Some choices have repercussions so deep that no amount of heartfelt apologies, not even a week’s worth of food tickets spent on a rare bag of candy can get you back to the comfort of normalcy. It’s a lesson my ancestors learned 200 years ago when they entered Vault 101 to survive the nuclear apocalypse. It’s a fact that my dad faced every day before he mysteriously abandoned our subterranean home, and one that I eagerly embraced in my own violent escape to track him down among the ruins of civilization.

You may have already heard about the large bomb nestled in the heart of Megaton city, but it serves as the perfect example of the gratuitous freedom offered in Fallout 3. On one hand, you could detonate the bomb and drown in waterfalls of wealth and bad karma. On the other, you could disarm it for the Sheriff and bask in the simple pleasure of a child’s smiling face. What nobody tells you about are the options in-between. You could let Burke and the Sheriff duke it out and loot the corpses, or dismiss the entire situation and simply walk away. Unlike Fable and Mass Effect, which force players to choose strict paths of morality for the maximum experience, Fallout 3 is a maze of gray intersections.

Although good and bad karma dictates your relationships with the locals, for once neutrality is an equally viable and rewarding route, allowing you to make difficult decisions based on personal ethics rather than scores. In one such instance, a young, teary-eyed boy approached me under the crumbling remains of a highway. Giant, fire-spewing ants had decimated his town, thanks to the genetic meddling of a rogue scientist. All I had to do was find the boy’s dad. I located the corpse easily enough and the job was done, but those blubbering eyes got to me. I spent the rest of the day battling through the tunnels below the city, blowing through most of my ammo until I had vanquished the queen. I also happened upon the scientist, cowardly hidden in his lab. His pompous lack of remorse was all the convincing I needed to spare my last two shotgun shells.

I left that town as a known murderer, but I knew it was the right thing to do. It also put me another day behind my dad, as did my trip to Rivet City, my search for a runaway android, and my looting expedition into the Red Racer factory, but surely they were justifiable means of strengthening myself for the difficulties ahead. That’s what I kept telling myself. Truth is, I had become enamored with my newfound freedom and I didn’t want to let a single experience slip by. Would I have met that boy had I been walking 20 paces over? Would I have found the Ripper – a grisly, one-handed chainsaw – if I hadn’t let curiosity take hold?

Curiosity wasn’t fully to blame for my tardiness though. You can see the general layout of the world on your PipBoy 3000, and in some cases, see your distant goal from the vantage point of a hilltop, but getting to there will rarely be easy. Instead of the completely open environments of Oblivion, the game relies upon a glorified hub system that branches off into paths lined with the rubble of buildings on either side, and a winding labyrinth of subway tunnels hidden underfoot. I lost count of how many times I had to backtrack around masses of concrete, and then backtrack yet again before realizing that the only way to my objective was through a seemingly unrelated subway station.