Hi everyone. Well right out front I have to say I adore Fallout 3. It's my second favorite game of all time. PC games I'm referring to here. Now I've waited a long time for this day to arrive because I knew I'd have mixed feelings about the subject. And that subject is, what should I expect as I finally purchase and play Fallout New Vegas. I've heard mixed reviews. It seems that the reviews are split that's why I'm asking you guys your opinion. I know this is the most knowledgeable forum on the Fallout subject.

Anyway, I've heard that FNV is very hard gameplay wise compared to FO3. What do you think?

Some of my friends didn't like it when it first came out, but some did. That's why I waited on purpose, I wanted to see what everyone would say about the game. I mean if the game is insanely hard compared to FO3, I might not wan't to play it. But if I gain skills, talents and strengths as I level up, that will make the gameplay better, if the game is good I don't mind the wait.

Anyway I'm just trying to get an overall idea of what to expect from Fallout New Vegas after playing a gazillion playthroughs of Fallout 3.

Any advice or opinions on whether or not Fallout New Vegas is worth playing?

Thanks, Gardenia

It's not that hard, you just have to adjust to some new gameplay mechanics and you'll adapt quickly.
hardcoe Mode, which is optional of course, is what makes it hard.
Other than that, it ain't that hard after the first playthrough.

It's not hard.

I love this game, even more than FO3. It doesn't have such a lonely apocalyptic feeling, but it has its own great feeling. It has many factions, many many guns that are all great. It has a reloading bench, where you can craft your own ammo types. Many different ammo types, Hollow points, armor piercing, explosive, pulse, that kind of thing. Many different craftable things, it makes almost all the junk in the game worth going through and taking.

The game has so much to do, so many quests, so many ways of doing things, I love it. I bought it the day it came out, and loved it then, but then I stopped playing. I didn't love it then, but I love it now. There is a hardcoe mode which I wont play without, makes you eat, sleep, and drink.

The way the game works is just so superior to FO3 in my opinion, and its more true to the old fallout games than FO3 is. This adds traits, damage threshold, old factions, characters and much more from old fallout games.

It's well worth it. Buy the ultimate edition.

EDIT: with the DLC's, the level cap is 50. I recently bought the UE, and I chose the perk which limits me to level 30, for more of a challenge. If you like being a mortal god, then don't pick that perk. I like challenge.

Well the thing is there is just a lot more stuff, so enemies may be harder, but there are bigger guns, and stuff costs a lot more, but you have a lot more money. So it's not harder just bigger.

Opinions on F:NV? It has better writing and character development than FO3. The weapon system is better too. Basically you'll have no trouble switching. I will note that many FO3 lovers are dissatisfied with the exploration and world design but what do they know? Also The Strip is kind of a disappointing. I believe it's all the hype that is generated as you travel through half the wasteland just to get there. It's cool, just not as cool as you think it will be.

Oh, the DLC is really good too. You're getting the Ultimate Edition, correct?

I was happy with the weapon system in FO3. Because of the way I'd built my character: small guns, high intelligent and luck I was getting one shot "headshot" criticals on the regular against Deathclaws. I was really thinking about getting the FNV Ultimate edition at Steam for $39.99 but now I'm thinking I should get the $19.99 regular version just in case I don't like it FNV I'm out twenty bucks less. Hmmmmmmmmmmmm, sort of skeptical, on the fence. The trailer looks good, I can say that. Thanks for all the feedback friends.

Small Guns?

Well, just to give you a bit of a heads up, don't be too shocked when you discover that those one-shot criticals on Deathclaws don't come so easily in New Vegas.

If I were you, if you decide to get the game I'd spend the extra 20 bucks and get the Ultimate Edition - the DLCs are well worth it.

FO:NV is superior in virtually all aspects to FO3. The only thing it lacks is the "theme park" exploration method you see typical in gamesas sand box games. by this I mean you will encounter things that are tougher then you if you go venturing out to far from the "Safe" paths and go looking into the wrong caves/ruins. Unlike the gamesas "everything is leveled to you so you can beat anything at anytime." Additionally most areas are connected in some way to quest or events and they all make sense in the game world unlike the aforementioned FO3 "theme park" style of map.



Indeed, NV makes the "hard enemies" hard again and be things to be feared once more like in the original games.

Like the OP, my first experience with Fallout was with Fallout 3. A lot of my expectations about what New Vegas was going to be like when I first started playing came from my FO3 experience. Needless to say, my first Deathclaw encounter was eye-opening.

But I adapted quickly to the new mechanics and got along in the Mojave just fine.

I think whether you'll like FNV depends on what you liked about FO3. I love FNV to bits but I'm always hesitant to recommend FNV too strongly, because it's not for everyone.

Did you like the free-roam exploration aspect? It's still here in FNV but it doesn't play as prominent a role. The map is less free - it's almost always a good idea to head south along the highway in the beginning, for instance. It does open up a bit once you reach Vegas. Did you like the setting? The setting is considerably different - the Mojave Wasteland is not like the Capital Wasteland at all - for one there's less of a post-apocalyptic feel, society has rebuilt itself here.

The weapons feel better-implemented for sure, there are quite a lot of weapons to play around with, even without the Gun Runners' Arsenal addon. The world also feels more fleshed out - in general it's a world that makes more sense than that of FO3. Expect to be talking a lot more - the various factions have a lot to say about themselves and each other. A lot more skill checks, especially Speech checks, so non-combat skills are more important now. Crafting weapons are out, but you do get to cook the food you poach or harvest.

You mentioned that some of your friends have the game? Ask to play it for a while, so you can get a feel of the game for yourself. I can see that putting down $40 for something you may not like at all is risky, but the game really is vastly improved by the DLCs, and with the Ultimate Edition out, I'm not sure if they'll still have sales of the individual DLCs.

A skill back in Fallout 3. 'Guns' in NV replaced Big Guns and Small Guns form F3.
That's still fully possible. Another great thing about the new wep. system is the various amount of ammo types and even ammo crafting. One of the DLC, Gun Runner's Arsenal, adds a bunch more cool ammo types as well for crafting or purchasing.

If you can live with it, perhaps wait until the next big Steam sale? (They have on in the summer, right?) Then you could snag the U.E. for a lower price. If you really want to play it now, I would still strongly suggest getting the UE because all the DLC are really great.

revolvers, pistols, hunting and sniping rifles, sub-machine guns and assault rifles (these all fall under the small guns category that you can choose to specialize in) It's my favorite. As a matter of fact if Fallout New Vegas didn't have a small guns specialization I wouldn't play it at all I hate toting around big clumsy rocket launchers and such. Is there a small gun specialty in Vegas? I'm prolly just gonna have to buy the Ultimate Edition and play it, and if I hate it....well I've wasted a ton of money on bad games before. Not knocking Vegas there, just stating a fact about all the other bad games I've paid for. I really appreciate all of your input though. It's the only way I feel like I've made a good gaming purchase.

There actually isn't a Small Guns skill in FNV. There's a Guns skill, though the Big Guns skill has been eliminated, its weapons parceled away to either Guns (minigun), Energy Weapons (gatling laser) or Explosives (rocket launcher).

And yeah, a lot of awesome 'small' guns in New Vegas.

New Vegas rolls all guns into a single Guns skill, and introduces a new skill (Survival) to take up the free skill slot. No big deal - if you don't like the missile launchers and miniguns and such, just leave them at home, or don't pick them up when you find them.

This is good to know that you quickly made the adjustment.

You're like me. A diehard Fallout fan. There are some differences you will encounter, within New Vegas, though.

But to tell you the truth...it just really depends on what type of setting, you like more. If you like that lonesome survival feel(Which I personally like better), you'd keep playing Fallout 3 and might not even bother wanting to play Fallout NV.

If you like the High Roller Fastlife, Constant War type of setting...you'd find yourself playing NV more often.

So, I guess the reason, majority of people are liking NV a bit better than 3, is because of the vast amount of wars and upgrades, they've placed. Republics, Democracies, Weapon Upgrades(Iron-Sights, Scope adds, Silencer adds, Bomb ammunition, etc). There's probably way more modifications, i'm not listing right now. All in all...I think Obsidian was trying to settle in, with what the majority of fans wanted, which was war-type features, that other battle games consisted of(Call Of Duty, Battlefield, Renaissance, etc)...which is fine. It's smart, as it gains the Fallout series more of a fanbase. I just prefer the lonesome surviving type of play. It's more of an adventure, to me.


But I still have gotten Fallout New Vegas. For the quests, NPCs and storylines. I might get into it, eventually, but Fallout 3 always seems to bring me back in.

I don't feel that the Mojave is less restricted for exploration. There's still an open world here to explore until your honest heart is content

There's some really cool looking places as well. Dinky the Dinosaur, the roller coaster in Primm, the city of Vegas itself, Repconn, etc...

Fallout New Vegas is nothing like Fallout 3. In Fallout 3 the the Capital Wasteland is bigger than the Mojave Wasteland. There are also better landmarks and more buildings to explore in Fallout 3 than there are in New Vegas. It is true what Obsidian says about there being more weapons in New Vegas but, the weapons in Fallout 3 have that more futuristic feal to them.

Fallout New Vegas may have all of the new things like the companion wheel, new items, and new weapons with attachments. But the big thing that Fallout 3 has than New Vegas doesn't is GREAT ADD-ONS. The only add-ons worth getting in Fallout New Vegas is Honest Hearts and Gun Runners Arsanol.

Don't get me wrong Fallout New Vegas is a good game, but at the begging when it first came out there where several things that needed to be fixed. I'm talking about Strip Freezes, Caravan Cards not working, things like that. I guess none of the glitches matter now scince most of them are fixed.

I'm not saying I hate New Vegas here I'm just giving youy my honest opinion. The great thing about New Vegas is hardcoe Mode and the weapon attachments and the fact that you can make different ammo.

Oh and the Vault-Boy mascot for Vault-Tec Bethesda does a lot better job drawing him than Obsidion does! Hey just saying.

No it isn't.

I think I might as well go ahead and make up my mind that New Vegas is going to be nothing like Fallout 3, which is a disappointment. I was sort of hoping that New Vegas would just be a furthering of the story of Fallout 3 but I can already tell that if I try to make New Vegas hold up to the awesomeness of Fallout 3, I'll just be disappointed. I'm going to have to play New Vegas as though it were an entirely different game franchise with an entirely different game.

No way could I compare it to my personal favorite: Fallout 3, but I do think however that I could play Fallout New Vegas if I went into the game as though it were a stand alone game. Just play it, enjoy it, but don't ever make a direct comparison to FO3.

That's because Fallout New Vegas is a Fallout game and Fallout 3 is a TES game made to look like Fallout.

Just give New Vegas a chance and if you have about $20 go and get yourself Fallout, Fallout 2 and Tactics

The Vault Boy in FNV looks like the one in Fallout 2. Drawn by the same guy.

Lol. Only Fallout 3 is Oblivion with guns and New Vegas is a truer successor to Fallout 2. New Vegas is amazing. If you like better writing, better characters, better quests, and better RPG, then you'll no doubt look back on Fallout 3 as nothing more then a lie.

A TES game "with guns" is a good thing, imo. Good thing Bethesda owns Fallout now