Just figured out why I like Fallout 3 more than New Vegas

[aozgolo]

Snip

I tried making this same argument in a steam thread for New Vegas... I got hated on pretty hard for it.

I totally see where you're coming from, I got arguments ranging from the better story of New Vegas, the better characters, the better gameplay. I see it as missing the point as you and I both were not arguing that FO3 is a better game, just a better setting for what we wanted. I personally think yes New Vegas is a vastly superior game but FO3 feels like a better Fallout, it has nothing to do with story, or which company did what better. It just felt more like Fallout 2 to me than New Vegas did, and once again, NOT BECAUSE OF THE STORY.

Look at just the color palette, disregarding bias opinions against drab grays and browns, FO3 felt like the old Fallouts with it's very "ruined beyond all recovery" look. It's a difference between a tribal "only the bravest" wasteland which is so hostile that most travelers wouldn't dare set foot outside to the fairly domesticated medieval state of New Vegas, which while it had it's share of dangers, it's like the difference between dealing with occasional roadside bandits vs. being 50 miles behind enemy lines.

FO3 I felt had the better setting, and it reminded me more of the atmosphere of 1 & 2 than New Vegas did.

I understand the wasteland would eventually get to this state, but some part of me still yearns for that "This is my Wasteland" feel

 

[-Ezio-]

i think you pretty much summed up my opinion on them too.

 

[DSD12]

The characters in NV were a lot better in my opinion, not only that but the main quest line was way more interesting than Fallout 3's were as Fallout 3's world was a lot more fun to walk around. If Fallout 4 does come out I hope it takes the good points from both and put them together.

 

[scorptatious]

It's so weird how both Fallout 2 AND New Vegas, both games that were rushed out by dead lines, seem to have quite a bit more content than their predecessors.

Also, because this is essentially a FO3 vs New Vegas thread, I can't help but post this:

That picture is frankly terrible because of how many quests in it are repeats and/or quests whose each individual objective was made its own quest.

Eh. Can't completely argue with you there. The Act 2 Main Quest lines do branch off into separate quest lines for each of the factions. Still though, I think it's a great way of getting to know all of the factions.

Anywho, I have no problem with people who prefer 3 over NV. *COUGH COUGH* [small] Unlike some of the people hanging out at No Mutants Allowed [/small] *COUGH*

I do prefer the Mojave though personally, as I feel it has a more realized world. How you may ask? Let this video answer for you:

 

[ShinyCharizard]

New Vegas' world was just boring compared to Fallout 3's. It was an empty desert that completely lacked any interesting places to explore. Also there were too many invisible walls everywhere and half the map was completely unused.

Fallout 3 has huge sections of map cut off by debris (in and around the city) or by hills and mountains. Most of the buildings aren't even explorable. If you're going by terrain alone, New Vegas has substantially more area to explore than F3.

What huge sections are these? The city is broken up into various segments sure (Still it's much bigger than New Vegas itself). But the wasteland is entirely explorable. Fallout New Vegas has half the map that can't even be accessed and every time you climb three feet up a hill you hit an invisible wall.

Washington in F3 is broken into segments because Bethesda couldn't be bothered to map out a fully explorable area. Not only is it cut into sections by large piles of debris, but I'd say fully nine out of ten buildings can't be accessed -- both of those comprise the "huge sections" I was referring to. The city is even designed around choke points which force the player to move around its border (a border made up almost entirely of dummy buildings) in order to find the few access points that exist.

Washington may be bigger than New Vegas, but it's a clear case of lazy design on the part of the devs. New Vegas proper isn't a shining example of design either, but at least it doesn't fool the player into thinking it's larger than it actually is. The same goes for F3's wasteland regions -- there are plenty of areas on the map that can't be explored due to artificial blocks like cliffs, hills, fences and dummy architecture.

Claiming that NV has more invisible walls and less explorable map space than F3 is just outright false.

It's actually the objective truth. New Vegas has many, many more invisible walls than Fallout 3. Every time you go partway up a hill in New Vegas you run into an invisible wall. And it's a bit rich to say that New Vegas doesn't fool the player when half the damn map can't be accessed at all despite being shown quite clearly in the game. And sure there is less accessible buildings. However I'd rather have fewer but more intricate buildings to explore than New Vegas' method of having a whole lot of empty houses and caves with nothing in em.

 

[roguewriter]

Have to say the thing I liked about Fallout 3 more than New Vegas was that it felt like a much tighter world with a much tighter story and a natural flow of events and characters. New Vegas too often felt like you just wandering with no rime or reason. Yes, you had your revenge/chose a side mission, but that kept you on a fairly narrow path.

Fallout 3 required you to pass through so many areas which expanded on your journey with side quests that were not difficult to find nor required you to go too far off the beaten path with only a few exceptions which come to mind (Nuka Cola Challenge, Republic of Dave, etc).

Your path took you to Megaton, The DC Metro, GNR, Capitol Hill, Rivet City and so forth and you got the chance to really see not only the "Fallout" of civilization's destruction, but how people were building something new from the ashes of the old. New Vegas just felt too big, too unwieldy and it felt like a new civilization was pretty much already in place.

Felt more like the kind of world shown in NBC's "Revolution" series than, say, Mad Max. While New Vegas was still a great game (minus the giant **** you that was the closed ending) it's makes me glad that Bethesda is, supposedly, developing Fallout 4 completely in-house and will tie it into FO3.

 

[Headsprouter]

Yeah, agree, that's always been my reason, really. Fallout 3 is dull, desolate and depressing. NV is vibrant, built-up and has lots of settlements squashed in together, so there's none of those kind of nice moments where you're just wandering between areas. Fallout 3 feels downtrodden and twisted, NV feels like a desert with some weird monsters.

Oh, yeah, and Fallout 3 didn't block my path with invisible walls or try to funnel me at all. NV did that a lot, so I had little choice with my pathways on each playthrough.

Overall, I feel both games lack in different ways. Both have better or worse levels of choice in different areas.

 

[SajuukKhar]

I do prefer the Mojave though personally, as I feel it has a more realized world. How you may ask? Let this video answer for you:

That video is just as bad as that picture because the main question its point is based around "what do they eat" is answered in the game itself very thoroughly.

The difference between NV and Fallout 3 is that Fallout 3, much like most Bethesda games, takes a hyper-background approach to world building in most cases, in that, there's not an NPC you can just go up to and have the entire economics system broken down for you at the slightest provocation.

Whereas other games, such as New Vegas, and Mass effect, gives most of their information in the form of hard-to-miss NPCs who just splerge every other minor world detail, and dont really put much detail into their environments as a result.

 

[scorptatious]

I do prefer the Mojave though personally, as I feel it has a more realized world. How you may ask? Let this video answer for you:

That video is just as bad as that picture because the main question it asks "what do they eat" is answered in the game itself very thoroughly.

Could you give an example please? I'm not saying you're wrong. I just haven't played 3 in a long time, and I just happened to really like what they did with New Vegas in that regard.

 

[Fox12]

This is largely what I've been saying for a while now. New Vegas was fun, and I liked it, but Fallout 3 was just... desolate. In a good way. My fondest memories are of wandering through the dilapidated ruins at night, everything dead silent, until you hear something far off. You pull out a sniper rifle and see six super mutants walking down the road with one of their captive. They don't see you, so you let them pass you by, because your low on health and ammo. Maybe I'll see one standing alone on a bridge in front of me, and holding my breath, I fire my last sniper round, blowing off his head.

Or wandering through the waste with nothing but a hunting rifle. You pick your way through an abandoned church, looking for anything useful, and hoping you don't see raiders. Suddenly you hear whispering, someones pleading you for help. You look around and find a prisoner, and you let them go.

It was the small, quiet moments that impressed me the most. I didn't get that with New Vegas, which felt far more metropolitan. Cities? Vacations? Elections? Presidents? Taxes? Glitzy brothels and casinos? Aristocracy? These things didn't do it for me, it got rid of the desperate survival feel that made Fallout 3 something special. The writing was still excellent, and if Obsidian makes another game I'll definitely buy it, and I hope Bethesda keeps the FANTASTIC companion system from New Vegas, but otherwise I'll stick with Fallout 3.

 

[Hawk eye1466]

I've never been able to figure out why I prefered 3 over NV although you may be right, but to be fair I can't argue about it because my entire experience with NV was loading the game making my character walking out of the starting house and saying yep this is a game and then turning off my console.

I dunno I didn't play the first fallout but I liked the second and third NV just didn't appeal to me. Here's hoping the new one does!

 

[A-D.]

Well, its odd how a thread starts one way and then somehow ends up where it was not intended to end up in. So without further ado, lets derail it some more.

The thing about the whole debate over which of the recent Fallouts is the better one is..a bit odd to say the least, mainly because it is really about personal taste and consistency. I prefer New Vegas for two reasons, and I will go into detail a little further down. The first reason is that Fallout 3 was a clusterfuck of so epic proportions that I am still not entirely sure how it became popular, even though I am glad it did or New Vegas wouldnt exist probably. The second reason is that New Vegas is much more consistent in tone and plot with the first two.

The reasons for those two points are simple. Fallout 3 has a very basic plot, it is interesting, but it suffers from the problem the game in general has. All the side quests are very basic "Go here, find X, decide whether to be an ass or a saint", so we got black and white morality right from the start, which isnt a good thing. The bigger problem however is the railroading plot. You have no choice but to look for your Dad, you dont, you can dick around in the wasteland forever, shoot raiders and so forth, but the mainplot is "Go find Pops" and the writing and handling of it is terrible. You dont have a choice to even find him because you are mad at him, the perfect example is the initial dialogue with Three-Dog, all the choices come down to "Please help me find my daddy", there is not even the option to be more direct or hostile towards him, or imply that you hate your dad. Everything in the game's main quest is basicly "You love your dad", hence we have lack of basic choice, we have no option to specify why we want to find him, or even a choice to say "screw him". The plot wont advance unless you do exactly as told. The only real choice you get in the game, aside from the aforementioned side quest choices, is whether you want to put the FEV into the water or not, again either be the devil or be a saint with no middle ground.

But the biggest of all the problems with Fallout 3 is essentially that the timeline is wrong. Everything about the presentation implies that the bombs dropped recently and my belief is that initially the idea was that it was only 20 or 30 years since the bombs dropped. But that was changed for a simple reason, to allow Bethesda to rehash familiar content. If the game was set 20 or 30 years after the great war, we would have no Brotherhood, we would have no Super Mutants, even the Ghouls are somewhat unlikely since their existance hinges upon very specific circumstances (read up on the Bakersfield Vault, or Necropolis Vault). So without either of the two bigger factions, Super Mutants and Brotherhood, you have no definite good guy faction. 30 Years after the great war, the Brotherhood, even if they managed to get to DC would be colossal assholes, think the Outcasts just worse. The problem there is that Bethesda did not really create a new story on their own, they simply used known factions and content to craft a story that internally does not mesh very well.

Those are to me the biggest issues that Fallout 3 had, and while i would not say its a bad game, it is subpar due to it when it could have been a greater game. I also wouldnt say that New Vegas is without flaws, but it is consistent with its own internal lore as well as the lore of the previous games.

 

[Right Hook]

The atmosphere in FO3 would make sense if it was just a few decades after the bombs, but two hundred years? We went from horse-and-carts to landing on the damn moon in that time period. Are you seriously suggesting in that same length of time, no-one in the Capital Wasteland has yet worked out how to not live life like a hobo?

In their defense,they didn't have our opportunities and we didn't have to contend with radiation and giant mutant creatures, including the Deathclaw. I'm not saying the state of things makes total sense for two centuries but it stands to reason that DC would be a complete shit show compared to anywhere else, seeing as it is a capital and it would stand to reason that it would be hit ten times harder than elsewhere. The area also lacked a lot in the way of a helping hand, the Enclave was there to beat down anybody who tried to help and the Brotherhood wasn't much better with it's technophiliac ways, you end up with two battling factions which rarely if ever benefits the territory they turn into a battle-zone. It reminds me of two separate and distinct cultures, nobody can travel across the country effectively anymore, so you end up with a more advanced western civilization not far from one looking like a war torn middle eastern nation.

 

[SajuukKhar]

Could you give an example please? I'm not saying you're wrong. I just haven't played 3 in a long time, and I just happened to really like what they did with New Vegas in that regard.

Ok....

If you go up to a food seller, such as Jenny Stahl in Megaton, you will see her inventory consist of food items such as
-Squirrel on a stick, Squirrel stew, Crispy squirrel bits
-Iguana-on-a-stick, iguana bits
-Mirelurk Cakes
-Brahmin Steaks
-Both kinds of Mutfruit
-Punga(if Point Lookout is installed)
So we know they eat all of those animals, and those plants, and we can visibly see Brahmin in every settlement except Tenpenny tower, and Rivet City.

Across the Capital wasteland one will find various generic hunter NPCs, who carry and sell mirelurk meat, yao guai meat, and mole rat meat. Supporting what we see in the food sellers inventories, and dialog from various NPCs about eating molerats. Grandma Sparkle in Wilheims Warf also mentions her kids hunting mirelurks.

You will also find many unnamed scavangers across the wasteland. Collecting every other type of thing people could want.

These hunters and scavengers trade with cities, for shelter/"services", who then trade what they don't need to the caravan merchants, who trade items between cities where they are needed most. Cities also trade scrap metal to Rivet City, in exchange for the fresh food grown in their science lab, such as carrots, apples, etc. etc.

All the resource gathering/movement is there in-game, you just have to pay attention and look for it.

 

[balladbird]

Can't really get mad at your opinion, OP. Taste in setting and atmosphere is a very personal thing. I adored NV far more than 3, but 3's atmosphere was more pleasing to me, as well. Part of the reason is just my personal dislike of deserts, though. I can't believe how many games I've loved emphatically but had my passion tempered by the desert setting. XD (well okay, just NV and FF12, but still)


Really, NV is the winner for me just because of the profound impact it has on its players. Unlike 3 (and all the former games featuring the enclave, really) there's a lot more subjectivity in the good versus evil aspects of the story. It's always fun reading a person's reasons for supporting Mr. House, NCR, or the Legion (what few supporters it has) in the end.

 

[CardinalPiggles]

The only reason I liked FO3 over FONV is because NV was mechanically near-identical. And after playing 40 hours of FO3 I got bored of the formula.

If I had played NV first I'm sure I would have preferred it.

The Fallout series isn't really for me. The story in FO3 was enough to make me finish the game but it felt like such a slog. I couldn't even be bothered to do the DLC either.

The roaming was a lot more enjoyable in FO3 though I must say. It was much more about looting and much less about forging alliances and making enemies.

 

[Roxas1359]

snip

Might I recommend the older games then? Fallout 2 is probably the best out of all the older ones and is a lot of fun, although it's combat involves a lot of clicking.
The first Fallout had a 30 day time limit which is why I don't recommend it to start off, and Tactics is sorta hit or miss really. Avoid Brotherhood of Steel though, that's something you should do. XD

 

[CardinalPiggles]

snip

Might I recommend the older games then? Fallout 2 is probably the best out of all the older ones and is a lot of fun, although it's combat involves a lot of clicking.
The first Fallout had a 30 day time limit which is why I don't recommend it to start off, and Tactics is sorta hit or miss really. Avoid Brotherhood of Steel though, that's something you should do. XD

Might give it go, assuming it's on GoG, (don't wanna risk it not working on my system).

 

[Roxas1359]

Might give it go, assuming it's on GoG, (don't wanna risk it not working on my system).

Fallout 2, Fallout, and Tactics are all on GoG, and they are $9.99, but I recommend waiting for them to go on sale as they tend to go on sale a lot.

 

[Mylinkay Asdara]

Well, its odd how a thread starts one way and then somehow ends up where it was not intended to end up in. So without further ado, lets derail it some more.

The bigger problem however is the railroading plot. You have no choice but to look for your Dad, you dont, you can dick around in the wasteland forever, shoot raiders and so forth, but the mainplot is "Go find Pops" and the writing and handling of it is terrible. You dont have a choice to even find him because you are mad at him, the perfect example is the initial dialogue with Three-Dog, all the choices come down to "Please help me find my daddy", there is not even the option to be more direct or hostile towards him, or imply that you hate your dad. Everything in the game's main quest is basicly "You love your dad", hence we have lack of basic choice, we have no option to specify why we want to find him, or even a choice to say "screw him". The plot wont advance unless you do exactly as told. The only real choice you get in the game, aside from the aforementioned side quest choices, is whether you want to put the FEV into the water or not, again either be the devil or be a saint with no middle ground.

But the biggest of all the problems with Fallout 3 is essentially that the timeline is wrong. Everything about the presentation implies that the bombs dropped recently and my belief is that initially the idea was that it was only 20 or 30 years since the bombs dropped. But that was changed for a simple reason, to allow Bethesda to rehash familiar content. If the game was set 20 or 30 years after the great war, we would have no Brotherhood, we would have no Super Mutants, even the Ghouls are somewhat unlikely since their existance hinges upon very specific circumstances (read up on the Bakersfield Vault, or Necropolis Vault). So without either of the two bigger factions, Super Mutants and Brotherhood, you have no definite good guy faction. 30 Years after the great war, the Brotherhood, even if they managed to get to DC would be colossal assholes, think the Outcasts just worse. The problem there is that Bethesda did not really create a new story on their own, they simply used known factions and content to craft a story that internally does not mesh very well.

Those are to me the biggest issues that Fallout 3 had, and while i would not say its a bad game, it is subpar due to it when it could have been a greater game. I also wouldnt say that New Vegas is without flaws, but it is consistent with its own internal lore as well as the lore of the previous games.

Two things - one, yes, they make us love our dad and want to find him - which... why the heck wouldn't we? He seemed like a decent guy. The premise of the plot is that he is a decent guy, in fact, who does the right thing all the damn time and is out to save the fricken world. So... I've just never understood the complaint about that "pre-set" as an excuse to have anything like a main plot. I mean - NV - maybe I don't give a crap that some guy shot and buried me, maybe I'm just thrilled to be alive, maybe I say screw it I won't tangle with a guy again who took me out once! Nope. I want revenge. I want to meet him. It's an imperative for my character regardless of how I think about it so there can, in fact, be the kick off of a main plot. Some things are going to have to be assumed at some point for a plot to be provided initially.

Second - the D.C. area being so far behind the curve of everywhere else is explained in the game both subtly and explicitly (no I don't know where, go comb a wiki if you like, I will explain) as due to the fact that, being where our capital is, they got bombed extremely heavily - as did much of the East Coast, where population is very concentrated and most of our political historical institutions and artifacts of significance are housed. By contrast, Vegas was shielded by House's countermeasures, and took relatively little bomb incoming and thus had an advantage in both preservation of existing structures and infrastructure and a lesser radioactivity. D.C. was highly radioactive and essentially reduced to rubble and remained irradiated through time due to the significance of the bombing they took.