Fallout New Vegas: Why all the hate?

[Moridinice]

it´s hard to put into words why i liked FO3 more than FNV. the first thing are the BUGS. less i say the better.

the more important thing is despite FNV having "supposed" bigger map and lot more of quests. it sorta felt smaller. FO3 truly for me felt huge, a gigantic playground with unending locations to check out and play with. oh sure it did suffer from the repeat syndrome but i ignored it. i dislike the hills and natural roadblocks in FNV remembering in FO3 there were few places where rocks were in my way allowing me true freedom.

dont get me wrong i like FNV after all, but it never got the gigantic sandbox feeling from it like i got from FO3

 

[Cowabungaa]

and this

'Patrolling the Mojave almost makes you wish for a nuclear winter'

I really started raging at that line when even the freakin' Ambassador started using it. For fuck sake dude, you're in an office the entire damn day!

 

[Sudenak]

I played New Vegas before I played 3. Frankly, I was outraged that anyone thought 3 was better.

First off, let's nip the bad in the bud: the bugs. Yes, New Vegas had more crashes than 3 did. Some of which made me gnaw my face off.

Spoiler

And the ending made me gnaw my face off, particularly when me running Vegas made the NCR turn on me despite a flawless record of being 100% on their side, then dumping me into a battle versus the NCR and Legion even though I killed Caesar and literally everybody in the Legion's camp. Even the children.

Now, for why New Vegas was better.

Map

The way that the map was set up in Vegas really lent itself to the story leading exploration. When I went to the next area, I was guaranteed to spy one or two interesting things in the distance to go explore at me leisure. The story path was interwoven with the sandbox.

In 3, the storyline was very linear, with a good portion of it literally walled in so that you needed to take one specific path to reach your destination. The story lead you around in the bottom third of the map, without giving you any incentive to run way out to explore. Because of this, the sandbox felt deliberately separated from the story.

Introduction

The pacing for 3 would have worked great if it had been meshed properly. As it was, they developed a slow burn before suddenly dumping an explosion of action onto you and after a few brief minutes of that, kick you out and yank out all of the tension. It's not unlike a race where the starting gun is misfired and then all of the racers need to be brought back to start the race properly.

In contrast, New Vegas starts out slow and gradually builds up the action. While it is true that it has a similar wham-bow-whiz moment that 3 had, it's drawn out and you're given some say in the matter. In 3, you're inexplicably told that you'll be killed if you don't gtfo because your dad took off. In New Vegas, the Powder Gangers plan to take out the town that rescued you out of petty revenge. You can choose to side with the Powder Gangers, side with the town, or just ignore it altogether, effectively allowing the player to set the tone. It combines the beginning of 3 with Megaton, and does so perfectly.

Choice

There's quite a few more choices to make. You can ally yourself with all sorts of thugs, or with the good guys, or the invaders, or with your own personal greed. New Vegas really lets you plow through however you feel like, and doesn't see the need to prop up invisible restrictions.

In 3, I'd taken a liking to being a genocidal maniac. In a surprising move, there is a town that you cannot completely wipe out because one of the guards is incapable of death. The flimsy excuse of him being an android does not excuse the fact that I can blow up robots with relative ease. There weren't as many groups to deal with, and it just felt empty in comparison to New Vegas. And that's empty by the standards of a post-apocalyptic wasteland empty.

Radio Host

This is a bit petty, I know, but Mr. New Vegas was far superior to Three Dog. Three Dog was this obnoxiously loud voice that just dug into my ear canal and refused to let go until blood came out. Mr. New Vegas had a smooth voice that easily blended in with the music he offered. I turned off the radio in 3 and listened to silence mixed with the in game sting music, and I kept my radio on in New Vegas.

Story

3 wins some points here. Your goal is always clear in 3: find dad. Even as it progresses, the new parts to the story are always very clear. New Vegas starts out clear: find who tried to kill you. It gets very muddled almost immediately, and near the end when I actually found who did it, I completely forgot why I needed to care.

But here's where it gets me:

Ending

This was tough, as I hated both endings, but New Vegas wins. Major spoilage ahead.

Fallout 3:

Spoiler

You get teamed up with a group of bland, uninteresting people to stop the villain from purifying the water, essentially killing everyone who lived out in the wastelands. You kill the villain, and your first choice comes up: do away with the mutants by purifying the water, or don't. I did (because the game was so muddled that me just checking out what the fuck the panel was meant "yes I do want to commit genocide"). Your second choice is then to sacrifice yourself by turning on the water, or have the woman with you sacrifice herself to turn on the water. I chose to sacrifice myself, but oddly enough I had so many stacked up rads-fixing items that I was able to heal the rad poisoning really quickly.

Even with that, bam, you're dead, and surprise, you fucked everything up. The ending was atrocious.

Fallout New Vegas:

Spoiler

You get quite a few more options here. Side with Caesar's Legion to take down the NCR, side with the NCR to take down Caesar's Legion, or side with yourself and blow up the dam. I ended up choosing to side with myself, although I had hoped to be able to buddy up with the NCR. Surprisingly, they took the idea of Mr. House being replaced as an act of war and decided an all out brawl would be better than teaming up with the guy that helped them.

I took out both sides, and infuriatingly this caused my mostly NCR-run Mojave to go to complete shit. It did a better job of letting you pick your own path, but forced you very strictly to pick a side and offered no grey area.

In conclusion

New Vegas was significantly stronger than 3, but still has some definite weakpoints. I honestly believe that Liam Neeson is the only reason that people fanboyishly defend 3.

 

[GiantRaven]

And yet, when you walk down a bunch of ruined building in Fallout 3, chances are you might find a nifty item, quest, or easter egg in any one of them. In New Vegas there NOTHING in those apartments and abandoned factories. Nothing to explore. Your just trapped in a canyon with nothing to look at but the pretty lights of Vegas that get old after the first time you see it.

What does that have to do with the visuals of the game?

 

[Echo136]

And yet, when you walk down a bunch of ruined building in Fallout 3, chances are you might find a nifty item, quest, or easter egg in any one of them. In New Vegas there NOTHING in those apartments and abandoned factories. Nothing to explore. Your just trapped in a canyon with nothing to look at but the pretty lights of Vegas that get old after the first time you see it.

What does that have to do with the visuals of the game?

The point of what I said was that It may have great visuals and look a lot better, but unlike Fallout 3, in new vegas theres just nothing there! you get prettier visuals like New Vegas itself but thats all. Nothing to explore. I go in a random factory or a town outside of New Vegas and check the wiki to see if there are any quests are items in any way related to them and theres just no reason for them to be there. They are literally just there to look at. That wasnt the case in Fallout 3, where most anything had its purpose.