I was an avid Fallout 1 and 2 player, but never got into Fallout 3.

Between the jerky animations, the change to 3d and specially the writing, something was lost.

In the originals, I remember being able to fool a kid in shooting his father, being sodomized by a super mutant or having 1 in inteligence and being treated like a retard by everybody.

Fallout 3... dunno, it feel bigger, but more shallow, and also more family friendly. There was also a change to a more sandbox-y approach with lots of scavenging. All fallout players I know collect something, be it bottles or heads.

I don't want to be chained to the past so I will not say the old ones are best, but the new ones feel like a different game for me.