Combat in F3 and FNV are both easy. FNV is just mind numbing easy. And there is hardly any combat in the game once you get past the scripted encounters. Unless you like shooting up Geckos. Even though F3 combat was easy, at least you had some.
I thought the combat in NV was harder considering they toned down the bullet sponges. I play on Hard with hardcoe mode on and tend to avoid spamming stimpacks, though. Yeah, there are fewer wasteland encounters in NV, but I felt like it was enough. Yeah, it would have been cool to have a little more combat, but I didn't think it ruined the game. I also play on the PC, and there are mods that allow you to change the amount of combat you encounter in the wasteland.
Fast travel, hell yes there is nothing to see. Many of the random non-quests areas are pointless. No loot, nothing to kill. Pointless. Just get rid of the location all together. Some random locations in F3 were interesting as is(Like the Capital Building or the Haunted Building or the Caged Behmoth). Even without a quest. There is nothing like that in FNV. At less F3 had the skill books, tons of combat and *phat* loot. LOL, just had to say that.
I guess I see where you're coming from, but I don't feel the same way. The Capital Wasteland felt too full of theme park rides for me. It killed the ambiance and a lot of the places didn't make sense given that they've been there for over 200 years and were never looted despite being really close to other things/people. Just my opinion.
On the subject of Voltron, I will admit I never saw it coming. Sometimes I think I am the only one who missed. But never played Deus Ex. BTW, what were the other super-being fights. Only one I can think of is from Oblivion and Martin.
A "Deus Ex Machina" is taken from Greek theater. In Greek theater it was when there was no human resolution for a problem in the plot so the playwright had a god intervene and resolve it using their divine powers. It's generally considered poor form in story-writing because it somewhat makes the plot up to that point redundant. I thought Liberty Prime very much did this. Really terrible writing choice on Bethesda's part, IMO.
Oh, the previous examples of giant robots in Bethesda games I was referring to are from Daggerfall and Morrowind. At any rate, it's not a new or original idea. In fact, the Japanese have been obsessed with godly-powerful giant robot endgames for decades.
Speech is to powerful in this game. Every character basically has to take speech or you miss out on a ton of content. There are hardly any other skill checks that really matter except for the Speech ones. Most other checks have other ways to complete the quest. More useful - yes. Not must have, like FNV.
I disagree with this all-around. It's not a must-have. They just made it worth having. Why is it a requirement to be able to see every version of every bit of content in a game in one play-through? I also disagree that the checks are overwhelmingly Speech checks. A LOT of them are checks on other skills. A whole lot.
The quests choices/consequences are far better in FNV - for the Major Questlines. No comparision there. But there are just too many small quests that are beyond boring. Go talk to that girl in the next town and have her come back here, help Joe Bob with his addicition. Talk the Ghoul Cowboy into being an escort. Heal the wounded NCR troopers with the equipment right next to them. See the town burned, now walk over here and tell someone about it. Follow the map marker and bring this back, just kill the two giant rats in the way. Not interesting, not fun.
Obsidian just needs to speed up the pacing.
I found it both interesting and fun. You're right that there were some side-quests that were pretty "meh," but others were really good. You could just elect not to do some of the side-quests and end up with roughly the same amount of quests (or still more) than Fallout 3 had. I do agree that it would have been cool to have had more neat stuff to find in the wasteland, but I'm pretty sure Obsidian ran out of time. Just take a look at the level of detail to everything in Goodsprings and then compare it to some of the locations later in the game. Looks like textbook "ran out of time" to me.
» Thu Jun 04, 2009 2:07 pm 
lol Well said. The guns are the shootiest! :celebration: 
), and Fallout 3 really feels bigger. Cottonwood Cove might be as far from Nellis as Rivet City is from Republic of Dave, but the journey in Fallout 3 is the one i can't make by leaving the character on auto-move and walking away. And full of distractions. 
That is also "freaking epic".
