Fallout 3 or New Vegas? (yes, this question again)

[zombiejoe]

Yes, this discussion has happened a million times.

Yes, it all comes down to opinion in the end.

Yes, I am well aware that things might get heated.

That being said, I want to see what everyone thinks nowadays, which of these two Fallout games, obviously excluding 1, 2, Tactics, ect, is better. I genially want to know what appeals to people in both games.

And with that said...

Spoiler

New Vegas is a much better game than Fallout 3, and should, in my opinion, be seen as the true sequel to Fallout 2. It's story is smartly written, with depth and complexity no matter who you side with. The world building is fantastic, working with the lore of the previous games in so many ways while still keeping a strong sense of self, being able to advance the world instead of just working in it or going around it. The atmosphere makes a perfect balance between dark and comedic, the characters, especially the companions, are fleshed out and complex. The choices feel substantial, like they actually do change how the story goes. It feels like you can play this game how you want, and end it how you want. The additions and balances to the gameplay are great: thresholds, the companion wheel, iron sights, and perk changes are all well done. The world itself feels alive and real, considering the time the game takes place and the location. Both Fallout 3 and New Vegas are good games, but IMO, New Vegas is the better Fallout game, and the lack of initial praise it got compared to 3 is a tragedy.

But that's just me. What do you all think?

And please, keep it civil.

-Mod edit: To avoid Low Content in these kinds of threads, please add why you are picking one game over the other. Elaborate on your opinions. Thanks!

 

[Auron]

Vegas is better at being Fallout, with more humour and a closer setting to Fallout 2. Fallout 3 was good but not as good at being Fallout, it's really simple.

 

[ShinyCharizard]

Fallout 3 was miles better. It was actually interesting to explore, while New Vegas was a very boring place to explore.

Also Fallout 3 had fewer but more interesting quests, while New Vegas had a metric fuckton of boring fetch quests.

 

[ChupathingyX]

Fallout: New Vegas was better.

It had Texas Red.

 

[Zykon TheLich_v1legacy]

I still think the same thing.

Exploring 3 was fun, I wanted to see what was round the corner, I explored that place like a mofo, but after I was done exploring the story didn't hold me as much. But while I was exploring, it really felt like I was exploring the charred corpse of humanity and it was awesome. That 1st view out of the vault, the weird shouting voice out near Riley's Rangers, the little stories about peoples lives and deaths that you could find lying around if you looked carefully, the crumbling highways, subways, buildings...great stuff.

As for NV the environment was not particularly interesting...oh look, desert...fun. Although I found Honest Hearts and Lonesome Road good. The characters and story kept me playing, they put work into them and it showed, I had to make choices that mattered to me. I totally wanted to go with House, but he wasn't going to take no for an answer on the Brotherhood of Steel, and I just couldn't blow them up after I'd gone through their story arc, they were my friends, they trusted me. So with great regret, I had to go elsewhere.

There were improvements in the mechanics as well in NV, but they were extra frills.

I suppose I could day that NV was better in that it had the story and characters and better mechanics, and the main reason the environment wasn't interesting to me was that I just don't give a crap about the wild west, so it could just me my preferences. Or maybe 3 genuinely has got a "better" environment and I just didn't appreciate the main story.

As to which is a better fallout game, I don't really know or care, Fallout lore means nothing to me.

 

[Barbas]

Fallout: New Vegas was better.

It had Texas Red.

It also had the criminally under-appreciated Johnny Guitar! Play it again, Johnny, the people demand it!

 

[Ryotknife]

well, ive put 26 hours into FO3 and 166 hours into New Vegas. FO3 has a more interesting setting, but that was about it. For some reason, Fo3 was...boring. Probably had something to do with the combat being very boring and bland.

 

[zombiejoe]

Fallout: New Vegas was better.

It had Texas Red.

It also had the criminally under-appreciated Johnny Guitar! Play it again, Johnny, the people demand it!

Personally, I'm So Blue wins me over.

 

[Adam Jensen_v1legacy]

New Vegas is way too buggy for me even after all the patches and community fixes. I still can't play that game. It's too frustrating. So I guess my vote goes towards the game that I can play.

 

[Windcaler]

It really depends on what you want out of the games because while theyre both fallout games in the same engine with generally the same mechanics theyre still very different games in tone and execution. Ive always said that for me Fallout New vegas had the better mechanics. Simple systems like aim down sights and lack of skill points making it so you would only specialize make the gameplay just better.

Fallout 3 however has the better world IMO. Im not sure if it actually is bigger but to me it felt much bigger. There were more things to find and I never felt like a mountain range was in my way and never found a set of invisible walls that prevented me from walking over a hill. New vegas had that as it created what I call "lanes of travel" which stopped me from exploring the world. I can step outside a settlement in Fallout 3, pick a direction, start walking, and I will always find something interesting. That sense of exploration just makes fallout 3 better for me. Plus it helps that theres a mod that changes everything I want to change in the game so mechanics stop being a factor for my enjoyment

For me Fallout 3 is just a much more enjoyable experience then New vegas

 

[RedEyesBlackGamer]

Fallout 3 had some of the worst writing that I've ever had the displeasure of seeing in a video game. New Vegas had good writing and gave the player complete freedom. Dead Money blows any DLC FO3 had straight out of the water by itself. Easy choice.

 

[wizardbaker]

Fallout 3 had some of the worst writing that I've ever had the displeasure of seeing in a video game. New Vegas had good writing and gave the player complete freedom. Dead Money blows any DLC FO3 had straight out of the water by itself. Easy choice.

Agreed! Fallout 3 has so many plotholes and dumb moments in it! And the it was just so darn linear, it only made sense if you played a good guy. Why would someone who blows up a city, or enslaves people, or whatever, work with the brotherhood of goody goodies, or want to find their daddy, or poison their own water supply?

 

[Windcaler]

Fallout 3 had some of the worst writing that I've ever had the displeasure of seeing in a video game. New Vegas had good writing and gave the player complete freedom. Dead Money blows any DLC FO3 had straight out of the water by itself. Easy choice.

Agreed! Fallout 3 has so many plotholes and dumb moments in it! And the it was just so darn linear, it only made sense if you played a good guy. Why would someone who blows up a city, or enslaves people, or whatever, work with the brotherhood of goody goodies, or want to find their daddy, or poison their own water supply?

Just to chime in on that question, the few outright evil characters Ive played have never been interested in dad but in Project Purity. Think about it, clean water for everyone so you never have to worry about finding that next drop of nonirradiated water leaves more time for you to manipulate, kill, and enslave other people. You dont have to spend your days drinking river water and getting sick. It even gives you even more power over others if you're the only one of the project still alive at the end.

As for the brotherhood, they're a means to an end. Tools to be used when convienant or at least thats always how my characters viewed the situation

As for the FEV virus, if you're a bigot against ghouls you may want to wipe them out with the modified FEV. Even if you arent a bigot anyone can see how much easier life would be if you got rid of the feral ghouls. Why would an evil character care if a few "innocents" got wiped out in the process, especially if they had the potential to become feral. Good, neutral, or evil you would want to get rid of the super mutants since they cant be controlled or manipulated.

Its easy to say "why would they do that" but not when you start analyzing the reasons behind a characters actions

 

[Sir Thomas Sean Connery]

I'm of two minds on this issue.

The fact is, New Vegas is a higher quality game. In most of the objective elements of both games, New Vegas is superior. The writing is more solid and makes more sense, the combat is improved, the characters are generally more interesting and the DLCs are incedible.

With all that said, if you put a gun to my head and forced me to choose, I'd take Fallout 3 every day of the week and twice on Thursdays.

Despite everything that's wrong with it, Fallout 3 has a sense of atmosphere and exploration that I have yet to find an equal of. Everything about the world just does it for me. The aesthetics are also much more interesting than New Vegas as far as I'm concerned.

The real key that this debate always comes down to is [i/]what is the Fallout series really about?[/i]

A lot of people argue that Fallout 3 misses the point because it's supposed to be Post-Post-Apocalyptic and Fallout 3 is more of a plain post-nuclear settings. I'd like to remind those people that Fallout 1 was exactly the same way. The fact is, none of us really get to say how a series is [i/]supposed[/i] to be when the entries are as varied as the Fallout games.

Personally, I think New Vegas is a boring world as a result of it's population and civilization. I enjoy Fallout 3 precisely because it's empty and barren. I disliked Fallout 2 for some of the same reasons.

But again, that's purely my preference. If we're talking about pure quality, New Vegas is easily the victor.

 

[Chaos Isaac]

Considering New Vegas' kinda boring everything, i'll go with Fallout 3.

Iunno, at the end of Fallout 3, I wasn't grinding my teeth in frustration as I pushed through more stupid shit to see more stupid Legion everywhere.

I think being kinda silly and dumb is what made Fallout 3 good. I suppose it did try to take itself seriously, but when I come across a town with a superhero battle, I can just enjoy the silliness of it. But looking at New Vegas... It tried too hard, and just ruined it. You want me to take half of this stuff seriously, and i'm still pondering out the Legion does anything. Or how it really poses a threat to the people with guns and air support. I guess dramatic convenience and numbers!

I'm also confused as to why anyone follows Caeser, that guy got more interesting after Boone took his head off.

This isn't even mentioning Fallout 3 is a rare game in which you can truly explore. You walk out of the vault and... go. Just, walk, and you'll find cool stuff, people, creatures, explosions, whatever you want. New Vegas has no such freedom, or such interesting locales. Even after all the boring DLC quests which had me halfway asleep, asides the silly one. Fallout 3's expansions were better, any day of the week i'd rather play the horrible mothership zeta then dead money again.

The Best thing New Vegas did, was add new armors and brought over the modded element of weapon attachments.

So, Fallout 3. By like a league.

 

[Directionless]

New Vegas was the better game for me. It's environments may not have been as interesting, but because of how much better it's characters, story, quests, dialogue system and choice & consequence system is; it's no contest for me.

It's just how Bethesda make their games/ I've never liked it. They create visually detailed worlds to explore, but everything else is just so mediocre that the exploration becomes meaningless to me. I need characters, i need a story, i need a dialogue system that provides more than a "yes" or "no" answer to a quest proposal.

 

[RedEyesBlackGamer]

Fallout 3 had some of the worst writing that I've ever had the displeasure of seeing in a video game. New Vegas had good writing and gave the player complete freedom. Dead Money blows any DLC FO3 had straight out of the water by itself. Easy choice.

Agreed! Fallout 3 has so many plotholes and dumb moments in it! And the it was just so darn linear, it only made sense if you played a good guy. Why would someone who blows up a city, or enslaves people, or whatever, work with the brotherhood of goody goodies, or want to find their daddy, or poison their own water supply?

Just to chime in on that question, the few outright evil characters Ive played have never been interested in dad but in Project Purity. Think about it, clean water for everyone so you never have to worry about finding that next drop of nonirradiated water leaves more time for you to manipulate, kill, and enslave other people. You dont have to spend your days drinking river water and getting sick. It even gives you even more power over others if you're the only one of the project still alive at the end.

As for the brotherhood, they're a means to an end. Tools to be used when convienant or at least thats always how my characters viewed the situation

As for the FEV virus, if you're a bigot against ghouls you may want to wipe them out with the modified FEV. Even if you arent a bigot anyone can see how much easier life would be if you got rid of the feral ghouls. Why would an evil character care if a few "innocents" got wiped out in the process, especially if they had the potential to become feral. Good, neutral, or evil you would want to get rid of the super mutants since they cant be controlled or manipulated.

Its easy to say "why would they do that" but not when you start analyzing the reasons behind a characters actions

Project Purity is pretty eye rolling itself. Ignoring the fact that purifying water is a relatively simple process, there are simpler solutions. It is obvious that purified water can be made, your robot servant can give you purified water. Why not just engineer that on a larger scale? Instead, they want to pursue a mythical device that can somehow purify an entire body of water. That poses a problem, however.

Spoiler

People mention in post game that things like Mirelurks are dying off do to the change. Drastically changing an ecosystem overnight is never a good idea. You could wind up doing more damage than good. You have no motivation to complete Project Purity anyway. The Enclave are already trying to do it, why not let them? The President wanted to use it to kill all mutants, but the Colonel wasn't going to do it. You have no reason to stop them.

 

[Strelok]

New Vegas, gun mechanics are much better, better story, I still have not gotten over finishing vanilla Fallout 3, with a radiation immune mutant as my side kick... Who stood by and did nothing. So New Vegas is the best one in my opinion Fallout 3 DLC or not can die in a fire.

 

[Windcaler]

Project Purity is pretty eye rolling itself. Ignoring the fact that purifying water is a relatively simple process, there are simpler solutions. It is obvious that purified water can be made, your robot servant can give you purified water. Why not just engineer that on a larger scale? Instead, they want to pursue a mythical device that can somehow purify an entire body of water. That poses a problem, however.

A lot of science fiction is pretty eyerolling. However thats not the point I was making. The point I was making is there is a reason an evil character would get involved with the project.