Poll: Fallout3 vs. Fallout:New Vegas

[DustyDrB]

I've not played the DLCs for NV so I'll render that part irrelevant.
I found the Mojave to be much more interesting then the capital wasteland. I think it was the fact that different parts of the map looked completely different to each other. Meanwhile Fallout 3 was rather bland. Also, the Wild West sub-theme was way better than the 1950s sub-theme F3 had going on.
Oddly enough, my version of NV has never crashed. No bugs or anything.
I will admit Vegas was much too easy. Even without Boone playing the game while I just hid behind a rock pounding stimpacks into my eye every 2 minutes. Oh occasionally I talked to someone as well.

The game can be easy or hard, and that's without considering the difficulty slider. Level-scaling is there, but I think it's mostly done with major faction enemies (like the Legion) and is set whenever you start a DLC. Outside of that, enemy levels are set. If you want to challenge yourself, go off the main pathway when you're still early in the game. There you will meet enemies meant for high-level characters to kill (Deathclaw, Cazador swarms, Giant Radscorpion nests, Feral Ghoul Reavers).

And you should really give the DLC chapters a try, especially if you're into the writing in New Vegas. Each chapter intertwines with each other in some way (big enough to enhance the experience, small enough that you won't feel like you're missing out if you haven't played the others) and also ties in to parts of the main game. They all each go for their own distinct style too.

If you're into exploration: Honest Hearts, Old World Blues
If you're into an oppressive atmosphere: Dead Money, Lonesome Road
If you love the off-beat humor of the game: Old World Blues
If you you're more into being skill-based rather than combat-based: Dead Money
If you're into Survivalism: Honest Hearts
If you want to know more about that "other courier": Lonesome Road (all of them mention him, but Lonesome Road is the main show there)

 

[DesiPrinceX09]

I used to think fallout 3 was much better and I used to like it more but then I took an arr...but then I got new vegas ultimate edition that had all DLC and ran much smoother (when I originally got the game, it froze non stop). I enjoyed it so much more, the guns were awesome and the quests were fun and the factions were well designed. In fallout 3 all I fought was raiders, but in new vegas there's lots of factions to deal with (to befriend or to fight). In f3 everything was destroyed and it was just lifeless and dark. New vegas had civilization on its way to rebuilding with each of the main factions trying to take it to the next level in their own way. And who can forget the vibrant colors of the strip! Especially the tops and Gomorrah (and lucky 38 of course). And I like variety of weapons, and new vegas gave me that (especially with the gun runners DLC).

 

[TheOneBearded]

Fallout 3 began my love for the series, but New Vegas and Obsidian perfected the game.

 

[Khazoth]

I enjoy Fallout 3 so much more, I just did not find New Vegas enjoyable in any way. Without question its the setting that ruins it because the most interesting part of Fallout 3 was exploring the ruined cities and picking through the rubble.

Not really as interested with sandsandsandsandsandsandhouse

 

[Cybertooth1960]

I enjoy Fallout 3 so much more, I just did not find New Vegas enjoyable in any way. Without question its the setting that ruins it because the most interesting part of Fallout 3 was exploring the ruined cities and picking through the rubble.

Not really as interested with sandsandsandsandsandsandhouse

Didn't you just say you preferred New Vegas?

 

[Darmy647]

New vegas. Sure it was fun to see ruined D.C, but the overall feel of new vegas, the settings it adopted, plus all the factions and weapons, the crafting, the skills that MATTERD with crafting, and the overall better qualitied DLC's just called to me better. If any of you have tried project nevada for new vegas, sweet jesus made it feel Like a god of a game.

 

[scorptatious]

Fallout New Vegas most definitely.

While Fallout 3 was a good game in it's own right the game, not to mention the game that introduced me to the series, it's New Vegas that really blew me away.

First time I played through I ended up rushing through the game. And I didn't think much of it. Second time through though, and I ended up absolutely loving the game. Hell, it even got me to download the first two Fallout games. Of which I'm currently playing through.

 

[endtherapture]

New Vegas.

Got 9 hours into FO3, got to the aircraft carrier, and I got bored. I had power armour and stuff, the game was boring, there was nothing interesting to explore, the world made no sense, no characters were interesting, and it was horrible how you got around the city through really stupid annoying subways. Can't be dealing with that.

New Vegas I'm 10 hours in and I can't wait to play more. There's so many cool locations you can see and explore, the world feels dangerous and practical, and there's so much politics going on in the background. It's great. All the factions are so interesting.

 

[Jazoni89]

Fallout 3 was a good game for the time before New Vegas, but then New Vegas showed up and it proved just how much of a shallow experience Fallout 3 really was.

In terms of lore, Fallout 3 didn't just give the older games a disservice, it absolutely destroyed it. To a point where Obsidian had to try to amend it as best as they could with various additions to the lore to try and fit Fallout 3 with the other games.

In Fallout 3, the roleplaying aspect is totally broken. You could walk all over deathclaws by the time you was level 20 (Dart Gun - Deathclaw legs - Instant Win!), and some of the perks were overpowered it was ridiculous (yes, Grim Reaper Sprint, i'm talking to you). This isn't even touching on the speech system, which was completely and utterly ridiculous too. You probably only need about 10 points in the speech skill, then you don't have to worry about it at all. Then if a convo didn't go your way, you could just reload a save, making it a truly flawed gameplay mechanic. In New Vegas however, speech is the most important skill in the game, which makes for far better roleplaying.

I also apperciate Hardcore mode in New Vegas, which makes for a even more immersive experience. While getting food, and water can be a pain sometimes, it's far better than drink feeding stimpacks like you do in Fallout 3. Not to mention Stimpacks are like sweets in Fallout 3, so it's hard to even die.

While Fallout 3 had some really cool locations, how much of those were the same copy and paste dungeon, or metro station. It was like Oblivion all over again. New Vegas on the other hand is a case of quality over quanity. The Vaults were a lot better, and had better backstories than Fallout 3, and the lack of copy and paste made you want to explore the mojave, and see every nook and cranny. Fallout 3 bored me to tears by the time i found out that I was going through practically the same places.

Fallout 3 was devoided of typical Fallout charm as well. With only very few memorable characters, such as Three Dog for example. New Vegas makes you feel more attached to these characters, and the post-apocalyptic world they inhabit.

The DLC's for New Vegas seem more well rounded too, and they actually make sense in the world. They also give different varieties of play as well, with Honest Hearts being a focus on the Survival skill, while Old World Blues focuses on the Science skill. The DLC's for Fallout 3 were a mixed bag at best, with some being good, while some were terrible, and i mean terrible. Seriously, if i saw the bright sparks who thought up both Operation Anchorage, and Mothership Zeta, i would give each and every one a swift kick in the bollocks.

I just can't play Fallout 3 now, I see too many annoying flaws that were addressed in New Vegas. So why play a deeply flawed game, when you can play a similar game which has all these issues addressed.

It's not perfect, but Fallout New Vegas proves to be a worthy succesor the the orginal games, and it's one of the very few things that makes me glad that Van Buren wasn't released, and Fallout 3 was instead. Otherwise New Vegas wouldn't be the game we all know today.

 

[scorptatious]

This isn't even touching on the speech system, which was completely and utterly ridiculous too. You probably only need about 10 points in the speech skill, then you don't have to worry about it at all. Then if a convo didn't go your way, you could just reload a save, making it a truly flawed gameplay mechanic. In New Vegas however, speech is the most important skill in the game, which makes for far better roleplaying.

I also apperciate Hardcore mode in New Vegas, which makes for a even more immersive experience. While getting food, and water can be a pain sometimes, it's far better than drink feeding stimpacks like you do in Fallout 3. Not to mention Stimpacks are like sweets in Fallout 3, so it's hard to even die.

To be fair, the same sort of applies to the original Fallout games as well. I found that even with a low steal, repair, science, ect. skill, I can still perform most of the stuff that require those actions. Especially if I could just save and reload until I got the desired results. Not 100% sure on Speech though. I was able to convince the Master to kill himself as long as I had the mutant autopsy even with an only moderate speech skill. Not sure about Fallout 2 though, as I had about 130% speech by the time I beat the game.

That's one reason why I prefer Fallout: New Vegas. In terms of stats, you can only do certain things if you meet the requirements.

I also agree with you on Hardcore mode. It actually makes me feel like I'm trying to survive and live off the land in a post apocalyptic world. It's a shame the previous games didn't have that option. I was kind surprised you couldn't even harvest meat off of enemies when I played first played 1.

 

[Nomanslander]

Fallout New Vegas had better gameplay - and more importantly - more interesting characters and factions. If you really think about it. with Fallout 3 they took the setting to the East Coast, but did nothing unique with the story in a newer setting. I mean, a lot of the factions and characters you meet in FO3 are pretty much taken from the lore and material that was built up in the previous two games: Fallout 1 and 2. You have the Enclave and you have the BOS. You have raiders and dumber Super Mutants without the backstory of a master. Pretty much all those these factions were factions were already present in the last two games, so nothing new was really added. Now if you look at FO:NV, there's a ton of stuff to mentions. There are the NCR and Legion, the BOS, Great Khans, Fiends, Nightkins, Powder Gangers, the Kings, the three Strip families. Plus major characters like Mr. House, Caesar, Joshua Gram (DLC), The King. The list just goes on and on while with FO3 there was nothing new that hadn't been seen before. And considering FO3 took place in a newer setting I kinda find that unforgiving.

 

[Jazoni89]

This isn't even touching on the speech system, which was completely and utterly ridiculous too. You probably only need about 10 points in the speech skill, then you don't have to worry about it at all. Then if a convo didn't go your way, you could just reload a save, making it a truly flawed gameplay mechanic. In New Vegas however, speech is the most important skill in the game, which makes for far better roleplaying.

I also apperciate Hardcore mode in New Vegas, which makes for a even more immersive experience. While getting food, and water can be a pain sometimes, it's far better than drink feeding stimpacks like you do in Fallout 3. Not to mention Stimpacks are like sweets in Fallout 3, so it's hard to even die.

To be fair, the same sort of applies to the original Fallout games as well. I found that even with a low steal, repair, science, ect. skill, I can still perform most of the stuff required for those actions. Especially if I could just save and reload until I got the desired results. Not 100% sure on Speech though. I was able to convince the Master to kill himself as long as I had the mutant autopsy even with an only moderate speech skill. Not sure about Fallout 2 though, as I had about 130% speech by the time I beat the game.

That's one reason why I prefer Fallout: New Vegas. In terms of stats, you can only do certain things if you meet the requirements.

I also agree with you on Hardcore mode. It actually makes me feel like I'm trying to survive and live off the land in a post apocalyptic world. It's a shame the previous games didn't have that option. I was kind surprised you couldn't even harvest meat off of enemies when I played first played 1.

Speech was my main gripe here, even if you did not choose the right dialog choices in the original games, you could at least see the outcome of your choice, so you could use it for a future reference if you restarted. Plus there was a lot more options to choose from, and not all of them were night and day, and some even had concequences later on in the story. Fallout 3's speech seems like one silly percentage based speech check after another, with the best outcome. New Vegas gives you choices, and not all of them you can do unless you have the skill to do so. The main reasons why talking in New Vegas feels so dynamic, and fluid is that it also includes other skills in the mix as well such as barter, and perk based skills.

 

[Gergar12_v1legacy]

NV Hardcore mode was awesome. The story was much more interesting. The characters were better. The weapon upgrade system was fun.

NV was leaps and bounds better than FO 3.

While I understand this, I still enjoyed FO3 more
It would be perfect to combine NV game mechanics with FO3 setting
Need to mod it even more

My only gripes with NV was how small the map was, and how linear the opening of the story was up till you got the Vegas. It resulted in a stronger narrative, but sacrificed the free roam;

You should see the DLC's they help increase that free room you wanted. If you a city example go to the divide.

 

[Zenn3k]

snip

I do like exploration. Heck, I've explore almost all of Morrowind (that's a lot of hours spent).
I did it because Morrowind actually had an interesting and unique world. First the Silt Striders, then the Redoran Shell-houses, then the Fantastic Dwemer ruins, then the weird Telvanni buildings, then ......

But Fallout 3 and especially Oblivion had none of those.
Fallout 3 was your standard post apocalyptic setting. Dull, colorless world full of uninteresting copy pasted buildings, non-existent atmosphere, lore that is wastly inferior to the older games (Brotherhood of Steel are now fucking white knights????)
Oblivion has even worse porblems. That world is the epitome of standard fantasy "shithole". I can recreate that same experience by flying to England and going to a nearby forest.

NOTHING is interesting in Oblivion. There isn't anything unique about the world, or the dungeons (Ayelaid and fort ruins look almost the same, the cave look the same).
And because of the level-scaling in Oblivion and Fallout 3 exploration is POINTLESS, since the items scale to your level.

So, since the loot is bad and the world is dull what exactly is my incentive to go out and explore? To admire the view or the graphics? Or to admire the nicely crafted landscape?

If that's my incentive then I will have a wastly better experience by going treking in real life.

There are lots of unique weapons in FO3 that you can only find by exploring and picking them up yourself.

Yes the BoS on the East Coast are different than the West Coast BoS, there is a plot point that explains this, however I wouldn't call them White Knights, just...more accepting.

If you're more a fan of the original FO1 and FO2, you should play FO:NV.

 

[lucywinglet]

Fallout 3 is one of my favorite game.No doubt both are good games ie Fallout 3 and Fallout New Vegas.But Fallout 3 is much better as comparison to the Fallout New Vegas.