Hmm .. the Mirelurks under the Anchorage Memorial? It's easy. You run in, stick the recorder in the eggs, and run out. What were you trying to do? Negotiate with them?
And as for the difficulty .. yeah, it's harder than Duke Nukem if that's what you mean. I play FO3 with a bunch of mods that are actually designed to make it *harder* because I found it, frankly, too much like a standard FPS for my liking.
I'm a big fan of Arwen's Realism Mods - the med tech is absoultely great (totally revamps damage system, applies thirst/hunger/sleep requirements, and healing is a serious issue as you need to carry bandages, morphine, blood packs, medical braces, tourniquets, etc). Another big issue with FO3 is that radiation should have been a HELLUVA lot more threatening in the vanilla game. FFS, your father's life work was trying to sort out a source of clean water which would revolutionise the DC Wasteland, and possibly even lead to the entire world crawling its way back from Oblivion (lol see what I did there?) -- and yet radiation was rarely little more than a minor inconvenience. Something along the lines of 'oh shit eh? radiation poison? I honestly hadn't noticed'. Arwen's Realism Mod makes radiation a crippling risk, and the simple fact is (due to you now needing to eat and drink quite regularly) makes locating a reliable, clean water supply DAMNED important - and the simple fact is that throughout most of the game (until you have ammassed quite a fortune) you will be struggling to balance food and water intake vs. the radiation killing you from eating that radroach. Also, you will NEVER go for a swim. Makes rad-x and the radiation suit vital for several times.
There's a heap of others; try these for a taste:
Arwen's Realism Mod (see above)
Fellout (removes the dust, makes the Wasteland 'clearer' and night time muuuch darker)
Enhanced Weather (radioactive rain will ruin your day. I mean it)
Bingo. You've just upgraded a mediocre Oblivion-with-guns into a game that resembles a survivalist's wet dream.
And a little advice - the Anchorage Memorial is a great place to base yourself for a while. Once you've cleared out the Mirelurks, there's a bed and plenty of place for storage. Also close to Rivet City and Megaton and Downtown. That is if you don't bother with helping the schmucks in Megaton (if you work for Tenpenny, the simple annoyance there is Tenpenny Tower is sooo damned far from anywhere).
Frankly, I can't play vanilla FO3 anymore. The apocalyptic wasteland feels like I'm strolling around Wagga Wagga - the most dangerous thing you'll face is not having a ticket out of that damned town.
EDIT: Arwen's Mod also ups the damage for all firearms. If you hit a raider in the head with pretty much anything he's donna die. Unfortunately, likewise for you. Keep your head down.