What does fallout 3 do better then fallout new vegas

[TheDrunkNinja]

Here's your explanation, no matter what happens in the main story quests, you are forced to join up with the brother-hood of steel, you are yelled at, in the ending for not killing yourself and instead sending someone in there who can bloody survive it. The ending is always relatively the same and usually has the same outcome. There is about one major choice in Fallout 3, while New Vegas has 4 and then about six per story quest and any number of extra things that you can do to get a better ending.

Fallout 3 is pretty much the same game every time. You have to go to Megaton to go find your dad, then you have to go and help your dads research and then you have to join the brotherhood of steel. There are no actual choices, apart from one [poisoning the water] in the main story. My comment related more to the fact that there is no real choices in the main story and side-quest choices don't change a whole lot either in the Main story. In Fallout New Vegas, who you bring with you to the final level changes who they bring as a side-helper, who you chose to befriend like the Boomers or the Enclave Revenant will determine who helps you there. Joining the NCR, Legion or House or yourself will change and affect the entire rest of the game. In Fallout 3, this doesn't exactly exist.

Yes yes, people have problems with the lack of diversity in the endings since all roads in the main quest lead to the same point. I get that. That's not what you said. I played the evilist fucking dickweed in Fallout 3. He was a psychopath who didn't have any regard for human life, thus didn't give a shit about his father or where he went. I only took the evil options for all the quests, which nearly all of them offered. I didn't do the main quest because it didn't line up with my character's motivations. I get that New Vegas has a much better planned and written main quest, but my point was, don't say there wasn't any choice to be an evil bastard in Fallout 3, because holy fucking shit there was. Unlike New Vegas, you don't have to do the main quest to get the full experience of the Capitol Wasteland.

Also, if we want to argue semantics, those faction quests were part of the main quest, just an optional part. Personally, the constant plot railroading in New Vegas only served to annoy the shit out of me. Like, what if I play a character that isn't interested in the political bullshit that goes on in New Vegas? A good two-thirds of the game's content would be missing. I mean, give me a goddamn choice as to whether or not I want to involve myself in other people's wars.

"Dammit Victor! Leave me the fuck alone! I don't want to chase after some bastard who already put two in my skull!"

I appreciate the hell out of the fact that I can be my own man in Fallout 3 and still have so much content to explore, devoid of the main quest entirely. That's just me, though. Obviously, you prefer a game with a more focused and centralized main plot that encompasses the whole of the game. I don't. I'm just happy that there's a Fallout game that thankfully doesn't do that and lets me role play the way I want to.

It's kind of funny. Fallout 3 sticks you with this very set backstory that leaves little to the imagination, but it's New Vegas, despite having a completely blankslate character, that railroads you along its plot with no chance to get off until you're already too far along anyway, while Fallout 3 just dumps you in the Capitol Wasteland with one possible direction and allows you to just wander and explore from there of your own volition.

 

[TheDrunkNinja]

Atmoshpere- For the overall atmosphere F3 was "Survive in a post-apocalyptic wasteland" and NV was just "Survive in the desert with lots of friendly settlements"

Also, I hated how... civilized the Mojave was. It didn't seem like people trying desperately to survive in an oppressive and cruel world. Everything was about survival in Fallout 3.

This is actually what really bothered me about FO3. See, Fallout was never about "Survive in a post-apocalyptic wasteland". Fallout was about "Hey, there is a whole new world and civilization out there, let's explore it!". It just happens so that the world after the nuclear apocalypse turned out really weird...

Fallout was about LIFE after the apocalypse and not so much about crawling through abandoned subway tunnels while shooting up super mutants in the nuclear ruins of a city. That's why FO3 doesn't really resonate with fans of the original Fallout games: it's thematically just too different.

FO:NV, on the other hand, does a much, much, much better job at capturing the the spirit of the original Fallout games. It's also the game that actually continues the lore of the original Fallout games in a meaningful manner, while the story of FO3, uh, really seems to be completely inconsequential in the context of the Fallout universe.

FO3 feels more like a spin-off that maybe should have taken place a century or so before the events in FO1, because, as others have pointed out, the world in FO3 is far too broken and lifeless considering the fact that it takes place 200 years after the bombs fell. There's too little life and too little society and too little vegetation and too much radiation (FO:NV gets away with having little vegetation because it takes place in the desert).

Also, FN:NV is in a completly different league when it comes to writing. There are some things Bethesda does really well (e.g. creating nice open sandbox worlds) but writing is not one of them. In terms of story, dialogue and characters FO3 is simply outclassed by FN:NV and it's not even close. Bethesda games have always suffered from lame storylines, crappy dialogue, really weak characters and embarrassing attempts at humor (and Todd Howard, but that's a different issue). Obsidian, on the other hand, has some of the best and most imaginative writers in the industry. FO:NV has tons of memorable characters, factions and loctions.... FO3 has that guy in Megaton who looks like Chuck Norris and that giant talking robot.

Tl;dr: FO:NV is an actual Fallout game, FO3 is a thematicaly unconnected spin-off that uses Fallout-style artwork assets.

It's very narrow-minded to assume that what you look for in a series or franchise is exactly what makes the series or franchise what it is. This is why I have a problem with the mindset that one game in a series is more or less true to something as vague and as uninterpretable as the "spirit" of the franchise. This entire subject is completely debatable on both sides, ultimately saying one game is better or worse because it is or isn't as "true to Fallout" than the other is based almost entirely in personal opinion and experience than it is on anything that's actually valid.

In other words, I disagree with you, but neither of us have anything concrete to back up what ultimately comes down to our preferences. I've already posted what I like so much more about Fallout 3 compared to New Vegas, but I don't need to use such an overused and vague argument that no one can actually dispute to just say why I like that game more. I like it because it resonates with me more. The same goes for you. That's all it is.

 

[Smeatza]

I felt railroaded to a much higher degree in Fallout 3.

Yes yes, people have problems with the lack of diversity in the endings since all roads in the main quest lead to the same point. I get that. That's not what you said. I played the evilist fucking dickweed in Fallout 3. He was a psychopath who didn't have any regard for human life, thus didn't give a shit about his father or where he went. I only took the evil options for all the quests, which nearly all of them offered. I didn't do the main quest because it didn't line up with my character's motivations. I get that New Vegas has a much better planned and written main quest, but my point was, don't say there wasn't any choice to be an evil bastard in Fallout 3, because holy fucking shit there was. Unlike New Vegas, you don't have to do the main quest to get the full experience of the Capitol Wasteland.

For myself there is a difference between doing evil acts and roleplaying as an evil character.
None of the evil options make any sense when tied with the lovely upbringing your character get's in their background story. Most of the evil options offer little to no profit or any other reason to do them short of being psychologically disturbed which adds nothing to the characterisation, and therefore the roleplaying.
The closest thing I can equate it to is Prototype, yeah you can do all these badass, awful things. But seen as there is no reason behind it or any real consequences, it adds little to the game.

Also, if we want to argue semantics, those faction quests were part of the main quest, just an optional part. Personally, the constant plot railroading in New Vegas only served to annoy the shit out of me. Like, what if I play a character that isn't interested in the political bullshit that goes on in New Vegas? A good two-thirds of the game's content would be missing. I mean, give me a goddamn choice as to whether or not I want to involve myself in other people's wars.

But the Mohave Wasteland is in the midst of a political struggle, it would make no sense for all political elements to disappear just because your character isn't interested. And yes a large portion of the game would be missing if you refused to interact with any political factions (which wouldn't make any sense from a role playing point of view but okay). But having a number of political factions you can support or fight against (depending on your choice) is much better than having one political faction you HAVE to support and one you HAVE to fight against.

"Dammit Victor! Leave me the fuck alone! I don't want to chase after some bastard who already put two in my skull!"

It would make no sense for Victor to leave you alone considering who he's working for. In any case you were happy to ignore the main quest in Fallout 3 so what's changed for New Vegas? At least New Vegas gives you the choice to kill and his boss without any quest prompting whatsoever.

I appreciate the hell out of the fact that I can be my own man in Fallout 3 and still have so much content to explore, devoid of the main quest entirely. That's just me, though. Obviously, you prefer a game with a more focused and centralized main plot that encompasses the whole of the game. I don't. I'm just happy that there's a Fallout game that thankfully doesn't do that and lets me role play the way I want to.

I can't really understand this. There isn't a set plot for New Vegas whereas there is for Fallout 3.
Instead of "you lived in a vault all your life, you mother wasn't there when you were young, your father was an outcast in the vault, the overseer is a suspicious fellow," and the several paragraphs I could write on Fallout 3's intro alone...
In New Vegas it's "You were shot in the face, your package was stolen, now go do what you want."
On top of that there is more choice and consequence in New Vegas causing the plot to branch even wider.
On top of that there are hardly any stupid restrictions on who you can kill in New Vegas so the plot branches even wider.

So while in Fallout 3 you are given the choice to follow the plot, or ignore it. In New Vegas you create your own, unique plot as you go along. Giving Fallout 3 a distinct feeling of linearity (in my opinion).

It's kind of funny. Fallout 3 sticks you with this very set backstory that leaves little to the imagination, but it's New Vegas, despite having a completely blankslate character, that railroads you along its plot with no chance to get off until you're already too far along anyway, while Fallout 3 just dumps you in the Capitol Wasteland with one possible direction and allows you to just wander and explore from there of your own volition.

See I got the complete opposite from both games. I felt forced along a linear path in Fallout 3, the quests didn't seem to have that many choices and consequences, and those that were seemed to have little to no effect. Most characters couldn't be killed unless you finished every quest that related to them (and sometimes not even then). The back story you were given was so extensive it made role playing as several different types of characters completely implausible. Every playthrough seems to yield the same results, regardless of the choices you make. And large sections of of the map were almost impossible to reach unless you had a quest marker guiding you there.

On the other hand New Vegas doesn't have a set plot and no two playthroughs ever seem to be the same. Almost every character can be killed regardless or importance to the plot or if they have quests to complete. Your choices often have visible and important consequences. Role playing is no problem at all with the minimal backstory. And from the very start of the game you can travel to almost anywhere on the map (there is only one area I am aware of you cannot visit at level 1).

What I find really interesting with Fallout 3 and Fallout: New Vegas is that fans of the prior tend to consider the latter too linear and fans of the latter tend to consider the prior too linear. But no matter how hard I try or how far I step back, I cannot see it from the Fallout 3 fan's point of view.

 

[doomspore98]

I have played over 100 hours of fallout 3. In my first 15 minutes of NV I had literally the entire lizard population that me and sunny were supposed to kill stuck in the stone. I just took pot shots at each one.

Fallout 3 has a better environment, music, and fewer glitches.
Fallout NV has a better story, and combat.

And the desert will never compare to ruined DC.

 

[cerebus23]

fonv also has way better characters, except maybe for boone, but then again i was never gung ho about the ncr any more than i was about legions punks, indepedant ftw.

fonv also added better crafting, better stuff in general, that bethesda copied for its skyrim game.

bottom line it seems to be the overall atmosphere that people liked about one of the other, excluding game mechanics, story, characters, i hated slumming thru sewers for hours on end in dc, i hated the quest markers often were just plain confusing when sewers were involved in fo3, but i grew tired of sewer diving long ago since many games force that almost required sewer stage on you.

but if you like streets that are mazes, tons of sewers then fo3 is the game for you.

if you like a open world, and you like the desert then nv is for you.

the major gripe about nv i will support, is the early jack of all trades stuff to get all the objectives done in the first town, but then again obsidian likes to make you choose how to solve stuff based on your build, and the choices you made creating your character, there are far more consequences in nv based on your actions and build.

fo3 and bethesda and all beth games really have no sense of choice or consequences for much of anything you do. be a thief, be a killer, be a mass murderer it is all good, at worse you will have to avoid a town for a week or two while all the npcs get amnesia.

fonv boundries can be solved by the console or cheats in general however if you do not want to be made to choose.

 

[TheDrunkNinja]

I felt railroaded to a much higher degree in Fallout 3.

This is what I mean by "railroading". Maybe your experience was different than mine, but that's how I felt in comparison to the two games.

For myself there is a difference between doing evil acts and roleplaying as an evil character.
None of the evil options make any sense when tied with the lovely upbringing your character get's in their background story. Most of the evil options offer little to no profit or any other reason to do them short of being psychologically disturbed which adds nothing to the characterisation, and therefore the roleplaying.
The closest thing I can equate it to is Prototype, yeah you can do all these badass, awful things. But seen as there is no reason behind it or any real consequences, it adds little to the game.

True, the evil options in Fallout 3 might have been dissatisfactory to your perception of what evil is, but that's a different debate entirely and not the point I was trying to make.

But the Mohave Wasteland is in the midst of a political struggle, it would make no sense for all political elements to disappear just because your character isn't interested. And yes a large portion of the game would be missing if you refused to interact with any political factions (which wouldn't make any sense from a role playing point of view but okay). But having a number of political factions you can support or fight against (depending on your choice) is much better than having one political faction you HAVE to support and one you HAVE to fight against.

You misunderstand me. I wasn't asking that the political elements of the main quest be removed. I'm saying that after I did it the first time, it no longer held any interest to me personally after I completed the full main quest, but then wanting to replay the game meant having to deal with the main quest no matter what I did. The main quest in New Vegas was fun the first time I played it, but when I wanted to have a new character who abstained from the political dealings of New Vegas, I found it to be either impossible or making me go through far too much effort for it to be fun anymore. I personally find issue with the main quest of New Vegas encompassing nearly the whole of the game, an aspect that was done completely opposite in Fallout 3 which leads me to like it all the more. I would never say one is objectively better than the other because that would be stupid and narrowminded because both games offer content and aspects that I'm glad to have experienced. I just find myself having a preference for one over the other for different reasons.

It would make no sense for Victor to leave you alone considering who he's working for. In any case you were happy to ignore the main quest in Fallout 3 so what's changed for New Vegas? At least New Vegas gives you the choice to kill and his boss without any quest prompting whatsoever.

No duh. That doesn't change the fact that I wish he would jump off a cliff so that I can get off this fucking linear plot railroad and just go to Jacobstown or Red Rock Canyon as soon as I leave Doc Mitchell's place. Just give me something so I don't have to play a character that has an irrational fear of towns as he runs at top speed past Primm and Nipton just so he can get to Nellis Airforce Base after looping around the fucking map. Here, this post explains why I find Fallout 3 to be more open and free than New Vegas ever could be. Hmmmm... I already posted that link, didn't I? Ah well.

I can't really understand this. There isn't a set plot for New Vegas whereas there is for Fallout 3.
Instead of "you lived in a vault all your life, you mother wasn't there when you were young, your father was an outcast in the vault, the overseer is a suspicious fellow," and the several paragraphs I could write on Fallout 3's intro alone...
In New Vegas it's "You were shot in the face, your package was stolen, now go do what you want."
On top of that there is more choice and consequence in New Vegas causing the plot to branch even wider.
On top of that there are hardly any stupid restrictions on who you can kill in New Vegas so the plot branches even wider.

So while in Fallout 3 you are given the choice to follow the plot, or ignore it. In New Vegas you create your own, unique plot as you go along. Giving Fallout 3 a distinct feeling of linearity (in my opinion).

It's kind of funny. Fallout 3 sticks you with this very set backstory that leaves little to the imagination, but it's New Vegas, despite having a completely blankslate character, that railroads you along its plot with no chance to get off until you're already too far along anyway, while Fallout 3 just dumps you in the Capitol Wasteland with one possible direction and allows you to just wander and explore from there of your own volition.

I kept the quote there since it kind of answers my feelings on the beginning 30 minutes of backstory in Fallout 3 compared to the blankslate you get in New Vegas.

This is my experience:

Fallout 3: That was a long tutorial. But apparently I have family I need to track down, though not immediately. Hmmm... Based on where I am on this map, I'm pretty much at the center of things. Eh, dad can wait. What's in this direction... Oh wow, crazy slavers and a town town full of mines! I wonder what else I can find around here...

New Vegas: Hm. Relatively quick tutorial, at least I'm out in the game now! Quicker than last time. Let's see what's around here. Huh, people seem to think I want to find the guy who shot me in the head who went south. I'll get to that later, let's see what's this way. Oh, mutant bugs killed me. Let me try going that way again. Nope, dead again, no way I'm going that way. Maybe I'll just go straight to New Vegas. Deathclaws killed me now. Great. Maybe I'll just go this way? No, there's an invisible wall. I guess I'll just go south like they said I should...

Now, for me, I create lots of different characters to try out new things and playstyles. From this point on, every time I create a new character in Fallout 3, I'll have to go through the damn tutorial again (unless you just use the automatic save it creates once you get to the door and create your character from there, good design choice for someone who wants to create a new character), open the vault door... and then be dropped right in the Capitol Wasteland. All directions possible from moment one.

Now, every time I create a new character in New Vegas, I go through the quick tutorial, then go in the direction the game wants me to go so that I can get on the plot of the main quest. What if I don't want to get on the main quest? Oh, well I'll just be running past all these plot specific areas for miles before I'm no longer physically confined to the main quest path, but that doesn't mean I'm not still confined. Running past Primm, Mojave Outpost, Nipton, Novac, Boulder City etc. would leave you completely under-leveled and under-equipped to deal with the more interesting areas of the game. Then you find that no matter where you move, that nearly whatever your character does goes back to the plot of the main quest.

Well, shit. There's no avoiding it. The game does almost anything it can to make you a part of the main plot of New Vegas. Which is perfectly fine. I like the main plot of New Vegas, but the game lacks what I like most about the new Fallout games. So yeah, it's very linear for an sandbox RPG and has a massive plot railroad, which does not resonate with me personally. It's different for you. What you like in these games is there in New Vegas, and my problem is inconsequential to you in a similar way that your problem with Fallout 3 is completely inconsequential to me. I'm not going to say that my game is better than yours though.

See I got the complete opposite from both games. I felt forced along a linear path in Fallout 3, the quests didn't seem to have that many choices and consequences, and those that were seemed to have little to no effect. Most characters couldn't be killed unless you finished every quest that related to them (and sometimes not even then). The back story you were given was so extensive it made role playing as several different types of characters completely implausible. Every playthrough seems to yield the same results, regardless of the choices you make. And large sections of of the map were almost impossible to reach unless you had a quest marker guiding you there.

On the other hand New Vegas doesn't have a set plot and no two playthroughs ever seem to be the same. Almost every character can be killed regardless or importance to the plot or if they have quests to complete. Your choices often have visible and important consequences. Role playing is no problem at all with the minimal backstory. And from the very start of the game you can travel to almost anywhere on the map (there is only one area I am aware of you cannot visit at level 1).

Hmmm... Well everything I wrote above seems to express my point of view on this, so I'll just leave it at that.

What I find really interesting with Fallout 3 and Fallout: New Vegas is that fans of the prior tend to consider the latter too linear and fans of the latter tend to consider the prior too linear. But no matter how hard I try or how far I step back, I cannot see it from the Fallout 3 fan's point of view.

That's just strange to me since I completely understand why some people favor New Vegas. My problem is that most of the time it seems to come at the expense of Fallout 3, and I find it sad that you can't seem to understand why I prefer it over New Vegas.

If you honestly desire to see this from my point of view, then the best way to do that is to not think about it from the position of someone who's already decided one is objectively better than the other, which I find to be the most common problem with people who advocate your position. It's to the point where some people who favor New Vegas actually call Fallout 3 a bad game, which only proves that they see the two games through an extremely narrow mental-filter.

 

[GonzoGamer]

I have played over 100 hours of fallout 3. In my first 15 minutes of NV I had literally the entire lizard population that me and sunny were supposed to kill stuck in the stone. I just took pot shots at each one.

Fallout 3 has a better environment, music, and fewer glitches.
Fallout NV has a better story, and combat.

And the desert will never compare to ruined DC.

That sums it up nicely.
I personally preferred Fallout 3 because I spend more time exploring the map in these games rather than exploring the story. The map and locations of Fallout 3 were a lot more fun and rewarding to root through. The only location in NV that had the same feeling that you stepped in the twilight zone was vault 11 (I think...the one with the election); but most of them were very shallow and all clustered together like a Hollywood backlot.

OP
For me Fallout 3 worked way better than New Vegas. I did have a problem with Fallout 3 when it was modded incorrectly but after I found out how to mod it properly(there are probably better videos on youtube now than the ones I used) it works better than I would've ever imagined.

 

[BENZOOKA]

I liked the environment more in F3, but otherwise I prefer NV and think it's clearly the better game overall.

 

[RADIALTHRONE1]

Atmoshpere- For the overall atmosphere F3 was "Survive in a post-apocalyptic wasteland" and NV was just "Survive in the desert with lots of friendly settlements"

Also, I hated how... civilized the Mojave was. It didn't seem like people trying desperately to survive in an oppressive and cruel world. Everything was about survival in Fallout 3.

This is actually what really bothered me about FO3. See, Fallout was never about "Survive in a post-apocalyptic wasteland". Fallout was about "Hey, there is a whole new world and civilization out there, let's explore it!". It just happens so that the world after the nuclear apocalypse turned out really weird...

Fallout was about LIFE after the apocalypse and not so much about crawling through abandoned subway tunnels while shooting up super mutants in the nuclear ruins of a city. That's why FO3 doesn't really resonate with fans of the original Fallout games: it's thematically just too different.

FO:NV, on the other hand, does a much, much, much better job at capturing the the spirit of the original Fallout games. It's also the game that actually continues the lore of the original Fallout games in a meaningful manner, while the story of FO3, uh, really seems to be completely inconsequential in the context of the Fallout universe.

FO3 feels more like a spin-off that maybe should have taken place a century or so before the events in FO1, because, as others have pointed out, the world in FO3 is far too broken and lifeless considering the fact that it takes place 200 years after the bombs fell. There's too little life and too little society and too little vegetation and too much radiation (FO:NV gets away with having little vegetation because it takes place in the desert).

Also, FN:NV is in a completly different league when it comes to writing. There are some things Bethesda does really well (e.g. creating nice open sandbox worlds) but writing is not one of them. In terms of story, dialogue and characters FO3 is simply outclassed by FN:NV and it's not even close. Bethesda games have always suffered from lame storylines, crappy dialogue, really weak characters and embarrassing attempts at humor (and Todd Howard, but that's a different issue). Obsidian, on the other hand, has some of the best and most imaginative writers in the industry. FO:NV has tons of memorable characters, factions and loctions.... FO3 has that guy in Megaton who looks like Chuck Norris and that giant talking robot.

Tl;dr: FO:NV is an actual Fallout game, FO3 is a thematicaly unconnected spin-off that uses Fallout-style artwork assets.

I think the plot/timeline only matter if you look at F3 as a sequel. Personally i haven't played the first 2 fallouts, so i view fallout 3 more so as a stand-alone game than a direct sequel. Thats probably why i feel like NV strayed from the fallout atmosphere.

Lets just say they do what they do and leave it at that.

 

[Smeatza]

This is what I mean by "railroading". Maybe your experience was different than mine, but that's how I felt in comparison to the two games.

Yeah that's not the experience I had at all, I've never had a problem sneaking north or heading east (or any other direction for that matter). And the change in tone only made sense due to the setting.

True, the evil options in Fallout 3 might have been dissatisfactory to your perception of what evil is, but that's a different debate entirely and not the point I was trying to make.

Hm? my point was the evil options make no sense within the narrative the game provides (at least to myself).

You misunderstand me. I wasn't asking that the political elements of the main quest be removed. I'm saying that after I did it the first time, it no longer held any interest to me personally after I completed the full main quest, but then wanting to replay the game meant having to deal with the main quest no matter what I did. The main quest in New Vegas was fun the first time I played it, but when I wanted to have a new character who abstained from the political dealings of New Vegas, I found it to be either impossible or making me go through far too much effort for it to be fun anymore. I personally find issue with the main quest of New Vegas encompassing nearly the whole of the game, an aspect that was done completely opposite in Fallout 3 which leads me to like it all the more. I would never say one is objectively better than the other because that would be stupid and narrowminded because both games offer content and aspects that I'm glad to have experienced. I just find myself having a preference for one over the other for different reasons.

Yeah I disagree. The factions featured in the main quest do encompass the entire game, the main quest itself, does not. I tend to consider the main quest as anything relating to the platinum chip.
I'm not saying either game is better than the other, or that your opinion is wrong. But the fact that I didn't really enjoy Fallout 3 (especially when it was the first Fallout I played, and therefore I had nothing to compare it against) has always been a puzzler to me and I enjoy discussing it.

No duh. That doesn't change the fact that I wish he would jump off a cliff so that I can get off this fucking linear plot railroad and just go to Jacobstown or Red Rock Canyon as soon as I leave Doc Mitchell's place. Just give me something so I don't have to play a character that has an irrational fear of towns as he runs at top speed past Primm and Nipton just so he can get to Nellis Airforce Base after looping around the fucking map. Here, this post explains why I find Fallout 3 to be more open and free than New Vegas ever could be. Hmmmm... I already posted that link, didn't I? Ah well.

I kept the quote there since it kind of answers my feelings on the beginning 30 minutes of backstory in Fallout 3 compared to the blankslate you get in New Vegas.

This is my experience:

Fallout 3: That was a long tutorial. But apparently I have family I need to track down, though not immediately. Hmmm... Based on where I am on this map, I'm pretty much at the center of things. Eh, dad can wait. What's in this direction... Oh wow, crazy slavers and a town town full of mines! I wonder what else I can find around here...

New Vegas: Hm. Relatively quick tutorial, at least I'm out in the game now! Quicker than last time. Let's see what's around here. Huh, people seem to think I want to find the guy who shot me in the head who went south. I'll get to that later, let's see what's this way. Oh, mutant bugs killed me. Let me try going that way again. Nope, dead again, no way I'm going that way. Maybe I'll just go straight to New Vegas. Deathclaws killed me now. Great. Maybe I'll just go this way? No, there's an invisible wall. I guess I'll just go south like they said I should...

Now, for me, I create lots of different characters to try out new things and playstyles. From this point on, every time I create a new character in Fallout 3, I'll have to go through the damn tutorial again (unless you just use the automatic save it creates once you get to the door and create your character from there, good design choice for someone who wants to create a new character), open the vault door... and then be dropped right in the Capitol Wasteland. All directions possible from moment one.

Now, every time I create a new character in New Vegas, I go through the quick tutorial, then go in the direction the game wants me to go so that I can get on the plot of the main quest. What if I don't want to get on the main quest? Oh, well I'll just be running past all these plot specific areas for miles before I'm no longer physically confined to the main quest path, but that doesn't mean I'm not still confined. Running past Primm, Mojave Outpost, Nipton, Novac, Boulder City etc. would leave you completely under-leveled and under-equipped to deal with the more interesting areas of the game. Then you find that no matter where you move, that nearly whatever your character does goes back to the plot of the main quest.

Well, shit. There's no avoiding it. The game does almost anything it can to make you a part of the main plot of New Vegas. Which is perfectly fine. I like the main plot of New Vegas, but the game lacks what I like most about the new Fallout games. So yeah, it's very linear for an sandbox RPG and has a massive plot railroad, which does not resonate with me personally. It's different for you. What you like in these games is there in New Vegas, and my problem is inconsequential to you in a similar way that your problem with Fallout 3 is completely inconsequential to me. I'm not going to say that my game is better than yours though.

Like I've said this is the main point I struggle to understand. While the game certainly does urge you to head south (the same way Fallout 3 urges you to head to Megaton by having it right outside your vault) I didn't think someone familiar with the game and it's mechanics would have any trouble adapting their play-style to make heading in other directions easier. Perhaps that's where one of the differences lies. I don't feel my character being forced down a certain skill route at the start of the game is railroading.

That's just strange to me since I completely understand why some people favor New Vegas. My problem is that most of the time it seems to come at the expense of Fallout 3, and I find it sad that you can't seem to understand why I prefer it over New Vegas.

If you honestly desire to see this from my point of view, then the best way to do that is to not think about it from the position of someone who's already decided one is objectively better than the other, which I find to be the most common problem with people who advocate your position. It's to the point where some people who favor New Vegas actually call Fallout 3 a bad game, which only proves that they see the two games through an extremely narrow mental-filter.

Am I sensing a little hostility?
Objectively they are both good games. Subjectively (the subject being me) Fallout 3 is inferior.
It is of course a matter of taste, I do understand how and why people enjoy playing Fallout 3, the only thing I don't understand is how it could be considered less linear than New Vegas. Yes there is more freedom of movement at the start of Fallout 3, but can it really be considered less linear when you take into account the more linear story, the fewer choices and consequences and the inability to harm most characters.

 

[Aprilgold]

Here's your explanation, no matter what happens in the main story quests, you are forced to join up with the brother-hood of steel, you are yelled at, in the ending for not killing yourself and instead sending someone in there who can bloody survive it. The ending is always relatively the same and usually has the same outcome. There is about one major choice in Fallout 3, while New Vegas has 4 and then about six per story quest and any number of extra things that you can do to get a better ending.

Fallout 3 is pretty much the same game every time. You have to go to Megaton to go find your dad, then you have to go and help your dads research and then you have to join the brotherhood of steel. There are no actual choices, apart from one [poisoning the water] in the main story. My comment related more to the fact that there is no real choices in the main story and side-quest choices don't change a whole lot either in the Main story. In Fallout New Vegas, who you bring with you to the final level changes who they bring as a side-helper, who you chose to befriend like the Boomers or the Enclave Revenant will determine who helps you there. Joining the NCR, Legion or House or yourself will change and affect the entire rest of the game. In Fallout 3, this doesn't exactly exist.

Yes yes, people have problems with the lack of diversity in the endings since all roads in the main quest lead to the same point. I get that. That's not what you said. I played the evilist fucking dickweed in Fallout 3. He was a psychopath who didn't have any regard for human life, thus didn't give a shit about his father or where he went. I only took the evil options for all the quests, which nearly all of them offered. I didn't do the main quest because it didn't line up with my character's motivations. I get that New Vegas has a much better planned and written main quest, but my point was, don't say there wasn't any choice to be an evil bastard in Fallout 3, because holy fucking shit there was. Unlike New Vegas, you don't have to do the main quest to get the full experience of the Capitol Wasteland.

The only difference [And I'm only doing the part that you are seeing above, the rest of the post was a giant "My opinion is X" which has been this entire thread but lets ignore that] between being Good and Evil in Fallout 3 was there were two different brands of mercenaries who would hunt you. For your evil dude right there would be a Texas Cowboy who would hunt you down for being a evil dick. Then if you were good there would be this Black Military Group of people hunting you down for being mr-nice. You could be evil, but there was really no point in being on either side of the spectrum. In Fallout New Vegas, your actual Karma meter didn't matter. You could be a saint and still be around the Legion as if they were the holiest of warriors. The way Obsidian approached it, I feel was much better then what Bethesda did. Evil and Good don't matter, its how others see you. The Karma Meter is how you see yourself and the Faction meter is how others see you. If your a crazed murderer people won't know that on-sight of you.

The Karma System VS The Faction System is really what I'm getting at. In Fallout 3, there were tons of people with differing views yet they all agreed your evil? Is there some sort of committee on this? In New Vegas you being a secret cannibal is just that, a secret. You can be a priest or a demon and you can still be seen as a hero of a faction.

Overall, I thought that Fallout New Vegas improved on everything that Fallout 3 did.

Also, how is this differing on what I said when you asked for my reasoning, which wasn't there on my original statement.

You can play after you beat the game in fallout 3

*coughs* Um, Tanner. No you can't. In the original, base game without DLC's the game ends after the game is beat and you have to re-load from a earlier save before the final mission. There exists a DLC that allows you to keep playing after you beat the game, however on the original version of the game with no extra content, you can not.

 

[Niccolo]

What story? Running through city ruins trying to find daddy while listening to the ramblings of a chiché radio DJ, enjoying the shitty Bethesda dialogue writing and encountering characters that are only memorable for being incredibly unmemorable?

Look, I get that people who don't really care about Fallout prefer FO3 for it's more somber post-apocalyptic atmosphere and the "survivalist" world design. That's not an opinion I share but it's something I can understand - but prefering FO3 (or any Bethesda game, for that matter) for its story is simply ludicrous.

FN:NV, if anything, has proven one thing: that we can have an open-world-style RPG with a good story, memorable characters, great dialogue, a comparably high degree of freedom of choice (with meaningful consequences!). This a major achievement in a sub-genre of RPGs that has been pretty much defined by Bethesda's and Piranha Byte's ineptitude in precisely these areas. FO:NV has shown us that we can expect more. And let's not forget about the utter triumph that is Old World Blues. Bethesda couldn't produce something like that even if their lives depended on it.

Well, I freely admit that I haven't gotten around to playing OWB or Lonesome Road yet - this is on my agenda as soon as I'm finished with my current FO3 playthrough. Then again, I'm busy playing Broken Steel for the first time, too - so I was only comparing the two vanilla games.

Yes, NV is a better-written story with far less ludicrosity to it. Don't worry, I get that. I just had a lot more fun with FO3's story... I think 'cause it felt more, um, personal. Maybe not better, but more personal. If that makes sense. NV wins massive, MASSIVE points in my book though since it didn't have Little Lamplight. Although it loses a lot of them since it couldn't get past all of the goddamn gambling puns.

 

[PrinceOfShapeir]

Interestingly, Fallout 3 makes a lot more sense if it takes place like, 25-30 years after the bombs fall as a prequel to the series itself and taking place before the original Fallout than it does taking place 200 years after. Some stuff would be changed, but a lot of the completely nonsensical stuff would be fixed.

 

[RedDeadFred]

I liked Fallout 3's world better and in my experience, it had waaaay less bugs. I didn't run into any serious bugs in Fallout 3 but had many in New Vegas. Still, the bugs didn't stop me from thoroughly enjoying either game immensely.

 

[TheDrunkNinja]

Yeah that's not the experience I had at all, I've never had a problem sneaking north or heading east (or any other direction for that matter). And the change in tone only made sense due to the setting.

Well, sneaking isn't always a strong-suit that I pick for my characters. In fact, it ends up as kind of an after thought most of the time. That's kind of a big "fuck you" from the developers to me in that case.

Yeah I disagree. The factions featured in the main quest do encompass the entire game, the main quest itself, does not. I tend to consider the main quest as anything relating to the platinum chip.
I'm not saying either game is better than the other, or that your opinion is wrong. But the fact that I didn't really enjoy Fallout 3 (especially when it was the first Fallout I played, and therefore I had nothing to compare it against) has always been a puzzler to me and I enjoy discussing it.

Hm. I tended to consider the main quest to be based upon the ultimate conflict between those who wanted to gain control of the Hoover Dam and New Vegas. The "political bullshit" I referenced before. Even for many of the side quests, all paths seemed to double back to the question of who would be left to rule over New Vegas.

I enjoy discussing the games as well, to the point where I've actually just reinstalled Fallout 3 after participating in this thread and remembering all the great moments it had.

Like I've said this is the main point I struggle to understand. While the game certainly does urge you to head south (the same way Fallout 3 urges you to head to Megaton by having it right outside your vault) I didn't think someone familiar with the game and it's mechanics would have any trouble adapting their play-style to make heading in other directions easier. Perhaps that's where one of the differences lies.

Yeah, like I said before, maybe you'll stop by Megaton which is a very logical course of action (to the point where not doing so would be a complete fallacy on the character's part), but that's about it. After that, the sky's the limit. I even came up with the role playing excuse that my character, after hearing how dangerous the DC warzone is, believed there would be no way his/her father survived, which allowed me to just focus on the exploration/survival bit.

But it's very different in New Vegas. The game seems to do more than just "urge" you to follow the same path as your previous characters. Feels to me like the Obsidian is practically willing you to follow the path down to Nipton where the conflict of the main quest hits you in the face.

Also, there is the unseen constraint of the under-equipped adventurer. Hell, I remember using console commands to get me to Jacobstown after Doc Mitchell's to hit up Marcus, and upon doing the quest with the cave full of night stalkers, I found I kept dying constantly to the point where I had to change the difficulty down to just hard. Felt like I cheated the experience twice in the same day.

I don't feel my character being forced down a certain skill route at the start of the game is railroading.

I don't know what you mean by this. I didn't mention anything about the game forcing you to take certain skills. Or are you referring to what I talked about before with the stealth skill going north? I don't see that as a positive design option for the game, especially when I'm not akin to stealth in the beginning usually.

Am I sensing a little hostility?

Um... Ooookaaaay. Are you being hostile with me? I mean, I don't read it as such. I wasn't really writing with a hostile tone in mind as I was getting my thoughts out on the computer. Well, if you read it that way, it wasn't intentional.

Objectively they are both good games. Subjectively (the subject being me) Fallout 3 is inferior.

Yes. Of course. I wasn't sure we were both on the same level objectively. So many fans of the originals seem to curse out Fallout 3 and Bethesda.

It is of course a matter of taste, I do understand how and why people enjoy playing Fallout 3, the only thing I don't understand is how it could be considered less linear than New Vegas. Yes there is more freedom of movement at the start of Fallout 3, but can it really be considered less linear when you take into account the more linear story, the fewer choices and consequences and the inability to harm most characters.

I'm not sure how to word it any more than I already have. I guess it just comes down to certain design choices that Bethesda made over Obsidian. Like Obsidian had this really great story they wanted to tell, so that was the intended goal in many design choices when they were building the game. Bethesda from moment one has been throwing you into a very interesting world to explore and interact with interesting characters, so their design choices are going to echo that goal. The result is two different games. Bethesda rewards exploration more than it punishes, and Obsidian rewards following the story path while ignoring it in favor of wandering aimlessly seems to result in a sort of punishment (don't take that as an extreme, you could even say that there's just a lack of reward in free exploration). Going off the beaten path does reap benefits in New Vegas, but the game doesn't feel designed to accommodate that sort of free exploration and aimless wandering playstyle that Bethesda boasts, thus you get left with a feeling of linearity.

Not true linearity mind you, but it does feel like the core of the game is the conflict between the NCR and Legion. The role playing in New Vegas is limited to how your character reacts to the events going on around him/her rather than forging their own path in the Mojave. Similarly, the role playing in Fallout 3 is limited to a wanderer that decides their own fate separate from the desires and conflicts of others but doesn't seem to leave as much of an impact to the world as the Courier in New Vegas. It's kind of a sacrifice either way, so it's not surprising you have people split on the role playing and choices in both games. Fallout 3 and New Vegas seem to have completely different role playing styles, both great in their respective games but lacking at the same time, so it essentially just comes down to personal preference. That's what it comes down to in the simplest of terms, and it's all because of subtle design choices from both developers. That's all I've got, so if I fail now, I'm completely lost on how to explain it any more than that.

Now, in regards to the "essential" characters that can't be killed, they tend to be characters that really would serve no purpose dead to the main character even from a role playing standpoint. Essential characters are those that would make it impossible to complete certain quests without their involvement, so they are a specific design choice. I guess the essential characters would dampen the mood of a player rampage, but it doesn't limit your choices since, at that point, you're basically playing a berserking insane person. Do you have a specific character in mind that you couldn't kill and ultimately hampered your role playing experience?

The only difference [And I'm only doing the part that you are seeing above, the rest of the post was a giant "My opinion is X" which has been this entire thread but lets ignore that] between being Good and Evil in Fallout 3 was there were two different brands of mercenaries who would hunt you. For your evil dude right there would be a Texas Cowboy who would hunt you down for being a evil dick. Then if you were good there would be this Black Military Group of people hunting you down for being mr-nice. You could be evil, but there was really no point in being on either side of the spectrum. In Fallout New Vegas, your actual Karma meter didn't matter. You could be a saint and still be around the Legion as if they were the holiest of warriors. The way Obsidian approached it, I feel was much better then what Bethesda did. Evil and Good don't matter, its how others see you. The Karma Meter is how you see yourself and the Faction meter is how others see you. If your a crazed murderer people won't know that on-sight of you.

The Karma System VS The Faction System is really what I'm getting at. In Fallout 3, there were tons of people with differing views yet they all agreed your evil? Is there some sort of committee on this? In New Vegas you being a secret cannibal is just that, a secret. You can be a priest or a demon and you can still be seen as a hero of a faction.

Overall, I thought that Fallout New Vegas improved on everything that Fallout 3 did.

Also, how is this differing on what I said when you asked for my reasoning, which wasn't there on my original statement.

Technically, everything both of us have been writing comes down to "My opinion is X".

And you kind of did have a crazy DJ stalking everything you did and reporting your evil doings or heroic exploits on every radio across the Capitol Wasteland.

Look, I only took issue with what you said about how you apparently couldn't be evil in Fallout 3 but you could in New Vegas, that "at least New Vegas gave you the option to be a dickweed scum". I guess that faction system makes more sense, and it tends to harken back to the main storyline, but it's kind of a non-issue to me when I play Fallout 3. It's good that New Vegas modified it for people that were bothered by the karma system like you were. Like I said before, my problem with New Vegas is inconsequential to you in a similar way that your problem with Fallout 3 is inconsequential to me.

 

[sunsetspawn]

Fallout 3 is a lot more "humanity is suffering from nuclear war and everything has gone to hell"-atmosphere and the story too is more focused on it as well, where New Vegas has a "did not get hit near as hard with nukes like everywhere else"-background. The story makes a lot more sense from the start to finish then New Vegas does.

This is the troof. Fallout 3 oozes cold war gone hot, post-apocalyptic, 1950s vision-of-the-future, art-deco 'n googie atmosphere and the name "FALLOUT" really is apropo. New Vegas has a different feel, like you're out west trying to rebuild the swingin' Vegas from the early 60s in a somewhat dilapidated, Mad Maxish future.

At first I felt like New Vegas has much less atmosphere, but as you go it builds, and when you get to Vegas and Dean Martin starts playing everything feels great. Seriously, Dino and Frank really lend this game some flavor, as do all of the other artists on the soundtrack.

They both play like each other. No different in the graphic or mechanics from the two games.

This is not entirely correct; New Vegas has far superior gameplay. Now it is true that both games share an interface and have similar leveling systems, but New Vegas is much more of an RPG. Of course, if you think that Oblivion was a "great game," then you won't notice how superior New Vegas is and may even prefer F3.

 

[Goofguy]

For me it had to be the environments. I preferred the Capital Wasteland to the Mojave Wasteland. It's one thing to provide a challenge, it's an other to be zerged by 8 Deathclaws when you're only lvl 7 and just minding your own business.

 

[cerebus23]

I like the "zergings" of new vegas, it was more "old school" where games made you use your head and wits more than scaling the whole game down to hold your hand, deathclaws were supposed to be dangerous and scary, at level 7 or w/e i ended up making my way toward vegas, i saved a ton and tried to avoid any and all deathclaws, and took me a few tries to get all the way there getting killed.

you could explore in new vegas ok at low level just taking on a adult radscorp and any deathclaw the first time and huzzah a game that made the game actually dangerous, but did not take too long for me to lest figure out that some mobs i best avoid if i wanted to look around and maybe sticking to the roads most places was in fact the best call.


where any bethesda game i could go pretty much anywhere and everywhere with the obsessive level scaling, including jetting through the mq in a few hours if you wanted to ignore every other part of the game.

*wonders how many of these people played any old school rpg including fallout 1 and 2 where you would get yourself dead poking around places exploring and none of those games spelled it out for you, to now days where god forbid any game dare to kill me when i want to do what i want when i want and how i want it no matter if it is more sensical that your new character should get his arse handed to him by most stuff in game because your skills suck your gear sucks and you low level period.*


i weep for gaming now days i really do, when people decry old school rpg elements in rpg games, and cheer the dumbed down kiddy version of rpgs that bethesda makes anymore.

 

[PrimitiveJudge]

Fallout: New Vegas better in 3 simple words: Anti-Material Rifle.

Frustrated or pissed off or even happy, grab your .50 caliber rifle, go to the strip, park it on a building and make people explode.

 

[Redman318_2002]

they both have their good and bad. to me id rather play any good game even if it does have a fault or two..