I am more involved in New Vegas than I was F3. And F3 was the best game I had ever played. For me, the factions really bring something different to the "feel" of the game. It's more involving for me. Plus, the Strip is fun and the gambling aspect is something I really enjoy. Plus, it seems to me that all of this makes for a better story. I never skip a dialogue and I take my time discovering all I can. In F3, I killed so many ghouls and Super mutants, that combat got a bit boring. In New Vegas, level 15, exploring with Boone, I encountered 8 giant radscorpions in a row, some of them attacking by groups of three. This fight was intense. I now roam the Mojave looking forward to theses confrontations, because I know it won't be a one shot in the head kind of battle. Plus, the Legion hates me and their assassin's are fun and tough to fight.

Yeah, this is something that simultaneously stands out more and is more difficult to do in big games like FO3/NV and TES. Adding a personal touch to everything would be a big job, and just trying to make every NPC worth talking to can easily end in "Morrowind Syndrome," where most NPCs seem more like soulless information kiosks than people.

I disagree. While settlements in Fallout 3 were boring for many reasons, New Vegas hasn't really fixed the problem. Many of the settlements lack reasons to go there (Gun Runners supply all the firearms and armor you need, Van Graffs all the Energy Weapons you need, making most of the settlements useless unless it has something to do with the main quests or has quests). Even if a settlement had side quests for you to do, they were usually quick to finish, and then it became another useless settlement.

Kor'ah

Just wanted to compliment your screen name.......excellent game....one of the best ever IMO.......we talking way back on 3DO btw?

More like early 90s on PC for me. The current http://sc2.sourceforge.net/ is pretty much the old 3DO version and it never leaves my Hard Drive.

More like early 90s on PC for me. The current http://sc2.sourceforge.net/ is pretty much the old 3DO version and it never leaves my Hard Drive.

Well I think they've gone fairly all out with adding things to do. There's quests all over the shop.

It svcks that your sad now there's nothing left to do but hey, it's got to end some time right ?

I guess they could have had lots of repetitive, repeatable quests to satisfy that need for more but since there's no freeplay after the end and even if there were, repetitive, repeatable quests would be just that in the end

Try enjoy it for what it is. As for finding out what happens to characters and places you've enjoyed there's always DLC and sequels to look forward to

Yup....got that UQM on my drive too now


I originally played it back on 3DO tho......that system was basically total crap, but this awesome game all by itself made it worth it.....just simply a classic

Funny, I seldom had people running up to me to hand me quests in Fallout 3.

Oh, the beloved eyes of homerism..

They both are awesome, However, I think Fallout 3 had a little bit more interesting quests.

bring this letter to my family girl didnt come up to you...you had to talk to her...same with fix tha leaks guy

apart from tranquility lane? not really.
many of the bigger quests were just about shooting super mutants in various locations: big town, getting to gnr, getting the dish for three dog, stealing independency, reilly rangers, vault 87.
and if you're not sent on a mission to kill super mutants, you're usually on a mission to kill enclavers or ghouls.
none of these missions allowed you anything else than a violent solution, other than using a stealth boy.
just to put things in perspective, in fo3 i had to struggle really hard to reach 50 successful speech checks in 150h of gameplay. in fnv i already had close to 90 after 60h.
new vegas does a way better job in offering you ways to use your non-combat capabilities properly and frequently.
fo3 to me was a very good, loot-centric action-rpg, fnv is a full fledged rpg.

I guess that depends on how you view useless, as an RPG player settlements are not just about quests or getting loot, they also have places to sleep and storage, but then again all my characters are basic wanderers and will end up back at a settlement they have already visited, the only thing I would change is add more NPCs so that they can really earn the name "settlement"

must have missed that, I kinda just left after I'd finnished the quests and slept with the head woman there (can't remember her name)...it's funny how much like real life this game can be lol

Sure, when you intentionally dumb down things, no crap they sound lame and boring.

Fallout 3 had purpose. Your father worked so hard on the project, and here are the enclave trying to [censored] things up. Your father dies for his project, and if that isnt motivating enough to complete it, then what in gods name is?

New Vegas, you are a delivery boy/girl. You get jumped, and you want revenge on who did it. Sure, acceptable. But once you do that, what is your motivation to help out these different groups? Yo want to talk about NPCs comming up and saying "HEY HELP ME!", ok, let me list them for you.
House - Victor tells you house is waiting for you soon as you enter the strip.
Legion - Whats his face walks up to you and gives you the mark item, in the strip of all places.
NCR - the only main faction that doesn't actively broadcast their need for help.

Now for the minor things. It fealt like nearly every [censored] quest, NPCs wanted you to do ANOTHER quest just to get some simple information. Example. Novak. I tracked benny there. Talk to the sniper for info. He says he will tell me if I clear out repconn. Ok, I go there. Great, now I have to help out the ghouls., but before I can do thay I need to clear out the nightkin. Then I need to get travel to go get some items. God, does it ever end? In the end, in order to complete quest A, I had to do B, C, D, and E.

Now the locations, they are bad to. There is little to no connection with any of them. Goodsprings? Just a map marker. Nipton, why bother. Novak? Not much there. Jacobs town, again, not much. Even the strip has little attraction. Never once did I get the feeling like "This is where I belong." In fallout 3, I felt at home in Megaton.

Now, lets not get confused, My list of problems with Fallout 3 is long, but NV is longer. And at the same time, there are things I love about each, and things I with were mashed together. No game is perfect.

you have not played the first two games. cause, if you had, you'd know that the whole story and plot from fallout 3 was blatantly copy pasted from the first 2 games.




how is that a bad thing? hurrrrr, quests, how baaaaaadddddd
srsly, it's pretty sad that there're so many people who hate on complexity...



what?



actually, there's a lot to do on the strip, and novak had tons more in it, than let's say big town, arefu, girdershade and the likes



because you're a courier from california. you don't have the feeling to belong there, since you are not from there

My view -

Two different companies, two different design philosophies, two different sets of "strengths" in their game design = two different, but both enjoyable games. For different reasons.


Obsidian seems to be all about the quests - FO:NV has amazing depth to the quests, the interrelation between them, the interrelation between factions, etc. And nearly everything in the game is in support of that. Because that's what they're good at. And they did it well.

Bethesda..... well, their quests aren't nearly like Obsidian's. FO3's quests can easily be called "shallow". Especially the MQ. But they're great at world building and set decoration. I enjoy just ignoring the quests and wandering around to see what nifty things I can find around the next corner. I *like* those so-called "cut and pasted" dungeons (esp since they didn't seem nearly as cut-n-paste as the ones in, say, Morrowind). Yeah, as Softnerd said, all those things may not make sense all being stuck near each other in the same world... but I find myself not caring, because it's interesting and fun.


FO:NV makes me feel like I have to be serious all the time. FO3 just lets me wander around and have fun. Two different games, two different styles, both good in different ways.



I will say that I haven't been able to get a second play of NV really moving. Kind of odd - while I was doing my first play, I kept having thoughts of what different character I'd try and how I'd do such-and-such area differently.... but once I actually started that second play, it was hard to keep the motivation up. Not sure why - might have something to do with knowing I'd have to chew through alot of the same situations again in order to get to something I wanted to do differently. Whereas in FO3, since the quests were so much less important, almost every followup play ignored the MQ almost completely, and just ran around and did random stuff. No pressure. Or something like that. /shrug

And for all that I think FO:NV is a really good game, I definitely can't see myself playing it as many times as I have FO3.

I am particularly dissapointed about Jacobstown for obvious reasons.

Also, when you hear that obsidian and is co-working with bethesda to make fallout new vegas you think: GREAT! The best from both games will merge into one ubergame. Instead bethesda just gave obsidian the geck, a time limit and some money and told them to make new vegas. ( even though bethesda may have worked on it aswell). So even though obsidian did a great job ( in my opinion ) with the tools they had to work with. It just doesn't feel right. If only obsidian had the time and the money to just make a game that's completely their own, complete with a new engine and all that good stuff. Obsidian working with bethesda's gamebryo engine and GECK just didn't turn out very well.

Actually it did turn out pretty good, since I really like the game and I'm very satisfied by it. In comparison to what I think obsidian COULD have done, I think this game is really lacking.

In response to the never-ending quest chain, At least they made it so you can shortcut quests or skip main quest hooks (in reference to Novac) altogether..

I think people are confusing Fallout 3 with Fallout 3 GOTY. Fallout 3 had very few quests and even if you did all the quests you could probably beat it in less than 10 hours. GOTY is a completely different beast. NV has more content, and a better story.

/shrug

I didn't bother with the GOTY version, or most of the DLC. Only ones I got were Pitt and BS.... and I stopped installing BS after trying two playthroughs with it because it just messed too much stuff up. Didn't bother with the Pitt on the most recent play, either.... once I'd done it both ways, I didn't really have much reason to do it again. But, like I said, I don't play FO3 for the quests - I play it for the world.

there are 2 things the fallout 3 had over NV.........bad guys and world building. ceazars legion doesnt even come close to the enclave and NV has annoying invisible walls EVERYWHERE, along with tons and tons of misplaced and floating objects. the overall stories are basically the same to me with the exception of the liberty prime sequence which, while ridiculous, was still enjoyable. everything else goes to NV hands down especially with ammo types and damage threshold and denerfing the deathclaws.

Being completely unbiased here, that is complete BS. You CANNOT EVER beat fallout 3 main quest and ALL side quests in 10 hours. I respect all arguments and standpoints, but not when people over-exaggerate like this.

I beat the entire game in 15 hours and got most of the side quests (Not DLC) done..