f03 vs NV

[Thoreai]

Ahh damn you are right..the set of choices DA had and the typical Obisidian quests made me forget about that, as they are so similiar.

 

Anyway..i think those who arent looking for FO3 in NV will like the game..i like the change and the western-style feel of it but i have to agree with LadyMilla on the : "Not to mention that I do not feel the post-apocalyptic atmosphere in this game. By the looks, the region might have been struck by a big global economic crash instead of a global nuclear Armageddon. In Fallout 3, you are always reminded of the Great War, either by personal accounts (e.g. Tulip) or other relics of the nuclear conflict (like the bomb in Megaton). In F:NV, the whole story feels like playing the game version of "Last Man Standing" with Bruce Willis.", still i think the quests of NV are a lot better written then FO3 were...they were just uninteresting for me and i would never completed FO3 main story if it wouldnt be for the mods, but then again i think it will be the same for NV.

[LadyMilla]

What I'm not so keen on is the way mobs have been placed in NV, they make the start of the game very linear as there is only one path to follow if you don't want to die.

 

This is one more thing that I do not like in NV. If I want that kind of hand-holding, I play Dragon Age or Mass Effect, and I can get my fill of invisible walls, no-turning-back points, etc. Don't get me wrong, I loved DA and ME/ME2, they were excellent animated movies, but I got bored of them due to their linearity. But then again, I'm an exploration freak and a sandbox addict.

[andrewajc]

I prefer Fallout 3. As a whole it felt better put together.

 

Although considering I gave up on New Vegas I probably shouldn't give an opinion here until I finish the game.

[Mountainjew]

Another one for Fallout 3.

 

Mainly the setting and more connected with my character. NV was a bit lame when they just throw you into it with no background on your character. Any story, be it a book or a movie or a game has to have some character development. New Vegas had very little of it. I didn't care for any of the factions, and didn't want to help any. None of them were likeable.

 

Fallout 3 was gripping from the first moments. I loved being a vault dweller and learning all about my characters past, only to be ejected into the wasteland. And the wasteland itself is a much more interesting place for me than the Mojave. Much more architecture to explore and admire. I admit, the tunnels did get tedious, but if you show all map markers you can skip most of them. The voice acting, script and story could use a lot of improvement, sure. But for me it was the atmosphere in Fallout 3 which is what made it great. It was a desolate, helpless place. Unlike the Mojave, too many people and not enough buildings to explore.

 

The story and quests in NV were too open to the point you didn't know which faction you would piss off next or what repurcussions would happen. I understand that some people would like that, but it just pissed me off honestly. I ended up siding with Yes Man on my first playthrough and finished it at level 17, just because i had enough. The game just became too uninteresting for me. And the ending wasn't much to write home about. I'm doing my second playthrough now and i'm 30 hours into it on level 24, siding with the NCR. And honestly, i'm bored once again. I haven't touched it in days, and instead i'm playing Fallout 3.

 

I guess the same people who enjoy Fallout 3 would enjoy the Stalker series, as they both have a very atmospheric, bleak feel.

[Liquidacid23]

Another one for Fallout 3.

 

Mainly the setting and more connected with my character. NV was a bit lame when they just throw you into it with no background on your character. Any story, be it a book or a movie or a game has to have some character development. New Vegas had very little of it. I didn't care for any of the factions, and didn't want to help any. None of them were likeable. .

 

I was the opposite.. the first time the vault sequence was awesome.. but after I made my 5th or 6th character and they all had the same exact background it ruined the atmosphere for me.. New Vegas starts you on a black slate except that you took a job so I can start of making my character out to have any background I want.. and while it would have been nice if they made a few to chose from that affected the story overall it's better to have it open than the same every time.. as for character development there is more in New Vegas after the start than FO3.. in FO3 your either a good vault dweller or a bad vault dweller.. at least now you can be a good courier or bad and pick a faction option.. While there is ALWAYS room for more.. I felt NV gave a lot more room for personalization of you character and stor than fallout 3 did in multiple playthroughs

[skullsy]

I liked Fallout 3 a bit more. In Fallout 3, It felt like more things had a purpose. In New Vegas, it's like they dedicated entire world spaces for one star sarsaparilla cap.

It seems like I've found more abandoned shacks in new vegas than I have NPC's.

 

And a lot of buildings in the game, I search through, maybe expecting a dead explorer with a note or something explaining what they were doing (like the people that turned into ghouls at that place on Fallout 3 (cant remember name)). Instead of finding that, I find tons of useless junk, maybe a conductor or fission battery, and a star sarsaparilla cap. It just seems like they focused too much on the strip and quests, than putting in immersive environments to explore.

 

Well, those are my 2 cents.

[audioave10]

Some good replies here. I like both games (especially with all the mods), but both suffer from invisible walls and FO3 was rediculous enough to actually tell you..."go back, you can't go this way". Another pain was all the piles of rubble you can't climb on. There was a lot of underground gameplay in FO3 where FNV has very little. As I'm playing both, I'm finding more enemies in Fo3. FNV can actually be boring in a few places. Thank goodness for the Mods. I still like both games but you need some visual improvements & mods to make them look decent on a strong PC. Otherwise, the console textures are downright ugly. After tweaking though, they look good.

[BooneoftheWasteland]

I'm still on the fence.

 

I despised the Metro after a couple of playthroughs in FO3.

 

Agreed that once you are playing for the seventh time, the Vault beginning starts to become irrelevant and for me personally I want to get cracking on my RTS village or the new FOOK version or perhaps it's FWE this time around, so I tend to forget the history of being a vault 101 dweller, I'm just itching to get out to make sure all the mods work. Mind you I was still proud of wearing the uniform to start and hearing the radio news of accomplishments and that was roughly the only thing that kept the attachment to the storyline after several plays. But after sometime I just don't want to do the MQ but feel forced to in order to fulfill some mod requirements i.e. Lyons as a companion etc.

 

Speaking of companions, companions in NV are much better. Period.

 

I really have to hold out for the big mods before making my final decision because I never finished vanilla FO3 once I learned of the mods and I'm wanting to finish NV vanilla before installing mods.

 

Am I bored? Not really but some days I don't pick up the game to play even when I planned to.

 

I'm rambling, my gf is harrassing me in the background.

 

So far I'm enjoying NV, I will await to see if my favourite mods get ported over and then decide if I pick up FO3 to finish what I started or just keep playing a modded NV. The good news so far is that the mods I want have arrived to NV and I only await a few others.

 

It's mixed feelings for the time being.

[fronzelneekburm]

I definitely "like" NV, but FO3 is still my favorite. FO3 at least "felt" bigger, for me there was more to discover, it felt more surprising, it was more fun to discover the wasteland.

 

I also liked FO3 factions much better. Enclave, Super Mutants, Brotherhood - they all played a major role. In NV it feels like they were put into the game as an excuse.

 

I also have an issue with balancing. In FO3 a single raider could be a challenge in the early game, in NV i fight against a hoard of Powder gangers alone as a lvl 1 char with my varmint rifle and win. However, Death claws are so over powered - even with lvl 30, godly equip and weapons i had problems taking out the deathclaws at the quarry. Maybe it's more fun this way, i dunno.

 

 

I also feel that NV has loads of wasted potential. I mean come on - it's definitely a "western". Where's the high noon shootout, the bank robbery and so on? At least a horse or vehicle would have been a goodie that oldschool gamers would have loved. I'm also not really the biggest fan of Caesars legion. While it is a "refreshing" idea imho they don't really fit into the NV world THAT well, at least to me i always regard them as clowns.

 

The casinos are another downfall. While they are "playable" it's not really too much fun to gamble in the Casinos and the interface is terrible, took me quite a while to just get used to what you have to click and push to simply place your friggin bet.

 

I also miss epic "running gags" like "Gary" or Harold...

 

The strip was one of the biggest disappointments for me. Not that its not looking good or so, its just so small. Just like 3 casinos and a hotel and that's it. I mean the casinos are great, but they should have taken a bit less time to spent ages for the details in the casinos. I didn't really enjoy the casinos as much as i expected. I went inside thought like "yeah looking nice" and went out again. The polished flair on the casinos wasn't just what attracted me.

 

 

Anyways, just my personal rants. If someone says im an idiot and NV is way better than FO3 i can live with that.

[grimfandang0]

Start off I see the most interesting of note is that No one is bringing up how much fallout 3 didn't fit with the Fallout universe originally created by interplay/blackisle studios. For Me the way I look at it, Fallout 3 was good, but it was the fallout world seen through eyes of fans who had access to the IP and not the original creators, so it took the Fallout Franchise somewhere new (east coast) upon doing that they brought in a WHOLE new group of fans, fans of Bethesda's work and not fans of the original content. Fallout 3 was not marketed solely to the original fans, it was marketed to the existing Fans via small mentions to the old titles, and market to the New fans via saying "Hey Bethesda now has a Sci-Fi open world RPG." I for one wished they had Kept more Canon( meaning to fit in the same story line or world as the original,) mentioned more about FO, and FO 2, but they didn't, I wish they had mentioned WHY super mutants existed, and about how the Master was no longer in control of them, but they didn't. They Took everything that was fallout, brought it to Fallout 3, BUT didn't really fill in the WHY, we had enclave with a computer based President but WHY, why didn't they mention how the last president was killed when the OIL Rig the Enclave major political forces was stationed on was destroyed by a "Lone Wanderer." Thankfully they do mention the BOS (Brother Hood Of Steel) and why this faction has splintered off from the main force. I guess My only complaint about FO 3 was that they maybe knowingly or unknowingly forgot where the franchise came from. and the history of the franchise.

 

Thankfully we have Fallout New Vegas, which is once again created by a small team that once was apart of the original creators. It's not to say I don't feel they did everything right, and in the next section i'm going to list the issues with both games from a technical perspective. Over all I like New Vegas more simply for the fact I'm an Old school FO and FO2 Fan, and I like the story that is canon to the franchise. What I felt was interesting was how they marketed to the new fans via Fallout 3 and how they marketed to the existing fans via FO and FO2. For the FO 3 Fans all they had to say was, "Hey look another Fallout game from Bethesda" for the Existing Fans all they had to say was "Hey look another Fallout game, created by some of the original members Black Isle studio, set in the Mojave desert" and they hooked us (don't lie to your self those are the 2 reasons why people bought it pure and simple, and oh I don't think its a bad thing.) The one thing I found interesting about Fallout New Vegas was the progression of starting areas, FO you started out in a vault, FO 2 you were in a tribe, FO 3 you started in a vault, FO NV you start out in a town, it is an interesting pattern, and I wonder if they intended for it because of that. It was a good time getting to see the NCR again, as well as the small raider tribes like the Great Khans, the Jackals and some others. It was Interesting how little you saw of the BOS and the Enclave (I wont give out spoilers so if you didn't find any enclave, ill just say they are in the game) But it is understandable from the actions of the Lone Wanderer from FO 2 that the Enclave was all but destroyed, The BOS was trying to cover as much of the California waste land with what it had left, they have lost whole chapters due to infighting, they are not as strong as they once were. They brought back one VERY important character from FO 2, to attempt to lead the Mutants in the Mojave (wont mention names I don't like spoilers.) Once again I am not Saying FO NV was with out its faults, I am just saying from a fan of the original games, FO NV to me was a much better game in terms of canon and story line.

 

Now On to the technical issues, YES I know FO NV is full of major technical bugs and loopholes that can leave certain choice paths to render the game unplayable (vault 11 is one.) unfortunately Obsidian (made up of former blackisle studios members) was great at creating a wonderful canon rich story, their actually ability to give us a working bug less game was not so wonderful, it can be argued it as much Bethesda's fault as it was Obsidian's. Thankfully there are fixes out there from the community..THIS community to be exact :) . Something that has been an aggravating sore point with me, since the days of Morrowind, is Bethesda's 1000+ of character and only 8 - 10 at most voice actors mentality. At least with NV we get some more depth as most characters are voiced by different people, not to say there isn't repeat VA's but it isn't as common. I know I didn't touch on things like being able to mod guns in FONV or how the they simplified big guns / small guns to just "guns" but that isn't so much an issue as canon and lore is, and this is just my opinion, feel free to disagree and correct me, I am human and I do make mistakes.