As I've mentioned, Bethesda really are taking note of every last possible criticism of Fallout 3, but one I'm personally really disappointed they've changed is the aspect of V.A.T.S stopping time. Beforehand, you could treat this as an XCOM-style 'pause and collect your thoughts' button, allowing you to take stock of your surroundings, plan which items or weapons you were going to use, weigh up percentage-chances of connecting with the distance of enemies, and mostly just prevent the game devolving into an overly frantic mess. Now V.A.T.S doesn't stop time, it only slows it down (something you'll hopefully be able to upgrade to the point where it freezes again), meaning you really don't get the chance to do any of the aforementioned things. Many critics mentioned this older mode allowed players to just 'game the system', popping in to constantly ensure better contact with weapons, but I don't think it proved V.A.T.S' time-dilating strategic elements were inherently bad. The entire point of V.A.T.S is to get away from the up close n' personal nature of gunfighting, and if the problem was that it was too easily accessible, then remedy that with a more strict cooldown timer, rather than let you pop into it more frequently but cripple its utility in the field.
