Fallout 3 - GC Previews @ IGN, GameSpy, UGO

A trio of Fallout 3 previews from Leipzig are available from IGN, GameSpy and UGO.  From IGN:

Early in combat I toyed with gunplay outside of the VATS system. Fallout allows players to jump to a third-person perspective that makes melee combat much easier, but for aiming with a pistol or rifle the first-person view is key. There is also a left trigger zoom on the Xbox 360 version that allows for more specific aiming. Considering the depth of your character's skills, armor, and weapon set, Fallout 3 plays like an incredibly familiar first-person shooter if you choose that approach. However, the targeting system is what makes the game shine. It allows the user to freeze the action and queue specifically targeted attacks.

Take my first encounter using VATS, for example. Having infiltrated the top floor of Springdale Elementary, I managed to obtain grenades and a good amount of ammo for my pistol. After entering one of the particularly dark halls I was confronted by a Raider with a growling dog at his side. Having hot-keyed my grenades to the D-pad I tapped the up button to equip them and then hit the right bumper to freeze the action. I targeted the dog and jumped back into the action. My accuracy was not perfect and the blast only injured the dog, but his owner was transformed into a sticky red vapor in a very stylish slow motion sequence.

...and GameSpy:

There's far more to do in Fallout 3 than just shooting people to itsy-bitsy pieces. If you're playing a character with plenty of speech skill, you can sway the natives with the power of conversation, plying them for free stuff, favors, and access to stuff that you'd otherwise only achieve through combat or thievery. Then there are the hacking and lock-picking games that will get you into places where you weren't meant to be. The lock-picking mini-game is a test of finesse, as you work a screwdriver and bobby pin simultaneously in order to turn locks, hoping to apply the right amount of pressure before your pin snaps. The hacking mini-game is a word puzzle, where through the process of elimination and lucky guesswork you arrive at the necessary password to break into the system.

Finally, UGO:

Clearly Vault 106 did not have the same luck that Vault 101 had. Despite never allowing anyone to leave Vault 101, it is rather well stocked with goods and everyone seems to be relatively “with the program.” Vault 106 looked like a bomb went of. Inside of it. Everything was rusted, desks were tossed over, chairs broken, computers sparking and useless. It was nothing short of an abandoned ruin. And then I realized it wasn’t quite abandoned.

Passing through the halls I came upon a woman wearing a Vault 106 jumpsuit. Within seconds of trying to say howdy, she attacked me with a pipe. She was definitely crazy, mumbling about something or other. Something had happened down here, and I had to figure out what. More and more deranged Vault 106ers came at me, or were attacking each other. And that’s when the visions started.