Poll: Fallout3 vs. Fallout:New Vegas

[VespeneGass]

Choosing between FO3 and FO:NV is a choice between post apocalyptic world and post post-apocalyptic world. I guess the fact (can I say that?) that both games excel at their own setting by different means is the reason why this is a difficult choice.

Personally, I prefer NV because the good/evil line is blur and which factions to side with is not a preference of want to be good or evil but depends on the players' own beliefs and philosophy. I think NV did it better than any games in the series.

The difficulty in both games also bothers me. In FO3 on very hard setting, a raider can take 30 bullets from a 10mm SMG and still standing breaks the immersion. While in FO:NV on v.hard you can breeze through the game without much effort and the whole survival aspect of the game is kind of absent for the most part.

To me, Bethesda games (NV included) has always been lazy on difficulty settings, they just slap a different damage multiplier on players and enemies and be done with it.

 

[Nicolairigel]

Yep, one of those though questions Ive been avoiding. I actually can't decided, I love both equally for different reasons. Fallout 3 has some of the best atmosphere, narrative through environment, soundtrack, and overall feel in gaming, but I must admit fallout: new vegas has better writing and plot. I would say fallout 3 if not for the Fallout NV DLCs, which are in my opinion the best dlcs in gaming. The story of the Courier and Uylessus really is probably one of my favorite plot points in any story ever.

Yep, I just can't decide, so i'm going to take the pussy route and just not vote.

 

[War Penguin]

Fallout 3 was superior to New Vegas.

*Sigh*

I have made this argument so many god damn times on this site. I have made essays and essays that would make all of my English professors proud. But they have almost never been worth it, for I make more enemies than I do friends. So please, if you have a problem with my opinion, that's okay. Let's just keep the hate to a minimum. Let's all be civil. Please!

Now before we get started, I BLOODY LOVED NEW VEGAS. Are we clear? Okay, let's get to work.

One of the main reasons why I think Fallout 3 is superior was because of the Wasteland.

Firstly, there was a certain emotional attachment to it with the help of the main story [small](which I'll get to later)[/small]. You literally grew up in a vault, knowing nearly nothing of what life is like outside. You've been cooped up there for so long that you finally get the ability to roam free. New Vegas barely had any attachment to the wasteland. If anything, it felt like you were supposed to know this already, that there was no attachment needed for roaming the land you're gonna aimlessly wander for the entire game.

Secondly, the Wasteland felt more alive, ironically enough, than New Vegas. Mostly because it seemed like the ruins you explored really had a history. I remember wandering around and suddenly picking up a radio transmission. I followed where it came from and it led me to a manhole cover. I decided to go in, and I found a dead irradiated chinese spy inside with a whole bunch of old food and a ham radio. Don't get me wrong, New Vegas had some of these moments, too, like the H&H Tool Factory and the Rep Conn headquarters, but they were few and far between compared to Fallout 3. Hell, there were moments where I found myself just sitting there and indulging in the scenery of two people holding each other in bed as they enjoy their final moments on earth. Also, the plunger room. For that matter, Fallout 3 had plenty of little nooks and crannies to explore and for plenty of "what the fuck" moments. New Vegas had almost none of that, which made exploring much too boring or engaging. The wasteland felt too dull in comparison.

Another thing that made New Vegas fall flat was the side quests. Not the main quest, mind you. I'll get to that in a bit. The side quests in Fallout 3 were much more grandiose and memorable. I remember shitting my pants when I first played Those! Or how about finding the Oasis and choosing to kill the suffering tree, Harold, or letting him live to save the rest of the people living there? Or what about rescuing Reilly's Rangers trapped on the Statesman Hotel? I could go on. I can't say New Vegas was completely lacking in quests like those, like Come Fly With Me or That Lucky Old Sun. But many others felt dull and were pretty much consisted of going to place one, talk to one guy, go to place two, talk to another. New Vegas may have had plenty more side quests than Fallout 3, but Fallout 3's side quests were much meatier than New Vegas's.

On a technical standpoint, New Vegas falls flat again. Most of the voice acting, with the exception of your companions, is just atrocious. Say what you want about most of the cast of Fallout 3 being too hammy, at least they were into it! What made it worse was that the worst acting were reused for the NPCs that you bump into all the damn time! And 99% of the game was copied and pasted from Fallout 3, which also explains why the Wasteland felt dull: I've been here before!

THAT BEING SAID, I think that New Vegas did things much better than Fallout 3.

For one, the companions really kept me going on until the end. I found that Boone was much more interesting than Mr. House or Benny, and Raul the Ghoul forever be up there as one of my favorite characters of all time. "Sure thing, boss. I'll stop using my rather effective gun and instead use... uh... this piece of metal tubing!" xD

Also, I wish to talk about the main story of both games. Both of them start off with a bang, with a search for the one who took care of you or the one who put a bullet in your skull. However, both of them kind of fall apart once you finally found them. Mostly Fallout 3. New Vegas also suffered from this, too, considering how I successfully killed Benny and didn't even think twice to choose a side afterwards. Hell, I got all of the side quests done before I even touched the main story after Benny. That being said, at least New Vegas gave you four completely different choices on how to finish the game, making it much less linear. That also being said, however, it felt like the game favored you to either choose NCR, House, or Yes Man. There were little to no benefits for choosing Caesar, considering how Legion territory is just a quarter of the map. I also felt that the game should have should have shown me a bit more clearly that the Legion weren't just maniacs and that they actually could bring some order to the Wasteland, other than being total dicks and killing everyone.

Also, DLC. Just... Dead Money. Brilliant. No, I don't care for Lonesome Road, or Old World Blues, or Honest Hearts. Dead Money was just too damn awesome to even consider the existence of the rest of the DLC.

That's all I can think of to say about Fallout 3 and New Vegas. There's probably more I wanted to say, but I'm tired now. So all you need to know right now is that I loved Fallout 3 more, but New Vegas still did some things right. I would really like to argue about this, but please keep the hate to a minimum.

 

[ThePenguinKnight]

I personally feel as if I enjoyed Fallout 3 more than Fallout New Vegas simply because my OCD really hinders my experience with New Vegas. I have to pick up everything, play on the hardest difficulty, beat all the factions in one go, beat all the side quests in one go, and gather all the unique weapons which isn't even possible in a single run.

 

[Hargrimm]

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well... yeah, it is a bullshit fantasy land. You can sit there with the computer focused on a character for an entire month (though knowing Fallout 3 it'd crash before then) and they'll never starve to death, just constantly complain about how the irradiated water tastes like shit.

Hell, pretty much everything about the Fallout world is complete bullshit - guns still work even after 200 years, ammunition that has been lying around in the open for centuries still fires perfectly fine, medicines and food found in run-down buildings aren't spoilt... you can even decapitate a man with a single 10mm bullet without any damage to the head. There is very, very, very little realism in the fallout games.

Not in Vegas and the old Fallouts. The Gun runners and Brotherhood of Steel manufacture guns and Ammunition in Fallout 1. In Fallout 2 the NCR and Vault City join the fold. Only Fallout 3 has no explanation for this.
Also, in the old Fallouts, the only stuff that you could loot was from dead enemies or in settlements. Pre war stuff was only available in military bases and bunkers, places that were specifically constructed to survive the War. And the only edible Food was stuff you bought or killed yourself.

In regards to the part you underlined - from the players perspective, these people are struggling to survive, with constant (though unseen) Super Mutant and Bandit attacks.

Who also have no way to support themselves.

The few people who do sell supplies like food and ammo are scroungers, people who go out and find areas (that you never visit) that do still have those supplies that were magically protected from the wear of 200 years.

except for the ones you do, which is all of them. Some even right next to settlements (like the super duper mart).

In New Vegas the citizens don't struggle to survive at all - many have farms or steady supply trains coming in due to the connection to the NCR and access to clean drinking water/Electricity from the Dam.

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.

The supplies thing is also a note on the differences between New Vegas and 3 - New Vegas, as mentioned, has supply chains from the NCR bringing shit in. There are also locals who make their own medicine, the various farms dotted around the landscape and the Dam, all rich with supplies (Food, ammo and water are also really common loot drops from crates, objects and raiders) that render the whole 'struggling to survive' thing a bit meaningless.

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.

Money is also really easy to come by in New Vegas, with a 1000 caps being chump change as opposed to a big deal. Fallout 3, on the other hand, has no farms or 'clean' water supplies, and caps are difficult to come across - even the rarest items sell for 2-400 caps, which makes the expensive medical supplies even more precious as they cost too much if bought in bulk.

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.

Food, Water, Medicine and ammo in 3 also have the disadvantage of being guarded by monsters - there are plenty of supplies in the abandoned hospital, but the sheer number of super mutants might make the trip there too costly.

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

This is also one of the reasons for the whole 'post apocalyptic feel' - it's difficult for the player themselves to survive, as to get the necessary supplies you often have to use some of the supplies you have; I'm fairly good at the game and even I take some bullets in every fire fight.

Really? I never had any problems, even on very hard, and I was swimming in food, ammo and caps in no time.
Also using ammo and meds to get more ammo meds is not unique to Fallout 3 or post apocalypse games in general. Using resources to get more resources is in almost any game (like ammo and meds in most shooters or potions in rpgs). Fallout just has the post apocalypse backdrop.

New Vegas doesn't have the 'spend supplies to get supplies' approach, as everything is in such abundance - water is everywhere, food is rarely guarded and you basically trip over ammo wherever you go, so survival isn't a big deal.

Implying there wasn't stuff lying around everywhere in Fallout 3?
Yes, there weren't any plants you could harvest, but irradiated water was no problem since you didn't even have to drink at all. Vegas at least had hardcoree mode. In fact, the absence of hardcore mode calls the whole 'survival feeling' further into question, since you don't actually have to do anything to survive.
Also, I'm pretty sure sure most of the stuff you could pick up in Vegas was 'owned' by someone, which would make it stealing, or guarded by monsters.

Realistically speaking it is complete and utter bullshit - but when comparing the two in all their unrealistic glory, Fallout 3 is more about 'survival' while Fallout New Vegas is more 'Shoot all the guns!'. I don't know if anyone else here was making that point, but that was the general gist of what I was going for in terms of atmosphere and feeling.

The difference between Vegas and 3 is that Vegas actually explains where all that stuff you find and buy comes from, who produces it, who transports it, how communities survive, what they produce, where the gangs and raiders and mutants come from etc.
Fallout 3 doesn't explain any of that.
So that whole 'survival' feeling just sounds hollow when all of these communities and gangs shouldn't exist at all. How can you feel like there is any struggle for survival when, well, there is no struggle for survival? Everyone just magically has enough resources to live but still complains that they have to struggle to survive.

 

[Gottesstrafe]

I've played through both games two times now, and I still can't decide which is better.

Fallout 3 is a typical Besthesda game; they prioritise making an expansive, atmospheric world for the player to explore, but they don't put as much effort into the NPCs. Conversely, New Vegas has an uglier, more plain world, but fills it with interesting characters.

I will argue that Fallout 3 had the better soundtrack though.

Couldn't agree more. What with the other Fallout games all having the same flat samey desert environment, it was genuinely a nice change of pace in Fallout 3 to focus on a more urban environment centered on exploring the city ruins (the DLC took that a step further with the aliens and the inbred swamp people, etc). Hell, many of the "new" additions to New Vegas like weapons modification, unarmed fighting moves, dynamic kill cam, Hardcore mode, and the NCR Ranger armor were just successful mods from Fallout 3 imported into the new vanilla game. Still, New Vegas has much better writing, characters, and a more complex faction system going for it.

IMO Fallout 3 did atmosphere better (and radio stations, Three Dog > Mr. 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.