Poll: Fallout3 vs. Fallout:New Vegas

[Thoff09]

I liked fallout 3 for the atmosphere of post-apocoliptic D.C., but when it comes to gameplay fallout new vegas is far better. The true iron sights and better leveling was great but I simply couldn't stand to play it again after i lost my saves for 2 seperate play throughs and over 10 hours of gameplay.

Over all both games have problems but were fun in there own ways, however being forced to choose I will have to go with new vegas. Would be great if they would just get rid of the damned bugs, and I don't just mean the Cazadors.

 

[Bertylicious]

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

NV was leaps and bounds better than FO 3.

Concur, though I do find it both fascinating and compelling that there are people who preffered FO3 to NV.

 

[Gottesstrafe]

Which makes sense, since it has been over 200 years since the end of the war and people generally don't sit on their asses and do nothing for such a long time (especially when survival is at stake). They actually build communities, farm the land and produce what they want and need.

DC in Fallout 3 appears to still be undergoing primary ecological succession. The only plant life around appears to be nothing but grass, lichen, and some glowing mushrooms. I doubt soil so heavily irradiated and arid to even support bushes or small herbs would be able to support any kind of farming operation, no matter how small. This is why Three Dog would act so incredulous when discussing the trees and greenery found at Oasis on the radio, even after supposedly being there himself.

Yes. It has been 200 years since the war. That the people in Fallout 3 haven't manged to get ANYWHERE in all that time just makes them look retarded.

Keep in mind, 200 years since the war does not mean that DC and its outlying areas were inhabited for 200 years. The vaults (the only source of people outside of ghouls and the Enclave) were set to open at different times. Although I can't say when they opened around the DC area, there seem to be very few communities around and even those are fairly small (outside of the raider population, the Brotherhood and the Outcasts, and Black Talon of course). Given how small and ill equipped they are, I doubt they'd have the resources or numbers necessary to allocate for expansion. On top of that, I'm willing to bet that despite the survival of quite a bit of its infrastructure, the DC area suffered from much worse destruction and fallout than the west coast did too. Its vicinity to the main government buildings and industrial centers alone would've made it a higher priority target than California or Nevada.

Of all the communities Rivet City seems to be the most well off, but the majority of their resources are centered on water purification tech (not having the luxury of a vault provided water purifier). In the west coast they had the advantage of more communities to tie their resources, heavily supplemented by vault tech that could generate power and clean water. In Fallout 3, the only vault that hasn't been host to a self-eradicating social experiment that is still in working condition appears to be Vault 101, and they're all isolationist assholes. It's what made the Brotherhood such a prominent part of the game despite being relative newcomers to the area: they had the resources and numbers necessary to civilize the post-apocalyptic urban wilderness and even seemed to be in favor of doing that.

Which brings up another question. Who backs the currency in Falllout 3?
In Fallout 1 it was backed by the Water Merchants, so people could use caps to trade, safe in the knowledge that they were actually worth something.
Fallout 2 had minted coins, probably made by the NCR.
New Vegas has NCR dollars, Legion denarii and House backing the caps.
Fallout 3 has nothing.

I'd guess Canterbury Commons, which appears to be the main trading outpost in the area and the only link to the rest of the country besides the Brotherhood and the Slavers.

Who also have no means to support themselves, except that little bit of what is in the building, which couldn't last a week for all of them. So there should be nothing to loot anymore and there shouldn't be monsters at all. Since anyone squatting in there would have to move on rather quickly.
It should be empty after 200 years

Why would super mutants need medicine and clean water? They're practically immune to radiation, meaning that they could probably just drink straight from ocean and suffer no ill consequences. Their advanced healing factor and immunity to diseases means that they also wouldn't have a need for medical supplies, short of actually losing a limb they could probably literally sleep off any injury. Ghouls, also immune to radiation, wouldn't have to worry about water too. They might need medical supplies like regular humans, but the majority of the ones you encounter have gone feral and wouldn't have the mental facilities necessary to administer or even think of first aid. The only perishable resource super mutants, feral ghouls, and humans would probably even share would be food, and even then super mutants and ghouls have the advantage of being able to supplement that with human meat without having to moralize over it or worry about cannibalism contracted illnesses.

 

[Flames66]

That is a very difficult choice. Fallout 3 has a better world is my opinion (larger, less linear and more interesting to explore), but Fallout NV has cowboys and Vegas and characters and hats.

 

[karcentric]

FO:NV was good, but it felt like it had too much, I could never really narrow down a few select weapon to use, in FO3 I could go out, take 4 weapons and return to a twon several hours later loaded down with loot.

So... FO3 for me.

 

[Daniel_Rosamilia]

I'll keep my argument simple:
I've played through Fallout 3 three times.
I've played through New Vegas six.
I think that sums it up pretty well.

 

[Davey Woo]

I've yet to complete New Vegas. Like you say I just can't immerse myself in it. I also don't like the fact that they make it almost a necessity to be good a a wide range of skills. In Fallout 3 if you weren't much of a lockpicker or a hacker, it was ok because somebody, somewhere had the key for that door and you could blow their head off and take it from them. In New Vegas that never seems to be an option, the only example I can remember is when you find the Brotherhood of Steel and if you're working for Mr. House, he tells you to destroy the bunker, and the only way you can do that is by having 100 in Science or a very good Lockpicking skill.

Also, Cazadores. Fuck Cazadores.

 

[DEAD34345]

Fallout 3 nearly bored me to tears at times. If it existed in a vacuum I might have found it acceptable, but when compared to both New Vegas and the Elder Scrolls series it just doesn't stack up. To me, Fallout 3 was Oblivion with guns, yet it also somehow managed to make its world even more boring than that of Oblivion's. There were two colours in that game: grey and green-tinged grey, and absolutely 0 interesting places to go or things to do in the entire wasteland. It was pretty immersive, but the fact is that I don't want to be immersed in a dull grey homogeneous world with nothing to do.

Oh, and the "guns" barely even counted as such, because it had that Oblivion style problem of everything taking 1000 hits to kill after you levelled up a few times. That sort of thing is annoying but bearable when applied to bows and swords against enemies wearing thick metal and enchanted armour, but I just can't believe that anyone anywhere should be able to survive being repeatedly shot directly in the forehead at point blank range.

New Vegas mitigated all of these problems, and improved all of the basic mechanics of the games at the same time. It was superior in literally every respect as I'm concerned, and since I got it a while after it released I didn't even have to deal with the bugs either.

 

[Wolf In A Bear Suit]

Although I loved both games New Vegas was the better of the two. It didn't take itself very seriously and came out very entertaining. I much prefer theme of New Vegas to that of Fallout 3, the quests were funner there was a wider range of weapons and the people are more interesting. At least Fallout 3 gave you the ability to play on post-game ending.That's just my opinion. I'm sure there's lots of things better about 3

 

[GundamSentinel]

Fallout 3, basically for the reasons mentioned by OP. What's the fun of nuclear apocalyse in a place that was a desert to begin with? And then the region isn't hit as hard as DC either. So a boring place for the apocalypse to happen, and when it does happen it isn't even a proper apocalypse.

Give me the Capitol Wasteland any day.

 

[Palmerama]

I would have to go with New Vegas. Don't get me wrong I loved Fallout 3 when it came out (got the collector's edition) and i've got all the achievements but it didn't feel totally like a Fallout game. There were only a few nods to the previous games. Mainly having Harold & Dogmeat in the game (seriously that dog is like 200 years old now in the FAllout universe). But I had more fun with New Vegas on the whole.
If Bethesda weren't so stingy to Obsidian and gave them a better engine to work with considering the size of the game, then it would have been a no contest.
I wonder how many people on here have played the original Fallout games when choosing Fallout 3. What I loved about New Vegas was that it was the Fallout 3 I was waiting for. AS a massive fan of the original games (Fallout 2 is still my favourite game of all time), I loved all the references to the previous games such as actually meeting the pilot of the crashed vertibird in Klamth. The quiz in the game which is all about the old games. The NCR talking about President Tandi. Not to mentions all the monsters returning; The Geckos (fire ones still as hard to kill as ever), Nightkins, plants and a brilliant cameo from Marcus the super mutant.

I would much prefer it if Obsidian made Fallout 4.

 

[minimacker]

I felt FO3's story was way better.

But FO:NV had better mechanics.


I'm going with FO3, though. It had me emotionally invested, instead of "You shot, get revenge".

 

[JediMB]

Keep in mind, 200 years since the war does not mean that DC and its outlying areas were inhabited for 200 years. The vaults (the only source of people outside of ghouls and the Enclave) were set to open at different times.

Err... There were in fact "regular" survivors of the war. Junktown, for example, was founded by one of the war's many soldiers. The Hub's founder was also likely a topside survivor, since it was founded a mere 20 years after the war and there's no reference to him being from Vault 8. Finally, the various raider groups are likely to be descendants of war survivors.

One should also keep in mind that Vault 13 was intended to stay shut for 200 years to test the effects of "long term isolation". So in all likelihood other vaults were designed to open much earlier than that. Vault 76, which is mentioned in Fallout 3, opened to re-colonize the area after 20 years.

 

[AndrewF022]

Hmm, this is a pretty hard choice. I'd probably have to say Fallout 3.

I thought the gameplay mechanics were better in New Vegas, they took a look at many popular mods for Fallout 3 and incorporated those into New Vegas, I loved that, thats a brilliant way to make the necessary changes to a sequel. I didn't like however, that the world felt a lot more, empty to me, and linear. Fallout New Vegas seemed more interested in making me follow the stories progression than giving me free reign, as evidenced by putting insta-death (in the form of Deathclaws and Cazadors) as barricades to force me to follow the specific road the story did to get to New Vegas. The story was not even that great anyway, why on earth would I want to chase down the dude who shot me in the head? To get shot again?

So yea, Fallout 3 because the world was much more interesting and open for me to explore. It also wasn't bugged to shit when it launched either, New Vegas was near unplayable on day 1 (PC version w/Nvidia card) so it loses points right out of the gate.

 

[Jandau]

Fallout 3 by a landslide for me.

New Vegas just doesn't feel right to me. It's too populated, too urban, too civilized. In Fallout 3 the major settlements looked like safe havens in the middle of a deadly wasteland. Of the two largest towns, one was protected by a massive wall of metal, and the other was an aircraft carrier. In New Vegas, towns are sort of just there, like the Wasteland isn't really a big deal.

In FO3, the centerpiece were the ruins of Washington city. There, the gameplay changed, it was a different environment, a more lethal one. Less room to run and hide, every turn could lead you to a dead end, enemies were bigger and meaner. On the other hand, the centerpiece of NV is the Strip, which is basically a big town with tacky lights.

New Vegas is full of people, of NCR soldiers, military camps, the Strip is surrounded for miles with civilization, suburbs, towns, fields. There is irrigation, a monorail, readily available electricity. It just doesn't feel like a post-apocalyptic wasteland. It feels like a run down town somewhere in Nevada.

And then there are the landmarks. I'm not american, but still FO3 was full of interesting places to visit. NV... not so much. One of the cool things about FO3 was visiting actual real-world places and areas. They made the made-up stuff seem more believable. In NV there's far less of that.

I dislike the fact that NV feels more linear. There is a distinct direction you're supposed to take through the game and the placement of impassable barriers and unbeatable monsters hearded you in the "correct" direction (south, around to Novac, then north to the Strip). As a result, the world feels smaller. In contrast, FO3 doesn't give a fuck where you go after exiting the Vault. Sure, there are a few areas that kick your arse early on, but they are individual areas and can be easily avoided. There's just more freedom.

Finally, there's the western theme. I left this for last since it's extremely subjective, but I just don't care for it. It ruins the theme for me.

New Vegas has more guns and some nice extra mechanics, but it doesn't come close to FO3 when it comes to the game world, atmosphere and such. As a result, I'd rather play FO3 some more.

 

[MiracleOfSound]

I hope the next Fallout has the world designed by Bethesda and the characters written by Obsidian.

 

[mrdude2010]

Fallout: NV and Fallout 3 are the same game, NV is just an expansion pack.

 

[blackrave]

Holy crap, I wasn't expecting so much answers

While I agree that there were plot holes in FO3, I think biggest miss was chosen time period
It would be far better if game would take time between FO and FO2, or even to be prequel to FO
Then such social state of Capitol wasteland would fit the time, 200y after great war it made no sense
I really hope FO4 will take period directly after war (25-30y after)
Maybe even in Canada

I hope the next Fallout has the world designed by Bethesda and the characters written by Obsidian.

Amen to that

 

[mrhappy1489]

Fallout 3 does a better job of creating a great atmosphere, coupled with the fact that it is bethesda's best exercise in storytelling and it is definitely my preferred game. Fallout NV is still a great game, I just prefer number 3.

 

[Headdrivehardscrew]

Played both games, all add-ons, some mods here and there.

I prefer Fallout 3 to NV, even though NV did some things better.

Why? For starters, I hate gambling and I can't stand the face of most of the characters on and off the strip in NV. Then there's the problem I ran into late in the game - I ended up hating all the major factions in the game, so I basically wiped them all off the map, which somehow wasn't something the story was prepared to handle, so it went a bit south from there.

FO3 just entertained me well, even though it was admittedly a letdown from FO1 and FO2. Still, it amused and entertained me, while giving me the option to get really stressed out from time to time. Yes, I hated the limited accessibility of some locations, yes, I hated the underground links, yes, I got lost more than once or twice or a dozen times trying to get from A to B. Yes, I hated the character design. Still, the game worked for me, and I did enjoy the 'diversified' add-ons. The retro chic dream world really amazed me, I liked the virtual LSD trip through the swamps - it was a memorable ride, all in all. NV - not sure. It might be just me, but I really have issues with a game that makes it so easy to hate everyone. The neo-roman fascist sexists needed to die, that was clear pretty soon. But as I have severe issues with commiedom, the NCR looked less and less appealing the more I interacted with proponents and members of the NCR. The strip I hated before I set foot on it, and once I did, the most amusing thing I experienced involved a shrivelled up guy in an oxygen tank and cannibals. I wasn't too amused.