The grey moral factions, the weapon mods, the variety of weapons/armor, the recipes for use in workbenches, ammo, and campfires, I could go on.
Fallout 3 was a great game, and while NV took out somethings I liked such as DR and VATS making you invincible, the improvements make it much better overall in my opinion.
Wow. Just wow. I don't understand how it is possible for game industry to produce so many flawed products (in terms of writing, scenarios and such) while there are such talents available... And no. I'm not sarcastic.
What does that have to do with me? I honestly don't know what you're going on about. I assume you're saying that Obsidian is full of bad writers and that Bethesda trumps them in all aspects of game design, and if so, you'd be the first.
Oh great !
There was this old movie with Statham... "Transporter" ? At some point his character was f*cked up by his employers. They almost killed him and destroyed his mansion. And he considered walking away. No retribution, no regrets. "It's all part of the job". That was my attitude in NV : i was almost killed ? Ok, "it's part of the job". It's part of being Wastelander.
So pardon me - NV may have more endings than FO3, but - FOR ME - there's no point to follow main storyline.
Well, you don't have to follow the main story, and in NV you're not a wastelander, you're a courier.
And about not following the main quest, the exact same thing can be said for F3, in fact, it can be said about pretty much most open-world RPGs with a main quest and side quests.
ChupathingyX said:
My dear Watson ! It never was about being objective. It's all about personal impression.
In this thread if someone says something in your favour, you agree with them and everything's all happy.
If someone says something that is against you or do not agree with, you avoid them and instead just lay down a sarcastic remark to avoid discussion.
So what was the point of this thread, to see who agrees with you while ignoring anyone who has a different opinion? And not just that, but you're actually being pretentious about it too.
As a long, long, long time Fallout fan, I can say that I enjoyed New Vegas more because it's closer in spirit to the original games. The Nevada setting is closer both aesthetically and atmospherically to the original games (1 and 2, anyway), and the story and writing also closer to the original games. Fallout 3 was a barren wasteland that seemed occupied by literally only a few dozen NPCs and a whole bunch of absolutely insane, drug addled cannon fodder. That a bunch of drug addicted anarchists that ran around screaming about how they were going to tear your leg off and beat you to death with it or whatever seemed to pretty much run most of Washington DC seemed really far fetched and unrealistic to me, not to mention it was incredibly depressing. New Vegas, by contrast, had a lot more factions, and a more populated world that felt logical and really felt a lot more appropriate to the Fallout universe to me, and was far more fun to play around in.
That said, I do acknowledge that New Vegas was kind of a buggy mess compared to Fallout 3, but patches have alleviated a fair number of problems and I don't mind buggy games so far as they're fun and none of the bugs are glaringly frequent or game-stopping.
I liked Fallout 3 when I played it, but NV showed me how much it didn't have. I loved NV. I think the dialouge, the story, and the humour was improved by alot. The iron sights I loved, and there were more interesting places. The only thing I would have wanted was for Honest Hearts to be replaced by a "More cool vaults" DLC.
I'll be honest, I loved Fallout 3. I absolutely loved just wandering the wasteland finding stuff and exploring, and I actually quite enjoyed the role-playing side of it, even if it was a question role-playing at one step of removal (for example, my last character was this obscenely cheerful girl who only survived the idiotic escapades her mouth got her into at the sufference of the ruthlessly efficient combat AI in her Pip-boy (i.e. Me + V.A.T.S.)).
I also really really want to play FNV because I've heard so much about it (and to be honest, read a fair bit of the FNV wiki), just not so much to buy it before they finally release a GOTY edition (so basically until I can get it on the same basis as I got Fallout 3).
Why is NV better than FO3? Because, as much as I liked FO3, it is a pretty poor Fallout game. A few little words sum it up. "I is scientistic" and "Me shoulder".
An excellent point. I was just thinking about the same thing. In my opinion, the main differences between Fallout 3 and New Vegas are reflected in the vaults. Exploring the vaults was one of my favorite activities in FO3, but also the most frustrating. I loved the little stories of the vaults, how everything went to shit because of the experiment conducted on that particular vault. But other then that, they were empty apart from maybe one unique item.
In New Vegas, a few of the Vaults are actually puzzles, they contain a ton of enemies, there's always plenty of interesting items, there's a story behind it and there are even boss battles in 2 of them. The vaults also look significantly different. In Fallout 3 they all basically looked the same with maybe a slightly different layout.
And I refuse to call the location of Tranquility Lane a vault. That was a basement beneath a gas station consisting of barely two rooms and a hallway.
I would totally pay for a "Sweet Vaults" DLC pack.
Old Game Blues
The thing with Fallout 3 is that it felt like Bethesda taking a loved series and turning it into whatever the hell they wanted. The original Fallout games were about humanity rebuilding civilisation (Fallout 1 more) after they destroyed it because they got greedy and couldn't get along. The Fallout games delved into human nature and how we would react to living in a life where civilisation was gone and now a new one was going to be born out of the ashes of the old world.
Background
Fallout 1 and 2 both included these aspects (Fallout 1 more). In Fallout 1 the Master was aware that people had caused their own downfall and that as humans we could not properly take care of ourselves, therefore he saw Super Mutants, which he could create, as the next step in human evolution. He wanted to create an army of mutants that would unify the human race and make all of their goals the same so we could live together and be more equal. However, there were many flaws such as people who had been living in the wasteland were not fit for transformation and became dumb and brutish, whereas more "cleaner" humans became intelligent and strong beings. More importantly all female Super Mutants are sterile, which means that eventually the Super Mutant race will no longer be able to continue and they will die out.
Basically, Fallout 1 dealt with getting rid of human?s problems by getting rid of humans themselves.
Civilisation vs. Survival
Now let?s skip to Fallout 3, what was that about? Some whiny kid who?s Dad goes missing and now he wants to go find him. Then said dad wants to purify the water (which should've mostly cleared by now anyway) to give all the people of the East Coast fresh water, because apparently they don't know how to make wells or filter water like those of the West Coast.
Fallout 3 just didn't have the political or societal messages of the original Fallouts and instead sacrificed that for stupid quests that you only take part in to see what cool loot you will receive, plus Fallout 1 and 2 already dealt with FEV, are we still going on about that? Fallout 3 was filled with stupidity and nonsensical things, such as the Experimental MIRV and Mothership Zeta. Bethesda did away with rebuilding civilisation and decided they would focus more on petty survivors trying hard to create communities where they can survive the harshness of the apocalypse, 200 years after it has happened, made even more pathetic by the existence of the NCR in the West who by that time had made a large republic of more than 300,000 people with a fully working government and military. And not to mention Caesar?s Legion who managed to conquer 86 tribes in an even shorter amount of time, using brute military force and diplomacy.
Fallout: New Vegas thankfully went back to civilisation with the NCR and Caesar's Legion, a force dedicated to fixing the mistakes of the old world by taking one of the most successful empires in history and getting rid of the negatives of it, mainly the senate and democracy, the story was focused on the political turmoil of the Mojave and the affect it had on the people.
Would an empire led by one man's ideals work in the long run? Most likely not.
Would the NCR, who can barely hold onto Hoover Dam and Vegas be able to continue to spread? Not at all if they continue to be lead by inept commanders such as Oliver and Moore, and while their president is a former war hero who forces people to fight for his ideals.
Can Mr. House control all of Vegas by himself, or will he eventually turn into the real life Howard Hughes and become obsessed with himself and become cut off from the real? Of course, because it has already happened, and more than likely he will gradually lose his grip on Vegas.
Independent New Vegas? People free to do what they want? Yeah, not a chance, eventually this will fall apart and things such as riots will break out and many people will suffer.
Compare that to Fallout 3?s endings; The bright, happy ending where the purifier is activated but the Lone Wanderer has to make their heroic sacrifice (while a radiation immune companion stands nearby), or the evil ending where the FEV is inserted and...a couple of people get sick (yeah, see that?s why post-ending gameplay isn?t such a good idea).
The world
People complain about how New Vegas was worse because it didn?t feel ?post-apocalyptic? enough, well there?s an obvious answer to that: Fallout isn?t mainly about exploring land devastated by nuclear war, it?s about exploring a devastated world and experiencing how humanity now has to rebuild said world they destroyed. Fallout 3 did give the sense of a destroyed world, but it is set 200 years after the apocalypse, should it really still be this crap looking and why haven?t large societies sprung up yet? The New California Republic managed to create a successful community with other settlements and a shorter time and now they have thousands of members. New Vegas perfectly captures the idea of rebuilding civilisation by presenting us with two major locations; New Vegas and Hoover Dam. Both of these cause the NCR and Caesar?s Legion to begin a war for total control, and Mr. House now has to defend his beloved city using deceit and manipulation.
Choice
New Vegas also felt much more like a role-playing game. In Fallout 3 you were forced to be someone who grew up in a Vault, you were told who your mother and father were, where you were born, you had to be friends with Amata, Butch is your bully, you can?t join the Tunnel Snakes, all of the characters have a set personality as to how they like or hate you, your age is pre-determined and you?re forced to love your dad and find him (seriously no matter how much you verbally abuse him you have to keep helping him, why can?t I shoot him?). Finally you?re forced to join the BoS and you can?t even join the Enclave, yeah sure you can put their FEV into the purifier but it doesn?t really change much. Also there just wasn?t enough choice in how you finish the main quest; you get two choices that barely differ from each other.
In New Vegas, however, you play a person who works for the Mojave Express, delivering a package and then unfortunately get shot in the head. That?s it, that?s all we know, that, and some guy called Ulysses apparently has some history with us and is now looking for the Courier.
Companions
Another issue with Fallout 3 were the companions when compared to NV. The followers in F3 were very 2D and barely had any back story or personality at all;
*Jericho is just some raider who wants to go clean then he wants to go dirty again.
*Clover is a slave.
* Charon is practically a slave with a shotgun.
*Dogmeat is a dog.
*Sergeant RL-3 is a robot who doesn?t like communists.
*Fawkes is a super mutant who is more intelligent than the others because he was able to access the data files on the terminal with its small keys with his large fingers. Wait, why would a terminal in a holding cell have so much information and why is there a terminal in a holding cell in the first place?
*Butch and the Tunnel Snakes are supposed to be some kind of Italian-American greasers, but without the class, purpose and charm of The Kings in New Vegas.
*Star Paladin Cross is extremely boring. ?I knew your father? is basically her entire story and personality.
Now compare them to the companions in New Vegas;
*Rose of Sharon Cassidy (Cass) is a booze drinking caravaneer and daughter of Cassidy from Fallout 2. She is a talkative, despondent, confused, smart and gun savvy and is very thick headed to the point that the only way to actually get her to be a companion is with speech checks. She is independent and doesn?t take shit from no one and can give some really good opinions on the NCR and Caesar?s Legion, admitting to the faults of the NCR and advantages of the Legion.
*Craig Boone
is a former NCR 1st Recon sniper who had a large run of horrible luck and now is unsure of what to do in his life. He took part in the Bitter Springs massacre which mentally tore him and to make matters worse he was forced to perform a mercy killing on his pregnant wife. Boone is made out to be a depressed, illiterate and angered person who needs someone to help him show what he should do with his life.
*Arcade Gannon is a member of the Followers of the Apocalypse and former member of the Enclave. He is a man who wants to make a difference in the Mojave but is unsure as to how he is going to achieve that. Although the Followers are shown to all be optimistic and altruistic there is a sense of ?ends justify the means? in certain quests related to them. Arcade?s name itself resembles ?Arcadia?, an unobtainable utopian land that is very fitting to Arcade?s goals of a peaceful Mojave, a goal that will never be achieved.
*ED-E is a former Enclave eyebot that represents a sort of relic of the old Enclave and how they are all now starting to blend into the new society, along with other members of the Enclave.
*Lily is a super mutant nightkin and shows just how schizophrenic and confused the stealth boys have made them. She is used as a test subject by Henry to try and finally find a cure to nightkin schizophrenia and hopefully bring peace to their muddled minds.
*Raul
is a man who has seen many things, most notably the Great War itself and its effects on the world. During his centuries of travels he has encountered settlements and cities of crime and prostitution and eventually these things led to his life of vigilantism. Like most vigilantes this led to more problems and Raul was brutally attacked and injured. After witnessing the death of his home, family and love interest, Raul continued to travel and tried to protect the weak, only to realise it was pointless due to his old age and begun to believe he was a lost cause and old people could never help the world.
*Rex is a cyberdog who has had his own adventures. He was originally from Denver and eventually was discovered by Caesars Legion who took him. However, after a battle he was lost and roamed around, finding the King at Freeside. Due to his old age Rex?s brain has begun to decay and now you must find a replacement brain that will allow him to live longer, and also fill his mind with various different memories and abilities.
*Veronica
is an outgoing, talkative, friendly, optimistic and sarcastic member of the BoS. However, she is very different than most BoS members; she does not believe in many of the BoS?s ways (such as the codex) and would prefer if they expanded and put their skills to better use, instead of acting so xenophobic all of the time. She believes that if the Brotherhood does not change then they will either destroy themselves, or someone will do it for them as long as they are led by leaders who do not see the errors of their ways. Although Veronica is shown to be a quite happy person when it comes to the serious issues of the BoS, she becomes much more serious and her tone changes quite significantly, as shown during her personal quest when she stands up to McNamara and becomes even more saddened and confused than she was before.
DLC Fallout 3
In Fallout 3 the DLCs were all spread out areas with no connection to each other and served mostly as just ways to introduce more loot.
*Operation Anchorage was the worst offender, it had absolutely no role-playing aspects in it and was just a run-and-gun experience through trenches, all of which was a simulation and not even significant to your own character. In the end all of it was, simply, for the loot. The whole reason you go into the simulation is to open the door to the armoury so you can get all of the sweet loot that is to be found, not for the story of the Anchorage Reclamation or for characters...loot. The loot isn?t the worst part though; it would?ve been nice to have some RPG elements, a good story and memorable characters, but no just loot.
*The Pitt allowed us to discover a very nicely designed area, but sadly there was only one interesting character (Ashur) and even then the final moral choice didn?t even seem like a choice at all. In the end you?re asked to either leave the baby with Ashur or give her to Wernher, the problem is that both of these men have the same goal of creating a cure, Ashur was just smarter about it; Wernher was stupid because now the industry would fail whereas Ashur would keep the industry going and find the cure, not to mention that they both have the same rewards and it really has barely any affect on the story. After making the decision afterwards it barely seems like anything has changed, just that there are less characters around, and it hardly felt ?grey? at all.
*Broken Steel was Bethesda admitting to a mistake and trying to fix it, only to open up more problems. The problem with F3s ending wasn?t that you couldn?t play past the ending, it was that the ending itself was just stupid, gave no closure and then there was the whole companion issue. The Enclave has been defeated so many times now yet they still have so many forces and even after that they still roam around with powerful weaponry and unlimited numbers. The problem with F3s ending was that it didn?t give enough closure; it didn?t tell us what happened to everyone after the events of the game and what happened in the future.
*Point Lookout was probably the best DLC, it gave us an interesting area to explore and had some good characters such as Desmond and the Velvet Curtain quest was very well designed. Unfortunately, that?s about it, but I wouldn?t call it a bad DLC, just not great.
*Dead Money adds an interesting new area to explore, the Sierra Madre. What I liked about Dead Money was how it was focused on the environment, story and characters. All of the new character were interesting and add unique quirks to them.
Dead Money also gives a very interesting twist at the end when you find out that the Sierra Madre treasure is a vault of gold, gold too heavy to even carry out meaning everything you did was for almost nothing. This reinforces the story of the DLC about greed and letting go. Dead Money also gives some good hints at the story of Ulysses and the Courier during the ending.
*Honest Hearts allows the player to explore Zion Valley, a new and very nice looking location home to two tribes of Utah. One of the most significant aspects of the DLC is finally being able to meet the legendary ?Burned Man?, Joshua Graham. Joshua was a very interesting character because he presented an interesting story of redemption through religion and making up for past deeds. The ending of Honest Hearts was very good as it presented a very grey moral choice option, both endings had both their pros and cons and neither was really better than the other, it all came down to personal preference. However, the rest of the DLC wasn?t that great except for the Desert Ranger armour, Randall Clark?s story and the .45 pistol (and its unique variant).
*Then there?s Old World Blues. Old World Blues is fantastic; it brings a new and interesting area to explore and is very connected to the Mojave. You encounter the Think Tank, a group of strange and idiosyncratic scientists who are responsible for various things. OWB features great writing, voice acting, a story that will allow you to encounter a cast of colourful characters and a very interesting end. There is plenty to explore and find in OWB and the whole 1950?s science-fiction theme was pulled off very well and the DLC really feels like some of the areas that were going to be in Fallout 2 and the cancelled Van Buren. OWB also gives a lot more information on the story of Elijah and Christine from Dead Money and finally we get to actually hear Ulysses? voice and his actions at Big MT. Also, how can you not love Muggy and the Toaster?
Bobble heads and snow globes
Now I?ll get extremely nitpicky...
In Fallout 3 the bobble heads are never really explained very well, they?re just there and they only serve as a way of overpowering your character very easily. Snow globes on the other hand provide decoration and caps, however, a reason is given as to why House even wants them; House loves snow globes because they represent how he enjoys the ability to control something (Vegas) in the palm of his hand and be able to turn it upside down and manipulate it to his will.
__________________________
Of course that is unfinished and not my final thoughts.
I thought both games had their strengths and weaknesses. Fallout 3 was a decent effort at making a 3D post-nuclear apocalypse game whose main criticism seems to be that it just wasn't Fallout. Fair enough, but it is fun to look at as a piece of American nuclear culture. It had a lot of role playing flaws, karma was weak and annoying, there weren't a whole lot choices, the main quest was kind of a joke, but it was good for the exploration and VATS was a clever design choice that made up for lackluster combat.
New Vegas fixed a lot of the flaws from 3 and created its own. Combat was deeper and more varied, there was now the faction and disguise system (which still didn't work quite like I would have liked, but it was better) and there was more choice for role play. But the exploration and creativity were reduced and for all its added emphasis on role play the character creation was limited. No matter what I do, I always play a courier who wants revenge against Benny and is going to New Vegas. Everything you do up until you get to New Vegas will point you in the direction of New Vegas. You are on the New Vegas express and try as you might, all roads point to New Vegas. They even cut out potential paths by putting high level monsters, doubly infuriating because the path they cut off is primarily the one to New Vegas. I wouldn't be that upset by it, but exploring the Capitol Wastes was by far my favorite part of FO3. NV takes all the emphasis away from exploration and cuts a crucial part of the role playing by assigning a career and goal to my character that I would not necessarily want, and it is probably the most important moments of role play that the game takes away from. Fallout 3 assigned me a background and let me pick a role in that background. New Vegas provided a history and then let me do whatever with no justification of why I would suddenly stop caring about the Mojave Express and start shooting the first living thing I came across.
Alright, that was probably long and rambly, but I hope I at least made some sense to someone.
I beat FO3 several times, playing most all the expansions. Like 300 hours play-time in all. I just got completely absorbed into it. Loved it there in DC!
Then I visited New Vegas. Meh. Was a nice little vacation I guess, but it never once felt like home. Do need to go back sometime though to finish seeing all the sites. But have a feeling I'm going to be moving to Skyrim in the near future!
New Vegas is wayyyyyy better than FO3. Mainly because it follows the canon more closely and makes sense. While still giving the option to include pop-culture references that are actually relevant.
I really struggled to get into New Vegas, and I loved Fallout 3, had multiple playthroughs and hundreds of hours.
The biggest problem for me is that New Vegas doesn't seem to have a first act, there's nothing establishing who your character is or where he/she came from. It just throws you in their shoes and says go play.
Who am I? Who was I working as a courier for? why would I give a crap about finishing my job at this point? where's my home? I got shot in the head, most people would just call it quits and find a safer line of work. There doesn't seem to be any personal investment at all, my character is just told to go after the dude who shot you for no apparent reason.
All this adds up to greatly reduced immersion, in fallout 3 you've got a classic first act: You live in a (sort of) idyllic home, you establish your character amongst the other vault dwellers, then things go wrong, and you have to leave because of the overseer, and there's the whole trying to find your dad thing, there's just so much more emotional investment.
Although I like both NV is the better game adding much needed improvements and removing 3s worst features bullet sponge enemies and VATS being a win button, NV had a much better narrative along with better writing in general and much deeper characterisation especially in the companions, NV had deeper quests with multiple ways to complete them in addition to having more quests, crafting was expanded creating a much more survivalist feel that is essential to fallout, skill ans SPECAIL actually affect the game in NV in 3 certain skills and SPECAIL traits were a waste ie speech checks were rare and Charisma did nothing in NV every skill has several skill checks or opens new quest paths and SPECAIL affects things like reload speed as well as restricting perks, 3 had a lot of wasted perks for the first few levels you can do nothing but add skill or SPECAIL points NV opened up skills more quickly and made them far more useful. New Vegas was an all around improvement and felt much more like a fallout game than 3 did by having factions and delving into human nature along with giving us choice, 3 had a rather simplistic finding your father tale no factions no real depth everything was black and white morality and your railroaded into helping the BOS no matter how you've played up until that point. As much as I liked 3 its hard to go back and play it since it feels like such a ham handed bumbling effort to me.
For a few years i was uneable to play any modern game. However, with brand new PC i am finally back on tracks so to speak. I consider myself hardcore Fallout fan, so it should be pretty obvious what were first titles i wanted to play.
In most cases, the things I liked better about Fallout 3 have to do with the setting. The things I like better about New Vegas have to do with gameplay.
The setting in Fallout 3 had you in a well-known city, once full of majestic structures and symbols of a once-great nation. But they were broken and empty. You had to face the desolate hull of your former civilization at every turn.
The Mojave Wasteland? Yeah, it's basically like that now outside the cities. It's big, empty, and covered in dust. It's lonely, sure... but that's it. The signs of Apocalypse are too few and far between, so it loses some of the post-disaster feeling that I enjoyed about Fallout 3.
But the gameplay? Addictive, to me at least. I've played through the game no less than five times within a couple months, enjoying each time. Building a character a different way each time, playing each situation differently, using different companions... and the expansion packs? (Old World Blues was the best because -- again -- you are in the ruins of disused technology and scientific grandeur)
Who am I? Who was I working as a courier for? why would I give a crap about finishing my job at this point? where's my home? I got shot in the head, most people would just call it quits and find a safer line of work. There doesn't seem to be any personal investment at all, my character is just told to go after the dude who shot you for no apparent reason.
That's because it's a "role-playing game", you decide what role you want to play in the game. The only thing you know at the start is that you're a courier, you fill in the blanks.
New Vegas, in terms of dialogue, offered much more flexibility when creating your character, there were many more speech checks for things like Intelligence, speech, barter, perception, science, medicine etc.
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