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

[Guy from the 80's]

But that's my opinion, what do you think?

The same as you. Pretty much everything in 3 is better. New Vegas is empty space with some cut and paste building scattered around but with some interesting people here and there.

ninja edit : Some of the locations in New vegas just looks utterly silly. I mean common, did they hire a baboon to do the level design?

 

[Aesir23]

I have to agree as well. Although NV was the better game in many ways it's the atmosphere that makes Fallout 3 the one I prefer between the two of them. I really liked the feeling of a truly post-apocalyptic world, especially since at the time I'd played it there weren't many post-apocalyptic games outside of the Fallout series that weren't zombie related.

 

[Sansha]

Exactly. I like Fallout 3 for being such a hellish nightmare, full of bandits and desperate survivors. I'd rather handle a problem regarding vandals for a group of settlers living in shacks on an overpass than deal with some city-folk problems.

The problem with that was that Fallout is set after the apocalypse, not during. In essence, it's how people are trying to live once the vaults have opened and a new, much stranger society has emerged. Sure there's destruction and it'd be pretty much impossible to rebuild DC but there was a definite disconnect between Fallout 3, the prior games, and New Vegas.

That said, Fallout 3 was an excellent post-apocalyptic game but I almost feel like the actual Fallout elements were a little out of place.

I like that. I like how it was a big disconnect from the previous Fallout games, mainly because I don't think they're the holy grail of RPG gaming that people claim, and didn't need to be stuck to. There are people calling for the writers to retcon Fallout 3's story, for fuck's sake.

I think New Vegas was a huge disappointment, and I think it's because the developers listened to the older fans who said the games needed to continue what I'm calling 'West Coast Lore'. Nostalgia goggles ruin games; it's why Cataclysm for WoW was so terrible and why the Mario, Sonic, and Zelda games continue to stagnate.

AH GOD, RUN FOR COVER; IT'S A NEW VEGAS v. FALLOUT 3 THREAD!

Wait, no, stop; it's not!
...
Don't give me that look.
...
I PROMISE this isn't a New Vegas v. Fallout 3 thread.
...
Well be that way.
Dick.

ANYWAY
For a while now I've tried to figure out exactly why I like Fallout 3 better. I mean New Vegas has more guns, more in common with the original Fallouts, more characters, mostly better characters, etc. Yet Fallout 3 was my Fallout port of call, not New Vegas; why?

Blaming the bugs was to easy, especially since several hundred patches and user made patches has fixed most of the problems.

And "Fuck Obsidian" is a bad argument.

So what is it?

Well today while roaming the New York State Museum (Which is a nice place to go for anyone who lives around Albany BTW.) it hit me rather suddenly.

It's the atmosphere. I don't mean atmosphere as in the greenish lighting of 3 versus the organgish of New Vegas. I mean how the game really feels to wander in.

Fallout 3 makes you feel like you're truly treading through a destroyed civilization. Like the hundreds of dead civilizations before it this one died suddenly and left its remains behind. You walk amongst the ashes of a true super power whose history is quickly being lost to all but a bare few people.

Compare to New Vegas, who shows civilization on the rise. Empires are being built, lines drawn, old world comforts returning, etc.

Fallout 3 is post Sherman Atlanta and New Vegas is Reconstruction.
Fallout 3 is walking through a radioactive Pompeii and New Vegas is the wild west.


And obviously some people prefer the wild west, I can't begrudge them that; especially with better gameplay systems in New Vegas.

But for me, I can't help but like the utterly destroyed civilization feeling of 3.

But that's my opinion, what do you think?

[HEADING=3]TL;DR[/HEADING]

Spoiler

Then Fallout 3 should be set somewhere around Fallout 1 or earlier times. It's simple: my immersion in F3 was generally destroyed due to setting inconsistency. In F2 we were shown the civilization rebuilding itself - new states and new societies are forming, and humanity is starting to fight Wasteland instead of hiding away from it. In F3, which is set after F2, we see none of this progress. Even moreso, there are no signs of any population being able to exist at all! Those people have nothing to eat, lots of establishments had to be robbed completely hundreds of years ago, etc. It's impossible to immerse into such a flawed from logical standpoint universe.

They're completely opposite sides of the United States. And I argue that the East Coast would have been bombed a lot harder for the capital city and denser population. In fact, I think I recall them stating that in the game.

 

[Talvrae]

I liked Fallout: Tactics so that's why I liked New Vegas more.

Fallout III felt like someone just bought the 'rites and cranked out a game with a borrowed engine.

New Vegas was made by a company that understood the setting and dived in head-first.

Fallout III is a better game for folks who didn't play I & II.

New Vegas is the real Fallout III. Fallout III should have been called Fallout: DC.

^^Pretty much this for me it really sum it up for me, i was a long time fan of the franchise and for me Fallout / was a uge disapointement... And let's not talk about the false advertising about it... there was that big talk of decision matters, and they give the exemple of megaton... the problem is... it's one of the rare event of that kind, and it didnt matter that much... rivet city habitant barelly react to that

 

[Anget Colslaw]

The main reason I got farther in FO3 is because the player character can end up so stupidly powerful that I was able to look past the terrible combat present in both games (don't even think about telling me to just use VATS) and let me explore the Capital Wasteland by myself. That and I preferred exploring a ruined city to the empty desert.

 

[Trunkage]

I found traipsing through destroyed monuments (even the metro) fascinating
I never wanted to go back to the town New Vegas. There was nothing there that ever interested me
None of the other towns every interested me in New Vegas, where I looked up the small towns on our maps in FO3.
Until you got to New Vegas, the game was incredibly linear. I felt trapped and unable to do what I wanted.
I found Fallout 1 to be great, I had trouble making it through more than 10 hours of fallout 2. It had lost something that drew me to the original. Maybe the same, were you see the ruins of past lives, and create a new world out of it. Fallout 2 for somehow didn't catch that feeling (even though they did have sites around California)
But Old World Blues was incredible - it made up for three lacklustre DLCs.

 

[CannibalCorpses]

It's the atmosphere. I don't mean atmosphere as in the greenish lighting of 3 versus the organgish of New Vegas. I mean how the game really feels to wander in.

I pretty much agree with you on this. The fact that I remember Fallout 3 more fondly than New Vegas may also be due to the fact that I'm not an old-school Fallout fan. I've noticed that those who have played the older Fallout games usually (but not always) like New Vegas better since it's more in line with the lore and whatnot.

But yeah, I loved the atmosphere in Fallout 3. I just wish Bethesda had better writers.

Im an old school Fallout fan and i prefer Fallout 3 far more than New Vegas. I remember Fallout 2 breaking at almost every town, large swathes of the quests falling apart, random npcs attacking for no reason...Fallout 2, whilst an amazing idea and story, is a very badly damaged game built by incompetant game designers. Fallout 3 was more fun for me to explore, had rewards of varying degrees in almost every location you find and didn't force feed me story...it presented it as an optional aside, there for me to peruse at my pleasure. Then the incompetant bastards return with NV and the game becomes far more story driven, less balanced and more empty and far more prone to crashing.

Fallout 3 all the way for me. Infact, thinking about this has dropped Fallout 2 off my top 5 of all time list and has been replaced by Fallout 3.

 

[FriedPi]

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. .....It was the small, quiet moments that impressed me the most.

Spot on. F3 captured the essence of a post-A world so perfectly for me. the solitude, atmosphere, setting and tone were just perfection. And the gameplay just sucked you in. Scrounging for food, bullets, and health items, while never knowing who or what was around the corner was incredibly intense. So many other things done great as well, like pipboy, vats, and being able to save at any time.

I can't hate on New Vegas, it was fun and had some good moments, but felt a bit shallow. The strip was a letdown, and silly things like Mr. House and the Elvis gang kept it from being superior to F3 for me.

That said, I know we're all looking forward to the next Fallout. This is one game that I hope they won't change too much.

 

[Rastrelly]

I get what you mean, OP. I do prefer especially the inner DC ruins of Fallout 3 to New Vegas. Many more ruined buildings to explore, streets, blocks. Heck, even the subways, repetitive as they may be, are awesome in terms of atmosphere.
All that said, I still prefer New Vegas for gameplay reasons (quests, perks, interactions etc.). Not to mention I like its DLCs better, which are a huge part of the respective games to me.
Considering how much closer we are to the West Coast in New Vegas, it kind of makes sense that the feel would be more similar to the old games, heh.

Sorry... Engine building?! I understand assets and models... But engine building? You must be joking.

 

[Jazoni89]

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

Looking at the Fallout 3 quest list, compared to the NV quest list, I would have to say there is far less to Fallout 3, than I originally thought.

Getting to the whole, large expansive ocean with the depth of a paddling pool territory, that Bethesda games are known for. Even something with a little more variety in quests like Skyrim is guilty of this in most cases.

Casting my mind back, there's literally no quests in Fallout 3 that stick out well in my mind, except for Trouble at the Homefront, which was a great quest that saw the chaos of the aftermath of you're character leaving the vault. Oasis, which was a peaceful haven in the wasteland, and a different contrast to all the other quests, and a few of the quests on the main quest line especially the one where you had to do the vault simulation.

Other than that, all the rest were kill this, kill that, or glorified fetch quests like the Nuka Cola Challenge, and the incredibly annoying Wasteland Survival quest, which seemed to go on forever.

Admittedly there are a lot of filler quest in New Vegas, but it all comes together in the grand scheme of things, and you end up investing much more in it's world. Helping the Ghouls take to space, Getting the Enclave back together, it all just made for some fun, and well fleshed out quests.

Not to mention the quests in the DLC's, and the most amazing quest in a fallout game ever, Beyond the Beef. I read through my New Vegas strategy guide, and no joke, there's around half a dozen ways to do that quest, and each one has a slightly different, or radically different outcome. Now that is Role-Playing in it's purest form, and not a straight linear path with no consequences for your actions like Fallout 3.

Also, One thing of note in Fallout 3, that some don't touch upon is the Vaults were just there, and some didn't even have a reason to be there, except for game padding. They were simply just there, and didn't have the backstory and sheer difference compared to each of them. One was "oh, here's a copy-paste vault with a bunch of clones here saying "Gary" just cause, it wasn't like "oh this vault went to shit", or "these raiders have made this Vault their home". There were quests tied in to nearly every one of them in New Vegas, which i really appreciated, because i think the vaults are a important aspect of the Fallout series and shouldn't be classes as a afterthought.

 

[Araksardet]

Personally I enjoyed the characters, story and quests of New Vegas more, but I enjoyed the atmosphere of Fallout 3 way more. The rebuilding civilization thing is pretty cool in my book, but the Mojave was a little too bland. New Vegas had somewhat better gameplay though, so on balance I'd say I enjoyed New Vegas more, though they were both great.

However, Three Dog > Mr. New Vegas. Seriously.

 

[Saviordd1]

Fallout 3 was based on the Gamebyro Engine, the same one used in Oblivion that was also a retooled version of the same engine used for Morrowind. And Skyrim is just using a retooled Gamebryo engine, which Fallout 4 (and a hypothetical New Vegas sequel) will also be using. Even then, the two have obviously and radically different design philosophies that wouldn't account for this. The excuse you're using doesn't fly.

Throwing names around doesn't make your argument valid.

Morrowind to Oblivion, Oblivion to Fallout all called for extensive retooling of the engine to suit its needs.
Two games can use Havok, doesn't mean they were that similar.
Each game to each game needed a lot of retooling, except for New Vegas which could have all been built in the damn GECK if Obsidian was lazy.

But that's my opinion, what do you think?

The same as you. Pretty much everything in 3 is better. New Vegas is empty space with some cut and paste building scattered around but with some interesting people here and there.

ninja edit : Some of the locations in New vegas just looks utterly silly. I mean common, did they hire a baboon to do the level design?

Eh I wouldn't quite say that. The companion characters in NV are better, and the gameplay tends to be better.

Though FO3 has Fawkes....so who knows.

 

[Skeleon]

I get what you mean, OP. I do prefer especially the inner DC ruins of Fallout 3 to New Vegas. Many more ruined buildings to explore, streets, blocks. Heck, even the subways, repetitive as they may be, are awesome in terms of atmosphere.
All that said, I still prefer New Vegas for gameplay reasons (quests, perks, interactions etc.). Not to mention I like its DLCs better, which are a huge part of the respective games to me.
Considering how much closer we are to the West Coast in New Vegas, it kind of makes sense that the feel would be more similar to the old games, heh.

Sorry... Engine building?! I understand assets and models... But engine building? You must be joking.

What. I never even mentioned... engine building? Huh?!

 

[Rastrelly]

I get what you mean, OP. I do prefer especially the inner DC ruins of Fallout 3 to New Vegas. Many more ruined buildings to explore, streets, blocks. Heck, even the subways, repetitive as they may be, are awesome in terms of atmosphere.
All that said, I still prefer New Vegas for gameplay reasons (quests, perks, interactions etc.). Not to mention I like its DLCs better, which are a huge part of the respective games to me.
Considering how much closer we are to the West Coast in New Vegas, it kind of makes sense that the feel would be more similar to the old games, heh.

Sorry... Engine building?! I understand assets and models... But engine building? You must be joking.

What. I never even mentioned... engine building? Huh?!

Sorry. I didn't notice quoting wrong person >_<
I've used to "Quote" button bottom positioning )

 

[Spaceman Spiff]

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:

I love that video. It does a good job explaining how in general Fallout 3's towns make no damn sense and shows how little thought was put into the game world. It's 200 years after the bombs fell and DC's inhabitants have made nearly no effort to rebuild and have somehow survived on a few brahmin, scavenged pre-war food, and a handful of lab-grown vegetables.

New Vegas has a much better, more believable environment.

 

[happyninja42]

AH GOD, RUN FOR COVER; IT'S A NEW VEGAS v. FALLOUT 3 THREAD!

Wait, no, stop; it's not!
...
Don't give me that look.
...
I PROMISE this isn't a New Vegas v. Fallout 3 thread.
...
Well be that way.
Dick.

ANYWAY
For a while now I've tried to figure out exactly why I like Fallout 3 better. I mean New Vegas has more guns, more in common with the original Fallouts, more characters, mostly better characters, etc. Yet Fallout 3 was my Fallout port of call, not New Vegas; why?

Blaming the bugs was to easy, especially since several hundred patches and user made patches has fixed most of the problems.

And "Fuck Obsidian" is a bad argument.

So what is it?

Well today while roaming the New York State Museum (Which is a nice place to go for anyone who lives around Albany BTW.) it hit me rather suddenly.

It's the atmosphere. I don't mean atmosphere as in the greenish lighting of 3 versus the organgish of New Vegas. I mean how the game really feels to wander in.

Fallout 3 makes you feel like you're truly treading through a destroyed civilization. Like the hundreds of dead civilizations before it this one died suddenly and left its remains behind. You walk amongst the ashes of a true super power whose history is quickly being lost to all but a bare few people.

Compare to New Vegas, who shows civilization on the rise. Empires are being built, lines drawn, old world comforts returning, etc.

Fallout 3 is post Sherman Atlanta and New Vegas is Reconstruction.
Fallout 3 is walking through a radioactive Pompeii and New Vegas is the wild west.


And obviously some people prefer the wild west, I can't begrudge them that; especially with better gameplay systems in New Vegas.

But for me, I can't help but like the utterly destroyed civilization feeling of 3.

But that's my opinion, what do you think?

I agree 100%, I was actually talking last night to my wife about the difference in the two games. I've been fiddling with New Vegas, to try and play as Vash the Stampede, a gunslinging pacifist who doesnt kill anyone. And while the IDEA of playing it in New Vegas is interesting....I just....can't feel compelled to play New Vegas. It doesn't feel Post-Apocalyptic to me at all. It just feels like I'm in a shitty part Nevada desert with some rundown structures. Yeah the monsters and stuff, but, it doesn't FEEL like I'm making my way through the gutted out carcass of a long dead behemoth, like in Fallout 3.

So yes, the mood/atmosphere is definitely lacking the post-apocalypse feel to me. My ideal game would be Fallout 3 with New Vegas mechanics. So yeah OP,*thumbs up* I support you.

 

[DeathQuaker]

In terms of atmosphere and setting, I liked both, even though they were different. It doesn't have to be either/or to me. I actually LIKED that they were different, because it gives a sense of verisimilitude in that different areas would have developed differently 200 years after the bombs dropped.

Washington, DC was more heavily bombarded and had things like the Super Mutant vault influence its slower post-apocalyptic evolution. It also had fewer truly functional Vaults out of which people might resettle the land--all of the Vaults in the area that I can recall were largely some of the more whacky experiments, where fewer people survived to get outside; the only normal-ish Vault with its work ethic experiment was 101 which had its isolationist overseer that prevented them from settling the outside world. That meant most of the human inhabitants were descendants of outside-vault survivors whose society would probably have devolved far more during the direct post-war before re-establishing something more resembling civilization. I do wish that Bethesda's designers would have put a little more thought into the world development--the Washington area is effectively swampland and without human maintenance would largely have devolved back into a swamp, and along with that there would have been a lot more vegetation, however mutated (but 200 years after nukes is enough for plants to grow back--the area around Chernobyl is largely green now after all). And of course the whole water purification thing was silly; the Potomac's a pretty damn big river with tributaries in areas that would have been far less affected by the war, and in 200 years much of the sunken Fallout should have washed out to the ocean. But I think they still established an interesting atmosphere.

Las Vegas was minimally attacked--there was less concentration of attacks and many of the ones that hit were deflected by Mr. House's defense system--so there was more to rebuild from. And there were a couple more "survivor" vaults--27 put out fine survivors, however gambling obsessed. I get the sense 3 got some people out before the Fiends took over--they were actively trading with the area before they were attacked. And the armory one whose number I can't remember obviously at least the people who became the Boomers survived. So there were more people, more records of past civilization, and more tools with which to rebuild. Oh, and there are the Followers of the Apocalypse, whose purpose is to help recover past useful tech to rebuild society--they haven't made it out East yet, and that also may have some influence.

So the evolution of each area, side by side (so to speak) makes sense, and to me the differences are part of what makes the Fallout setting as a whole cool. I like the post-post-apocalypse world of New Vegas and the more struggling world of the Capital Wasteland equally. I enjoy the atmosphere in both, they are realized well and feel like complete worlds.

My only thing where I personally prefer New Vegas over Fallout 3 is I like the main plotline better. I felt like in New Vegas I had some real choices to make and I felt like the struggle between the warring factions was central to the Fallout series' theme. In F3's main plot, I felt like a spectator rather than the protagonist, and frankly? My douchebag, deadbeat Dad and his water purifier can suck it. The fact that I didn't have the option to kill him myself (nor even get any dialogue options to express I was glad of his demise) is particularly sadmaking.

OTOH, I liked many of F3's sidequests better.

Oh, and New Vegas definitely wins for having better companions. (Veronica, how do I love thee? Let me count the punches. One, two, three...)

But both games had some great areas to explore (on replaying New Vegas, I found the sewers which I'd never found or done anything at all in my first game; in F3 I've often found some random little cave or shack I hadn't noticed before), cool atmosphere, some neat boss fights, interesting factions. I think both are worthy entries in the Fallout series and I feel sad when people act like if you like one, you must hate the other -- there's plenty of room for both for each of their strengths to shine.

 

[purplemonkey555]

I was actually just talking about this with a few friends of mine. FO3 was the first Fallout game I ever played, but I've read a lot about the older ones and I appreciate the way NV gets back to the older ones in both back story and certain gameplay features.

I like the story and atmosphere a whole lot more in 3 than in NV. Something about wandering around a destroyed city is just more appealing to me than wandering around a desert, 3 had a way better intro, and the location of Vegas itself was disappointing to me, not counting Freeside. When I got to Vegas I just thought: "Wow, this is it? Three streets?" The casinos are nice, but it just seems small to me. The only thing I really liked better in NV's narrative was the companion interactions, which were pretty much non-existent in 3.

Gameplay wise though, NV hands down. Modding weapons is great. Interchangeable types of ammo (with unique ones you get to make yourself!) is awesome. Jury-rigging perk is ridiculous, I once fixed a .50 cal Anti-Material Rifle with parts salvaged from a BB Gun. I also really liked the companion wheel they added and the way different companions actually play differently. It's not like "Here are a few guys with guns, and here is Fawkes to render them all obsolete." Plus it just has more more more sidequests, weapons, locations, enemies, companions, etc.

 

[Doom972]

Valid reasons. Personally, I felt that NV was more in tune with the atmosphere set in Fallout 1 & 2, and I felt that it's time for large civilizations to come into existence in the post-apocalyptic world.

I do like Fallout 3 very much as well.