Poll: Fallout 3 vs Vegas/ Fallout 4

[RedDeadFred]

My favourite is Fallout 3 (the only other one I've played is New Vegas). It felt much bigger than New Vegas and the main story seemed a lot longer. When I finished New Vegas, I honestly thought I was just half way through the story and that I was going to carry on with my robot army for the rest of it. Needless to say, I was quite disappointed.

Also, invisible walls in New Vegas hugely pissed me off. If you're going to give me an open world, make sure I can actually explore it. If I make my way to the top of a mountain, I should be able to walk down the other side.

 

[Brotha Desmond]

I tried getting into fallout 3, but with the interface being the same green that you would see on old computers, the lack luster story, and over half of the game taking place in underground bunkers/subways made it hard to like. I got up to slightly after your dad dies then I just stopped. New Vegas, however, I managed to play through three times. One thing that really helped was making the intro sequence much shorter.

 

[Vivi22]

I don't think we played the same fallout 3. I found the plot of fallout 3 to be atrocious. Bethesda makes great worlds to wander around in, but that's about it. They have never been good story tellers (Morrowind is my only exception here, and even then that's dubious). That's not to say I don't really enjoy their worlds but i certainly don't play Skyrim for the story.

Have to agree with you here. Bethesda are generally great world builders, but terrible story writers. Their work tends to be predictable, boring, and even filled with plot holes in some cases. But even in terms of world building, I'd say Fallout 3 failed since it didn't understand the world created by the first two games at all. They get a pass on some of it because it takes place on the opposite side of the US, but they really didn't get the source material that well.

So of 3 and New Vegas, the ones I played the most to be perfectly honest since I didn't get the first two until a few years ago, New Vegas was better by fair. It's main quest is not a disappointingly linear piece of shit, it stayed true to the originals while moving the series into a new part of the world with new conflicts, and the world was just plain better. Not that much of this is a huge surprise since a lot of the guys who worked on the original games are at Obsidian. But Obsidian also just make a better RPG than Bethesda in general (or any of the companies they've done sequels for). Now if only they wouldn't keep getting hamstrung with shitty game engines, tight budgets, and impossible deadlines, they'd get the credit they deserve.

 

[GundamSentinel]

New Vegas did polish out the gameplay mechanics and add some nice stuff, but the game world in Fallout 3 is vastly superior and more interesting.

For me this is a very important point. I don't play the Fallout games (or the Elder Scrolls games, for that matter) for story and characters. That's just not their strength. I play them to explore an interesting world. And the Capitol Wastelands were just a lot more interesting than the Mojave. What's special about a post-apocalyptic setting in what was already a desert?

I really think the story and especially the characters are the strong point of the Fallout series, with the exception of Fallout 3. You seem to be putting the Fallout games in the same category as The Elder Scrolls games, and I don't think that's entirely fair when only one game in the series is like that.

Of course, Fallout 3 is basically "Oblivion with guns", so I can see where you're coming from if you were introduced to the series by 3. But if you're expecting the same from the other Fallouts, you're playing for the wrong reasons, I think.

Basically, Fallout 3 is a good game but a bad Fallout sequel. New Vegas is a good game, and also a pretty good Fallout sequel.

Fair enough. It's a thing I hear a lot when the Fallout games are concerned; Fallout 3 being the odd one out. I played a bit of the old Fallout games a long time ago, but they couldn't really hold my attention. Basically FO3 is the only one that interested me, because of the world.

I was fine with 'Oblivion with guns', and New Vegas didn't have that same quality. Better mechanics, sure. Better characters and story, arguably. But the characters and especially the story were not enough to keep me in what I found to be a less rich world.

 

[GabeZhul]

New Vegas. I remember that when I first tried it out I felt a bit disappointed because it looked, felt and played exactly like Fallout 3 without having a the same atmospheric prologue. I would actually blame this for most of the negative press the game got, even Yathzee didn't bother to check beyond the lackluster first impressions and declared it a pointless addition to the series, but once the plot, the characterization and the insane quest variability starts to come into focus, it leaves F3 in the dust by a mile.

In fact, now that I think about it, Fallout New Vegas did the "your choices matter" and "your actions decide your ending instead of choosing red/green/blue" thing waaaaaay better than the Mass Effect series, which was designed around this feature (at least on paper). Case in point: the battle for the dam can have four different "big" endings plus all the dozens of different variables that actually change how the battle plays out (did you convince the Khans to lead a suicide charge against the dam? did you get all the Enclave Remnants to swoop in a CMOA?), and let's not even mention the ridiculous number of ending reels, where practically all of your followers, factions and locations you have discovered and interacted with have their own epilogue.

All things considered, I would say Fallout NV is my favorite entry in the series, closely followed by the original Fallout 1.

 

[IFS]

but nowhere near as good as the Brother Hood of Steel DLC in 3, and arguably more interesting NPCs. 3 has a fantastic plot, but looking back on it.. would you NEVER fight for the Enclave?

Wut. 3 had a horribly written plot, the whole setting might have made some sense if it was only 20-50 years after the apocalypse but 200? Things would be well on their way to recovery by then (as they were in NV). The Enclave and Brotherhood were basically fighting over who gets to flip a switch (not really sure how anyone could control all the water in the entire basin once it's flipped) a switch that ends up killing off the wildlife that has evolved since the bombs (people in BS mention the mirelurks dying off) which is not a good thing. On top of all that you have the fact that water can be filter of radioactivity by running it through a filter of dirt, your dad's pointless and stupid sacrifice, and so so many moral choices that so poorly thought out they often give you good karma for what, if you stop to think for a moment, is the bad choice. Now I'm not saying 3 is a bad game, far from it, but I don't really consider it a good fallout game.

As for NPCs I can barely remember any from 3 except maybe Three dog, Moira, and Fawkes. Compared to NV where I have strong and fond memories of Veronica, Arcade, Boone, Mr. House, etc. NV is full of strong characters and its conflicts stem largely from them and their organization's clashing desires. As for DLC Old World Blues from NV remains my favorite DLC from any game ever, so I would but it far and above BS. (people also seem to forget that BS is very similar to the extended cut DLC of ME3 in that it was demanded to change the ending, and without it you are stuck with a mind-breakingly stupid ending of having to go into deadly radiation in spite of your having any number of super loyal radiation immune buddies with you).

So in short NV is my favorite fallout game, I have played 1,2 and tactics as well so my general ranking goes NV, 1, 2 (lower than 1 because the difficulty really started to wear on me late game), 3, and Tactics (which I don't really consider to be that great of a fallout game either, though I have had some fun with it).

 

[spartandude]

I simply can not play 3 after NewVegas now. Dont get me wrong 3 was good but Newvegas just took everything i didnt like about 3 and either replaced it, improved it or through it out the window.

 

[Dies Irae]

Having played all of the games listed in the poll, I have to say that Fallout New Vegas is my favorite game in the series because of the story.

All of the four endings have both positives and negatives:

NCR-Brings democracy to the Mojave, but they are stretched too thin to make the inhabitants of the Mojave seem like the NCR are making an impact.

Legion-Unifies the wasteland, but at the same time brings barbarism to the wastes. In-game dialogue points out that once Caesar is dead, the Legion will fall apart, making their conquering of the Mojave worthless.

House-His advanced intellect will progress technology, but he only cares about Vegas proper, and not the rest of the Mojave.

Yourself-I chose this one but what can your character do. All you've proven is that you can fight off an entire army, meaning that without proper leadership, New Vegas will fall apart.

That is why Fallout New Vegas is my favorite, the decisions you make aren't good or bad, it's all based on what you believe is the best for the Mojave Wasteland. And no matter what happens, fighting and death still continues in the wasteland, because war?war never changes.

 

[h@wke]

New Vegas all the way. I loved loved LOVED the DLC for that game, how they all fit together and have an over-reaching story arc. 3 was by no means bad, but pretty much everything I liked about it was also in NV but often done better.

However I will say that the whole beginning sequence for 3 was better than NV, the growing up in the Vault sequence makes one a lot more invested then NV's "you just died, here's a gun, go get amongst it"

 

[AnthrSolidSnake]

I was never into 2-d games or isometric games like the original Fallout games, despite growing up with them first. Fallout 3 wasn't my first Fallout, that would belong to Fallout 2, which at the time of first playing I didn't like at all. Today I tolerate it and even enjoy it, but 3 and New Vegas were better games to me. Despite Fallout and Fallout 2's excellent atmosphere, 3 and New Vegas manage to "immerse" me more simply due to their perspective. What makes you feel more like being lost in a desolate wasteland? Clicking an enemy from the sky and letting dice roll, or aiming down the gun yourself and watching the bullet fly through your opponent's skull?

However between 3 and New Vegas, while I liked New Vegas's gameplay better, I liked Fallout 3's world and story better. The story felt more cohesive to me in 3. What was I doing? Simply looking for my father. After finding him though, I feel the story goes downhill fast.

 

[Hawk eye1466]

I started with 3 and then went to 2 and decided I'd probably like New Vegas which is where I went terribly wrong, I really can't place why I didn't like it at all, maybe just because of the setting or something. I think what really got to me was how well Fallout 3 started with you growing up in the vault and then being thrown out into the world to survive on your wits while looking for your dad. I enjoyed it and when I played 2 and it just said your going on a quest I went with it because it was an older game and maybe they just couldn't make anything else besides the game still had tons of wit and fun things so I didn't mind.

But then New Vegas it was new and it just says your shot in the head go find the guy who did it. That started on a bad note for me and then I just wasn't invested enough to get beyond the starting town where I took the starting pistol I got and murdered everyone, I think I stopped because I felt if I could destroy an entire town from level 1 then there was no point in doing anything else I didn't feel like I had to strive for anything.

Just my opinion I've seen people who can't play any of the fallouts wish they had the patience so hey if someone prefers New Vegas that's fine, their totally wrong but thats fine.

 

[Gethsemani_v1legacy]

It can be easy to get caught up in Factionalism, so I will say that Fo3 is probably the best written game Bethesda has ever made. The main plot was still nonsense, but the sidequests were so much more involved and dynamic than the things you get in Skyrim. And the physical geography was really good (although if you remove the orange filter, I think there's a lot to really enjoy in F:NV's, especially if you mix up walking around in the day/night. The strip at night is particularly great). But whilst the physically geography of Fo3 was good, it stopped making sense if you began to think about it and it didn't create a sense of human geography and world-building to the extent that F:NV did.

To be fair these are things that most games don't do and it's not necessary at all to making an amazing game. It's just that F:NV is the rare unicorn where you can look past the surface and find things don't fall apart.

I think the thing is that Fallout 3 is a great "make your own adventure" kind of game. No matter where you look you'll find something interesting to do, see or explore and the layout of the entire map really encourages the player to rush off on a whim to do whatever they want.

Meanwhile New Vegas is perhaps the most internally consistent game world to date. Everything in New Vegas makes a certain sense when seen through in-game logic and history, which makes it an amazingly deep game to explore but also means that the layout of the map is less appealing to just "run off" in. It sacrifices the joy of always finding something new and unique for the satisfaction of realizing that everything on the map is connected in some way, even if the individual locations might be boring or uninteresting.

Whatever you prefer Fallout 3 or New Vegas way of going about world building most likely comes down to whatever you want the game to be a player driven sandbox or a narrative heavy sandbox.

 

[scorptatious]

FO1's plot felt more coherent and had a sense of urgency to it. FO2 felt secondary, heck, even tertiary to the game, like something to do when you've finished all the sidequests. The Master made a far more compelling and interesting villain than the Enclave, as did the Super Mutants. Don't get me wrong, I like both games, but when it comes to the main plot FO1>FO2.

I do agree somewhat. While there is a lot more stuff to do in 2, I felt that 1 had a much more cohesive plot overall.

As to the plot of FO vs FO2 vs FO3, fallout's plot is internally logical, well thought out with clear motivations and a clear sense of urgency. Almost none of these exist in conventional video games. The plot of fallout assumes you will act in a rational way and plays out those consequences, assuming that you as a player will think about those consequences when you make the decision. This is in stark contrast to most games which tell you the consequence before you make the decision (think good/bad moral systems).

Spoiler

The water ticking clock is a perfect example of this. Not only is this a ticking clock that drives the urgency of the plot but the game gives you the option of sending water supplies to the vault to help extend the clock. Now this has a very serious consequence. If you send water to your vault that is hidden in the mountains, it isn't going to stay hidden so long and there is an army of super mutants that happen to be searching the wasteland for sealed vaults containing non-irradiated humans for the FEV. Hence, the super mutants will find your vault much faster if you send water to them. Completely makes sense but the game does not give an explicit warning, you have to actually think about the choice you make.

Technically...

Spoiler

The person you talk with about the water does warn you that by hiring them to bring water to Vault 13, that it will be easier for people looking for your vault to find it. It doesn't necessarily say an army of super mutants, sure, but it did have me reconsider my actions.

Then again, I've played the version of the game that took out the Super Mutant time limit. So perhaps they added that extra bit of dialogue in a later version of the game?

Other than that, I agree with you.

 

[BrotherRool]

I think the thing is that Fallout 3 is a great "make your own adventure" kind of game. No matter where you look you'll find something interesting to do, see or explore and the layout of the entire map really encourages the player to rush off on a whim to do whatever they want.

Meanwhile New Vegas is perhaps the most internally consistent game world to date. Everything in New Vegas makes a certain sense when seen through in-game logic and history, which makes it an amazingly deep game to explore but also means that the layout of the map is less appealing to just "run off" in. It sacrifices the joy of always finding something new and unique for the satisfaction of realizing that everything on the map is connected in some way, even if the individual locations might be boring or uninteresting.

Whatever you prefer Fallout 3 or New Vegas way of going about world building most likely comes down to whatever you want the game to be a player driven sandbox or a narrative heavy sandbox.

That's a pretty good way to put it I think

 

[SajuukKhar]

While, as should come to no surprise to anyone, I prefer Fallout 3 because of the richness of the world, I can say I do also like the greater attempt to be more like a traditional RPG NV was.

Ideally, the best game would be a world made by Beth, with Beth also coming up with the larger "big picture" frame of the story, with Obsidian filling in the story details they do so well.

The real problem I end up having with Obsidian's games is that, in the big picture, they never feel real, there is too much "NPCs who do nothing but stand in one place and spout overly long exposition about X place/person that feels more like an encyclopedia rather then something someone would actually say", and its compounded with a rather dull and dead world, whose locations never feel more then re-used RPg cliches played entierly stright.

I never feel like Obsidian takes risks and tries anything new and just instead falls back on the same stuff RPgs have been doing since the early 90's.

On the other hand, Beth's ability to take traditional fantasy/sci-fi cliches, and twist them in utterly crazy ways, such as they do in TES, always lave me stunned when I finally see how everything fits together, but its ultimately let down by the fact there's just nowhere enough detail from the quests/NPc dialog to flesh out it as much as it should.

Both companies are flawed in the exact opposite way, them coming together as one would probably create the single best RPG company in existence though.

 

[Raikas]

I enjoyed Fallout 3 as a gameplay experience (and in no small part because I've spent a fair bit of time in the real DC metro area and liked seeing alternate versions of real places) - and to a certain extent, I think I enjoyed it as much (if not more) than the rest of the series, but I still don't think it's the best game overall.

That's mostly because it was the first game that gave us the world, and New Vegas that did the best job of presenting the evolution of that society (and that finally gave us some real characters), so those two will always outrank it in my mind. But it's also because the world-building that we did get in 3 didn't make sense with the timeline - if the game had been set earlier in the post-nuclear world, it would have made more sense, but as it stands it's not a slice of the universe that makes sense when you think about it.

 

[VileTerror]

Between New Vegas and 3? New Vegas blows 3 out of the water, if only for the reason that I had nothing but contempt for the whole "dearest daddy is the most important man in my little world" story arc you were shoe-horned in to in Fallout 3.
I recall when Extra Credits used to be on the Escapist, and they attempted to suggest that New Vegas lacked the player-character definition which existed in 3, and that was somehow a failing in New Vegas. All I could think during that video was "They must never have played the original Fallout games." Tabula Rasa characters are much more compelling in a sandbox-world environment. _I_ want to define _my_ characters' motivations. I didn't leave Vault 101 to "find daddy." I left because A) They wanted to kill me, B) There was a great big, wonderful wasteland to explore! When I accidentally stumbled upon Liam in the virtual reality Vault, I wanted to just leave him there to rot and continue on my merry way. But no. All the dialogue options when you find the daft bastard are variations of "I missed you, papa."
And, to a lesser extent, when you "first" meet the Brotherhood of Steel on your way to Galaxy News Radio (or, in my case, when I was already level 30 and just happened to stumble across them while enjoying myself exploring), I would have much rather a dialogue option of "HA! You kids just sit tight for two minutes, and watch how a professional deals with Super Mutants." Not exactly the same as my complaint about the daddy-issues forced upon your character, but it still would have been nice to just shut down that high-and-mighty [lady] by demonstrating to her that brute force is not the way to wipe out FEV-muties. Honestly, they would have suffered zero casualties if they just let me move in ahead of them.

New Vegas, on the other hand, handles the matter of self-control and roleplaying much more appropriately. New Vegas doesn't force you to have specific feelings for Benny; they let YOU decide how you feel about the man who put a bullet in your head. That's the right design choice to make for a game in the Fallout series. You can try to haggle with Benny. You can try to kill him. You can torture him. You can _ignore_ him. THAT is what makes for a great Fallout game! Freedom of choice. Having so many different end-games available in New Vegas, even if they all used the same general setting, means I'm the master of my own fate. As it should be. Other factions may have attempted to use me to their advantage, but ultimately I decide who wins; not a pre-scripted tour of seaside DC following a robot I would have much rather attacked and destroyed, rather than sit around and watch it give hugs to lightning rods (fuggin' Jingoistic monstrosity . . . ).
The only major complaint I had in New Vegas was they wrote themselves in to a corner and HAD to make the game unplayable after Hoover Dam. The number of variables and dialogue trees to program in after that point would be equivalent to two or three more entire games. That was frustrating, because I really wanted to SEE the aftermath, not just be told about it in a slide-show. But at least I felt like I had some true agency up until before that point of no return.

Regardless, I still consider Fallout 3 far superior to most other games released in the past 10 years. It's not perfect (nor is New Vegas), but it felt like a step in the right direction amidst a continuing trend leading away from good games and respectful design decisions.

Out of all five (because we do not talk about . . . /that/ "Fallout" game), I still have a special place in my heart for Tactics simply because it was the game which really got me in to the Fallout universe (despite the canonical issues, which wouldn't actually be issues with a halfway decent writer to patch things up . . . ). Between 1 and 2, despite the clock ticking down to doomsday, I felt the original Fallout was actually more accessible and playable, and ergo enjoyable. After all, I didn't NEED to build a combat-capable character in Fallout 1 to beat the bloody tutorial temple like I did in 2 . . .

However, I can't really choose a clear winner between the isometric games and the 3D games. They're too different and too distant in their respective eras.

I hope Fallout 4 finally bridges the gap between Tactics and the other canons. I want someone to clue in and realize the fuzzy Deathclaws don't have to be an evolutionary offshoot of the reptilian Deathclaws (which makes NO SENSE), and instead are just simply /called/ Deathclaws because it's not exactly a super unique name. Or that a splinter faction of the Brotherhood of Steel essentially abandoned its ?sacred? ideals and started to unite humanity with its evolutionarily-redirected cousins (imagine the potential there for twisting that in to something sinister and compelling, as a ?Universal Brotherhood? faction, a la Shadowrun lore). That the robots and the Vault 0 storyline needn't be ignored entirely, but instead suggest that Vault 0 was a P.R. manoeuvre by VaultTec to lull their primary financial backers in to believing they would have a safe place to wait out the apocalypse. Yes, there were some definite visual design and aesthetic problems with Tactics when compared to the Retro-Ditry stylization that made Fallout special, but of all the elements of Tactics to gloss over and pretend didn't exist . . . why not that one?

 

[Tuesday Night Fever]

I voted Fallout 2 since it's my favorite in the series...

But between Fallout 3 and Fallout: New Vegas, I'm definitely more a fan of F:NV... but it's a slim margin. I thought the story in F3 was pretty dumb, but it had some decent characters and some really cool and atmospheric locations. I thought the story in F:NV was pretty forgettable, and its characters were mostly pretty bland, but it had some fun locations and a ton of much-needed gameplay improvements. In the end, I liked both games, but it's F:NV that I've made repeat playthroughs of.

That said, if I had to rank the series, I'd probably go...

Fallout 2 > Fallout: Tactics > Fallout > Fallout: New Vegas = Fallout 3 >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel

 

[Kyrian007]

I'm not really sure it's that important that "the world needs to know which is best." They were both great games... for different reasons. I give the slight edge to 3, but it's just a personal grudge (NV nerfed my hugely OP FO3 character build making him worthless.) But its not like they didn't replace it with builds that were just as fun to play. Fallout NV did away with crafted weapons, but had more weapons available. NV had the bigger world, but it was far less populated with anything interesting. FO 3's manual shooting worked, NV married you to VATS if you wanted to hit anything. NV had better DLC's, FO 3's had fun gamebreaking stuff it gave you.

Just if anything a slight edge to 3 for me, but both are miles ahead of the average game. 1 and 2 are great as well.

 

[putowtin]

Vegas everytime baby!

Just so much more fun, interesting characters, morally grey choices and vegas!

Ring a ding!