Fallout 3 was my first exposure to a Bethesda-style Role Playing Game, and the first RPG in general I'd played with so much depth and choice. As much as some criticize Fallout 3 for not being as open in choice as previous Fallout games, or its spin-off game created by Obsidian Entertainment, Fallout: New Vegas, it was leagues beyond my own experiences with Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest, and Fable games.

Which is why I was somewhat disappointed with my first encounter with a super mutant.

I had gone in to Fallout 3 knowing very little about the game beyond the basic premise, and a bit about the settlement of Megaton after having seen someone else play the game. When I first encountered a super mutant, I had no idea what it was. I mostly just knew I'd been approaching a truck with the hope of finding something to scavenge when an enormous yellow-green humanoid emerged from it.

I also knew it was my enemy, because the red marker on my compass had told me so.

I didn't like being told the super mutant was an enemy. I would've figured it out soon enough, certainly, but that's my point. I would have preferred to learn that the hard way, and potentially approached the brute without any knowledge of whether they were friend or foe.

Granted, there's a reason they made it work that way, and various fixes I can think of are somewhat convoluted, and/or potentially contrary to smooth gameplay. I was just personally disappointed that I didn't learn that super mutant was my enemy by virtue of it trying to hit me with something.