Fallout 3 is an incredibly difficult game to review. I say this not because there are numerous flaws or because the title is somehow broken, but rather because this is one of those games that refuses to tell you how to play it. From the moment gamers set out on their adventure across the Capital Wasteland, the training wheels are off and you are free to play the game however you see fit. In this circumstance, what may be perceived as weakness by one person is strength to another, and how each player crafts their character will go a long way in determining how the game unfolds. The freedom in Fallout 3 is immense, and this fact alone may enshrine the game as not only Game of the Year, but one of the greatest of all time.

In Fallout 3, the first nineteen years of your life are scripted, but don’t worry, as they go by fast and set the stage for the man or woman you will become. The game starts with the main character’s birth in Vault 101, a shelter for the lucky ones chosen to take refuge there at the outset of full-scale nuclear war. At this point, the player goes through all the permutations of selecting physical characteristics from brow height and chin width to selecting one of the seemingly limitless number of beards Bethesda has thrown in. From there the game fast-forwards a bit, as the toddler version of yourself learns some basic movement commands and distributes your character’s SPECIAL points, a system that returns once again from previous Fallout titles (the acronym stands for Strength, Perception, Endurance, Intelligence, Agility and Luck). By assigning points you will create the building blocks of your character. The game then continues to hurl you forward through time, and along the way your character picks up his special Pip Boy survival device and establishes his base stats. It’s quite a brilliant way to get players acclimated to Fallout’s world; Bethesda deserves a pat on the back for creating a tutorial that doesn’t simply give you instructions on how to fight and send you on your way.

Life suddenly changes when you turn nineteen. Your father (voiced by Liam Neson), has mysteriously left the Vault, in spite of the crucial lesson that no one ever enters and no one ever leaves. Making matters worse, the Vault Overseer is coming for you, so you must do everything in your power to escape the halls of Vault 101 and strike out after your father. As you dodge guards and fight your way past mutated roaches, your character eventually emerges into the “real world,” and that’s when Fallout 3 really takes flight.

From the moment your character steps out of the Vault and into the harsh sunlight of post-apocalyptic Washington, D.C., players will likely be struck by the enormity of the task before them. All you are told upon leaving the Vault is that your father was last spotted at the nearby human settlement of Megaton, and that might be a good place to start your search. However, there’s no rush to get there, as the entirety of the game is open right from the get go, and the only limits to what you can do are your ammo supply and HP count. The exploration bug will bite players will bite players constantly throughout the game as they chose to stray from the beaten path and tackle side-quests or explore a non-critical dungeon, simply because it’s there.

This is a formula which Bethesda milked in The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion to great effect, and it is back in full force here. Players can strike off in any direction and find human settlements or forgotten ruins, not to mention camps teeming with super mutants or raiders, all eager for the kill. When you have a game which features an Achievement for discovering over 100 different points of interest on the overworld map, you know there’s no shortage of things to do.