Pro's


1) More difficult

2) Being able to choose your faction.

3) hardcoe mode. --> they can drop the food in my opinion, but what i love about about it is that i'm looking for watersources while exploring. It could use a couple of other tweaks aswell like stimpacks/bottlecaps/... having weight.


Con's

1) Some quest are real junk and feel repetitive/boring. (with the emphasis on "some", there was a good amount fo fun quests aswell. The Fun/Junk ratio seemed better in FO3.).

2) I spend too much time on managing my inventory/items. (Didn't lose so much time on my inventory in FO3)

3) Going overboard with limiting the player: Not being able to max out your stats(*), trying forcing the player to take a certain path (invisible walls & critters)(**), Locking the player out of (too many) quest(**), Perks(***)...


(*)I agree that it was too easy in FO3, something needed to be done... but maxing out stats can add to the fun. Part of the exploration fun in FO3 was collecting all the bobbleheads and skillmagazines. In NV i just don't even bother to look for them because it seems like a waste of time. Maxing out my character was like a personal quest for power(like a fun and beneficial unmarked quest if you will). I never ever used the unarmed skill for example, but i still had fun collecting the magazines and going after the bobblehead. As i stated before, it was too easy in FO3... but IMO they should only have made it (much) harder, not impossible.

(**) I prefer bethesda's open world game approach. FO3 gave the player more freedom on that aspect. And BWAH ... invisible walls? come on!!! Fallout should be everything but a corridor game. "Open world game" loses a part of it's soul here.

FONV does give more freedom by quest-related choices(wich is good). A consequence of your choices (sometimes) results in locking you out of other quest. Logical and realistic in some cases, but if you try to force the player to take the same path over and over, i kinda lose motivation to start over again from scratch just to see the other aspects of the game (and judging by other discussions about "replay value" i'm not the only one).

(***) As for the Perks, I never choose the "fun perks"(like Canibal/Mr sandmand/...) in NV because it seems like a waste They could for example, have made a diffirence between power-perks and fun-perks. The power perks every 2 levels, the fun perks every 5 levels . it's just an example to show that one of their limitations made it less fun... Don't take the example itself too serious

I want to point out that I put the emphasis on "going overboard" when discussing 3). the general concepts of making things harder then FO3 was good and very necessary, they just went a little overboard in my opinion. It really annoyed at times.

Fallout 3 and New Vegas Comparison.

Graphics
Same

Dialogue
Better Dialogue N.V

NPC's
New Vegas, Far more interesting and memorable than Fallout 3

Bugs and Glitches
New Vegas is even buggier than FO3

Main Quest.
New Vegas has a better main quest. FO3 suffered from D.G.A.S syndrome.

Side Quests
Both are equally fun.

Locations on Map
New Vegas offers more interesting locations. And most of them make sense. As for Fallout 3 (Little Lamplight) W.T.F?

Creatures
New Vegas offers a little more. I loved the Nightskin idea. *dumbs up*

Music and Radio
Fallout 3 has better tunes.

Endings
New Vegas far more superior. You get the same type of Endings like the originals where you get to know the outcome on the settlements you encountered.
Fallout 3 endings. (mediocre)

On the other hand, when the quests are fun, they're really fun.



I disagree almost entirely with everything you said here. Not being able to max out your stats is a good, no wonderful thing. It means that characters can actually specialize. It means that you can approach quests in completely different ways. It's a strike for plausibility, in that you don't have someone who's both a super survivalist, epic orator, scientist on the level of Hawking, master thief, hardened super-mercenary who can use any guns, and every other skill all at once. It's great for replay value to, because it helps make stats matter and it makes you want to replay, in order to try out new options in quests. Unless you're one of those people who wants to grind through repetitive dungeons on one character for 900 hours.

I disagree to an extent about the railroading as well. I liked running into monsters that could utterly annihilate me if I didn't run immediately. It made the world seem more alive and realistic. In Fallout 3, everything was scaled to my level. There was no explanation for why overlords started showing up when I got more powerful. It was dumb and unrealistic. Meanwhile, deathclaws, reavers, and the like were there whether I was level 1 or level 30. It made the world seem more real and rational.

Agree that there were too many invisible walls though.

Seriously disagree about locking the player out of quests based on their decisions. That made the player's decisions meaningful and interesting. Suddenly, decisions take on weight instead of being completely lame and superficial. FFS, there was more weight in the decision to shoot the rat for the kids in Freeside than there was anywhere in Fallout 3, except possibly for the FEV.

Also disagree about the perks. Reducing the number of perks you get makes the perks more valuable, and it makes choosing them something you actually have to think about it.



You're not forced to take the same path over and over though.

Also, I think the problem here is that the people who complain about "replay value" (misusing the term when they do at that) tend to not want to actually think about the decisions they make.

[Don't know how to quote seperatly .. srry for that]

Some quest in FO3 were really fun aswell (at leas there were for me)

I think we look for different things in a game. I don't really care for the survival-skill(inventory allready is a bytch and i don't even want to bother to go from my house to a campfire) , the unarmed skill (not my style) and energyweapons(guns are way cooler). Melee will always be a secondary skill for me(when out of bullets, or when making a silent kill in public places). hardcoe as it may be, you just don't bring a knive to a gunfight .
After taking those out of the equation, there's isn't that much room left for specialization.. I guess that's why i don't care much about it. And if i was able to max out my stats, i probably would use energy weapons every once in a while for fun.. but i would never base an entire playthrough on that skill.

I'm not a 100% sure what you meant by railroading(english isn't my native tongue), but what i don't like about the critter thing is the general idea behind it. They obviously tried to make it very deficult to stray of the main path (the u-turn: Primm-nipton-novac). The fact that they tried just bothers me. If I want to go straight to novac/vegas i don't want to take the whole detour. (there may be paths from through other settlements, but invisible walls caused me to not try and cross the middle part of the map too often)

As for locking the player out quests.. I don't like it in combination with having to take the same (physical) path. It's somewhat similar like having to do the training in vault101 all over again. (Nothing a save couldn't fix though. It isn't so easy in NV. FO3 was at the start of the game and after the (meaningless) training level.)

I forgot to mention that my opinion on replay value is a temporary one. When i finished FO3 the first time i didn't touch it for 2-3 months(i had examens and stuff). After that period of time is started playing it again, even more then before.... it's only fair i give NV the same opportunity. (i have a feeling i'll be playing it again, but i'm not sure i'll be playing more then i did in the beginning... like i did with FO3)

I dunno, its just very underwhelming to activate the HELIOS one superweapon to have it kill 7 NCR troopers and a couple of dogs. ;/ I have only completed this game once though so hopefully something good will pop out but so far being "evil" dosnt look very "good". xD

Eh? I shoot the rat for giggles, the kids thank me for their chance to have dinner, I enter a different cell and return two minutes later and they're chasing a rat again. Where's the "weight" in that decision? It's a nice little set-piece that gets a laugh is all. It's not exactly deciding the fate of Tenpenny Tower or Megaton. There are a lot of examples of actions having consequences in NV, but that isn't a particularly remarkable one, and indeed there are also many, many places where actions don't have the consequences one feels they should (and I apologise for repetition here for this is not the first time I have said this), for instance the quests 'That Lucky Old Sun', 'Cold Cold Heart', 'Booted', 'Hard Luck Blues' etc. and so on.

I'm comparing it to Fallout 3, mind you. You know, the game where the decision to kill a town of people has no impact on much of anything. I'm not saying that the rat decision is particularly weighty, but it's more weighty than 90% of all the decisions in Fallout 3, and that's saying something.

(i agree)^infinity

Maybe it's just me, but the decision to wipe out a settlement of hundreds of people and turn a portion of the map into an irradiated hellhole weighed rather heavily on my concience. Maybe I'm weird. :shrug:

You'd think that, but you aren't shunned and reviled for something as important as detonating a nuclear bomb in a town full of innocent people.

Or rather, you are, but a few bottles of purified water to water beggars later, you're right back to very good karma. There's not a lot of consequences to your choice. You have a random encounter with megaton survivors, you lose out on perhaps two merchants... You don't even lose out on any marked quests, since Moira turns into a ghoul.

To have any sort of weight, a choice has to have consequences. This is part of why Broken Steel undermined Fallout 3's ending - the FEV is played up to be this big choice, but when we see the results of it, we get one single line about how there were problems that have since been resolved.

About 60 hours in, this is my overall impression untill now: it's good, but in no respect better than Fallout 3. Traditionalists might argue that the endeavouring new cowboy theme of vegas is a disgrace to the franchise, and i personally wouldn't have preferred it either, but on the other hand a universe can use some change between it's independent publishings. Having played Fallout 3 for an endless amount of time and the preceding ttiles limitary, i would say FO3 is the best game of the series and one the best games of all time in general. The 3D world, openess, atmosphere, design, architecture and soundtrack merged an experience of the Nuclear wasteland like nothing else before. New vegas has all the said traits, but doesn't seem to achieve the same result. First of all the game is an improvement in terms of weapons variety and options, the storyline (as i have been able to observe untill now), and, for my pc system, technical performance.

However the theme of the game completely steps out of line with the entire preceding franchise, the "wasteland" is full and alive and the city of new vegas shows more resemblance with the filth ridden outskirts of a modern day metropolis, than a blackened irradiated gohsttown begging to finally die and discard itself from the festering wounds of it's Nuclear damnation. Also the music is a blur, those lazy bastards at obsidian simply threw in all of the old tracks and made only a few of their own, adding even more to the entropic condition of the soundtrack, which, in the chaotic hell from wrecked buildings, twisted minds and distorted life of the post-apocalypse, is the one thing that should be general and uniform, or at least fitting to the local environment. New vegas randomly picks sounds to play and throws them out there regardless of location, story or sphere. This is a big shortcoming, because not only serving up to one's genre, meeting technical requirements and formatting proper level design are important, but also the result as a whole, a gamedeveloper sells a product of entertainment and is in doing so rightfully expected to give it's buyers an enjoyable experience.

In this respect, while i was already startled by the revalation of a fully powered and alive vegas city in the teaser trailer, new vegas still managed to totally ruin my expectations, by unvealing an in every aspect more thriving propesrous and connected world than any part of Fallout 3, except for the Enclave military installations. There is a mail service, there is power, there even are multiple solar powerplants, vegas city is mostly intact, supplied with water and energy and the casino's are running. That is not what i desired, i loved Fallout 3 for it's barren rotten world, the gigantic voids of total desolation and the eroded traces of civilization sinisterly remembering of a now mythical existence that was before the war. It was a cynical universe, kept alive by the spirit of it's desperation and the evil of it's survivors, a dead world of twisted souls and marching corpses. Everything about it was dark and sick, it showed the very worst of evilness, embedded in a great game with a spectacular soundtrack, rewarding gameplay and a well written story, that is what apealled to me and was what i wanted from new vegas too, what has obviously not been fullfilled.

But having said that, it's still a great game, yet one should just bare in mind that it undeniably wasn't meant to be a follow up to fallout 3, or any other game in the series for that matter, but was rahter intented to give the players something new yet formilliar, same story, different setting. There are factions you can be damned from or ally with, the story is written fairly well and there are very entertaining side quests, the dynamics of the game are much improved in comparisson with Fallout 3, as when you act against a faction for example, like i did with bombing the NCR to hell at Helios One, you are not endangering the main quest, as the game autonomously intervenes by sending troopers to warn you and offering an option to improve your reputation, thus enabling you to continue the main storyline. It is not as destroyed and hopeless as the Capital Wasteland, but it's definitely a decent Fallout game. As optimistic and organized the NCR and New vegas may be, this still is a Nuclear Wasteland, yet considerably dissimilar from it's predecessors. The ambience of the decaying pisshole of freeside, in all it's filth and crime reminding of the worst corners of an american ghetto, with in the background the wealth and fame of the new vegas strip, patrolled by robotic tv's on solitair wheels, surrounded by a desert wasteland filled with a genocidal legion and a selfish republican army battling for a hydroelectric dam, is something only Fallout can put accomplish. So far, new vegas is not what i initiially expected or desired, nor accepted very easily, but i think i can get used to this game as something else than Fallout 3, without having to reappraise the universe as a whole.

Oh, you'll find no argument from me on Broken Steel, I thought it was misconceived and poorly-designed throughout, And it's true that Fallout 3's karma system was idiosyncratic to say the least -- on a 'neutral' playthrough I wound up a cannibal for insta-bad karma, wasn't quite the 'man of grey' I'd imagined -- but then so is New Vegas', in fact I'd argue it's even more broken this time round; my current 'evil bastard' playthrough is really highlighting this for me, I lose more karma for picking a man's pocket than I do for shooting him in the kneecaps.

But I suppose it depends what consequences you want. Wiping a town off the map and being hunted by regulators as a result, with 3 Dog insulting me over the radio, was consequence enough for me, I felt plenty shunned. In New Vegas, my faction status with the NCR actually is "shunned" thanks to my quest decisions, and yet they're perfectly happy to let me wander around their bases looking for things to steal, give me quests and moan to me about patrolling the Mojave.

Well, they're minimalizing some of the weighty decisions in Fallout 3 but on the whole there are more of them in New Vegas.



There are a few quests in Megaton that you can't do if you blow the town up, you just don't get any quest failure messages like in NV. There's also a companion, Jericho, there. The karma system could have been better, it probably sounded a lot better on paper than in practice. You can pay out like 1-2k caps and be maxed out on good again.



If you choose to insert the FEV virus medical clinics are filled with the sick and dying. Repeatedly drinking the river water or aqua pura will also kill you, etc. The BoS add-on felt a bit rushed and slapped together to raise the level cap, but there is some kind of consequence to inserting the FEV.

Actual marked quests? Like...? I mean, sure, you can't fix Megaton's pipes, but I don't really think that's a worthy consequence for nuking a town. You can still complete blood ties, you can still complete the WSG, so what other quests are there to fail...? I'm not referring to little tiny unmarked quests here.



Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't he show up at ground zero if you blow the joint?



I haven't noticed any of that. I noticed that the aqua pura will kill random water beggars, but it does that either way.

Oh, you might be right... looking at the quest list now, most of those are unnmarked and Blood Ties can still be started/completed if you go directly to Arefu as you said. I guess how it affects other quests is minimal, though there are numerous references to the event in other places throughout the game. Nothing that could be considered consequential though.

Edit:
Also, lol @ the pipes quest. I don't know why that made me laugh but the idea of trying to fix the pipes after Megaton is destroyed was amusing.



I think if you blow up Megaton while he's in it, he's gone for good. You can save him by having him as a companion during the quest. If you fire him afterward he'll return to the ruins.



Even without the FEV? That's weird. There's some quest related consequences too as I recall, as some of them are/aren't possible depending what you picked. Been too long now, I haven't done a start to finish playthrough in forever.

Calling Fallout's plot a homage to Wasteland is fair but I don't see how that same consideration isn't applicable to Fallout 3 referencing the earlier Fallout games. I'd only consider calling Fallout 3 a complete rip-off of Fallout 1 and 2 if you considered Fallout to be a rip-off of Wasteland. The background plot of Fallout and Wasteland is almost entirely the same, the main motivations for the antagonist is essentially exactly the same (even in the second game, really)-- hell, the first quest you pick up in Wasteland is one which directs you to find a "Water Chip," an idea which doesn't even make sense in the actual Fallout universe but done purely for the reason of illustrating said homage.

Even New Vegas is a homage to Wasteland, in setting and in terms of the general background plot.

Turbo alone turns you into Max Payne and allows you to blow everything with your shotgun with impunity.



Personally I have more trouble eating the flesh of those disgusting irradiated wasteland critters.


I don't disagree it's nice if you're into that kind of thing. But to me it seems a waste of time since it's completely unnecessary to be able to kill things.


At least in FO3 there's a personal motivation to go out and do things. It may not be well executed, but at least it's there.

In FO:NV, why should the Courier care about the conflict between all the factions you mentioned? My Courier only cared for getting back at Benny for shooting her in the head.


Just because the writer copied a wikipedia article on Hegelian dialectics, doesn't make it intelligent. Especially not by cosplaying as Romans.


Actually, I mostly blew up things.


I one-shotted them both.

Nailed it on the head here. The logic and motivations for the Courier to involve himself in most of the quests available is entirely contrived. I never really could identify with the Courier due to this or even the people in the Mojave largely and the immersion suffered a lot for it.

This is quite the opposite of FO3. The story in FO3 is largely inter-connected with the side quests for reasons known upfront. Befriending Three Dog while searching for your father gave me extra incentive to check out what he rambled on about in his radio broadcasts (such as Oasis, for example). Very rarely did I ever feel like I was simply doing a quest to do it in FO3, whereas in NV I feel this way all of the time. Even the quests in FO3 that were unrelated to the main story were often introduced via radio broadcasts on your Pip-Boy and the fact everyone largely seemed oblivious to them caused me to feel obligated to at least see what they were about.

The fact you even have a Pip-Boy in NV feels contrived and thrown in, simply to justify it being there.

Oh don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that 'The Power of the Atom' is well-written or logical or informed by anything other than the 'rule of cool', merely that, in a cack-handed, binary way it has an appreciable impact on the gameworld. Some guy upthread compared it unfavourably to killing a rat in Freeside and there I felt obliged to jump in at what I felt was an absurd comparison.



Three Dog, kids in Little Lamplight, your dad, slavers in Paradise Falls...ideally there would be even more of this, but to say it doesn't happen at all simply isn't true. In Vegas, I'm still shunned by the NCR (may even be vilified now), but they don't do much in the way of shunning me. Never mind that having evil karma seems to have zero impact on anyone's interactions with me.



Well yeah, but my karma's too low because I blew up a town, hence the regulators... We're splitting hairs here. More generally, you're entirely right about the oddness of the karma system in 3 (I did mention this myself upthread), but this hasn't changed in Vegas and if anything it's gotten worse. I dunno, I think they would've been better ditching karma altogether tbh, just have reputation instead.



Yeah, none of the other options have any impact on the in-game world, unless I've missed something.



Maybe - although I'm not sure what "meaningful gameplay elements" even means. Sounds a bit woolly and vague to me, like the dreaded and useless term "good gameplay". I would ask: can't an RPG succesfully incorporate these "Second Life" elements whilst still remaining a "true" RPG (a term I mistrust anyway)? One of the things I love about both modern Fallouts is that, in addtion to trying to alter the future of the wastes etc. and so on, I get to run around in pyjamas and a cowboy hat if I so desire. Sure, all I'm doing is playing dress-up, but I don't think there's anything wrong with that. That's as much a part of the roleplay as min/maxing your stats or whatever.

I dunno, I like to make my own fun more than anything, so maybe I'm more of a sandboxer. It's freedom in a gameworld that I love more than anything else.

Whys NV better than FO3?

Because of the writing mainly. How it was written is something that isn't matched by 90% of games today (and I leave the 10% for games I don't know about).

The core gameplay was noticeably improved from Fallout 3, but not enough to stand off from FO3 - and that's the biggest downer of Fallout New Vegas. Gameplaywise it felt like a beaten, tired old warhorse, with little to no excitement left in its veins, but with new spurs. While writingwise it felt like an 18-year-old virgin at the peak of her life. Those 2 do not match together well, but the writingside kept the package as intact and as holding it all as a tight whole.

The gameplay just is tired and boring in the long run, and if it wasn't for the writing, I could've just dismissed the whole game - which is the fate of Fallout 4 and TES 5, should Bethesda not get a grip of itself.

Heck, if F:NV was made with a different engine and different gameplay, it could've well been the game of the decade for me. But so far it is only unsurpassed in writing, while everything else is done better in Risen (for one example).

How does that have anything to do with stims healing over time being a good change that makes the game more difficult? It's not like Turbo is particularly common or anything. Turbo is pretty rare in my playthroughts, only slightly more common than stealthboys.



Very well. But it's still a worthwhile skill in hardcoe mode.



But that's a silly argument. Due to the minimum damage mechanic, any weapon can kill any thing - even a giant radscorpion with a varmint rifle, if you've got enough ammo and the patience to do it. What the handcrafted ammos do is make it easier to kill specific targets, or kill all targets more easily and/or quickly.



And New Vegas doesn't have a personal motivation to do things? The first half of the game is revenge. Doesn't get much more personal than that. The second half is you reaching out and changing Vegas by supporting one faction or the other. Literally making your mark on an entire region... I can't think of anyone who, deep down, doesn't want to actually have an *impact* on the world.



Because the courier wants money? Or power? Or what's best for the people of the wasteland as they see it? Because the courier hates Caesar/NCR/House/ There's tons of plausible reasons for the courier to support any of the factions. At least as many as for the Lone Wanderer to continue trying to turn on the purifier even after James dies... Rather than going on a one-man crusade against the Enclave, or trying to join them, or whatever.

Just because the writer copied a wikipedia article on Hegelian dialectics, doesn't make it intelligent. Especially not by cosplaying as Romans.

I was referring more to the idea of enforcing something completely alien to their way of thinking in an attempt to break down tribal boundaries. The pseudo-roman stuff is simply a convenient set of customs that can be readily applied to that end without having to actually come up with something out of nowhere.

The hegelian dialectics made sense too, though I felt that Caesar was focusing too much on them as his underlying intellectual justification for warring on the NCR when the underlying reasoning is rather flawed.

So yeah, do you have anything that was actually remotely on the level of Fallout 3's enclave, when it comes to stupidity and/or pointless evil? Or is your main objection that they decide to try and dress like Romans?

Actually, I mostly blew up things.

Exactly the point. Of course you're not going to get much depth and detail about someone if you do nothing but blow them up on sight.

I one shotted them both

Oh? With what weapon? I play on V. Hard and Lanius was eating AMR crits like candy.

The revenge aspect did not seem plausible to me. While doing Doc Mitchell's quiz I chose the option of "confrontation just ain't in my nature," or whatever and it simply didn't seem realistic that my character then would seek revenge considering the events that had happened. The reason for this is because I've always historically played a stealth-based character (since it made more sense, especially in this case) and a scout-like courier seemed more reasonable than a guy running around gunning people down while proudly declaring he had a package to deliver.

Obviously with no choice I reasoned that I had suffered from very selective amnesia and my only reason for existence at that point in time was revenge and determining what led up to being shot. Okay, some of the immersion is svcked out there since I had to pretend and make up a reason not given in the game to embark on this adventure, but whatever, it only hurt it a little. As I made my way to Primm (I had no real reason to visit the NCR Correctional Facility or the Mojave Outpost), Nipton and ended up in Novac, I realized I had missed a sizable amount of quests because some of the dialog seemed off, so I returned to the Mojave Outpost only to be given a bunch of fetch quests and realized I had broken the intended quest progression path. As with most of these fetch quests, I ultimately earn nothing, learn little and achieve nothing, so I can never quite shake the feeling that the delivery of the plot is contrived.

NV has a very linear quest progression path and a very static world, by large. Very rarely have I felt convinced of what *I* was doing, instead treating most of the quests as simply that, quests. I have no personal investment in them other than to see them completed for completion purposes and I do not feel immersed in the game world. This is a serious problem for any game of this type, especially a Fallout game. In Fallout 1, 2 and 3 there were many quests that seemed ridiculous or pointless even and of course there were a large number of quests that broke down the fourth wall but I still felt invested in the adventure. I simply don't really feel this way in NV unfortunately.

Where does it say you're out for revenge? It just says to find out why you were shot...if your character is looking for revenge that's your choice. Heck, you don't even have to do that if you don't want to. How is this more absurd than FO3's, "You gotta find Dad! Care about Dad! I said care about him, dammit!" Being curious about why you were shot seems a heck of a lot more plausible to me than, "oh, for some reason your dad left the vault...better go find him and stuff." I felt WAY more railroaded by FO3's plot than NV's plot. I really don't see the contrast you're trying to make here.


Erm...the same thing happens if you go to Rivet City (or many other plot-related locations) early in FO3. Again, I'm not seeing the contrast you're trying to make. There are some fetch quests...again, many of FO3's limited number of side quests are fetch quests or worse. Are we penalizing NV for having more quests now?


Again, in what way is FO3's quest progression less linear? In fact, I have a hard time understanding how anyone could possibly see them as anything but a lot more linear. Static? No offense, but are we playing the same game? Are you declaring FO3's world dynamic because you can blow up Megaton? Aside from that and Tenpenny Tower how many other quests are there that actually have meaningful branches with a result that amounts to anything more than one set of dialog or another?

FO3 was convincing? Was it the fact that the factions and settlements were barely aware of each other despite being just down the road, the fact that nobody needed to trade or produce food, the cliche characters, the fact that most places had no reason to exist outside of being theme park rides for the player, the lack of any back-story for just about anything, or something else that really got you?

What convinced you to believe in what you were doing in FO3 that was lacking in NV? Now, I could see that maybe the fact that nothing was really explained or justified in any deep or meaningful way in FO3 allowed you to use your imagination more, but other than that I can't fathom this.


Since this is opinion I can't argue with you. However, I do find it fascinating that we could have experiences that are so opposite one another. This part of your post almost exactly describes how I felt about Fallout 3. I liked Fallout 3, but the utter lack of believability, continuity, or any reason for me to care about anything that's going on were a huge turn-off. FO3 was just two dimensional enough in most ways that I was forced to fill in a lot of gaps using my imagination, and I could certainly see that creating an illusion of depth, but strictly based on content I'm really at a loss to explain how someone could find FO3's world more immersive.

I'm not attacking you or telling you you're wrong, mind you. This is just a friendly, "holy crap, I feel the exact opposite...weird" sort of thing. :foodndrink:

^^^ Here's just one example of something that I found to be pretty "poor" writing in New Vegas:

I meet The King in Freeside, and start doing some favors for him. These favors lead to me saving his top guy Pacer in a fire fight against the NCR, putting my own --- on the line for him and his crew. When I return, and ask him if I can join The Kings, I get a "We don't just let anyone in the group, you have to prove your worth" response.

I'm just like, really? Seriously? So going out there, and putting my own butt on the line your your crew and your men isn't "proving" myself? Wow.

I'm not saying Fallout 3 was such a literary wonder, I'm saying that both of these games are video games, and Fallout 3 isn't some scuzz bucket writing while New Vegas is some in depth work of literary genius. I certainly haven't found any writing in New Vegas that stands out in any way. Even if Fallout 3 isn't a work of literary art, at least it was memorable and engaging.

I was going to post a tid bit Questioning why people felt "immersed" in Fallout 3 and what made it so great etc etc, but softnerd really has it covered.

but ill do it anyway.

I don't get why people enjoyed FO3's storyline, your in a vault, you dad ditches you only for you to rescue him from an eternity of VR prision and he still treats you like crap, and I like how your description of him to seemingly random people when you were looking for him was *a middle aged man* really? oh my that is very distinct. then after sending you on suicide missions kills himself because the Enclave wanted the Purifier AND THEY DIDNT EVEN SHOOT FIRST, there is no reasoning as to why dad went and killed himself which was for nothing because they still held the Memorial, you'd think after all the crap you went through he'd try to cooperate to preserve your life, instead he tells you to *run* oh really? I've curbstomped throws of enemies I could genuinly help. your semi-bestfriend if you so choosed throws you out the vault TWICE. its never elaborate why the enclave having possession of the Purifier would have been a bad thing or overly impacting, people were living in pure ignorance of what was going on their in the first place but what does the LW get after all his/her hard work? a dead dad some howling idiot on the radio and a bunch of people who really should be dead, at the rate they were portrayed the Capital should be a dead region.
D.C after 200 years resembles 50 years after the war, there is no incentive to Survive the wasteland beyond enemies theres nothing threatening your health.
the *city* is seperated into a handful of cells, you are not even able to explore every inch of the City as represented on the Map, as most of it are boring, tedious metro tunnels that people find interesting for some reason. all FO3 really felt like was a romp nothing more really. to me FO3 was full of false hopes

NV doesn't give you some seemingly worthwhile backstory and attachments that you are led to believe to have some significance down the road, instead your background is somewhat obscure, but you have a footprint in the world before the start of the game, an example would be the various references to Courier 6. unlike FO3 you're not Forced to care about the MQ, You're not Forced to care about your descisions even though they have reprocussions(meaningful ones I blew up Megaton and felt none the lesser in the game), you're not Forced to join the BOS even if the east coast branch are trying to be the goodguys, everything isn't flaunted in you're face like some annoying advert, many aspects of NV require you to stumble across them or seek them out.


and you know, I believe thats in part to how NV was advertised. when FO3 was in the making, Blowing up Megaton had fireworks and parades and people sank down that drain into wanting to erase an entire settlement off the map. I feel if that wasn't pasted on the attention flag, as well as many other aspects of the game, it may have been different. NV we recieved barely any Mind candy there were tidbits of information here and there to the point that people posted scans anolyzing EVERYTHING they could because there was very little to go on for sometime, you couldn't *feel* the game accurately before it hit the shelves. and thats what made it different to this one.

Just 2 cents.