I started on Fallout 3, went to New Vegas and now planning on making a return. I'd like to know if there are mods which give a similar effect to hardcoe mode on New Vegas. I'd ideally like something simple to install.

Fallout Wanderers Edition is what you are looking for.

Its quite an extensive overhaul mod and does not play well with some other large mods unless care is taken with the install and the right mod compatibility patches are used.

http://www.nexusmods.com/fallout3/mods/7565/?

Arwen has an Official thread around here somewhere but you can try to find her at her http://arwen.freeforums.org/portal.php. It is a graveyard so don't expect anything exciting but she does check in at least twice a week. It doesn't get much tougher than her tweak mod and she has be updating it for years. I believe it is also compatible with Fallout Wanderers Edition and most major mods. The few members at her site can help you with information and installation.

For something smaller there's http://www.nexusmods.com/fallout3/mods/2125/? for the obvious use and a http://www.nexusmods.com/fallout3/mods/11329/? for DarnifiedUI if you use that.

For injuries it's either http://www.nexusmods.com/fallout3/mods/834/? or http://www.nexusmods.com/fallout3/mods/5867/?, both will a bit more "involved" than the way you heal injuries with NV hardcoe. I should note that Primary Needs is a supplemental mod to Real Injuries.

I'll second ktbu, if you want a real hardcoe experience in F3 or NV then Arwen's Realism Tweaks is the way to go, it's puts every other hardcoe mod/mode to shame.

Is it better than JSawyer?

That's ideally what I'm looking for, Kalasanty, thanks. Thanks to all for the suggestions thus far.

Well, JSawyer is a patch created by one of Obsidian developers for NV only. I was just wondering if it can improve my experience with it.

It does much more than Sawyer's mod to make the game more difficult.

About the only truly unique thing Sawyer's mod does that other mods don't is the different Stimpaks. He added a weaker Stimpak, Expired which you'll find just about anywhere you find Stimpaks in the game and then Stimpak, Homemade which is a crafted version with -1 PER penalty like healing powder.

Most other changes Sawyer's mod makes to hardcoe settings are covered well by other mods, Project Neveda's Rebalance module can be tweaked to be as diffucult if not more than Sawyer's and Arwen's even more so especially if you use the Med-Tec module.

If you want bugs fixed in NV use YUP, want a more hardcoe experience in NV use Arwen's. I consider Sawyer's mod a lite-NVEC/Mission Mojave, it tries to do a little bit of everything. It's fine if you want an extremely light mod to change the game-play some but if not then there are better options out there.

There's nothing similar to Sawyer's mod for Fallout 3 that I'm aware of, my previous suggestions are about as light and simple as you're going to get.