fallouts and thought it was all about Jet, Supermutants, and the BoS. I am quite surprised that they didn't have the Master doing the lambada with Frank Horrigan.
Bethesda was the wrong developer to have bought the Fallout license. They specialize in making sandbox games, not games with a tightly written story that doesn't make you feel like you're on rails and gives you the benefit of a well-rounded system of choice and consequence. I would rather either have the Fallout franchise dead and buried, but remembered fondly, than to have Bethesda dry humping it's cold, dead corpse to the tune of money pouring into their bank account.

You know, if I'm half convinced this fellow is a troll.

peanut butter sandwiches, nuka cola, and skooma.

Lengrade or judas?
In all fairness, the first posted linked to NMA which is basically in invitation to troll, at least from every interaction I've ever had with the place

Legrande.
NMA is nothing compared to RPGCodex when it comes to trolling and posting pictures of pierced tatooed phalluses in unrelated threads. I'm pretty sure I've seen Legrende on one or the other thought a search of Codex turned up nothing.

Indeed, there were a lot of plot inconsistencies

I didn't think I was trolling....

Well no, I didn't think so either but you were the only other one posting at that time and you DO have this ever so slight bias against what bethesda has done with F3

Yeah, I tend to get carried away sometimes....can't help it really..

You weren`t Judas, its Just Hairlip pursuing a personal vendetta because I called him out on another thread for getting dubious sexual gratification by being unnecessarily aggressive to anyone who has an IQ above 23 and can string more than 3 coherent words together. :)
He thinks that internet forums are for typing with one hand, and playing pocket pool with the other...lol
Never was a big fan of NMA myself, but have to admit that their archive interviews on the Fallout Universe are interesting in a historical context.

Wait... What? You "called me out for getting dubious sexual gratification by being unnecessarily aggressive to anyone who has an IQ above 23 and can string more than 3 coherent words together"?
Well, aside from the fact that this is just one big personal attack, just when did this happen? Are you sure I read the post because I don't remember it.
Search time...
EDIT: Actually, that would take too long with no parameters but your name. Where exactly did you do this? Or are you saying you did it in this thread with your OP?

Yes, F3 has inconsistancies with the canon and they liberally use elements from the earlier fallouts with no regard to how they fit in. that doesn't really bother me. It's a game, I don't care if they stick to everything exactly. The one legitimate gripe I can see (personally) about F3 vs the other two is that it completely changes the TYPE of game it is. The first two fallouts were group based tactical RPGs. F3 is a FPS with some people following you, there is absolutely no tactics outside shooting a gun out of someone's hand. Maybe they should've called the game Fallout Adventures, or something.
The environment and atmosphere I thought was ok, I don't think they erred too much in that except that I would have liked a few LESS outright hostile people in the wasteland and a little more interaction with wasteland denizens outside the towns. Less pure combat and more nuanced interaction, which was sorely lacking.
Overall I like the game, but it's completely a different style and type of game than its predecessors. It's incredibly difficult to compare them head to head because of that large gap in playstyle