...is that running a search for "best fallout moments" on Google brings up several searches on Fallout 3, and none on Fallout 1. But no, this isn't the depressing part. What's depressing is reading through people's "best Fallout 3 moments" have absolutely nothing to do with story or dialogue. Nothing. No mentioning of convincing final boss to kill himself, no mentioning of being able to trick someone into committing murder. Nada, nay, zilch.
Ok so I exaggerated a little. Some little bits involving dialogue, but nothing too impressive. Also This constitutes to only 5% of Fallout 3's best moments.
If Fallout is comparable to Road Warrior, then the impression I'm getting is Fallout 3 being on the same level as Saw.

If Fallout 1 was really comparable to Mad Max: Road Warrior, then that would be sad. Seriously, am I the only one who thinks that that was an epically bad film?
Enjoying the "action" moments more than the "story" moments is not an indication that a game is bad or that it lacks depth. For myself, my favorite parts of the early Fallout games generally involved miniguns and exploding heads. Probably the one moment that sticks out most in my head was this one time I saw the Brotherhood of Steel duking it out with some mutants for the first time. I was a relatively low level, then, and I remember being absolutely amazed that one Brother got knocked down with a missile for 2 damage, and then got right back up to blast the mutie's head off with an automatic weapon.
I dunno where you're looking for Fallout 3's "best moments," but I would think that the "moments" you uncovered are more reflective of the game's audience than of the game itself. The same can be said of any game, really.

Just like Saw Fallout 3 is all about dismemberment ;)

Well then I probably meant it in both ways.

You honestly should play games for your own impression and not others.
Fallout 3 is not that much different from the others, it's a 3d version of it. It's not a 3d fps no matter what people say, and considering some items in Van Bruren were supposed to have integrated circuits, it would've ended up alot different from the real Fallout history btw.
(If you don't know, Fallout takes an alternate history where people found Nuclear fission energy but never developed integrated circuits or the microchip. So pcs suck, but you have near unlimited power.)
I can mention some moments far better then the original fallouts, like *spoilers*
Liberty Prime
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JIhpJKKdjx0&feature=related
Btw, you also can convince the 'president of the us' to kill himself, the leader of the chinese taking over anchorage to kill himself, you can do all you mentioned in fallout 3.

In my opinion, the only really bad thing about Fallout 3 is too much focus on karma.

I liked Fallout 3, I just preferred Fallout 2.
The third instalment didn't have quite as many comic, literary, or pop-culture references; or as many conversation routes, or character influences on those, or as many allegiances.
I think it had most of the elements, though... the major thing that made it jarring to me was the 3Dness itself.
A post-apocalyptic world isn't quite as witty and charming when hand-drawn isometric gore is replaced with quite convincing dismembered bodies hanging from the ceiling, a background of screeching violins, and Wastehound helmets/feral ghouls running at you in the half-light.
Like I say, I enjoyed it... that world is just a little too real and edgy for me to spend any huge amount of time there.

I have to agree with this especially how some of the karma choices were questionable at best and I didn't always agree with what the developer considered "good" or "bad".

Anyway the idea I put forth isn't so much based on the gameplay in Fallout itself, but more on two main issues, one of which is noticed by Prator
1) I am under the impression that the game's main attraction is generally agreed by people as "101 ways to kill people" rather than a post apocalyptic role playing game. This is different from me saying Fallout 3 is definitive of "101 ways to kill people".
2) The "audience" I dug up from Google - and which I assume to be the most mainstream audience playing Fallout 3 - seem to be more interested in finding ways to kill NPCs and creating huge nuclear explosions and other special effects, kind of like the crowd that enjoys Michael Bay movies. This is different from me saying Fallout 3 is mainly for people who enjoy special effects and boom boom bang bang shaningans.

Dark moral decisions and great dialogues made the classic Fallout games good. Combat on the other hand was awkward, and you didn't really get the Wasteland feeling.
In F3, combat is pretty good, even if not as refined as it could have been, and you really feel alone in the Capital Wasteland. But the dialogues highest ambition seems to be to combine bad writing with moral decisions that are worse than Bioware-written ones. (As in 'Keep the reward'/'Where's my reward?'/'Oh, my reward. Now die!')
Anyway, I'd not really let my mood be changed by Google results. Google searches for the most read, most wanted and newest stuff, and neither applies to the classic Fallout games. Heck, even back then, they were kind of underground, only inferior to Torment in that regard.

"Fallout 3 is not that much different from the others, it's a 3d version of it."
No, it's not. In fact it's not even close.

There were a few quirky moments in Fallout 3 that I still laugh at.
Lugnut and the "naughty nightware" come to mind. You have to realize also that Fallout 3 wasn't trying to be like its predecessors. It was trying to do its own thing, and seemed rushed and watered down in areas the game should have excelled.

The biggest difference between Fallout 3 and the others is the attention to detail of the dialogue and storytelling. Fallout 3 was mostly limited to a few words responses and they were often bland and boring. In Fallout 1 and 2 there were brilliant and hilarious responses. The combat is brilliant in Fallout 3 but in its own way the combat was also great in 1 and 2. Also Fallout 3 stole the storyline from the originals!

Yeah, god forbid that you'd expect a supposed sequel to have anything to do with the previous installments.
If Bethesda wanted to do their own thing, they could've made their own IP.

i fucking hate this bullshit, fallout 3 is not a fallout game.
fucking jet couldn't possibly exist out there, it's bullshit.