Fallout 3 and New Vegas; An Examination

[Inkidu]

Now, I'm not going to say which is better. I would like to make a comparison and contrast between the major elements of the games. The unique perspective on this comes from the fact that I'm just now getting into the first two Fallout games, but I got on board at Fallout 3 and New Vegas. I hope it puts a view on it not shaded by personal nostalgia. Anyone can voice their thoughts in a constructive way, and so help me if anyone knitpicks I will slap you with the deconstructionist argument so fast it'll make your head spin. Be forewarned, you will be getting some of my opinions, they might not be wholly right or wholly wrong, but I don't toss around my opinions lightly. Enjoy, if at all possible.

Spoilers abound, probably should play both games before reading this.

Setting

Fallout 3: Let me get this out of the way. Fallout 3 has the better strictly post-apocalyptic setting. Let's look at it this way. In both games you emerge into a town either Goodsprings for New Vegas or the ruins of another town Fallout 3. Which do you think has the most intimidate impact for post-apocalyptic effect? It has the ruins of D.C. which are a lot more compelling than anything in New Vegas with perhaps maybe the strip (a smaller area). However, I will admit that they are trying to accomplish different things.

New Vegas: It is society. The overwhelming motifs of civilization run rampant. You can't walk ten minutes (hyperbole) without running into some outpost, or some town, or something re-purposed as a town. It does give you the remarkable feel of society though. Factions, wars, and all the old-world problems. However, in terms of post-apocalyptia it scores low... because they've rebuilt. Not a bad thing, but not what someone would expect necessarily from a post-apocalyptic game just from looks.

General gameplay

Fallout: New Vegas: Yeah, it gets the gameplay section. Probably due to the fact that it's a sequel, but mods, Hardcore Mode, and a cleaner leveling up system puts it at the better point.

Fallout 3: It's good, it's very good, it was a good foundation for New Vegas to springboard, but once you play New Vegas it's kind of hard to go back to limited energy weapon options and no mods. (I've got a 360 folks)

Exploration and the main quest line

Fallout 3: I've got to give it to Fallout 3. Now why: Yeah, you had to find your dad, but you had to find Benny in New Vegas. What Fallout 3 does better is they don't twist your arm to get it done. You can literally go walk about just looking for stuff to do, things to find. On the exploration front they did it better. Sure the metro system is samey, but it's a metro system. A post-apocalyptic West Coast doesn't have the same allure to an East Coast at least for Americans. This is our capital, the second place we'd want to see is probably New York. That's how it goes, it might seem done, but that's what people want to see. Fallout 3 gives you the chance to explore a ransacked capital, New Vegas gives you New Vegas. Walking around the desert is not the same as the Mall.

New Vegas: Kind of flags here, the aforementioned arm twisting is mainly why. Anyone try to go north and get mauled by giant radscorpions? Did you go too far south and get mauled again. The game drops the not-so-subtle hints as to where you should go. In a lot of ways it discourages exploration. The terrain of the Mojave seems awfully more structured to me than it should be for a desert. Other than that it's got New Vegas to look at and Hoover Damn. No other real monuments or impact to be had from a kind of familiarity (again for American gamers, but would anyone outside of America feel anymore familiar?)

As much as I like New Vegas as a game, I'd rather have it in New York than Nevada, but this is to assuage the yearning for a sequel... which doesn't technically have to happen in the same region, but that's a different topic for another day.

Over-arching lore and Why?I personally, think (and this is where my nitpick warning really comes into affect) there is nothing devastatingly wrong in Fallout 3 to interfere with the first two games (most of this is second-hand from complainers). Why the East? Why not? Who said it had to be the West?
I'm sure someone will mention the GECK, but it's a MacGuffin go with it. Did it actually turn Arrayo into a paradise in Fallout 2? Was it ever shown working? Or was it just a propaganda pipe dream. From what I've gathered they're highly unstable. Maybe they just don't work like that. Certainly one of the vaults had to set it off? Sure not everyone had one, but hey. So if the GECK is so questionable blame 2 for it not 3. Still, that's a nitpick.

Fallout 3 has just as much right to be a sequel as anything. Again, nobody ever said it had to be the same place. However, this is probably why Bethesda did it. They did it to get new people in on the franchise. They didn't want to overburden them with back-story and lore. Go out, have fun, enjoy the world.

Bethesda did it to get a bigger profit. Reverse the order for a second and put New Vegas first. I know I'd be lost, but just the exposure to Fallout 3 and the basic elements of the universe prepped me for New Vegas. So they're not better, they're not worse in this regard. They're carefully planned.

I love both games, still play both, and treat both more or less as equals. I'd give the game-play to New Vegas in a heartbeat any day of the week, but in the story and narrative they both accomplish different and similar goals well.

 

[Jamboxdotcom]

I agree that both games are great in their own way. As an old school Fallout fan, i do like NV slightly more, due to the return to a familiar setting and story (and faces). But Fallout 3 was a damn good game, and as long as people don't dismiss the good points of either game, i'm fine with people having their own preferences.

 

[Elsarild]

Well, I'm going to try not to nitpick too much, but what really caught me off gard was the G.E.C.K. thing, Play through to the end of Fallout 2, and You will see what it does. (Alternatively go watch the ending cutscenes on youtube.)

But, as a Hardcore fan of the entire series, I have my opions too, and as such I feel that Fallout 3 is the odd one out here, it didn't add much to the story as many would have liked, and (in my opinion) would have worked better as a side story to the games rather than a sequel.

FNV fills this problem much better, partly because of many of the original people who worked for interplay now works for Obsidian and as such had a much better overview of both the back story and what direction the game(s) should turn. It had alot of referances to the old games (people, sentences, items etc) and it also recovered a sizable amount of the humor that was present in the older games as well, where fallout 3 seemed more "serious" not to say the games arn't serious in nature, but.. yeah.

Anyway, my opinion, If you would like to know more about the backstory and game in general, You should really track down The Fallout Bible, It is written by one of the guys working on the old games, I think he was the lead designer, I can't recall off the top of my head.

Anyway, good post ^^

On a slight sidenote: I do agree with you that FNV has a more Strict sandbox than fallout 3, but I played through the game not many weeks ago and I tried to go a more unorthodox way (mostly north in a straigth line) and with a bit of tactics, luck and fleeing in terror, i made it through, got some good weapons for the early game, Met the kahns, did quests for them, it kind of changed the way i played the rest of the game. But yeah, it is still very much true that it is more strict, but can be rather fun to break from the chains of the game ^^

 

[DEAD34345]

I haven't played the older Fallouts either (not counting about 30 seconds of shooting rats in Fallout 1), but I greatly prefer New Vegas to Fallout 3. Fallout 3 nailed the dreary, post-apocalyptic atmosphere, but that wasn't the kind of atmosphere I wanted. It succeeds in making an incredibly dreary and dull world to explore (which is exactly what it was going for), but I personally don't want to explore a dreary and dull world. I just didn't find myself enjoying my time with Fallout 3, and I was never really very interested in what I was doing.

New Vegas on the other hand I found very entertaining. I always had an interest in what I was doing, and I actually cared about what would happen both to my character and to the factions and people around me. In Fallout 3 I explored and did quests simply because I had nothing else to do, whereas in New Vegas I did quests because I wanted to see what would happen, or because I wanted to help whoever had given me the quest, or just for plain old personal gain.

Of course if you factor bugs and stability into this comparison at all, Fallout 3 wins hands down.

 

[Elsarild]

Ah, may be my nostalgic mind, but I found the bugs in FNV very charming, I only ran into major game breaking bugs once or twice, and the rest was just utterly hallarious in one way or another, and it sparked a nostalgic smile on my face because I remembered the old games so fondly

(they where so buggered up the bum that the only reasonable patch is fan made fixing over 800+ bug)

 

[manaman]

New Vegas: It is society. The overwhelming motifs of civilization run rampant. You can't walk ten minutes (hyperbole) without running into some outpost, or some town, or something re-purposed as a town. It does give you the remarkable feel of society though. Factions, wars, and all the old-world problems. However, in terms of post-apocalyptia it scores low... because they've rebuilt. Not a bad thing, but not what someone would expect necessarily from a post-apocalyptic game just from looks.

I'm forced to believe you never played another fallout game. Society moving on and old problems cropping up anew are what the games are all about. That's why the games take place hundreds of years after the war. If they wanted an everything destroyed feel to the games they would take place decades not centuries after the war. I spent half of Fallout 3 confused about the time line because of the total (nearly) lack of plants and the lack of anything ever resembling rebuilding (except, again, for one case). I was under the impression we where playing a game that took place 30-50 years after the war, not after the events in Fallout 2.

A post-apocalyptic West Coast doesn't have the same allure to an East Coast at least for Americans.

It's comments like that that make me believe you live on the North East Coast of the US and thus cannot understand why any other area would be appealing to people. I live on the West coast and find areas West of the Mississippi to be more appealing.

 

[Moriarty]

while I agree with some of your points, you really shouldn't have put story and exploration together like that.

Fallout 3's main story is just atrocious, not a single part about it makes sense. I was gonna to put a list together myself but Shamous Young already did summarise most of it:

Dad killed himself rather than let his broken machine fall into the hands of people trying to fix it. As a result, a water purifier that has no reason to exist released radiation it shouldn?t have, thus killing Colonel Autumn, who had no reason to be there. Then later we got through a village of children who fdso gah frrzlmpr blaaa huygggnl asdf;lj so we could enter vault 87 and recover a GECK, a device which would be better put to use in virtually any possible manner besides the one for which we had acquired it. Then Colonel Autumn, who shouldn?t be alive, captured us with a flash grenade that shouldn?t have worked in a place he shouldn?t have been able to reach, so he could stop us from fixing the machine he wanted fixed. He then tortured us for a code that didn?t matter and which we had no reason to not give him. Then the president set us free to enact his plan which was of no benefit to anyone, ourselves least of all.

At the final battle, everyone in the world had the same goal: Turn on the water purifier. Due to this overwhelming consensus, we were obliged to fight a massive war. Finally, Colonel Autumn gave his life to stop us from turning on the machine he was trying to turn on. At the end, the Enclave defeated themselves by sabotaging the machine they were trying to activate, causing it to explode even though it shouldn?t, and obliging us to enter the purifier and die to radiation that wasn?t actually lethal. At least until the DLC retconned our death and?

Arg.

and that even ignores the part about Dad somehow manages to let about 30-40 Radroaches in whenever he leaves a vault.

 

[MiracleOfSound]

Prefer F3 by a lot, for many reasons.

Biggest ones being the atmosphere and exploration - NV fell short in both these areas for me. It's crazy going back to F3 and seeing how much more thought and detail are put into the environments, lighting, architecture and landmarks.

 

[Inkidu]

New Vegas: It is society. The overwhelming motifs of civilization run rampant. You can't walk ten minutes (hyperbole) without running into some outpost, or some town, or something re-purposed as a town. It does give you the remarkable feel of society though. Factions, wars, and all the old-world problems. However, in terms of post-apocalyptia it scores low... because they've rebuilt. Not a bad thing, but not what someone would expect necessarily from a post-apocalyptic game just from looks.

I'm forced to believe you never played another fallout game. Society moving on and old problems cropping up anew are what the games are all about. That's why the games take place hundreds of years after the war. If they wanted an everything destroyed feel to the games they would take place decades not centuries after the war. I spent half of Fallout 3 confused about the time line because of the total (nearly) lack of plants and the lack of anything ever resembling rebuilding (except, again, for one case). I was under the impression we where playing a game that took place 30-50 years after the war, not after the events in Fallout 2.

A post-apocalyptic West Coast doesn't have the same allure to an East Coast at least for Americans.

It's comments like that that make me believe you live on the North East Coast of the US and thus cannot understand why any other area would be appealing to people. I live on the West coast and find areas West of the Mississippi to be more appealing.

A. There is oodles of sources primary and secondary that contribute to why the East Coast is as it is. It got hit harder. Think of all the East Coast targets that exist and then the West Coast. Which would you hit harder? It wouldn't be as built up.

B. I live in the South Eastern U.S., I was just saying a bombed out capital holds a lot more impact than a bombed out desert which as far as I can tell is what Fallout 1 is. I'm trying to play at. I get snatches, but my desire not to use a guide is costing me dearly in restarts.

I get that the West Coast is ideal for restarting when the balloon goes up, but still, I'm just saying the Allure of bombed out D.C. is greater. Yeah, it's an opinion. A lot of post-apocalyptic stuff deals with these major population centers.

Maybe for the next one they can visit a hostile and unexplored San Fransisco or L.A. They wanted to do Arizona or New Mexico if VanBuren is any indication.

 

[Hyper-space]

Did it actually turn Arrayo into a paradise in Fallout 2? Was it ever shown working? Or was it just a propaganda pipe dream.

Fallout Tactics 2 was supposed to take place in Florida, with the main plot being that the GECK turned the entire environment batshit-crazy and the main conflict was supposed to be man against nature, seeing as how it wanted humanity dead. So you have a point there.

Thinking about it, wouldn't Florida be a kick-ass setting? cause lets look at the pros of having Florida as the setting for Fallout 4:
The opportunity to incorporate more elements from the first two games and the effects of the GECK
The opportunity to explore areas that are not just either "greyish green" or "sandy orange", but everything from mutated swamps and marshlands (lots of greenery and colors) to sandy beaches. The range would be from subtropical to tropical.
Lots of iconic animals to work from. You have the classic alligator, crocodiles, the florida panther, snakes, turtles and all other kinds of exotic fauna that are probably mutated.
Locales, everything from amusement parks to the cape carneval air force station. The potential of it all is quite something, imagine the universal studios theme park being taken over by chemed-up raiders.

Fighting against mutated crocodiles, walking through ruinous amusement parks and trying to survive the radioactive everglades. Sounds awesome, no?

 

[Inkidu]

Did it actually turn Arrayo into a paradise in Fallout 2? Was it ever shown working? Or was it just a propaganda pipe dream.

Fallout Tactics 2 was supposed to take place in Florida, with the main plot being that the GECK turned the entire environment batshit-crazy and the main conflict was supposed to be man against nature, seeing as how it wanted humanity dead. So you have a point there.

Thinking about it, wouldn't Florida be a kick-ass setting? cause lets look at the pros of having Florida as the setting for Fallout 4:
The opportunity to incorporate more elements from the first two games and the effects of the GECK
The opportunity to explore areas that are not just either "greyish green" or "sandy orange", but everything from mutated swamps and marshlands (lots of greenery and colors) to sandy beaches. The range would be from subtropical to tropical.
Lots of iconic animals to work from. You have the classic alligator, crocodiles, the florida panther, snakes, turtles and all other kinds of exotic fauna that are probably mutated.
Locales, everything from amusement parks to the cape carneval air force station. The potential of it all is quite something, imagine the universal studios theme park being taken over by chemed-up raiders.

Fighting against mutated crocodiles, walking through ruinous amusement parks and trying to survive the radioactive everglades. Sounds awesome, no?

I got to give it to you. Florida and the Everglades would make an awesome set piece. I liked Point Lookout though too.

 

[dudehead]

I say a destroyed New York city. Think about the population of New York City and how they would be effected by radiation. What if the bomb just missed New York and coated a portion of the city in extremely heavy radiation. This caused about a quarter of the city to be totally run over by millions of ghouls.

There's also landmarks, terrifying tunnels, and whatnot.

Anyway, on topic, I like New Vegas and Fallout 3 in different ways. I've played Fallout 3 a bunch of times and could replay it again, meanwhile New Vegas doesn't seem to make me want to restart it. However, when you finish Fallout 3, beat all the quests, beat all the DLCs, find all the rare weapons and armor, and do all the unmarked quests, there's not much else to do. However, in New Vegas I can spend hours and hours worth of playtime just on hardcore mode wandering and exploring and just having fun in the game. There always seems to be more to do, even if it's not related to any characters or quests. When I started hardcore mode, I found a ton of stuff in the game that I didn't before.

I don't know which's setting I like more. New Vegas definitely fixes a TON of problems, my favorite of which is how the super mutants look. And iron sights.

Also, Pimp-Boy 3 Billion.

 

[Irridium]

What makes me like New Vegas more is the story. Fallout 3's story sucked, a lot. I've been told "oh, its a Bethesda game, you shouldn't play for the story". I think thats a bullshit answer. If it doesn't really matter, why do they bother putting it in? The story is stupid, doesn't make sense, and ruins the whole thing for me.

New Vegas had a much better story, and you can influence how things turn out. And at the end, Fallout 3 just re-told what you already did, instead of telling you what impact your choices had. New Vegas tells you what happened after the game, what eventually happened to the factions, your companions, and everything you touched. Gave you a much better pay-off.

Also, in New Vegas, the NPC's actually react to how the world changes. In Fallout 3, if you blow up Megaton, nobody other than your father or 3-Dog seems to notice, or care. You'd think that the destruction of 1 of the only 2 major settlements in the Wasteland would be big news, but I guess not.

Compare that to New Vegas, where when you do something, news of it travels. It makes the world feel alive, it feels like your having an actual impact. And thats what I love. Also, your companions feel like actual people. They each have their own stories, their own opinions, their own quests. It just gives them a strong sense of depth that was sorely lacking in the Fallout 3 companions.

Also, I'd say that the DLC's are much better. Instead of just adding a bunch of random stuff in different places with overpowered weapons/armor like Fallout 3, New Vegas' DLC's are about people/places you hear about in the game. It exands upon stories from the Mojave, and seems to be building up to a dramatic conclusion in the form of an epic battle.

And I can't wait for that.

I suppose your enjoyment of the games depends on what your looking for. If you want story, go with New Vegas. If you want a fantastic exploration game, go with Fallout 3.

And honestly, I'd hate to have Fallout set in New York. I've been to New York more than enough times in games. I'm sick of the damn place. I want to explore another city.

Like, maybe, Chicago. That'd be neat. I really hope I Am Alive is good...

 

[Knight Captain Kerr]

I liked them both but New vegas took the cake because it felt very lore based.

 

[Hyper-space]

I got to give it to you. Florida and the Everglades would make an awesome set piece. I liked Point Lookout though too.

I have yet to play Point Lookout, but what would interest me the most is the possibility of making the everglades a high-level area with mutated flora and animals, with a lucid color-scheme.

 

[spikeyjoey]

Also, I'd say that the DLC's are much better. Instead of just adding a bunch of random stuff in different places with overpowered weapons/armor like Fallout 3, New Vegas' DLC's are about people/places you hear about in the game. It exands upon stories from the Mojave, and seems to be building up to a dramatic conclusion in the form of an epic battle.

actually, i just wanted to talk about that

To the OP- great post, points well made..

Id have to agree with irridium though that New Vegas is a better game..

 

[Rastrelly]

Agreed, F3 is a good atmospheric spinoff/sequel. Also good is that Bethesda did not try to do something with Black Isle legacy. But NV is a direct and canonic sequel to F2, no more, no less

 

[The Rockerfly]

I despised NV

Now many say the story makes more sense. You get shot and you get a headache
*but...*
You get shot... in the head and have a fucking headache

I thought they made the gameplay more difficult for no better reason than because you became overpowered in Fallout 3. In NV I had an assault rifle and was shooting at a guard, in iron sight, in the the face with armour piercing rounds for a full 6 fucking clips. She would have died from lead poisoning at quicker.

Also the bugs in NV made it monstrous to play. I had the game crash at least 4 times, multiple graphical bugs, game breaking bugs such as items and people not spawning and the save deleted twice.

My final point is that I felt like 3 had a lot more free roaming abilities. I could almost go where ever I wanted bar a few places. In NV if I went slightly north at the start I would die, if I went too far east I would die, if I went slight too far south I would die. It almost made the game linear for me.

 

[AlternatePFG]

I like both games greatly, but I still think 3's story is atrocious. It's poorly written and filled with plot holes. Also, Little Lamplight.

New Vegas is much better in that regard, the characters and story are actually well done (which is no surprise with it being an Obsidian game). It's bugginess is extremely annoying however (though, with almost all mods removed, my current playthrough has been almost completely bug free) but I can forgive that because there are many different outcomes and ways to do certain quests. Like, has anyone done the Arizona Killer quest for the Legion? There are plenty of ways you can complete (or fail) that quest. Still the level design in New Vegas is rather sub-par, and 3 was much better in that regard. New Vegas had a huge variety of weapons as well (while it did use many Fallout 3 weapons, there are plenty of new ones).

I've spent more time in New Vegas, and very much prefer it, but I've still spent a good 150 hours or so on 3, and sometimes I end up playing that instead because Fallout 3 has some really good things about it as well.

 

[Gitty101]

I do like both of the games, but F3 had a better 'feel' to it. NV has refined the mechanics and gives a smoother experience overall, but it simply does not beat what F3 brought to the table.

At least that's my opinion anyway. Others may disagree ^^