But that's not the true essence of Fallout.

You're afraid Fallout: New Vegas is 'harder, gameplay wise,' wish you were more specific. For combat, don't worry except for deathclaws. There's more weapons to fit whatever satisfies your preference to deal with your enemies. Obsidian chose to up the stats of flesh and blood deathclaws so that FNV fans can say 'our deathclaws are better than yours,' something any FO3 modder could have done by increasing stats on them. And they've got almost the same combat routine with the exception that they will hide behind boulders if you are up where they can't reach you.

They also screwed up VATS just to give the finger to bethesda, not that they don't deserve it. But they've hurt the game by making an optional feature worthless. There's iron sights to pull you into the battle and you can use pistols, shotguns, fatman, etc. under one skill. Maybe by harder gameplay you meant challenging, which is true if you activate hardcoe Mode. You will want this because 'challenging' includes reward and satisfaction, that you survived the wasteland like a boss. Oddly, Ultimate Edition gives you a magic canteen at the beginning, which is an infinite, pure water source that eliminates the water survival part by making you auto drink.

I don't know what your friends didn't like about FNV. But if they didn't use fast travel then they would have played these quests that send you back and forth along places you've already been to that are empty because you've already killed the few insects and geckos that used to be there but are now dead. So it becomes sightseeing the tedious way. It's no understatement that many areas you're sent to trek through are ultra boring because of few spawns and nada interest points.

Luckily, there are mods like Monster Mod and Warzones to address this. But forget about exploration, if you try to play it like FO3 you will be very disappointed to look somewhere that might hide a secret or lead somewhere interesting. Because most often it will be a pointless area because Obsidian ran out of time. So, play it for the story and the moderate selection of things you can do to affect the game world.

Yes, I know that the Vault-Boy is drawn by the same guy in Fallout 2 as it is in New Vegas.
And
Yes the Capital Wasteland is bigger. Bigger in the scence that there is more to explore with the underground tunnels and more buildings.

Eh.....

The DLC's are what make New Vegas as good as it is.

You're inevitably going to buy them anyway, so you'd be saving money by buying the Ultimate Edition.

If you had played the originals then you would not say this.
The Mojave and the Capital are about the same size, the real difference between the two when it comes to the setting is that the Mojave makes sense and the Capital is a theme park. It's a theme park in the sense that it has lots of cool attractions that don't have much at all to do with each other and it doesn't make much sense why they would be there.

How did they nerf VATS?

They tried to fix it, more or less, and make it more "fair" and less of a god-mode combat system. In Fallout: New Vegas, you take 75% damage when in VATS mode, whereas in Fallout 3 you only took 10% damage. So they didn't "nerf" it; they just made it less stupidly overpowered.

Well now I really want to play Fallout New Vegas, just to see which stuff on all these posts is accurate or inaccurate. See if FNV lives up to it's reputation. I will know the answer within a handful of levels I'm certain.

Wait...why isn't there as much to explore in this game? And what happened to V.A.T.S.?

There's plenty to explore. I think the landmarks are better in NV.

You know that NV has Dead Money, Old World Blues and Lonesome Road, right?



Judging by that it sounds like you would be better off playing an FPS rather than an RPG.

Ok stop right there.

VATS is not God mode in New Vegas. In Fallout 3, Vats means you only take 15% of normal damage, you crit 10-15% more often (which is huge since repairing weaponry for more damage is so hard in FO3 but crit damage remains steady no matter the condition) and also you fart rainbows. In New Vegas, you take 75 or 85% of normal damage and you get a 5% increase in crit. I remember in Fallout 3, I could have an enemy launch a rocket at me and enter VATS firing on a 13% chance of hitting simply because I knew it'd let me tank that rocket. Here? Death in VATS is incredibly common; hell sometimes entering VATS is downright risky. VATS in Fallout 3 was also loads stronger than free-form firing simply because of that massive crit bonus. Again, a critical hit was the only way to deal GOOD damage to an enemy, and VATS was way more likely to crit.

Besides that? Weapons are far easier to repair due to a different system, save-scumming won't work on speech checks due to a different system, the game focuses on story and NPC/faction interaction whereas FO3 focused on exploration, New Vegas feels like an oasis that faired pretty well during the Great War whereas FO3 is irradiated and desolate beyond belief, etc etc etc.

VATS is still pretty darn powerful though. Especially for melee/unarmed, since they apparently do double damage in VATS. I've been playing Skyrim these couple of days, and I was surprised to find myself missing VATS. I don't use it all the time because I prefer to do my own shooting, but I just realized how much I relied on it to get me out of tough situations.

That's probably the best way to approach it, yes. Aside from sharing the same universe and engine they're really two completely different games.

Contrary to what Allen the 101 said, the DLCs of New Vegas are all pretty fantastic. Even the weakest of them (Dead Money) had a great story and a memorable location.

That is incorrect, please try again.

He is correct, you just placed the emphasis wrong.

It's
not

No, he is wrong.

Is the GMG in Guns?
No.

Is the Missile Launcher in Guns?
No.


Is the Plasma Caster in Guns?
No.

Is the Gatling Laser in Guns?
No.


Big Guns was dissected into every ranged combat skill.
It just as much merged with Explosives as it did with Guns.
So how exactly does Guns replace Big Guns, when Big Guns was split into three categories?
Just cause they have "Guns" at the end doesn't mean that Big and Small were mashed together.

I hate it when people make that mistake.
No skill replaced Big Guns.
Big Guns was simply removed as a skill and it's weapons diverted to the appropriate remaining skills.

I see, fair enough. Would have been better if you had just explained this in your initial reply, instead of just saying "lol wrong", especially when it's not a particularly obvious mistake.

One thing you need to keep in mind, OP, is that this is not Fallout 3: New Vegas, nor is it Fallout 3 part 2. It's just Fallout: New Vegas. That's an important distinction.

If you go into New Vegas expecting a Fallout 3 experience, then you'll probably end up hating it.

I was trying to get him to figure it out for himself.

Get the Ultimate Version! The DLCs are worth every penny. I also started out with Fallout 3, that was my intro into the Fallout Universe and I was in love with the game. I really love the whole feel, the urban post apocalyptic world, the factions, the karma system, the music, just everything.

I also had mixed feelings about New Vegas, since I thought it would be more like a Western and I'm really not into Westerns LOL BUT OMG how wrong I was. I never thought I would like NV even more than Fallout 3!! But I do. It's a whole step up from FO 3, heck, not one step up but like a whole flight of stairs up! LOL The Karma system is even more pronounced and your choices really, really make a difference and there are a lot of choices to be made!

Plus, the DLCs are the best of any game I've ever played. Obsidian did an amazing job. I don't remember being so immersed into a game or DLC, like I've been with Fallout New Vegas and Lonesome Road! I'm obsessed with Ulysses! LOL

Seriously, New Vegas is definitely one of my top 5 fav games now!

Just get the game friend, it's nothing like fallout 3, but it's still a good game. Everybodys different,you only have to read all these comments to see that,so you don't know until you try. I adore FO3, much more so than FONV. To me FO3 is an all round better game and i include the DLC with that but thats just me. Even though i spent hundreds of hours on FONV, i wasn't overly impressed and the DLC wern't much better either, except for dead money, but again, thats just me. You mentioned that your friends have it, could you not watch them play it for a few hours and get some hands on experience, especially if your worried about wasting money. As i say, you don't know until you try.

Yep, this is the course of action I'm going to take. I'm just gonna buy it and play it. Then I can judge for myself if I like it or not, or how it ranks next to Fallout 3. I'm not worried about wasting my money, I'm worried about wasting my time. But I've been gaming for many years and I know that you got to try a game before you judge it. I hope this thread stays open so that I can at least report back on my findings.........

Then go out and buy Fallout, Fallout 2 and Tactics

I played Fallout 3, solidly for about a year from its release. Looking back, it's definately up there as one of my favourite games.

I found FNV to be familiar but different.. F3 was more of an open exploration game, and had a more desolate post apocalyptic atmosphere which I loved.

FNV is a better RPG, in my opinion but, it kinda felt less open ended and I ended up not playing for some reason. I may be wrong in that impression, looking at my steam account I played less than 50 hours so I haven't seen it all by any means. I'm currently re-installing and going to play through another way and do more random exploration. Really looking forward to it.

Why do people insist that New Vegas isn't open world and ripe for exploration?