Fallout 3 vs. Fallout New Vegas

[Pike]

It's time for the showdown.

[Mirage]

Why do we have to pit them up against each other :confused:

[Pike]

Why do we have to pit them up against each other :confused:

Because there can only be one winner.

[Slothy]

They must be pitted against each other because New Vegas is fun and Fallout 3 is a boring pile of turds. It's time for that thing to be put out of it's misery like a lame horse or a dog that barks too much.

[Psychotic]

Fallout 3 is a fucking incredible game. Until you play New Vegas and it's like when you leave Midgar in FFVII and realise there's so much more that could be done. The on-the-rails, you-will-fight-the-Enclave-same-ending-for-all Fallout 3 compared to the sheer freedom of New Vegas doesn't stand up well. Fallout 3 is still good though but in terms of writing, gameplay balance and quest mechanics it pales.

The only criticisms I've seen of New Vegas that had any weight are that is buggy. I've had less bugs on that than Fallout 3 after putting in a similar amount of time and from what I know, NV has been significantly patched since release.

[NeoCracker]

Out of the long list of reasons I could go into about why New Vegas is superior, I need say only one thing.

Arcade Gannon is fucking hard core.

[escobert]

NV bored me. 3 kept me playing for over 200 hours.

[Shauna]

Fallout 3 is a fucking incredible game. Until you play New Vegas

I had an unfortunate FO3 to FO:NV transition in that I had pretty much completed FO3 as much as I could ever want to - went to every map location, completed all DLC, etc. Then about two days later I got a surprise gift in FO:NV. Unsurprisingly, I was pretty damned burnt out on Fallout. I completed the bare minimum of NV and turned it off. I enjoyed it, but I just could not bring myself to explore the vast Mojave Wasteland, which is like 90% of the fun of Fallout!

I should probably boot it back up again and give it another shot now that it's been... 3-4 years (good god) since I played either.

[Slothy]

Fallout 3 is a fucking incredible game.

I played quite a bit of Fallout 3 after it came out, but it was a dreary game and even without the on rails story was pretty lacking in terms of the number of things you could do and explore. I liked it more than Oblivion because I'm a sucker for the post apocalypse, but even at the time I don't think I would have said it was great. Then I played New Vegas and it has basically rendered 3 unplayable to me.

[AssassinDX]

Fallout 3 for me, what I played of New Vegas I enjoyed but not quite enough to bother finishing it, whereas in Fallout 3 I did damn near everything and adored every minute.

[Jessweeee♪]

I mean I tell my friends they'll probably like New Vegas better, but really I didn't play it much compared to Fallout 3. I think this is because when New Vegas came out I watched like three different people play it start to finish.

[Madame Adequate]

Whilst I do have many issues with 3 it does have a pretty great sense of exploration and stuff, crawling through the DC ruins and metro system is oppressive and tense as heck and Rivet City is a pretty great idea.

Pretty much everything else is either dumb as trout or too buggy to be enjoyable (railroad gun).

New Vegas on the other hand is a goddamn modern masterpiece.

[Psychotic]

If you want to know why Vegas is better than 3, here's a brilliant video.

wvwlt4FqmS0

Now, I appreciate it's long and the first ten minutes or so don't have anything to do with Fallout, and lord knows in the short attention spanned world that is the internet some of you won't want to watch. If this is the case, skip to 9:25. You're missing out on information on how to tell a good story and context to what you will see, but I think you should still get the gist.

Essentially, lol, let's put a town next to a nuclear bomb because it's COOL. And the Enclave want to take over the Wasteland because they're evil and the Brotherhood of Steel will stop them because they're good, I guess? As opposed to creating a realistic and believable environment containing factions and people that act in a suitable and believable manner.

And ultimately, you have the choice. Why the smurf can't I join the Enclave? Why do I give a trout who gets all the water? In New Vegas your choices have consequences. In Fallout 3, you only have two choices with any real ramifications. (Megaton or Tenpenny; Tenpenny or Ghoul Gang)

[Ayen]

I can only really vote for Fallout 3 in this poll because I never played New Vegas, so I'll vote for that because I reckon Bert is feeling lonely.

[Spuuky]

I get that there's no accounting for taste, but it is literally unbelievable to me that someone could play both games and enjoy Fallout 3 more.

[Laddy]

Fallout: New Vegas is a masterpiece of writing, RPG mechanics, exploration, and has the added bonus of caring about the damn Fallout canon.

Fallout 3 feels like watered-down and less interesting Fallout.

[Jessweeee♪]

http://www.tunnelsnakes.com/

[Quindiana Jones]

Psychotic and I consistently agree on all things Fallout, except that I liked Dead Money. He pretty summed up my opinion on the matter.

I absolutely loved Fallout 3 to bits and completed every inch of it. Then I played NV, and 3 just stands out in its inferiority. :D

[Vyk]

That was a pretty good video. As a writer and creator New Vegas probably spoke to me in ways I didn't realize, but now that it's painted in front of me, I can't help but agree. Completely. I never even finished Fallout 3. Then again, I never finished Vegas. But I go back to Vegas all the time. Tons of fun and super interesting. Never had any interest of going back to Fallout 3 after having my fill

[Psychotic]

Psychotic and I consistently agree on all things Fallout, except that I liked Dead Money. He pretty summed up my opinion on the matter.
I liked Dead Money more when I replayed it as my melee/unarmed character and went through the Ghost People like a hot knife through butter. Or a knife spear through flesh, whichever. It is absolutely the wrong DLC to play on a Guns/Energy Weapons character. As much as I like the ambience, I still think the BLEEP BLEEP YOU DIE FOR NO REASON or LOL DO YOU LIKE SOME POISON GAS? trout is poor game design though.

[Quindiana Jones]

Didn't really like the bleep bleep either, but I didn't so much mind the gas as it had reasonable justification. Would have been much better if there was an item to combat it, though. Give the players the taste of this poison cage, sure, but then give them the means to explore it fully afterwards.

[Psychotic]

It was better than Lonesome Road at least. Still undecided in relation to Honest Hearts.

[Shorty]

Don't worry, Quinny, I'm on your side with Dead Money, too. :aimkiss:

I always wondered why Fallout 3 got so thrashed in comparison to New Vegas until I recently gave Fallout 3 a real chance and have so far played through a majority of the game. Spuuky has summed up my thoughts accurately. New Vegas is the obvious superior between these two games.

[NeoCracker]

Lonesome Road was so god damn stupid. Listening to Ulysses drone on and on and fucking on.

Honest Hearts was okay, but I don't see myself ever playing it again. It was carried almost entirely on how awesome the Burned Man was.

Big Mountain was hilarious.

Dead Money was the best though. Terrific characters, and go was that guy a terrific villain. Lonesome Road would have been so much better had it been that guy, escaping the Casino alive, and not fucking Ulysses.

[Kalevala]

I still have not gotten around to giving New Vegas a proper play through. I was going through what could have been the height of my fascination with video games when Fallout 3 came out. I had recently purchased my next-gen consoles and felt as if I was discovering video games all over again. For those and other nostalgic reasons, I voted Fallout 3.

But I'm going to play New Vegas soon, I swear.

[Quindiana Jones]

I like Honest Hearts because you get Joshua Graham's armour at the end and it looks utterly fantastic. I always complete it first.

I guess it's alright enough to play through. It's New Vegas' Mothership Zeta. Nothing special, but decent enough to not regret buying it.

[Psychotic]

Lonesome Road is surely NV's Mothership Zeta. An unsatisfying conclusion with more potential than it had.

[Quindiana Jones]

Ah. Haven't actually played it yet. :erm:

I really need to get the Ultimate Edition again.

[Jibril]

Glad to see this thread is full of correct answers. Also that video about Tristram Shandy is very good, I always link people to that when I explain to them why NV blows FO3 out of the water. His other videos are good too. Smart guy.

[Sephex]

Patrolling in the Mojave almost makes you wish for a nuclear winter.

[Vyk]

I too yearn for the birth of mutated brahmin cows and the creation of supermutants ^_^ Irradiated water is probably tastey too

[Shorty]

I finally finished an entire playthrough of Fallout 3 today for the first time ever. It was the biggest disappointment of my life.

[Psychotic]

It's better with Broken Steel. But then that shouldn't have had to be DLC in the first place.

[escobert]

Yeah that is probably my biggest complaint with the game. But with Broken Steel it makes that all better. And since all of you NV fanboys hate 3 so much, NV sucks. I can't stand the map and Vegas is so little and just meh. It's like the size of Megaton when walking around. I played it through once beat it and have never and will never play it again. As for 3 I have put several hundred hours into that.

[Psychotic]

If you're counting NV as just The Strip - which I don't, because it also encompasses Freeside, McCarran and the surrounding ruins held by the Fiends - it's still twice the size of Megaton even excluding the large casino interiors.

I don't get why the size of one particular area is important anyway though if I'm honest.

[Slothy]

Indeed. Even if Megaton was bigger (which it's not) it's still a town with next to nothing to do built around an unexploded nuclear bomb which we're expected to believe is still functional after 200 years and that radiation leaking from the nuclear material inside wouldn't be a problem.

Megaton is probably one of the more nonsensical places in a game filled with things that don't really make sense if you stop and think about them.

And no offense, but I'm always a bit surprised that people can put several hundred hours into that game. There isn't even that much content in it. And the content that is there doesn't present nearly as many unique completion options as New Vegas did. I guess if you like it you could put a lot of hours into playing and replaying it, but otherwise there's nothing to support that amount of playtime.

[Crop]

I liked 3 more. I didn't like NV too much for a few reasons, but mostly because it didn't feel very post apocalyptic - or at least not AS post-apocalyptic as 3-, and I couldn't get away from either the NCR or CL or people asking me what I thought of them....I don't like either of them alright!

I also like speaking to most of the factions in NV was just to get them to eventually pick a side in the final battle at the dam, which was easy enough without them anyway. I liked 3 because it had so many different places separate from the main story (Republic of Dave, Tenpenny tower, Andale etc.).

[Psychotic]

I've put dozens of hours into both games. Probably 60-70 in each. There's plenty of content and exploration fun to be found in both imho. Just the world building, narrative and choices in 3 aren't as great. Though the DLC - Point Lookout and The Pitt specifically - do all of that very well.
I couldn't get away from either the NCR or CL or people asking me what I thought of them....I don't like either of them alright!I'm not a fan of either organisation either, but there are just as many options to go against these organisations and choose entirely different outcomes away from both of them. You compare that to 3 and you don't have any choice. Well. I guess it's Brotherhood of Steel or don't beat the game.

Also there's also plenty of areas outside of those factions too. The Strip for one, but also Fort Nellis, the wonderful REPCONN factory, all of the vaults, etc.

[Slothy]

I liked 3 more. I didn't like NV too much for a few reasons, but mostly because it didn't feel very post apocalyptic - or at least not AS post-apocalyptic as 3-,

Well, to be honest, 3 is the odd man out as far as setting goes. Even ignoring the shift to the east coast as opposed to the west with the earlier games, its version of the post-apocalypse is pretty inconsistent with what was established before. Granted, I wouldn't expect them to have necessarily had organizations like the NCR in Washington. Part of the point of jumping across the continent should be to let you explore new factions and areas that were never touched on before. But for some reason Bethesda thought that 200 years after the bombs dropped the world would pretty much be the exact same as immediately after the bombs dropped: most of civilization destroyed, a few rag tag groups trying to survive with no real re-establishment of any sort of civilization, everything being severely irradiated because apparently nuclear fallout never actually clears itself up (radioactive hotspots from nuclear fallout would stop being a major problem in less than a decade, to say nothing of 200 years later. The amount of radiation around the capital wasteland is just absurd both in the real world, and the Fallout universe).

[Psychotic]

To be fair they did explain it by saying the East Coast took a shitload more bombs than the West. I know, science and all that, but then there's a hell of a lot of things that don't make sense in Fallout and sometimes you have to suspend your disbelief - which is why you can still get Dandy Boy Apples in abandoned fridges. The gameplay sometimes takes precedence over the narrative.

[escobert]

If you're counting NV as just The Strip - which I don't, because it also encompasses Freeside, McCarran and the surrounding ruins held by the Fiends - it's still twice the size of Megaton even excluding the large casino interiors.

I don't get why the size of one particular area is important anyway though if I'm honest.


It's supposed to be a real city I guess, and it just didn't feel like one to me. And obviously it's bigger than megaton since it had a few sections but, it still felt very small to me. The map in general felt very small to me.

and uh, It's been two decades since Chernobyl and ain't no body going to be living around there anytime soon. so I don't see how things being irritated in D.C. 200 years after being bombed wouldn't make some sense. While yes many of the isotopes in nukes degrade rather quickly, there is still left over shit that effects births and whatnot. Add no governments or large groups of useful people to help fix things and clean things up and the radiation is going to stay for awhile.

[Quindiana Jones]

Yes, it's tragic that Hiroshima remains a desolate wasteland filled with mutants even so far down the line. :(

[Mirage]

If you're counting NV as just The Strip - which I don't, because it also encompasses Freeside, McCarran and the surrounding ruins held by the Fiends - it's still twice the size of Megaton even excluding the large casino interiors.

I don't get why the size of one particular area is important anyway though if I'm honest.


It's supposed to be a real city I guess, and it just didn't feel like one to me. And obviously it's bigger than megaton since it had a few sections but, it still felt very small to me. The map in general felt very small to me.

and uh, It's been two decades since Chernobyl and ain't no body going to be living around there anytime soon. so I don't see how things being irritated in D.C. 200 years after being bombed wouldn't make some sense. While yes many of the isotopes in nukes degrade rather quickly, there is still left over trout that effects births and whatnot. Add no governments or large groups of useful people to help fix things and clean things up and the radiation is going to stay for awhile.

A nuclear meltdown isn't the same as a nuclear bomb. Also, wildlife isn't doing too terribly in chernobyl today. Animals live long enough to reproduce, and their offspring do too.

[edczxcvbnm]

No amount of modding can fix Fallout 3. The story is on rails and does not change. It doesn't matter how nice you are to the enclave and evil you are to the brotherhood, it is the same. The story does not incorporate a lot of the world into it either. New Vegas was masterful in that you were free to explore and discover new stories and do things your way. Piss someone off? Kill them...they actually die and anything they might have done or affected is taken into account.

The best aspect of all of this is how it is fully realized in the ending. To me, there is no good or bad ending in New Vegas, only shades of grey. Some of what happens is bad in all endings and there is good in all endings. This allows for a full expression of the player's actions through out the entire game.

I can safely say that I am very hesistantantly looking forward to Fallout 4 but I don't think Bethesda has any clue how to do what Obsidian accomplished with New Vegas. They should just try to buy Obsidian so they can take over and move Fallout in a different direction away from The Elder Scrolls franchise. FYI, I thought most of Skyrim was a step backwards from New Vegas with more railroaded story and what not.

[Psychotic]

I've heard it said of Skyrim that it's a mile wide and an inch deep. You could perhaps say the same for Fallout 3.

That being said, Fallout 3 is better for exploration, but New Vegas is better for story based interaction with the world. Fallout 3 probably has more and better locations, but it's a set of disconnected set pieces. I found it interesting that Crop liked that, but in reality if you did live in a warzone like that, all the talk would be of NCR vs Legion. Or indeed what the Enclave and BoS are doing in the case of Fallout 3.

[escobert]

I never played fallout to be friends with either faction or really to give two shits about the story. Scavenging is why I played fallout (and now DayZ)

[sharkythesharkdogg]

A nuclear meltdown isn't the same as a nuclear bomb. Also, wildlife isn't doing too terribly in chernobyl today. Animals live long enough to reproduce, and their offspring do too.

Yeah, there's some people doing interesting research about that situation. It's interesting to me at least. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qg0mVzL-gAg)

[Mirage]

That video is actually one of the things I based my earlier statement on.

That the area is not fit for human habitation doesn't mean that the area is completely destroyed and just just a huge area of dead organic matter.

We set the bar pretty high for individuals of our own species. We don't like birth defect rates that twice as high as in other areas, even if there's still enough healthy offspring to keep the population stable. Also, a significant portion of baby animals are going to die because their siblings don't share the food evenly anyway. If there are some serious birth defects in one of them, they'll probably be one of those that didn't get enough food. We don't like twice as much cancer in the adult population, because we live much longer than most other animals. A lot of animals are going to die before they get the chance to develop radiation-caused cancers because injuries are a lot more serious to them, and some are just plain going to be eaten by bigger animals before they develop cancers as well.

Humans also wait longer before they breed. If you wait 20 years before having children, the radiation is going to have a lot more time to smurf your genetic material up than if you have children after 3-4 years or even earlier, like many animals do.