ok , so now i have Fallout New Vegas and here's the thing ; I'm not sure how i feel about it ! i should set out by saying that i'm a solid Fallout 3 fan . I've been playing since early 2009 and there have been very few days since that i have n't played . In fact , in a way , it's kind of a curse because there isn't any other game that comes close . I mean how do you follow the absolute genius of Fallout 3 ? Well , i waited in great anticipation for what i thought would be the answer to that question ; Fallout New Vegas . In fairness , i've only had NV since this past xmas so i guess i've only been playing it for maybe 3 months and i am still finding new stuff in Fallout 3 even now so it feels kind of unfair to compare the two . anyhoo , here goes .

I'll start out with what makes me feel bad writing ; the bad bits ! it always makes me feel a little disloyal talking about the bad bits but it needs to be said . so FO3 had "glitches" . Some of them were annoying some were advantageous and some were downright funny ! But you had to forgive even the annoying ones because they didn't really impact too much on a game that had such depth and character . Truth is , the only reason some glitches were annoying was because they ripped you out of your own little world that you were so deeply immersed in , kind of like how a baby must feel during a caesarian section . one second your just happily minding your own business and the next your all annoyed ! but then you carry on playing and you forget all about it in no time . However , the glitches in FONV are annoying beyond belief and far more numerous than in FO3 .

Again , i might have been able to forgive that but for what i consider to be a fatal flaw . The atmosphere just doesn't seem to be there . I'm still not sure what's missing but i feel that it's something fundementally lacking in the quest content . most quests feel rushed and incomplete and don't have the "oomph" that was found in FO3 . For instance , there isn't a single quest that even comes close to " The wasteland survival guide " or " You gotta shoot 'em in the head " or " Riley's rangers " . The closest i've come across yet in FONV is " Bleed me dry " which is quite good but still not quite there . It almost feels like the developers were rushed into completing work to meet a deadline . Were that the case , i would rather have waited six more months and had greater depth and quality to the quests than i feel is there at the moment . And this is coming from someone who would check several times daily for updates to the release date for FONV !

Ordinarily , these would be enough off putting factors for me to not want to bother with a game , but this is , after all , Fallout we're talking about . So let's get to the good bits . Yaaay ! The companions of NV are greatly superior to the followers of 3 in that they have a much greater detail to their histories , making it easier for you to bond with them in a way that wasn't possible in 3 . Each one has their own quest which results in a choice of upgrade for that companion . Brilliant !
Also , the way in which you acquire them makes it impossible to exploit the glitch in FO3 which allowed you to have multiple followers ( i can have 5 followers plus dogmeat in FO3 ) and because all companions have a high payload capacity and ED-E and Rex can also carry your ill gotten gains for you , i don't feel there's a neccessity for any more in NV .

Magazines ! outrageously great idea . I'm kind of ok with skill books being fewer and being worth more in terms of skill points though i do think there should probably be more like ten for each skill as opposed to four or five . finding them always feels great in game and it would make it a little easier in developing your character which i feel is overly restrictive in NV . I'm also kind of cool with only getting a perk every other level but again , i feel this is too restrictive unless you were to add extra levels . If the cap was 40 as opposed to 30 i reckon you'd probably be about right .

Speaking of perks , whose idea was the " jury rigger " perk ? genius ! that and weapon repair kits solves all the issues that made life difficult with certain unique items in FO3 . The idea of earning perks as you go is also great and tends to give you upgrades you actually need because you get stronger in an area the more you use it .

I'm good with the change to the system of armour rating and love that there's more choice to armour .
I love the new weapon types and i love that unique weapons have unique skins which you didn't have in FO3 . I'd like to see some other unique weapons though . unique anti-materiel rifle , unique assault carbine , one that's chambered in 5.56mm maybe ? it'd be great to see a unique l.m.g. too . I love weapon mods though i'd like to see more available . more weight reducing mods for say the l.m.g. and anti-materiel rifle but over all weapon mods are superb .
the different types of ammo available is , again , genius ! it would be cool if certain types of ammo were only available as quest rewards or by killing certain characters .
Campfires and being able to interact with various plants and animals etc to produce buffs and such is outrageously good . the introduction of survival as a skill is something that was lacking in FO3 and adds a new dimension to the game .
speaking of new dimension , who thinks the rebreather totally rocks ?! whoever thought that up is a total rockstar and , again , this is something that was lacking in FO3 . it now means that there is even more territory to explore . In closing , I think there's a lot to be said for FONV , most of it good but , as things stand right now , i'm still a confirmed FO3 junkie .

If anyone from Bethesda reads this , i'd like to humbly offer some advice as a consumer . The additions made to FONV totally rock but you need to go back to FO3 and find the magic in the quests there and please , before you launch FO4 , guys you really need to do something about the glitches !!

Fallout rocks , all hail Bethesda !

Oh God, my eyes. :wacko: You know, your keyboard has an enter key for a reason. There's no way I'm reading all of that. I'll go blind before I get to the end.

I do prefer Fallout 3 over NV, but Obsidian is much better at quest making. More choices and detail. I think it would be wonderful if Bethesda and Obsidian teamed up to make Fallout 4.

Wall of text.

Learn to use the enter key good sir.

Sincerest apologies , hope the edited version is acceptable !

Hope your eyes get well soon ! sincerest apologies to you and your eyes . i would be honoured if you would take a look at the edited version .

The enter and shift keys are your friends.

Well since I came into fo series in 3 I like it better.

Good
hard main enemy
many possible ways of getting hurt or dieing
DC area well known land marks
the story made me really mad at the enemy
the story made me really like the good guys
the story made me feel like I made the difference
being introduced to fallout


BAD
freezing
slow choppiness
not enough control of followers
followers wont follow me over anything or down anything rigid

FONV though not as good as fo3 IMO, but still a good buy

GOOD
damage threshold
different types of bullets
much more making and moding
higher cap than fo3 from the start
a tiny bit more control of followers
cazadors
a glimps at older fo
its fo
ADS

BAD
very weak main enemy
not enough ways to get hurt or die
followers won t follow me up or down anything rigid
not enough control of followers
not enough real places to go into on the map/boring
many drastically different endings and only 1 will really count
not enough wasteland action/boring
the story didn t make me feel like it really needed me/things would have been fine the way they were
even more freezing
areas freeze so often I won t even bother going near them
so much freezing I started to fast travel to try to avoid freezing in wl
slow choppiness if some action starts with more than 3 people on screen

Over all I rate fo3 a 8.75 the highest rating Ive ever givin a video game. I give fonv a 7.0. For control purposes...new cod bo online 4.75

F3

Pros:
-Exploration and fun gameworld
-Return of the series(even if Troika and Bioware were actually bidding for it too)
-DC Ruins have their charm
-Liam Neeson
-GECK and mods
-Random encounters

Cons:
-Crappily crap writing especially the dialogue
-Atrocious voice acting. Were, not the quality, but I am getting truly sick of hearing the same Elf guy from oblivion EVERY time in F3.
-2-dimensional factions who creepily remind me of Arthurian Knights and the typical "big bag guyz in black armor" (who want to kill you every time they see ya. Figures)
-No choice. You *are* forced to help the do-gooders Brotherhood of Steel and also railroaded into the same ending. Why not the Enclave? Or even the Talon Company?
-The leveling system and enemies are a joke. I could slaughter a supermutant on Lvl 4 with nothing but a Hunting Rifle, and a brute with 10MM SMG(tested). By the level of 10, you are practically a god-
The only thing that Broken Steel adds is bullet sponge enemies.
-Dumbed down SPECIAL(fixed with the FWE mods)
-Companions being nothing more but cannon fodders with generic one-liners
-Every [censored] quest tries too hard to be an "epic dungeon crawl adventure"
-Epilogue is meaningless. The only thing that changes is Ron Pearlman's verdict about your karma. WTF.

Also, the epitome of the dumbest writing i've ever read:

"I'm looking for my father. Middle-aged guy, maybe you've seen him?"

7,5/10

NV
Pros:
-Brilliant storytelling and writing
-Mostly grey factions. NCR wants law but are more corrupt, Legion uses inhumane tactics but with the whole "The end justifies the means" etc.
-Deep and memorable companions. They have their own personalities, opinions on your karma/quest solving and are overall VERY well implemented.
-Voice acting. It's not perfect, but miles better than F3. I like how some of the actors even try a different tone to avoid the clone effect.
-Ability to CHOOSE. It's the NCR, Legion, House or the Independent. People who claim "it always leads to the same!" have obviously not played the game at all.
-You can actually have a BIG impact epilogue. You have endings for the main factions, the lesser ones, towns, hell even some NPCs and your companions.
-Closer to the older Fallouts
-More true to the lore
-Gameworld actually makes sense from the logical standpoint. Also, more consistency.
-Variety in the quests
-Damage Threshold
-Improved Gameplay mechanics
-Iron sights and a lotsa of new weapons + ability to mod them
-GECK and mods

Cons:
-Bugs
-A weee bit empty wasteland
-No random encounters

8,5/10

Agreed on all points. Except I'd give Fo3 an 8.5 and New Vegas a 9.5.

Normally we don't allow "vs." threads, but in cases where you are talking about games within the series, we will allow it to run - just remember some basic ground rules - no personal attacks - talk about what you like about the game, not what you don't like about the way someone posted. If disagreeing with each other, keep it civil.

F3 pros:

- Nice environments
- Good artistic style
- Decent music (though not very Fallout inspired).
- If you forget that it attempts to be a Falloutgame, you have a decent openworld shooter with a bit of RPG flavor.
- Some quests are well structured and written.

Cons:
- The Overall writing is bad. Few light spots don't save the big picture.
- FPS combat both in implementation and as a choice of combat to begin with.
- The skills and stats are dumbed down to only flavormechanics instead of something that would make a difference...
- ...and thus the gameplay in general feels very dull and unrewarding.
- An added frustration comes from the game being way too easy on every difficulty, still to heavy handed levelscaling, the gameworld structuring where aid is everywhere and challenge nowhere, and general off-balanceness...
- ...which leads to a feeling that the game wants the player to challenge himself, which is fine, but which should never ever be the situation by default as selfchallenges should be something the players do when they feel like doing it, not something the players must do.
- Too heavy reliance on random pointless exploring and too little on quests and storytelling. A dungeon dive every now and then is fine, but it shouldn't be the crux of a Fallout game. The story and quests shouldn't feel like an afterthought.


New Vegas improves Fallout 3 on every aspect (writing, overall stucture, RPG mechanics, voiceacting, general gameplay, atmosphere, consistency, chices & consequences, players impact on the world and worlds reaction to the player etc.), but sometimes not quite enough. The general gameplay, for instance, still feels too shootery and too little like an RPG, the game is still way too easy on all accounts, the levelscaling is still too heavyhanded where it is used. There are also a lot of good ideas that feel downplayed (DT, HC, cooking/crafting, the soft requirements for weapons...). All in all New Vegas is still just more of Fallout 3, just better (but not enough, imo) crafted to suit the Fallout franchise.

Let's give numbers:
Fo3: 6
F:NV: 8

Haha! This so hard!

And on "I'm looking for my father. Middle-aged guy, maybe you've seen him?" I actually thought they added that just because it was so damn silly It would also reflect the lone wandered prefectly, getting out that vault for the first time in his life, and asking around in the first settlement he finds if they have seen a middle-aged guy! :laugh: Oh man! I think that [Intelligence]-check at the radio station is worse.

Well, to be fair, New Vegas had a few 'Herp Derp' dialogue lines. Take for example,

"[Medicine 50] What's the symptoms of Hydra use?" if you have to be half maxed at the doctor skill to say that, you must need a 100 to apply a band aid to a scraqe :laugh:

I've seen a few things I've raised my eyebrow at. Note, I'm not ragefending F3, I'm just saying both games have several pants on head moron moments.

Let me take this for a spin in this direction:

A lifelong/longtime (very long time. I ain't a spring chicken here. I played Steve Jackson's Melee and Wizard as a kid) PnP RPG player/GM, I had never really gotten into playing any of the cRPGs. I guess it just wasn't my cup of tea. My computer game library mostly consisted of a bunch of FPSs and flight simulators. One day I walked into my son's room (probably to chastise him for not doing the dishes or some other crime against humanity), and I see he's playing this new FPS I hadn't seen yet. I watch him for a while, and I'm intrigued. It's this wacky post-apocalyptic game with mutants and stuff. Then I see him enter into dialog with a NPC. *What's this? A new kinda RPG?* First chance I got, I sent him off to mow the lawn and fired up a new game to see what this was all about. I was hooked. Not that I had really been looking for it, since I really hadn't tried playing many cRPGs, but this was almost like sitting around the table with the old crew, drinkin' beers and talkin' in funny accents. I bought it for my PC and the rest, as they say, is history. Since FO3 was the game that made me realise that a cRPG could give me close to the same kind of experience as my old PnP gaming. I'll compare the two games looking at them from that perspective:

FO3: While the main quest was less than scintillating, the open world and wide variety of side quests and the realatively robust vendor system allowed me to make any sort of character and play through the game unendingly. I've played so many different characters/archetypes through the game I can't remember them all. You could be anything from a sociopathic mass murderer to a traveling monk. The openness of the game (main quest aside) allowed for hundreds and hundreds of hours of gaming. The combat aspects of the game were a far cry from the FPSs I was used to, and VATS is a less than ideal mechanic for your character skill to completely controll his own combat, but combat was engaging and the enemies (well except for the bullet sponge late additions) were interesting to wage war against.

FO:NV What FO3 failed at for me, FO:NV improved upon. The combat/weaponplay was much better and I vastly preferr it over FO3. The main quest allowed me some freedom to role play each character in their own way and my character's actions seemed to have more impact on the world around them. But, as Newton so famously said, you gotta give to take, so there were areas that FO:NV worked a little less for me. I find that while I can role play whatever I like, the way the game flows seems to make most of my characters move along the same set course. I've had a few characters go off into the great yonder to find their own way, but this is difficult, what with the higher level enemies blocking access in many directions at the start of the game. I also feel like, that although the factions in FO:NV allow for greater leeway in the way you PC can navigate the main quest, FO3's lack of any organization in it's world allowed me greater freedom to role play in any whacky way I wanted. I feel more constrained in FO:NV, even though just getting through all the main questlines initially allowed for more hours of gameplay than FO3's did. I doubt I'll put as many characters through NV as I did FO3, but I'll probably try.

Hope any of this made sense, and that it's at least a little germane to the topic.

-Gunny out.

I was going to make a new thread just to say this, but I saw this one and figured I might as well say it here instead of making a new thread.
I never played F1 or F2. Actually, I never even heard of them until F3. I'm not young, but I'm not really what you;d call a hardcoe gamer, so I missed out on a lot of early titles anyway.
-Just adding that in case anyone wants to say "My God, how did you NEVER hear about fallout 1 or Fallout 2?" LOL - I've gotten that many times before.

So anyway, I bought F3 because I became a Bethesda fan through Morrowind and Oblivion and their various expansions.
I thought Fallout 3 was good and fun, but it didn't exactly blow me away r keep me enthralled and anxiously anticipating what was around the next corner. To tell the truth, by the time I finished it I was almost bored, but I certainly don't regret it. It was good but not great.

And so I hesitated before getting New Vegas. I hesitated until just last week, for that matter, lol.
But I have to say, New Vegas, IMO, is far superior to Fallout 3, in every respect I can think of. I don't really know how far through the game I am since I haven't read up on it much, and don't like spoilers or knowing what's ahead, but I've played for about 20 hours or so now, and it IS keeping me enthralled and in constant anticipation.
Even with my so-far limited experience and play time into the game I'm already entangled in a mess I can barely comprehend and there's a new twist around every corner. Each time I think I have a handle on what's going on something new pops up.
Choices, choices, decisions, decisions... lol.

Gotta say I just love New Vegas, and I'll be anxiously watching to see where the Fallout franchise goes, if anywhere. I know I'll be playing NV for quite a while and I do hope there will be a sequel.
I doubt I'll ever reinstall FO3 though, and I have no interest in the previous games.

so true, obsidian is good at quests and dialogue, they don't have the same experience with open world environments so exploration and just wandering around the map in new vegas is lackluster for sure.

gaming site numbers always have FO3 at a 9.0 or better and new vegas is usually between 7.5 and 8.5 and those numbers include player ratings not just one persons opinion.

given that they had less than half the time and much less people and resources than BGS had for Fallout 3, and still managed to make a really good Fallout setting and a great story.

i agree, obsidian did a lot of work with not as many people, they did do a great job, i hope they spend more time working on their next fallout game instead of being almost rushed like they were i think with new vegas.

I don't find gaming sites reliable for the very reason that every piece of crap these days gets a 9+ if there's a big name and money behind the title, and because "professional" reviewers' priorities are mostly far from mine. I read some reviews to see what they say about it and if it matches with my liking, but I don't care the numbers they give because they're usually the opposite of what I would give.

Fallout 3 Pro:

If you forget you are playing a Fallout game its pretty fun.
Music is good.
The holodisks that you can find are pretty good.
Two out of the Five DLC are great (Point Lookout and The Pitt)
Fallout 3 mentions the MWBoS :celebration:

Fallout 3 Cons:

Its Full of plot holes.
The writing svcks in every way.
Its full of Michael Bay http://www.break.com/usercontent/2009/7/michael-bay-explosions-821047
What they did to poor Harold :sadvaultboy:
No reputation system
No Damage Threshold making Power Armour a total joke.
The game is two Black and White, can't join the "bad guys" like Talon Company, can't even help them. You can help the Enclave but they still attack you :facepalm:
The game looks like the Great War happened last week and not 200 years ago.
No plants or live trees other then Oasis.
Forced to join the Brotherhood even if your character hates the brotherhood.
No traits.
No multiple endings that tell me what happens to the people and places I came across in the game, therefore I get no sense of accomplishment.
The Plot of Fallout 3 is just Fallout and Fallout 2s plot copied and pasted together.
Scalled Enemies, never coming across an enemy I can't kill, always equal or less then my skills. Till Broken Steel which added super bullet sponges that made little sense (super strong ghouls :facepalm:)
Drugs are pretty much good for you with little to now downside.
Can't talk my way out of killing at least its a rare option.

New Vegas Pro:

The Writing is awesome in every way.
Can help or join pretty much every Faction in the game.
Not forced to join any faction.
It has a reputation system which means people in the game world will know of my actions, for good or ill, which gives consequences to my actions.
It has Damage Threshold which means PA and enemies like Deathclaws arn't a joke anymore. PA is still not as strong as it was in the originals but better then Fallout 3.
Enemies in the game can be greater then my ability to kill.
The game has alot of references to the Originals.
The game is more advlt then Fallout 3. Not importaint to all but for me it is.
Companion Quests and companion stories which goes back to the better writing.
More quests and more unmarked quests.
hardcoe Mode.
Can talk my any out of killing for pretty much every quest if not all of them.
The game tries to be as morally grey as possible.


Fallout New Vegas Cons.

The game was some what rushed so the Devs could have don't even more but what they did do is great.
Bethesda did not do its job doing QA.
There is no Tommy Gun
Gauss Rifle is still the crap one from Fallout 3.
Drugs still have little to know downside outside of hardcoe mode.

They added it as a laser weapon, they thought people would rage over a laser tommy gun but it was actually rather well recieved (as I read from Sawyer's Q&A)

Blame that on reenactment groups reenacting the Great War every weekend using live ammunition, or because they ate all the seed from the GECK. Other than that, I have no explanation. Let's hope the next EC game does show people rebuilding.

Not good enough. I want a Tommy Gun, Fallout 2 and Tactics has them. They added .22 rounds but not .45? Makes no sense. Could have had the Tommy Gun and a Colt .45. Could have had different clips for upgrades.