You can look at your character from any angle - just hold down the key for switching between views and move your mouse (mine are F and middle mouse button).
I'm in the middle of playing it. The game is great, but still lacking a lot and doesn't do the prequels enough justice.
Instead of just repeating my thoughts, I'll grab the long comment I made on another site:
Okay, I've gotten it a while back and have since played it much.
I am constantly comparing it to the original ones and finding it coming up short.
I can try to put comparisons aside and realize it is a good game on its own. But it should match up to what 1 and 2 were when they were released and sadly this just doesn't cut it. I find myself thinking I'd likely better enjoy a sequel with the exact same visuals, sound, etc., and simply with a new, continuing storyline.
They try to continue the theme, but they fail to convey the feeling.
It just doesn't stick like the others.
Hell, I enjoyed more, and am sure I still do, weapon firing and target killing in Fallout 1 and 2 than here in 3. Way too little blood, a lot of dismembering, NPCs drop like true ragdolls (yes, I know the physics are called that)... final conclusion: they are dolls (immersion issue).
Bah. Oblivion keeps flashing back to mind. And that's a bad thing.
One thing that would've helped that NOT happen is if they had dropped the stupid facial animations.
Namely, the NPCs are talkin' to us with pretty much the same facial expressions, whether they're saying "howdy" or "we're all about to die!". Cute, eh?
What I find even more destructing of the immersion is how they retained the eyeball-wandering from Oblivion. They're tellin' us some important stuff and all of a sudden and out of tune, they start lookin' at wherever else, making them look retarded.
Bethesda is a good enough developer, but, unfortunately, they're used to developing games in a mix of first/third person views, the latter part of which is too clunky.
This series should have remained with the distant third person view. Isometric or whatever you wanna call it, since it wouldn't be 2D anymore.
Look at Diablo 3, tho. It looks great. Fallout 3 would've looked great from the same perspective.
This game still addicts me, overall, it's good.
But I'm more disappointed than pleased.
Yep. Wall of text. ^^