Your opinion on Fallout: New Vegas VS. Fallout 3

[carpathic]

I preferred FO3 because I didn't have to wipe out the brotherhood of steel in nearly every single possible resolution.

However, NV made playing a melee/unarmed character SERIOUS fun. In FO3 those were two nearly useless skills once you discovered either guns or energy weapons.

 

[R4V3NSFAN1976]

I prefer the mechanics and gameplay of NV, I found the storyline (both the main quest, and sidequests) and environment in FO3 to be much better.

The big thing, The map, is much better in FO3. I mean, in NV it's pretty much a case of:
"You're in this town, follow the road south. Don't go North, you'll get dead-ed by all the nastiest creatures we could come up with" (someone said Cazadors, but there's also Deathclaws there!)
Whereas in FO3, it's more a case of:
You've found this town, and got some clues that suggest you should head to this place in South-East. But there's so many different ways to get there! The first time I played through I found myself fighting supermutants and raiders in the ruined streets, the next time I ended up sneaking past ghouls in the sewers.

sigh.

Again, Its a desert. There are few towns, and straying off the highways is just a way to die pretty damn quick. The east coast doesn't have that problem because it has vegetation. I swear when it comes to geography this thread fails.

You guys are really arguing about two different things. You're talking about geographical accuracy, he's talking about interesting locations. The fact that it's set in a desert may give an excuse for why there are very few settlements, but it makes the game emptier.

Its emptier because its set in a desert. The few locations are as interesting as one could make them considering what little they have to work with.

Then why did they chose to put it in such a local?

1. Time constraint. The West coast is perfect on a rushed time frame.

2. Van Buren. They wanted to gradually expand east to fill in gaps in the lore. Nevada is the next step toward the east, but Utah, etc were too big and too much for a modern game opposed to Van Buren. The lore set by Van buren like the NCR-Legion war was too interesting to leave alone.

Ok Fine. I completely understand that. But that doesn't mean it makes for a fun game.

 

[jboking]

I feel alone when I say that Fallout 3 was much better compared to new vegas. From the discussions I've seen, Almost everyone thinks that new vegas is better. I completely disagree. Seriously, Play new vegas for a few days, then play fallout 3. Fallout 3's graphics are better than new vegas'!

Not really. They seem to be pretty much the same to me.

Plus when you start out in new vegas, Its secretly linear. Because if you go anyway but south toward Primm, you get either eaten by cazadors or mauled my deathclaws. I'll admit it opens up once you finally start heading north, but still.

The beginning of Fallout 3 was perfectly linear and took for freaking ever. I almost didn't want to start a new F3 file just because I had to go through that again. Also, I know from experience that you can leave Goodsprings, never go to Prim, and survive just fine. I really don't know what your problem was there.

Plus the story of revenge just doesn't resonate with me as much as finding my father does.

The story only started out as revenge, it became deciding the fate of New Vegas. That didn't happen until the very end of F3, and you really didn't decide shit. The two stories basically read like this: A rough and tumble courier of the wastes seeks revenge on the men who tried to kill him, and discovers a secret plot to control all of New Vegas OR A young boy/girl fresh out of a vault searches for his/her father because they can't just live in the wastes like a normal person. later finds his dad and finishes his goal.

Oh, and if you say that new vegas is better because of the new weapons and mods, well listen to this. Almost EVERY new addition to game play(i.e. new weapons, weapon mods, special ammo etc.) all of that had already been done by the modders of fallout 3. Everything that makes New vegas unique from fallout 3 was already done before obsidian began development on next game. There were new weapon mods, weapon mod... mods,special ammo mods and even desert mods for fallout 3.

A couple things here: Survival skill was never added to F3 through modding, neither was the companion wheel, mods weren't nearly to the extent they are in New Vegas, The faction system of NV wasn't present in F3 mods, the new speech system wasn't modded prior and F3 never had a mod to make its story good and its dialog realistic.

Also, even if some of the things they added had been modded into F3 previously, how can that be viewed as a bad thing? It means they listen to their community and the things they want. That is the hallmark of a good developer.

But I digress...

So which do you think is better and why?

New Vegas because of the new features, better plot, better interaction, BETTER COMPANIONS, better skills, closer to the Fallout lore (F3: Brotherhood helping people instead of just stealing their tech- What??), and many other reasons. In my opinion, New Vegas is what F3 should have been.

 

[9Darksoul6]

Oblivion > Fallout 3 > Fallout New Vegas
Three versions of the same game, each is worse then the previous.
(I was starting to believe they would continue milking that shit for Skyrim. Good thing they didn't...)
New Vegas tries to be funnier, more interesting, more versatile... and, simply put, just "better" then Fallout 3; but, it isn't (specialy the 'funnier' part: I don't know where people actually see its famous black humor).
My true problem with the game isn't even the unpatchable 'bugginess', it's the tremendous lack of content and effort put into the game (I mean, it takes more than Elvis references and Felicia day to get away with such an overall poor product); I'm not saying it's pure crap, but comming from the Fallout series (or even just Fallout 3), it's sloppy and mediocre at best.

 

[INeedAName]

I liked both, but I enjoyed NV significantly more. I never really had any trouble with bugs either. FO3's dlc Point Lookout on the other hand - Oh Jesus! IT CRASHED ALL THE TIME!

I escpecially liked the reputation mechanic in NV, allowed for a lot more roleplay.

 

[R4V3NSFAN1976]

I preferred FO3 because I didn't have to wipe out the brotherhood of steel in nearly every single possible resolution.

However, NV made playing a melee/unarmed character SERIOUS fun. In FO3 those were two nearly useless skills once you discovered either guns or energy weapons.

Dude I was able to resolve The BoS issues just fine. I don't know what your problem was.

 

[sarge1942]

you know what, i don't even see how we have an arguement, i understand you may think your opinion is the best there is, but i stated my OPINION<---(this word means it is what i THINK or BELIEVE, not what i know is a scientific fact) was that i liked fallout 3 better because it didn't seem as empty TO ME<---(not seemed empty to other people, seemed empty to me)and plasma rifles some areas of the united states being stuck in the 50s and supermutants seem a bit more far-fetched to me than maybe, i don't know, something more interesting than a wolf cave(interesting to me, if you live to see wolf caves then i won't say you are wrong) every 5 miles. the question was which one did you think was better, if i built a game where you are a spaceman on the moon and you just kept wandering around, and there is nothing up there at all, and compared it to say pac-man, you couldn't say the moon walking game was better because it was as good as it could be considering you were on the moon, if the moon is too hard to work with then try not setting it on the moon(and if you think pacman is worse then the described moonwalking game, i won't say you are wrong because that is your opinion). this is where i stop responding because there is no point arguing about opinion, opinions are opinions, no opinion can ever be wrong i don't know why i even continue to reply to this.

the end

 

[VaderMan92]

New Vegas was better. The plot was better, there was more freedom, for us old school people who liked the originals it was mostly the same just with a FPS viewpoint. More interesting locations (i.e. less empty buildings in the middle of nowhere with nothing inside). And possibly the most important part YOU COULD ACTUALLY PLAY THE GAME LIKE AN FPS. VATS in fallout 3 was way to cheap but the guns were all to inaccurate to play any other way unless you wanted to go all sniper on everyone. also when playing fallout 3 it feels like Bethesda took the established fallout cannon and took a $h!t all over it. Whereas in new vegas it feels like they embraced it and improved upon it. Also fallout 3 had little lamp light...rather than going off on an epic rant as to why nothing about little lamplight made any sense at all I will just say that fallout new vegas makes its locations and society actually seem plausible (meaning the individual cities have enough people to reproduce). Also anyone remember the ending of fallout 3 before broken steel? nuff said.

TLDR: New Vegas is better, Fallout 3 made no sense.

 

[Xealeon]

I have to agree that Fallout 3 was better. I had much more fun exploring the Capitol Wasteland than the Mojave Desert and although I did think the New Vegas story was better I never really thought any of the Fallout games revolved around their main story so I never really pay attention to that.

 

[boyvirgo666]

honestly i dont think your alone here. Fallout 3 was amazing, but the games both have two completely different feels. New vegas was more open and yes was less linear than Fallout 3 even with the trails of cazador doom, but Fallout 3 had more direction which made it feel more immersive. yes im saying that linear is better.
not everything needs to be a sandbox and i liked both games on different values. Fallout 3 made me feel like the lone wanderer of the washington wastes.
new vegas on the other hand really just made me feel like...the guy of the mojave wastes, like there was no weight to me at first until i started getting popular.
both arent bad but i like feeling important..but its worth mentioning that fallout 3 had three dog...and really -that- is what hurt new vegas for me. Mr, new vegas sounds nice but he didnt make you feel like you mattered. Three dog did. he spoke about you and his music was damn good. he made the world feel more real by talking about "i dont know what a disk is but im gonna keep on spinnin em" and "you remember James from a while back?" things like that made the game feel better.

oh and yes F2 was amazing but its not better than fallou3 or new vegas. completely different games. but yes still...f2 was amazing.

 

[Kahunaburger]

New Vegas = better writing, better world-building, more bugs. Bethesda makes good software, but Obsidian makes good worlds.

 

[Starke]

I feel alone when I say that Fallout 3 was much better compared to new vegas. From the discussions I've seen, Almost everyone thinks that new vegas is better. I completely disagree. Seriously, Play new vegas for a few days, then play fallout 3. Fallout 3's graphics are better than new vegas'! Plus when you start out in new vegas, Its secretly linear. Because if you go anyway but south toward Primm, you get either eaten by cazadors or mauled my deathclaws. I'll admit it opens up once you finally start heading north, but still. Plus the story of revenge just doesn't resonate with me as much as finding my father does. Oh, and if you say that new vegas is better because of the new weapons and mods, well listen to this. Almost EVERY new addition to game play(i.e. new weapons, weapon mods, special ammo etc.) all of that had already been done by the modders of fallout 3. Everything that makes New vegas unique from fallout 3 was already done before obsidian began development on next game. There were new weapon mods, weapon mod... mods,special ammo mods and even desert mods for fallout 3.

But I digress...

So which do you think is better and why?

Well... for one, New Vegas actually opened up the possibility of getting in over your head. Bethesda's been pretty bad about making a kind of "baby's first RPG" for the last couple years, where no matter what you do, or how badly you screw up, you won't end up facing enemies intended for a much tougher player. New Vegas gleefully chucks this out the window and beats you to death with deathclaws, if you're not careful. It may not be as immediately fun, but it lends the game a degree of veracity that Bethesda's release missed somehow.

For another, if everything done in New Vegas was done by modders before it, than we need to strip Oblivion of its crown, and need to strip Fallout 3 of its because there's nothing in it that wasn't done (either) in previous entries in the series (or in other games), and done better.

You are right, it does start with a chase through the wasteland after someone, and if that plot hook doesn't grab you than you're left asking why am I on rails for the first 10 hours of the game? But it does open back up once you're tough enough to be able to kinda handle the desert.

NV is better than F3 in like every way, especially when it comes to linearity.

Most importantly the characters are actually interesting and you feel like you're in an apocalyptic world, which F3 failed at spectacularly.

Man, even with all the bugs I still think NV is miles better. I mean it's not even close for me. NV is still a long shot from F1 and especially my beloved F2, but atleast it feels like a Fallout game.

Honestly, especially on this site, New Vegas' bugs have been pretty overstated. It was slightly buggier than it's predecessor in quest completion. But there's been more attention to patching it, as opposed to the Bethesda trade mark, "we'll release one patch, ever" approach that F3 got. The engine is crap, but the engine was crap eight years ago[footnote]God, has it really been eight years?[/footnote] when Morrowind hit, so that's not new, and a lot of the bugginess stemmed off of that engine.

 

[Zorpheus]

Again, Its a desert. There are few towns, and straying off the highways is just a way to die pretty damn quick. The east coast doesn't have that problem because it has vegetation. I swear when it comes to geography this thread fails.

You understand that "It's supposed to be like that" doesn't mean it entirely excuses it and makes it good, right? If people are saying they like FO3 because it had more interesting, tighter locations, then that's a point in its favor regardless of NV's trueness to geographic accuracy. I mean, I could make a game based in the radioactive wasteland of Oklahoma, have it be virtually nothing but scorched plains and a few towns here and there, and claim it's regionally accurate. Does that mean it's going to be an exciting game to play? Not really.

Personally, I just didn't find the locations themselves in NV all that interesting. Fallout 3 was a great game to explore, because almost every location had something interesting to paw through, an interesting story to tell, and the events that came before its oft-violent end. Many of the locations in New Vegas by contrast seem squandered, like they could have made for some great locales, as interesting as FO3's, but they often ended up rather disappointing. I liked Fallout 3 more for the exploration factor and the atmosphere, even if the weapons and challenge level weren't at New Vegas's level.

 

[Quazimofo]

I feel alone when I say that Fallout 3 was much better compared to new vegas. From the discussions I've seen, Almost everyone thinks that new vegas is better. I completely disagree. Seriously, Play new vegas for a few days, then play fallout 3. Fallout 3's graphics are better than new vegas'! Plus when you start out in new vegas, Its secretly linear. Because if you go anyway but south toward Primm, you get either eaten by cazadors or mauled my deathclaws. I'll admit it opens up once you finally start heading north, but still. Plus the story of revenge just doesn't resonate with me as much as finding my father does. Oh, and if you say that new vegas is better because of the new weapons and mods, well listen to this. Almost EVERY new addition to game play(i.e. new weapons, weapon mods, special ammo etc.) all of that had already been done by the modders of fallout 3. Everything that makes New vegas unique from fallout 3 was already done before obsidian began development on next game. There were new weapon mods, weapon mod... mods,special ammo mods and even desert mods for fallout 3.

But I digress...

So which do you think is better and why?

i personally think new vegas is better. however, i have my reasons. for one thing, at the time of purchase, my pc was hardly capable of running these games reasonably, so mods were no option to me, and so i enjoy the weapon mods, deeper crafting system, better partitioning of stimpacks etc. that made gameplay deeper, and more difficult, but not murderously so. i did enjoy the beginning of fallout 3 more, though it lasted about as long as it took to get to nipton. well it did take a lot longer to get to nipton, but the point is both are linear for a time.
i did also like the find your dad plot over the revenge plot. and i like the larger and deeper world for fallout new vegas. so yes, both were good, new vegas improved on that in all but plot really. and that is more of a personal opinion. i also like the aesthetic of fallout 3 more, only because there is less desert, but when a game is set in the mojave, desert is bound to be abundant. it just gets a bit old when traveling between places. i liked the nice, compact, ruined dc cityscape over the mojave, though both are good. and i like the mojave at night for the illuminated vegas in the background, and a true feeling of being in the wilderness.

so short version, both were good, new vegas was better, but fallout 3 had a "somewhat" better set imho and a better plot, if it was shorter.

 

[sarge1942]

you are amazing

also i should change that to no one can ever be wrong, so long as you don't take those opinions too far and do something insane, or something along those lines

and thank you very much for that again, that just made my day

 

[Quazimofo]

opinions are opinions, no opinion can ever be wrong

ok that made me lol just a little bit, just because it was such a powerful response in the form of pictures, but anyway, it is our opinion that theirs are wrong. their opinions are more harmful to others, and really don't help society progress much, but they are not "wrong". please, let this die here, send me a PM if you want to go further, but this really shouldn't be the place to get into race politics.

 

[sumanoskae]

I feel that Fallout 3 is more thought provoking, whilst New Vegas is more fun.

Things in Fallout 3 seem much less black and white then they are in New Vegas(So far, I haven't finished with New Vegas yet), what with the business surrounding the ghouls, or the quest with The Family. New Vegas is better designed in terms of gameplay, but it doesn't seem to take itself as seriously, though I think the factions and companions give a great sense of effecting the world around you.

At it's best, New Vegas had me storming the Legion camp with my friend without the need of a quest of any sort, yet it still felt just as effective as a standard plot point from any other game. The best part was how well the game changed and reacted to my actions.

But in Fallout 3, there was this little conversation I had with the Wasteland Survival Guide chick, I questioned her motives and she said something about the necessity of hope or some other assorted optimism. I replied by saying that you can't change human nature, that got me thinking, is all of this due to human nature?, are we doomed to lock ourselves within viscous cycles of chaos and control for all eternity?. In the end, war never changes. In Fallout: New Vegas, my character is pretty much a monster, he has no regard for the happiness or well being of anyone, all he wants is power, and he uses and manipulates the people around him who call him their friend. He doesn't care, because I don't care, I just want that shiny new gun and a host friendly test subject, because that's all they are. I wasn't that different in Fallout 3, but when It came time to destroy Meagaton, I just couldn't bring myself to snuff out that last little glimmer of hope.

It's the little things about Fallout 3, those tiny unanswered questions that scratch at the back of my mind. Fallout 3 had me caring a lot more about my character, not just because he had a more established backstory, but it gives me much more freedom to express myself as that character because it let's me say those little things that may seem insignificant, but their very presence adds an entirely new lair of depth to the world.

New Vegas entertained me, but Fallout 3 effected the way I look at the very nature of life. To this day, when people ask me "What games do you consider works of high art" I say "Fallout 3".

 

[Vault boy Eddie]

I'm freaking dying to play NV, but i'm waiting till it's released with all the DLC in a disc with the game, hopefully by that time all the bugs I've been hearing about will be fixed.

 

[Quazimofo]

New Vegas, because the plot was far better, the characters were far far better, and the voice acting was far far far better.

Plus it was all round more colourful and interesting.

ah yes, there were more than 3 voices in new vegas. forgot about that part. (i guess you only notice when people DO have the same voice) another improvement.

 

[Entamrik]

As much as I enjoyed New Vegas, there was little that couldn't be added to FO3 with mods. It's kind of harsh to call it an expansion pack considering how much is added and there's plenty changed for the better.
I liked most of the companions, and the many arcing choices give a lot of replay (But confused the shit out of me the first time) but most of the additions are worthless chores, like the cooking, the ammo changer which I never used once, and the faction armor that everybody saw trough besides enemy factions.
Plus the ending was so fucking bittersweet for me, I almost want the FO3's six possible endings back (Almost). "Everyone you didn't care about lived happy, but all others were raped and killed by the faction you helped, the end"
The Super Mutants are so ingraned into my memory, I actually had a dream I was fighting them off with vats and a hunting rifle in real life. I fought like 10 of them in NV, and they didn't even look like the FO2 ones, more like some Orc things. It's nitpicking, but that was my main problem with NV; I didn't remember much of it. Not enough bits like the trenches by the D.C memorial, or that one ghoul with a party hat that pops out of nowhere.
The thing I remember most from NV, weirdly, is changing Mr.House's picture to Dr.House.