Poll: Fallout3 vs. Fallout:New Vegas

[Palmerama]

I would have to go with New Vegas. Don't get me wrong I loved Fallout 3 when it came out (got the collector's edition) and i've got all the achievements but it didn't feel totally like a Fallout game. There were only a few nods to the previous games. Mainly having Harold & Dogmeat in the game (seriously that dog is like 200 years old now in the FAllout universe). But I had more fun with New Vegas on the whole.
If Bethesda weren't so stingy to Obsidian and gave them a better engine to work with considering the size of the game, then it would have been a no contest.
I wonder how many people on here have played the original Fallout games when choosing Fallout 3. What I loved about New Vegas was that it was the Fallout 3 I was waiting for. AS a massive fan of the original games (Fallout 2 is still my favourite game of all time), I loved all the references to the previous games such as actually meeting the pilot of the crashed vertibird in Klamth. The quiz in the game which is all about the old games. The NCR talking about President Tandi. Not to mentions all the monsters returning; The Geckos (fire ones still as hard to kill as ever), Nightkins, plants and a brilliant cameo from Marcus the super mutant.

I would much prefer it if Obsidian made Fallout 4.

 

[minimacker]

I felt FO3's story was way better.

But FO:NV had better mechanics.


I'm going with FO3, though. It had me emotionally invested, instead of "You shot, get revenge".

 

[JediMB]

Keep in mind, 200 years since the war does not mean that DC and its outlying areas were inhabited for 200 years. The vaults (the only source of people outside of ghouls and the Enclave) were set to open at different times.

Err... There were in fact "regular" survivors of the war. Junktown, for example, was founded by one of the war's many soldiers. The Hub's founder was also likely a topside survivor, since it was founded a mere 20 years after the war and there's no reference to him being from Vault 8. Finally, the various raider groups are likely to be descendants of war survivors.

One should also keep in mind that Vault 13 was intended to stay shut for 200 years to test the effects of "long term isolation". So in all likelihood other vaults were designed to open much earlier than that. Vault 76, which is mentioned in Fallout 3, opened to re-colonize the area after 20 years.

 

[AndrewF022]

Hmm, this is a pretty hard choice. I'd probably have to say Fallout 3.

I thought the gameplay mechanics were better in New Vegas, they took a look at many popular mods for Fallout 3 and incorporated those into New Vegas, I loved that, thats a brilliant way to make the necessary changes to a sequel. I didn't like however, that the world felt a lot more, empty to me, and linear. Fallout New Vegas seemed more interested in making me follow the stories progression than giving me free reign, as evidenced by putting insta-death (in the form of Deathclaws and Cazadors) as barricades to force me to follow the specific road the story did to get to New Vegas. The story was not even that great anyway, why on earth would I want to chase down the dude who shot me in the head? To get shot again?

So yea, Fallout 3 because the world was much more interesting and open for me to explore. It also wasn't bugged to shit when it launched either, New Vegas was near unplayable on day 1 (PC version w/Nvidia card) so it loses points right out of the gate.

 

[Jandau]

Fallout 3 by a landslide for me.

New Vegas just doesn't feel right to me. It's too populated, too urban, too civilized. In Fallout 3 the major settlements looked like safe havens in the middle of a deadly wasteland. Of the two largest towns, one was protected by a massive wall of metal, and the other was an aircraft carrier. In New Vegas, towns are sort of just there, like the Wasteland isn't really a big deal.

In FO3, the centerpiece were the ruins of Washington city. There, the gameplay changed, it was a different environment, a more lethal one. Less room to run and hide, every turn could lead you to a dead end, enemies were bigger and meaner. On the other hand, the centerpiece of NV is the Strip, which is basically a big town with tacky lights.

New Vegas is full of people, of NCR soldiers, military camps, the Strip is surrounded for miles with civilization, suburbs, towns, fields. There is irrigation, a monorail, readily available electricity. It just doesn't feel like a post-apocalyptic wasteland. It feels like a run down town somewhere in Nevada.

And then there are the landmarks. I'm not american, but still FO3 was full of interesting places to visit. NV... not so much. One of the cool things about FO3 was visiting actual real-world places and areas. They made the made-up stuff seem more believable. In NV there's far less of that.

I dislike the fact that NV feels more linear. There is a distinct direction you're supposed to take through the game and the placement of impassable barriers and unbeatable monsters hearded you in the "correct" direction (south, around to Novac, then north to the Strip). As a result, the world feels smaller. In contrast, FO3 doesn't give a fuck where you go after exiting the Vault. Sure, there are a few areas that kick your arse early on, but they are individual areas and can be easily avoided. There's just more freedom.

Finally, there's the western theme. I left this for last since it's extremely subjective, but I just don't care for it. It ruins the theme for me.

New Vegas has more guns and some nice extra mechanics, but it doesn't come close to FO3 when it comes to the game world, atmosphere and such. As a result, I'd rather play FO3 some more.

 

[MiracleOfSound]

I hope the next Fallout has the world designed by Bethesda and the characters written by Obsidian.

 

[mrdude2010]

Fallout: NV and Fallout 3 are the same game, NV is just an expansion pack.

 

[blackrave]

Holy crap, I wasn't expecting so much answers

While I agree that there were plot holes in FO3, I think biggest miss was chosen time period
It would be far better if game would take time between FO and FO2, or even to be prequel to FO
Then such social state of Capitol wasteland would fit the time, 200y after great war it made no sense
I really hope FO4 will take period directly after war (25-30y after)
Maybe even in Canada

I hope the next Fallout has the world designed by Bethesda and the characters written by Obsidian.

Amen to that

 

[mrhappy1489]

Fallout 3 does a better job of creating a great atmosphere, coupled with the fact that it is bethesda's best exercise in storytelling and it is definitely my preferred game. Fallout NV is still a great game, I just prefer number 3.

 

[Headdrivehardscrew]

Played both games, all add-ons, some mods here and there.

I prefer Fallout 3 to NV, even though NV did some things better.

Why? For starters, I hate gambling and I can't stand the face of most of the characters on and off the strip in NV. Then there's the problem I ran into late in the game - I ended up hating all the major factions in the game, so I basically wiped them all off the map, which somehow wasn't something the story was prepared to handle, so it went a bit south from there.

FO3 just entertained me well, even though it was admittedly a letdown from FO1 and FO2. Still, it amused and entertained me, while giving me the option to get really stressed out from time to time. Yes, I hated the limited accessibility of some locations, yes, I hated the underground links, yes, I got lost more than once or twice or a dozen times trying to get from A to B. Yes, I hated the character design. Still, the game worked for me, and I did enjoy the 'diversified' add-ons. The retro chic dream world really amazed me, I liked the virtual LSD trip through the swamps - it was a memorable ride, all in all. NV - not sure. It might be just me, but I really have issues with a game that makes it so easy to hate everyone. The neo-roman fascist sexists needed to die, that was clear pretty soon. But as I have severe issues with commiedom, the NCR looked less and less appealing the more I interacted with proponents and members of the NCR. The strip I hated before I set foot on it, and once I did, the most amusing thing I experienced involved a shrivelled up guy in an oxygen tank and cannibals. I wasn't too amused.

 

[DanielBrown]

I thought they were fairly equal. Probably had much more fun with NV though, so it gets my vote.

 

[Freaky Lou]

New Vegas is superior to Fallout 3 in every single way except polish.

The problems with New Vegas are all things that look like they weren't given enough time to do everything they wanted, like the fact that most of the old houses and sheds you find out in the wilderness are boarded and inaccessible. One of the nice things about FO3 is that if you saw something, it was generally explorable. In NV there's a lot of things that'll draw your intrigue but turn out to be nothing.

Or they're limitations of Bethesda's cut-rate engine, like the fact that the casinos and streets of supposedly bustling New Vegas are disturbingly vacant despite the ambient chatter.

But as far as story goes, FO3's is undone by grade-school level science. DIRT will clear the radiation from water. After 200 years, all the freshwater in the basin would be quite clean.

There's also the fact that the plot is cobbled together from bits and pieces of Fallout 1 and 2. Also the fact that the Enclave were destroyed in FO2, and definitely shouldn't have a massive army with helicopters and legions of soldiers all equipped in power armor.

Then there is the fact that despite being inhabited by super mutants for 20 years, the Project Purity site was still mostly okay and just needed some touching up before becoming operational.

There's also the fact that a G.E.C.K. alone would make the land fertile again. No need for this water nonsense.

As for side quests we have questions like how does Little Lamplight still exist when they kick everyone capable of reproduction out. I guess the kids just pop out of holes in the ground---and then proceed to hold back hordes of mutants, slavers and raiders with some old boards and a single prepubescent rifleman.

Then we have the merely idiotic like groups dedicated to robot emancipation, Dukov managing to live a life of pure consumption even though his house is in the middle of the Super Mutant-infested Capitol area and should have been razed long ago (where's he getting all the booze and food from, anyway), thick Irish accents retained after centuries of living with only Americans, and vampire cults who rehabilitate cannibals.

With all this severe retardation going on it's difficult for me to see how FO3 could be at all "immersive" or "atmospheric". There's also the obnoxious intro sequence that, while interesting the first time, is just a tedious ordeal on repeat playthroughs.

Then we have the fact that all of the factions are ruined in FO3; BoS turned into white knights of the wasteland and Super Mutants reduced to grunting orcs. There's also a mere good/evil ending, decided by a single choice at the very end of the story. The only other major decision is whether or not to blow up Megaton---which is a whole 'nother can of idiotic worms.

Basically, NV's flaws look like the result of limitations, whereas FO3's are all bad design. Yeah, I've done so many posts about this that instead of pointing out all the the clear advantages NV holds over FO3, I decided I'd just point out some flaws of both games.

 

[Hargrimm]

Which makes sense, since it has been over 200 years since the end of the war and people generally don't sit on their asses and do nothing for such a long time (especially when survival is at stake). They actually build communities, farm the land and produce what they want and need.

DC in Fallout 3 appears to still be undergoing primary ecological succession. The only plant life around appears to be nothing but grass, lichen, and some glowing mushrooms. I doubt soil so heavily irradiated and arid to even support bushes or small herbs would be able to support any kind of farming operation, no matter how small. This is why Three Dog would act so incredulous when discussing the trees and greenery found at Oasis on the radio, even after supposedly being there himself.

Which brings up the question of why people are still living in this area if there is nothing to support them.
Also, Radiation is not really a problem for plantlife (see chernobyl), so if the radiation is prevalent enough to prevent plants growing, it would be inhospitable for humans.
This also contradicts the established lore. In the old Fallouts, the land was perfectly arable.(it was arid yes, but they managed)

Yes. It has been 200 years since the war. That the people in Fallout 3 haven't manged to get ANYWHERE in all that time just makes them look retarded.

Keep in mind, 200 years since the war does not mean that DC and its outlying areas were inhabited for 200 years. The vaults (the only source of people outside of ghouls and the Enclave) were set to open at different times. Although I can't say when they opened around the DC area, there seem to be very few communities around and even those are fairly small (outside of the raider population, the Brotherhood and the Outcasts, and Black Talon of course). Given how small and ill equipped they are, I doubt they'd have the resources or numbers necessary to allocate for expansion. On top of that, I'm willing to bet that despite the survival of quite a bit of its infrastructure, the DC area suffered from much worse destruction and fallout than the west coast did too. Its vicinity to the main government buildings and industrial centers alone would've made it a higher priority target than California or Nevada.

Where do I even start?
JediMB mentions the survivors and vaults, so I'll skip that.
On the raiders: What do they raid? You said it yourself, the communities in the CW are very small(less than 10, in some cases less than 5), so where do they get their resources from? Why even risk your life in a raid against an armed and fortified community in the first place? They could just scavenge like everyone else. If lone scavengers(with maybe a dog) can survive like that, why not bands of raiders?
Raiders shouldn't be a problem, because they should hardly exist at all.
The Talon Company: Who the fuck are these people? The only thing we know about them is that they are Mercenaries(who nobody employs) and that they kill do-gooders(for no reason at all).

"I'm willing to bet that despite the survival of quite a bit of its infrastructure, the DC area suffered from much worse destruction and fallout than the west coast did too"
This doesn't make any sense.
So the capital was hit harder, but has alot more of it's infrastructure still standing. wut?

Of all the communities Rivet City seems to be the most well off, but the majority of their resources are centered on water purification tech (not having the luxury of a vault provided water purifier). In the west coast they had the advantage of more communities to tie their resources,

All of which had to be basically built from scratch. This is no excuse for the retards in the CW.

heavily supplemented by vault tech that could generate power and clean water.

Vault 13, Vault City and Necropolis had those.
Vault 13 had to buy water from the water Merchants, because their water chip broke and after they fixed it, they stopped trading.
The Vault City Vault didn't open until well after the Hub, Shady Sands, Adytum etc. had already been established. They were only put on the map once they started trading with the NCR.
Necropolis didn't trade water. In fact, it hardly traded with anybody until it was destroyed. It also had no way of generating power.

[1]In Fallout 3, the only vault that hasn't been host to a self-eradicating social experiment that is still in working condition appears to be Vault 101, and they're all isolationist assholes.
[2] It's what made the Brotherhood such a prominent part of the game despite being relative newcomers to the area: they had the resources and numbers necessary to civilize the post-apocalyptic urban wilderness and even seemed to be in favor of doing that.

[1] Same with Vault 13 and Vault 8(Vault City)
[2] The Brotherhood being there in the first place is also bullshit. America is huge, there was no reason to cross an entire continent ON FOOT, without any knowledge of what survived the war past southern California and what didn't. This is a logistical nighmare to say the least.
They say in game that they wanted to find high tech weapons in the Pentagon. There are no weapon caches in the Pentagon and if there are, only for the security personnell, not something worth crossing an entire continent for.

Which brings up another question. Who backs the currency in Falllout 3?
In Fallout 1 it was backed by the Water Merchants, so people could use caps to trade, safe in the knowledge that they were actually worth something.
Fallout 2 had minted coins, probably made by the NCR.
New Vegas has NCR dollars, Legion denarii and House backing the caps.
Fallout 3 has nothing.

I'd guess Canterbury Commons, which appears to be the main trading outpost in the area and the only link to the rest of the country besides the Brotherhood and the Slavers.

The main trading outpost consisting of like 4 people and a kid. Backing the caps with what exactly? They don't produce anything and don't have any kind of resource that other people don't have.
The Water Merchants obviously had water, the NCR had numerous resources(like gold, power, medicine, food, guns...), as did the Legion.
Vegas had gambling and protection by a robot army(the flimsiest of the bunch).
Canterburry Commons has nothing.

Who also have no means to support themselves, except that little bit of what is in the building, which couldn't last a week for all of them. So there should be nothing to loot anymore and there shouldn't be monsters at all. Since anyone squatting in there would have to move on rather quickly.
It should be empty after 200 years

[1]Why would super mutants need medicine and clean water? They're practically immune to radiation, meaning that they could probably just drink straight from ocean and suffer no ill consequences. [2]Their advanced healing factor and immunity to diseases means that they also wouldn't have a need for medical supplies, short of actually losing a limb they could probably literally sleep off any injury. Ghouls, also immune to radiation, wouldn't have to worry about water too. They might need medical supplies like regular humans, but the majority of the ones you encounter have gone feral and wouldn't have the mental facilities necessary to administer or even think of first aid. The only perishable resource super mutants, feral ghouls, and humans would probably even share would be food, and even then super mutants and ghouls have the advantage of being able to supplement that with[3] human meat without having to moralize over it or worry about cannibalism contracted illnesses.

[1] Because they get shot on sight?
[2] Where is that ever mentioned?
[3] Which would also run out very quickly, since ther isn't enough food around to support a sizable human population. Basically the problem predators have, that I mentioned in the post you quoted.

No matter how you slice it, the economy and logistics of Fallout 3 are a broken mess.
And I didn't even mention the issue of manpower in regards to the Brotherhood, the Super Mutants and the Enclave.

 

[Freaky Lou]

Depends on how you approach FO3. Take me for instance, I hadn't even HEARD of the Fallout franchise until FO3 was announced. The "previous installments" can go fuck themselves for all I care.

Hey, now. Imagine a series you love. Picture an installment that utterly rapes its established canon, factions and characters. Now picture someone coming in and saying exactly what you just said about the franchise.

Ten years after the nukes hit? There would still be lethal amounts of radiation, so there would be no game, unless you played as a super mutant. Fallout 3 was about finally giving a slim ray of hope to a landscape that had been stuck in "Godless hellhole" mode due to slavers, unchecked predators, and scarcity of untainted resources, as well as Fantastic Racism between ghouls and normal humans.

You missed the point. The DC wasteland is so infertile that the fact anyone lives there is unbelievable, especially when you consider that none of them do anything but sit on their behinds and cry about the scarcity of supplies (when there are fully stocked supermarkets a stone's throw away).

Caesar was a fucking retard

This statement makes me wonder if you ever talked to him. His empire wasn't based on conquest. The purpose of the relentless conquest campaigns was to rid the wasteland of warring factions, because tons of tribes always killing each other never results in progress. His plan was to steamroll every group into one united nation and culture with enough identity and solidarity to bring about a proper society, and the way he saw it, only a brutal and unforgiving culture was fit to survive in a brutal and unforgiving world.

Caesar's very educated and has an intellect about on a level with House.

 

[Davey Woo]

Yes because it's realistic to always get what you want. I hate it when actual consequences are scoffed at for wimiting pwayer fweedom.

Hardly anything about Fallout is realistic...

My point was that in Fallout 3 you were not punished for focusing on one or two skills, meaning you could take one combat kill and one utility skill and be OK. Whereas in New Vegas you need to be good at just about everything, which isn't how I like to play the game.

 

[Davey Woo]

Yes because it's realistic to always get what you want. I hate it when actual consequences are scoffed at for wimiting pwayer fweedom.

Hardly anything about Fallout is realistic...

My point was that in Fallout 3 you were not punished for focusing on one or two skills, meaning you could take one combat skill and one utility skill and be OK. Whereas in New Vegas you need to be good at just about everything, which isn't how I like to play the game.

 

[The Ubermensch]

Discounting mods (With the exception of FO3 Wanderers Edition and Project Nevada), New Vegas. FO3 was awesome don't get me wrong, and for along time I considered it to be better, but the mechanics were a lot stronger in FONV, and I really do like companions that make you feel invested. Boone and Cass were really cool companions, (as was Willow but as she is a Mod we don't count) where as the companions in FO3, while some had interesting hooks, they didn't really go anywhere. The way they game tracked your allegiance was neat and made you feel like part of the world rather than an outsider.

FO3 shined when it was just you and dog meat roaming the wasteland. FONV did that and when you interacted in the world... I did miss Dog Meat though, Rex just wasn't the same.

Skyrim has the same problems FO3 did, BETHESDA WHY U NO LEARN FROM OBSIDIAN!?!

 

[Freaky Lou]

Yes because it's realistic to always get what you want. I hate it when actual consequences are scoffed at for wimiting pwayer fweedom.

Hardly anything about Fallout is realistic...

My point was that in Fallout 3 you were not punished for focusing on one or two skills, meaning you could take one combat kill and one utility skill and be OK. Whereas in New Vegas you need to be good at just about everything, which isn't how I like to play the game.

No, the idea isn't about being good at everything, the idea is that based on your character build there are going to be some things you can do and other you can't.

It's like in Planescape: Torment where if you didn't raise your wisdom, you'll never know the winding philosophical debates you can have, or in Vampire The Masquerade: Bloodlines, where the class you pick at the beginning as a MASSIVE impact on your gameplay experience. An RPG is about choice, and for choice to be interesting there have to be consequences for your choices. If you didn't raise lockpicking, you can't pick the locks. If you didn't raise speech, your conversations won't be nearly as cool.

Games like Oblivion or FO3 where you can pretty easily raise everything high enough to get through any obstacle in any way you choose are bad RPGs for this reason. They may be fun sandboxes, but they're useless for roleplaying anything other than Superman.

EDIT: This is also why nearly all old-school RPGs had multiple companions with different skills. That way, if there was something you were bad at, you could find a companion who was good at it and thus teamwork through the game.

 

[electronicgoat]

The time I have put into Fallout New Vegas is 40 times the amount I have put into Fallout 3.

Story's better, more elements of the earlier Fallouts are back, the DLC of New Vegas are particularly amazing and really what a mod should be, there are genuinely funny and interesting characters, the locations have more history, depth, and polish to them, the quests are leaps better, and the JSawyer mod is a heap of realism and fun.