Is the PS3 version of Fallout 3 unplayable?

I think I put about 40 hours in to Fallout 3 on the PS3 (not the GOTY edition) - finished the main storyline, plus a bunch of side missions and random wandering. The game froze and required a hard reset of the PS3 about 3 or 4 times, and I got stuck on scenery once which required me to go back to my last save. So that's about one reload every 8 hours of play time.

While it's probably the buggiest PS3 game I've played, I wouldn't call it "unplayable", just annoying. I really enjoyed playing it and I think it's worth putting up with the bugs.

It still has bugs, even on the PS3 GOTY edition.

The biggest problem with PS3 Fallout (and Fallout New Vegas) is that you have no access to the console (pressing the backquote "`" key) to correct any game breaking bugs that occur. The only recourse is to go back to an earlier save game.

You also do not have access to mods or cheats, which may be important to you.

My seat of the pants impression, having played both the PS3 and PC versions is that the PC version is more buggy, possibly because of my PC configuration, but any quest bugs are correctible via console commands. Furthermore after completion I can play with the console to spawn items and adjust statistics for fun and to try out different things.

I own both the original and the GOTY versions of Fallout 3 for PS3. I've put more than 60 hours into the game and have encountered very few bugs; Certainly nothing that hampered my enjoyment of the game.

There's really no need to worry. Just buy it, play it, enjoy it!