Fallout 3 and my love affair with the Side Quest

I recently purchased an XBox 360. I know, I've always been a Nintendo man (even though I did dabble with a PS2), but I finally caved, new games are so cool.

So I went ahead and purchased this one game, Fallout 3, you have to know this, it's in the title.

I wasn't really aware of what exactly Fallout 3 was, all I knew was that it was highly rated, my good friend Matt said it was cool, and it took place in a post-nuclear war retro styled future. What I didn't know, and should have going in, is that it is a massive RPG that not only looks beautiful, but has so much style and cool it's silly.

But I'm not here to review Fallout 3 for you, that'd be silly, I haven't even finished one play-through of it yet.

I blame Bryan Wilks.

Do you see that face? That is the face of a really long and amazing side quest.

- Could you find my dad?

Sure kid, let me murder all of these fire ants for you. Oh, snap, I found your dad, he's dead :(

- Could you murder all the fire ants?

Sure kid, clearly I can do that. I just spent two hours or so wiping out an entire city filled with them.

Then you run into a random scientist...

- Could you murder these really strong fire ants for me? Oh, but leave the Queen fire ant alive.

Oh, sure, yea, that won't take me any time at all.

Then you run into a religious zealot wearing power armor...

- Hey, could you murder these giant mutants for me? We'll save my friend!

Of course I can, that won't take me an hour or so while they brutally kill me over and over.

Then you return to the kid...

- Thanks for killing all those Fire Ants for me... could you find me a new home?

And I haven't done that yet, because his new home is in a city that is really far away, and I had other Side Quests to do. I can't even begin to imagine how awesome the actual game is once I start playing it.