I agree with everything the OP said. The game is a huge improvement over Fallout 3. I just hope they work on the stability of the game. I played 35 hours with no bugs or crashes but since getting to the strip its been crashing. I think once the bugs and stability issues get ironed out people will remember New Vegas as being superior to Fallout 3.

New Vegas is a $50 FO3 mod.

JMHO - I loved FO3. Played it over and over, got all the DLC, thought I'd died and gone to heaven. Yes, it had it's flaws, but nothing that was a gamekiller. When I got tired of it, well, Oblivion was right there next to it. I could go play it, and remember all the things I'd forgotten, and find some new ones. Now, New Vegas is here, and I'm lovin' it. Since the patch (Xbox, anyway) I've had no more gamekillers, and that was enough for me. Now, I find that while it is decidedly a different game than either of the other two, it's just as good. The map isn't nearly as big (in my opinion, anyway), but the depth of what is there in terms of the number of unique characters and depth of the factions etc. more than makes up for that.

I will be playing NV for a long, long time to come.

As far as which one's better... I don't like cake better than pie. But, if all I've had is cake for a long long time, I'm really glad to get some pie!

Cut the guy a break,--- SPOILER! SPOILER ALERT!!!! -- he does have a brain tumor, after all. This kind of stupidity makes sense from an old man with brain damage, it doesn't make sense from a supercomputer. Further, he hears a big kaboom, that's fairly strong evidence without him having to actually get off of his royal behind. Though I get your point. My reply would be that my suspension of disbelief isn't endless, it has limits... and those limits are broken by the supercomputer doing something so stupid Homer Simpson wouldn't be willing to do it. Know what a super computer should do instead? Know what a human of average intelligence (me) would do? "Hello, Lone Wanderer, I happen to have a growth agent that will stimulate fish reproduction in the Atlantic and over the course of the next two decades increase potential food yields by 476%. If you'd insert it into the purifier for me, I'd greatly appreciate it. Afterwards we can discuss getting a large shipment of fishing poles to Rivet City." See? That's a lie I came up with off the top of my head that would be several orders of magnitude more likely to get what I want done.. er.. if for some reason I wanted to purge all non-Enclave humans from the world. :unsure:



Well if I was a parent I would hide my kid in a bunker until he/she could fit into some combat armor and shoot a gun, postapocalyptia is dangerous.



Because no one has made a mod that replaces Helios with a super weapon that doesn't svck yet. I'll keep you posted on that one, because someone is going to fix that major facepalm moment in New Vegas. :goodjob:



Again, it goes back to where one draws the line on how far suspension of belief can carry something. In reality, the farm land in New Vegas wouldn't support the population, but they at least put in an explanation for where these people are getting food.



To clarify what I meant: one can have the opinion that Fallout 3 is a more enjoyable game than New Vegas, and that's entirely legitimate and a purely subjective call. However, stating 'Fallout 3 has a better story' is not an opinion, it's a truth claim that can be assessed and then fairly quickly dismissed as ridiculous. The works of Shakespeare being better than the drivel written by Stephanie Myer is not an opinion, it is a fact. No, I'm not saying that Fallout 3 is THAT bad, by the way. There isn't much that can compare to Twilight in sheer concentration of awful, I'm just illustrating the point that there are objective standards by which to measure how good or bad a story is.

I agree completely. You go into some rooms and the fake piped in crowd noise is stupid, as are the fake six sounds from some of the rooms. I also am wondering if I am going to get a new PS3 when I break the power button from power cycling it so many damn times. God help you when you go to help the Brotherhood of Steel with a couple of companions (Rex and Boone). JFC!!!! Now it seems that I find myself saving the game manually every couple of minutes so I can progress through these quests.. I think they tested the first five minutes of this game and said "Good 'Nuff." Makes me think of the Gamefly comercial over and over. Please send more patches for this game programers!!!

Well, I play on the PC and have played through the game three times now and I haven't crashed that much. No more than any other game, at least. I've only come across one serious bug, too.. so I don't see what the fuss is about, personally. Though if there are serious bugs they are going to be patched.

It is all subjective. If we're talking about whether Fallout 3 is better or worse than New Vegas, we could discuss ad nauseum the technical merits of dialogue, quest pathing/construction, level design, music and even colour palette. Fallout: New Vegas would probably even come ahead in some if not many technical aspects. The end resulting game has to be greater than the sum of it's parts however. The base conclusion of whether one is better than another will come down to, "which one did I enjoy more?".

Even stating Shakespeare is better than Stephanie Myer is not a fact. It's an opinion. Shakespearean plays are well-worded and sensibly constructed, but that doesn't mean that "Twilight: Shimmering Vampires of Barechest Isle" isn't a more entertaining read when weighing them in at the end.

I think the problem is that some people might like Fallout 3 more but aren't able to articulate the reasons why, which isn't surprising since trying to quantify personal experience as "fact" is going to be an endless debate regardless of which side of the fence you are on. I think there is also the element of people who loved Fallout 3 and were expecting the same exact feelings and experiences in New Vegas. Many probably did not understand that it was in the "Fallout 3 skin" but was developed by an entirely different group of people who hail from the other side of the RPG genre.

I think we're going to just have to agree to disagree. If that is the case, however, would you object to the validity of an English teacher grading an essay of a high school student? Is that teacher's opinion not equally subjective and equal to the opinion of the student? Shouldn't we just let the student give him/herself an A?

An essay isn't a creative work of fiction so I don't think the comparison applies. At best a story is given "a review" and the reviewer tries to provide reasons for his conclusion, which is what we've been doing here. Most of your posts, this one included, lead me to believe that writing is the most important thing in a game to you:

- X written work of art is better than Y written work of art
- Then how would you grade this piece of writing?

Fallout 3/NV are more than just the words and dialogue, so things like location, ambient music, radio soundtrack, object sounds, map design, location, atmosphere and even colour all factor into "the bigger picture" for many people. With a complete change in many of these things, including who developed it, it isn't a 1:1 comparison.

Fallout new vegas is great. It's an interesting, believable world full of interesting and believable characters and factions. I love the moral greyness of the game.

Nothing like the orcs vs paladin in f3.

I don't want to mention the flaws of the game, because it was so unexpectedly great that I don't want to ruin the surprise I had by anolyzing the room for improvement this game has. And I'm sure the developers would figure on their own, or other fans will do it.

It kinda depends on *when* you show up. NPCs on the strip have schedules just like everyone else.

At some points, all the people might be inside gambling rather than stumbling around drunk.



As someone who holds a degree in creative writing, I have to say this is completely wrong. Stories can most assuredly be graded - in workshops, my peers graded me, as well as my professor. There are objective standards that apply to stories and can be used to grade them. Things like grammar, punctuation, depth, plausibility, attention to detail, characters... There's some subjectivity in exactly what standards you use, but to claim that you can't objectively compare two stories, or that you can't objectively rate a story just because it's a story is bunk.

And by the objective criteria I learned about while getting my degree, I can safely say that New Vegas' story is better in nearly every way than Fallout 3's. The characters have understandable motivations rather than being simple one dimensional caricatures. They're also massively deeper than any character in Fallout 3. Caesar appears evil to the core if you look at the society he constructed, yet actually meeting him, you see that he's fairly genial and has reasons for everything he does.

The plot too is deeper; every faction has its own motivations and reasons for doing what they're doing, they aren't purely good or purely evil. Compare Fallout 3; It's basically a story about a benevolent army of knights versus an army of evil black knights, along with a bunch of mindless monsters thrown in for no reason. Why does the Enclave want to murder everyone? Lolz, because it's what they did in Fallout 2 of course! Why does Lyons want to protect people? Lolz, because he can! Why do the mutants kill and eat everything they can see? Lolz, because they're hungry!

New Vegas, meanwhile, it all bout the interplay of several deep and interesting factions who have their own realistic motivations and reasons for doing things, and in the end, the player can never truly be sure that whatever faction they supported is the "right" choice.

If I submitted a story with as much depth as New Vegas in one of my writing workshops, I'd get it back with an A and very little scathing criticism from my peers. If I submitted a story with as much depth as Fallout 3, I'd be lucky to get a C at best, and everyone would talk about how it's too simplistic and that the characters with perhaps a handful of exceptions are wooden caricatures.

The strip is a bit of a snooze. Wasted potential.

Game is quite good though.

I love New Vegas. I do think it is better than FO:3. That being said, I still liked FO:3, immensely, and I wouldn't call anyone stupid for having an opinion that differs from mine.

I think New Vegas is fantastic; it has more weapons, perks, creature types, quests, factions, etc. Weapon play is much better. Crafting is better. Quests are more complex, and quite a few have interesting and varied solutions.

That being said, there are a couple things better about Fallout 3. New Vegas can be a bit bland at times - many towns feel somewhat bland and empty, and large parts of the world feel the same. Fallout 3 was always decorated with junk, and almost anywhere you went, you could find junk to rummage through, and maybe even some stuff within. Finally, there is a lack of large multi-zone buildings and caves. Fallout 3 must have had a dozen 3 zone buildings that don't even have anything to do with a quest. Places like the Capitol Building.

There is also the fact that many of us on the PC are going from a 100+ modded fallout 3 to an unmodded New Vegas. I miss Mart's increase spawns.

The original Fallout games were about exploration... but not the mindless exploration of FO3. The purpose of exploration was to encounter factions and quest material in any order of choosing (or randomly if it is your first time). This was completely different from any other game at that time. The freedom of choosing how the world's story unfolds effects the story itself. If you do some quests you will not have the option to do others in other areas. This mechanism allows a player to create a unique experience even if using the same ethics/morals for every character. Fallout 3 did not have this. Quests were contained to specific areas and only some superficial plot lines overlapped at all...even then it is more coincidental than an active conflict between moral/ethical decisions.

One of the biggest issues I have with Fallout 3 is the emphasis put on the Talon Company and Super Mutants fighting over the downtown DC area and never finding anything there worth fighting over. It was a great excuse to show a large scale battle between NPCs and I had fun blasting stuff....but it was empty of any substance other than PEWPEWLAZORBEEMZZ. There was no obvious logical reason for anything those 2 groups did and they were the bulk of the opponents you faced. After many such experiences in FO3 I got bored because it was a shooter with some RPG elements that did not do a good job of explaining the situations you get into. FO1 and 2 only had such meaningless cannon fodder in random encounters while exploring and you could choose to avoid them if you wanted because there was no quest objective, interesting background information, or unique gear to be had. FO 1 and 2 didn't have a seamless 3d world either so there is a design limitation to that I guess. They had several small locations that all served some purpose of expanding on plot lines or the direct objective of those plot lines. Even their completely optional areas that you have to actively hunt for give information and tools that are part of the major plot line.

The only random encounter I remember from FO3 was the crashing spaceship. There was nothing else that seemed like a grand "WTF just happened?!" moment. I remember things like, a crashed star trek vessel, whale that fell from the sky, various monty python skits, a cursed dog, and many many more from the first 2 fallouts. I guess that is also a limitation of the seamless 3d world.... you can not throw random stuff like that at you in any outdoor area without spending a lot of time calculating all of the variables.

FO 3 was pretty much only a FO game in terms of tone and general visual styles. FO NV injects more of the original story type and black humor that made it so unique.

I think we'd gotten too far off track once we were starting to look at Shakespeare, Stephanie Myer and essays. These are all books and things that are written down on paper. They serve as a poor but simplified anology for what Fallout 3/NV actually encompass. That is looking at it from a purely storyline/writing based point of view. I think we can all agree that not only is the game not linear like a book, it involves at least a dozen elements (visual, audio, time spent, etc) that fall outside what literature/writing entails. Even if writing can truly be technically reviewed and quantified, that doesn't mean that something which receives an "A" mark will not also receive a "C" for enjoyment. Most of us gamers aren't English professors of course.

I still haven't written out why I enjoyed Fallout 3 more (and it was thus better, to me) but I've been at work so I only have time to type a sentence for a reply here and there.

hey dude... you said new vegas failed twice there.

-IMO-IMO-IMO-IMO-IMO-IMO-

The thing that made Fallout 3 such an extraordinary game was its atmosphere, and in this regard New Vegas falls badly short. There's more to do in terms of quests etc, but Fallout 3 made me feel like the Omega Man and NV never comes close to achieving that. Also, in NV whenever I ask myself the question "what's over that hill I wonder?" the answer is invariably "nothing much except invisible walls".

(Incedentally, I also much prefer Fallout to Fallout 2.)

-IMO-IMO-IMO-IMO-IMO-IMO-

I agree with the OP 100% on almost all counts. Despite some flaws I'm enjoying NV much, much more than I enjoyed Fallout 3. I liked Fallout 3, but it didn't feel like a real place, the characters didn't seem anywhere close to real people, I felt railroaded most of the time, and the multitude of random locations to explore just didn't make up for it.

The game world in NV even looks more real as opposed to the garish caricature of a real place FO3 presented. Like I said, I liked FO3, but everything felt forced and artificially "epic," like a bad sci-fi movie. NV is full of subtleties that make it feel a LOT more fleshed-out and little details that make it more believable. Fallout 3 feels like a theme park full of "stuff to do" plopped down at random intervals for the sake of giving the player "stuff to do." Half of it didn't make any sense, and almost all of it felt entirely inconsequential.

I like both games for different reasons, but NV will resonate in my memory as an experience a lot longer and stronger than Fallout 3 will. :shrug: I wish they would have had more time to add more random stuff to explore, because that's what I think is turning off a lot of the FO3 fans. Outside of that I think NV outshines FO3 in just about every way.

For someone who supposedly holds a degree in creative writing..you sure have a hard time looking at things objectively.
Do you wanna know a little secret?
Your opinion really doesn't matter.
If you like New Vegas better, then great. But in the grand scheme of things, you can't change the fact that many people would disagree with you, no matter what nonsense you try to spew.

He is not spewing nonsense, he is "spewing" the truth. Fallout 3s story was just a bunch of tin-can knights beating back the evil dark demons. Fallout NV had a well developed story with FOUR endings! Fallout 3 had like ONE ending, with changes here and there based on karma.

Sure. I can argue that Blade Runner is a better film than Independence Day and a lot of people will disagree with me. I'll think they're nuts, but everyone has a right to their opinion regardless of how many educated points I can make to prove that Blade Runner is better from a film-making perspective. :shrug:

I think it's clear that the dialogue is certainly better in FO:NV. The exploring aspect is better then I expected, but there could be more. The map isn't as big to me: I often feel hemmed in. Although many of the locations are interesting, they are not interesting in the subtle way that many of the FO3 locations are...they lack that visual storytelling that FO3 did so well.

Although the NV skill system is more in line with previous Fallouts, I think that many Beth game fans would rather have the sort of superhuman characters that they have come to expect from Beth games, and can't be done in FO:NV.

And Personally, I prefer the abject ruin of the FO3 universe. I feel that the NV world is too civilized. Again, this in more inline with previous Fallouts, but I don't find it gritty enough...desperate enough.

Which game is best? I agree with the poster I quoted above. I like each game for different reasons.

I wonder what would happen...if it were possible, for Obsidian to create the social and political world, while Beth created the world outside the towns and cities.

I feel that Fallout 3 was the better game.
New Vegas is great, but it got rid of so many elements that made Fallout 3 such an amazing game.
New Vegas obviously had it's improvements (voice acting and such) but it fell short in a lot of areas.

Let me explain what I mean.
For starters, there was some laziness involved in the design of the game world.
Too many meaningless locales, invisible walls, and the like.
Another thing is the darkness of the game world.
Part of what made FO3 great was the dark, desperate feel of it.
Now, the fun, happier feel of New Vegas is enjoyable, but it does kind of take away from the overall game experience.
For instance, in Fallout 3, you could walk into a dark sewer, not knowing what to expect, you keep your radio on to take away some of the eeriness of the situation, when suddenly, you come across the skeleton of a child holding it's parent's skeletons tightly.
There were no darker moments like that in New Vegas.
You never really thought.. How did we let it come to this...
Another thing missing is the political satire..Now I understand that taking the game world back out of D.C. is largely a reason for this, but still..
One of the neat things about FO3 was seeing things that the public was told about what was going on in the world in 2077, and then seeing the dark truth behind everything.
You know what I mean?

Now, don't get me wrong, New Vegas is a phenomenal game, but I hope that when FO4 comes, that they don't completely take the direction of New Vegas, the direction that "everything is happening in the here and now", and they still keep "the past" as a part of the game.

Great post!
I don't feel that Superhuman characters is a necessity (or even that fun for that matter) but I agree with pretty much everything else..