Fallout 3 vs New Vegas

Simple enough title. Which of the games did you like more?

Personally, I found NV to be orders of magnitude better. Both games have the same basic gameplay mechanics and whatnot. It's not very good gameplay, which means that the games have to get by on the strength of their writing, their worldbuilding and their artistic design. While 3 feels linear and predictable in those areas, New Vegas is expansive and interesting. Even a simple "go and clear out the ghouls" quest in NV, which in 3 would be a boring kill quest, turns into a 3 hour long ethically interesting struggle between religious cultist ghouls who basically want to commit mass suicide and a faction of nightkin led by someone who thinks he's taking orders from a skull, with a lone sniper barricaded inside of a room trying to find out what happened to his wife. The amount of originality and charm that New Vegas injected into every little thing was so great.

I'm avoiding talking about 4 because, as with Bethesda games, I'm gonna wait a year or two for modders to fix it and for all the DLC campaigns to come out.

I just started NV, have not played 3. But so far I see its potential , but its a little slow.

@spartanx169x: Once you get to the strip it goes from being a 7.5 to a 9.5.

New Vegas is an actual bonafide RPG and you have a huge amount of choice in deciding how the story plays out.

@Big_Red_Button: good to know. Thanks.

i think new vegas suffered by coming after f3, so the wow moments of seeing a fallout game in 3d for the first time, leaving the vault etc. had already been done and nv wasn't quite able to provide any of its own moments that significantly improved upon its predecessor's. there was definitely an element of been there, done that (for me) when playing. it also suffered from a slow start, some less than memorable locations and whilst undeniably more layered, it's themes weren't all that gripping (to me). geo politics and some of the other areas it explored didn't really appeal to me much.

it was however a role playing game, whilst f3 could best be described as an rpg-lite (f4 even less so). it's a funny situation in that many of nv's weaknesses were f3's strengths and vice versa. i think i'd have to say that i had more fun with f3, simply on the basis that it came first and pound for pound was a more thrilling, albeit shorter and shallower, ride. i really enjoyed new vegas but it didn't quite elevate itself past f3 for me because the story / theme didn't grip me as i was hoping, and without that the rpg depth was kind of lost a little or harder to fully appreciate

I very much agree with that.

Despite better combat options and a substantially harder level of difficulty in Fallout new vegas - particularly towards the end - I enjoyed Fallout 3 more for similar reasons to those that Macutchi wrote.

I'm also waiting for Fallout 4 goty edition; the dlc's in the previous two entries were pretty great!

Fallout 3 is the best. Fallout 1&2 are great . NV and Fallout 4 belong to trash can.

I've answered this many times and it always boils down to me saying that I slightly prefer Fallout 3 due to its setting/atmosphere even though New Vegas did introduce several small improvements, though it had much more technical problems than 3.

Hey all, thanks for responding to the thread. It's really nice that we live in a society where we can have discussions about things like this in a respectful and civil manner.

With that said, anyone putting 3 above NV has bad opinions and should feel bad about how bad their bad opinions are.

I really enjoyed them both but I preferred Fallout 3 over New Vegas and right now I'm really enjoying Fallout 4 and in all likelihood will put that over both of the other two.

The only thing that fallout 3 did better was the interesting washington DC setting and a more personal story. New Vevas did everything else better. Its not even a competition

I liked Fallout 3 better just because of the atmosphere. Both great games however.

give it time... obsidian fan boys seem to share a common trait of needing to insult anyone who has a different opinion to them about their beloved game.

case in point

New Vegas was better because the story was more flexible and you could kill ANYONE. In Fallout 3, a bit like in Fallout 4, certain important characters just fall over and get back up again if they are too important to the story. I loved that about New Vegas, that it would roll with it no matter what.

I preferred the setting in Fallout 3, it was more traditional Fallout and I liked all the underground metro sections and how they connected.

@Macutchi: Or maybe they just have a sense of humor you sensitive little girl.

Which ever game you played first is likely to be your favourite, because the second game you play you will have a been there done that kind of attitude.

I played them backwards so when I played fallout 3 I could stay interested.

oh the irony

@Macutchi: You're just jealous that I'm better looking than you. Look at these headshots:

Don't hate me because you aren't this dashing.

@Big_Red_Button: it's not all about looks pal, that's what my mum keeps telling me anyway. curse those chiselled cheek bones of yours *shakes fist