Name reasons you thought Fallout 3 was better than New Vegas

[Sn1p3r187]

Okay I'm asking some of you to commit sin here. But I gotta ask some of you to play Devil's advocate and even myself to play it to a degree. But name your personal reasons why you thought Fallout 3 was better than New Vegas.

Okay here's a few things I thought was better about 3 than New Vegas.

1. Modding- May come as a no brainer to some. But I will say I thought mod support in Fallout 3 worked better than it did in New Vegas. Don't get me wrong, I love modding the shit out of Vegas. But the mod support in Vegas just felt terrible. A lot of it came in with a game that was plagued with more bugs and glitches than Fallout 3 was and it just made the experience for Vegas sometimes hellish. I never experienced that with 3 tbh. a few bugs here and there in 3. But nothing game breaking.

2. 3 Dog- Come on people. You gotta admit 3 Dog is pretty cool and funny. I didn't like his morally black and white interpretation of the Capital Wasteland. But he was entertaining to listen to on the regular.

3. Locations- Completely debatable with anyone. I liked the open vast expanse of the Capital Wasteland more than I liked the Mojave. I liked the Mojave too, but to me something about it seemed...off. I mean it seems like for a desert, there sure is a lot of shit laying around. Too much of a lot of things that didn't feel too unique or have much place in the game with a decent story behind it. Compared to Fallout 3, I thought there were somethings in the game that felt like a lot of locations had some major backstory that felt a little relatable. Not to say New Vegas didn't have any, I felt places like Jacobstown, Nellis AFB, Vault 11, and Vault 3 had some relatable stories or tragic ones that made me feel some empathy to the characters once there.

4. LIAM NEESON- Dude! I mean say what you want about the Dad character in F3. Liam Neeson is fucking awesome. When he died i felt a little sad tbh, I also liked Amata's character and the kids in Big Town. Though I do hate how F3 tried to force you to care about a lot of characters I felt were just uncarable for. Though I do care for the aforementioned above.

5. Speech- Okay yall will hate me for this, But as much as I love solid speech pass or fails in F1, F2, and New Vegas. I think F3 did speech uniquely and based it a bit on luck. Of course I thought some bit of it was stupid. But it reflects on the idea of how well you bring a lie off to someone and their willingness to believe it and prior situations and past ordeals that can dramatically change the outlook of a conversation. I feel it wasn't that well executed, but it was new and a bit fresh. I liked the unpredictability.

6. Load screens- I'm not so much basing this off time. Just the case of load and CTD. With Fallout 3, I never got a CTD from a load screen or one that froze and kept going forever. New Vegas.....Oh my motherfucking god. The amount of time that shit happened to me is horrendous enough to write an entire novel if you added all the times that New Vegas CTD or froze on me.

7. Brotherhood Of Steel- I love how the BOS in F3 got represented. To me, it signified a major change in the dynamic of the BOS on the East Coast compared to their West Coast brethren and how they followed the codex. We know the BOS in F1, F2, and New Vegas was born to be doomed by their own strict rules and philosophy. I feel F3 was the BOS actually trying to make a change for the wasteland for their own good and the general better. When Veronica talked about the BOS actually doing something decent for a change, I feel the BOS in F3 was that change.

8. Super Mutants- I loved killing in F3. But their story makes no sense. As the West Coast mutants were really the only one of their kind and Super Mutants in general were just a West Coast anamoly. I like how F3 tried to make a new idea about the FEV virus having an alternate intake to create super mutants by making it breathable and quicker to enter the blood stream and alter people into super mutants. But for the most part, it was just re-using elements from Fallout 1 without too much of any thought to it. I mean for the most part Fallout 3 is nothing but a re-colored story of F1 and F2. But it was damn fun killing em though.

All right throw down your list of reasons of why you liked F3 more than New Vegas. You don't have to play Devil's advocate like I did. But please if you do actually think it's better then throw down your list of reasons.

 

[Norzan]

Absolutely nothing.

 

[Prone Squanderer]

Okay I'm asking some of you to commit sin here. But I gotta ask some of you to play Devil's advocate and even myself to play it to a degree. But name your personal reasons why you thought Fallout 3 was better than New Vegas.

Okay here's a few things I thought was better about 3 than New Vegas.

1. Modding- May come as a no brainer to some. But I will say I thought mod support in Fallout 3 worked better than it did in New Vegas. Don't get me wrong, I love modding the shit out of Vegas. But the mod support in Vegas just felt terrible. A lot of it came in with a game that was plagued with more bugs and glitches than Fallout 3 was and it just made the experience for Vegas sometimes hellish. I never experienced that with 3 tbh. a few bugs here and there in 3. But nothing game breaking.

I've never really tried modding beyond a bit of mucking around with custom NPCs and weapons, so I can't really comment much on it. However, New Vegas' GECK has frustrated me many times by crashing unexpectedly.

2. 3 Dog- Come on people. You gotta admit 3 Dog is pretty cool and funny. I didn't like his morally black and white interpretation of the Capital Wasteland. But he was entertaining to listen to on the regular.

He was an annoying creep who somehow knew so much about you. In fact his existence in the game is daft. Why does the BoS protect him and the station? What possible use could he be to them to warrant all those Power Armour soldiers protecting him?

3. Locations- Completely debatable with anyone. I liked the open vast expanse of the Capital Wasteland more than I liked the Mojave. I liked the Mojave too, but to me something about it seemed...off. I mean it seems like for a desert, there sure is a lot of shit laying around. Too much of a lot of things that didn't feel too unique or have much place in the game with a decent story behind it. Compared to Fallout 3, I thought there were somethings in the game that felt like a lot of locations had some major backstory that felt a little relatable. Not to say New Vegas didn't have any, I felt places like Jacobstown, Nellis AFB, Vault 11, and Vault 3 had some relatable stories or tragic ones that made me feel some empathy to the characters once there.

The Mojave felt more natural, more plausible to me. A lot of Fallout 3's locations were mostly there just for the sake of it. EDIT: While in New Vegas a lot of places have some kind of connection to the rest of the wasteland.

4. LIAM NEESON- Dude! I mean say what you want about the Dad character in F3. Liam Neeson is fucking awesome. When he died i felt a little sad tbh, I also liked Amata's character and the kids in Big Town. Though I do hate how F3 tried to force you to care about a lot of characters I felt were just uncarable for. Though I do care for the aforementioned above.

Yeah, Dad. The guy who steals and breaks numerous precious Vault water chips for his experiments, decides to cause a security breach and leaves his child in the hands of an unstable Overseer hoping things will work out. He doesn't say where he's going, just that he has to do this, causing the deaths of a number of people. Not to mention his death was completely pointless. Considering the Enclave's reach and technology, he should at least be considering joining up with them. But no, we get "Enclave's pure evil, I must kill myself!" which is completely pointless given the Purifier doesn't fucking work anyway.

Amata doesn't have much to her + pretty much betrays you by kicking you out of Vault 101 again with a lame excuse even if you do your very best to be diplomatic and polite.

Big Town...oddly enough there was a time when I liked Bittercup's character. I have no idea why.

​

5. Speech- Okay yall will hate me for this, But as much as I love solid speech pass or fails in F1, F2, and New Vegas. I think F3 did speech uniquely and based it a bit on luck. Of course I thought some bit of it was stupid. But it reflects on the idea of how well you bring a lie off to someone and their willingness to believe it and prior situations and past ordeals that can dramatically change the outlook of a conversation. I feel it wasn't that well executed, but it was new and a bit fresh. I liked the unpredictability.

I can see where you're coming from with this one and in a way I can agree, but I prefer how New Vegas has different Speech options depending on your skills, such as Charisma or Barter. EDIT: I know 3 had various Speech options too, but New Vegas had more varieties I think.

​

6. Load screens- I'm not so much basing this off time. Just the case of load and CTD. With Fallout 3, I never got a CTD from a load screen or one that froze and kept going forever. New Vegas.....Oh my motherfucking god. The amount of time that shit happened to me is horrendous enough to write an entire novel if you added all the times that New Vegas CTD or froze on me.

I cannot remember if FO3 ever froze on me. I played New Vegas way more and yes I can attest to how annoying the infinite loadscreen can be.

​

7. Brotherhood Of Steel- I love how the BOS in F3 got represented. To me, it signified a major change in the dynamic of the BOS on the East Coast compared to their West Coast brethren and how they followed the codex. We know the BOS in F1, F2, and New Vegas was born to be doomed by their own strict rules and philosophy. I feel F3 was the BOS actually trying to make a change for the wasteland for their own good and the general better. When Veronica talked about the BOS actually doing something decent for a change, I feel the BOS in F3 was that change.

Ok in all seriousness though, I think there was potential in portraying the BoS differently, but they went way over the top. No organisation should be portrayed as the absolute good guys (and don't give me the "they shoot ghouls" crap, we never see it actually happen) with no apparent motives other than "We have to help!".

Imagine if 3's BoS was grey, and maybe in some ways it was worse than the Enclave. That would be interesting to see. (Well actually, new organisations instead of re-hashes would be better, but I digress.)

8. Super Mutants- I loved killing in F3. But their story makes no sense. As the West Coast mutants were really the only one of their kind and Super Mutants in general were just a West Coast anamoly. I like how F3 tried to make a new idea about the FEV virus having an alternate intake to create super mutants by making it breathable and quicker to enter the blood stream and alter people into super mutants. But for the most part, it was just re-using elements from Fallout 1 without too much of any thought to it. I mean for the most part Fallout 3 is nothing but a re-colored story of F1 and F2. But it was damn fun killing em though.

The FEV virus shouldn't have been in 3, or at the very least they should have done something new with it, perhaps a strain that had different effects. Hell, have this FEV strain actually do some good, like radiation resistance but without the mutation, or some kind of unique abilities that scares the rest of the wasteland. Anything, just something new.

This video sums up why I cannot stand 3's mutants:

​

All right throw down your list of reasons of why you liked F3 more than New Vegas. You don't have to play Devil's advocate like I did. But please if you do actually think it's better then throw down your list of reasons.

Erm... I genuinely cannot think of anything in 3 that rises it above New Vegas. It has the Chinese Assault Rifle, which I really like, but that's it? (Besides, you can mod it into New Vegas with some effort).

 

[Sn1p3r187]

I've never really tried modding beyond a bit of mucking around with custom NPCs and weapons, so I can't really comment much on it. However, New Vegas' GECK has frustrated me many times by crashing unexpectedly.



He was an annoying creep who somehow knew so much about you. In fact his existence in the game is daft. Why does the BoS protect him and the station? What possible use could he be to them to warrant all those Power Armour soldiers protecting him?



The Mojave felt more natural, more plausible to me. A lot of Fallout 3's locations were mostly there just for the sake of it. EDIT: While in New Vegas a lot of places have some kind of connection to the rest of the wasteland.



Yeah, Dad. The guy who steals and breaks numerous precious Vault water chips for his experiments, decides to cause a security breach and leaves his child in the hands of an unstable Overseer hoping things will work out. He doesn't say where he's going, just that he has to do this, causing the deaths of a number of people. Not to mention his death was completely pointless. Considering the Enclave's reach and technology, he should at least be considering joining up with them. But no, we get "Enclave's pure evil, I must kill myself!" which is completely pointless given the Purifier doesn't fucking work anyway.

Amata doesn't have much to her + pretty much betrays you by kicking you out of Vault 101 again with a lame excuse even if you do your very best to be diplomatic and polite.

Big Town...oddly enough there was a time when I liked Bittercup's character. I have no idea why.

​

I can see where you're coming from with this one and in a way I can agree, but I prefer how New Vegas has different Speech options depending on your skills, such as Charisma or Barter. EDIT: I know 3 had various Speech options too, but New Vegas had more varieties I think.

​

I cannot remember if FO3 ever froze on me. I played New Vegas way more and yes I can attest to how annoying the infinite loadscreen can be.

​

Ok in all seriousness though, I think there was potential in portraying the BoS differently, but they went way over the top. No organisation should be portrayed as the absolute good guys (and don't give me the "they shoot ghouls" crap, we never see it actually happen) with no apparent motives other than "We have to help!".

Imagine if 3's BoS was grey, and maybe in some ways it was worse than the Enclave. That would be interesting to see. (Well actually, new organisations instead of re-hashes would be better, but I digress.)



The FEV virus shouldn't have been in 3, or at the very least they should have done something new with it, perhaps a strain that had different effects. Hell, have this FEV strain actually do some good, like radiation resistance but without the mutation, or some kind of unique abilities that scares the rest of the wasteland. Anything, just something new.

This video sums up why I cannot stand 3's mutants:

​

Erm... I genuinely cannot think of anything in 3 that rises it above New Vegas. It has the Chinese Assault Rifle, which I really like, but that's it? (Besides, you can mod it into New Vegas with some effort).

Pretty reasonable. I agree with you on the BOS being more gray. Sure they're helping people, but are they really? I'd see their idea of building some kind of government in the CW as being more dictatorship like and borderline tyrannical. And for Locations, you have a point there. I feel some of the wide open expanse of the CW felt more wild and untamed to me. And some of the places in the CW that do have a great story to them. Like the Dunlap building for example, in my opinion kind outdo some locations in the MW. But I see what you mean. My guess is the BOS was defending GNR for propaganda purposes to spread the BOS's message out to the wastelanders. So 3 Dog might've cut them some kinda deal to propagandanize their deeds and work in exchange for defending his radio station. My guess on that.

 

[Norzan]

5. Speech- Okay yall will hate me for this, But as much as I love solid speech pass or fails in F1, F2, and New Vegas. I think F3 did speech uniquely and based it a bit on luck. Of course I thought some bit of it was stupid. But it reflects on the idea of how well you bring a lie off to someone and their willingness to believe it and prior situations and past ordeals that can dramatically change the outlook of a conversation. I feel it wasn't that well executed, but it was new and a bit fresh. I liked the unpredictability.

The only reason Bethesda made it this way so that people wouldn't be locked out of content. Basically, they just wanted everybody to do everything regardless of their builds. This is a travesty because Fallout is a franchise that is trying to mimic the real world, for the most part. Having something that can be just save scum to bypass it is a terrible design choice.

It means the world is not reactive to your skills when you can just bypass certain checks with save scumming. Instead of your build not being able bypass certain checks because that character just can't do it. You know, like how the real world works.

It also makes investing into Speech absolutely worthless, when in previous games and the game after you would get unique dialogue options or be able to pass checks that could allow you to complete quests in different ways. You know, actually being rewarded for investing on a skill.

 

[TerminallyChill]

A lot of what Fallout 3 does better can be chalked up to Todd Howard's directorial priorities. First and foremost, the map had to be fun to explore, and it was. The spacing of dungeons, the minor details like skeletons in amusing positions, and the cool unique items you can discover were all really nice touches that made checking places out in the Capital Wasteland feel exceptionally rewarding.

Josh Sawyer also recognized the importance of these aspects but did not make them a priority when he was directing New Vegas, which is why the Mojave can feel slightly less exciting to hike around for many players.

Okay yall will hate me for this, But as much as I love solid speech pass or fails in F1, F2, and New Vegas. I think F3 did speech uniquely and based it a bit on luck. Of course I thought some bit of it was stupid. But it reflects on the idea of how well you bring a lie off to someone and their willingness to believe it and prior situations and past ordeals that can dramatically change the outlook of a conversation. I feel it wasn't that well executed, but it was new and a bit fresh. I liked the unpredictability.

In my eyes, both games dropped the ball on this one. Fallout 3's chance system doesn't reward players enough for building Speech oriented characters, and they also kill the game's replay value by showing every card up their sleeves right off the bat. Todd Howard likely only expected players would restart Fallout 3 a handful of times, so he wanted to make sure his writers' work was appreciated.

Josh Sawyer took a more classic approach with New Vegas but I feel that strict Speech gates took too much of the excitement out of dialogue. In Fallout 3, you could only guess if someone was going to respond positively or negatively to what you said. This added tension to conversations.

A happy medium in my opinion would be a gated dialogue option that still has a diminishing chance to fail as the skill increases beyond the gate.

Ok in all seriousness though, I think there was potential in portraying the BoS differently, but they went way over the top. No organisation should be portrayed as the absolute good guys (and don't give me the "they shoot ghouls" crap, we never see it actually happen) with no apparent motives other than "We have to help!".

Imagine if 3's BoS was grey, and maybe in some ways it was worse than the Enclave. That would be interesting to see. (Well actually, new organisations instead of re-hashes would be better, but I digress.)

Yeah, I agree with a lot of this. Do the Followers Of The Apocalypse have any dirty laundry besides Caesar though? They don't get shit on nearly as much. I think the existence of the Brotherhood Outcasts is often overlooked when people criticize Fallout 3 for its portrayal of the Brotherhood Of Steel. The writers did recognize that the faction was moving in a different direction from the previous games. Fallout 3's real failure was just not playing up the conflict between the East Coast and West Coast branches of it.

The FEV virus shouldn't have been in 3

Enough said. Pure fucking laziness and/or trying too hard to play it safe on the writer's end. Same could honestly be said for the inclusion of the Brotherhood Of Steel and a water related plot.

 

[Norzan]

My main gripe with BoS in Fallout 3 is not even them acting out of character, it's why they are even there. At this point they were in a losing war with the NCR for the Enclave technology in Navarro. They were losing so bad that they were forced into their bunkers.

So how in the hell did they fund an expedition across the country on hunch that DC might have some technology? On an hunch. They waste countless soldiers and resources on an hunch. BoS had no business being in Fallout 3 and they were only there due to being on the more iconic factions in the series.

 

[Cobra Commander]

Huuummmm....


I think only the random encounters, because NV does not have them.
I like the one where that vault 101 bitch is out there asking for the enclave's help. It does not really work for her.

 

[TerminallyChill]

My main gripe with BoS in Fallout 3 is not even them acting out of character, it's why they are even there. At this point they were in a losing war with the NCR for the Enclave technology in Navarro. They were losing so bad that they were forced into their bunkers.

So how in the hell did they fund an expedition across the country on hunch that DC might have some technology? On an hunch. They waste countless soldiers and resources on an hunch. BoS had no business being in Fallout 3 and they were only there due to being on the more iconic factions in the series.

This could have easily been explained with even marginally better writing though. They could have known from sending scouts to major cities across the continent that there were weapons in D.C. like Liberty Prime capable of helping them get an edge over the NCR. They wouldn't be there for no reason, they would be there to fuck Shady Sands.

But that's only if they absolutely had to include the Brotherhood.

 

[Apollyon]

1. Exploration;

In Fallout 3 I was much more thrilled to wander off and explore every part of the map. More effort was put into making every corner of the map worth investigating. Even if it didn't yield big loot, it always had one or two semi-useful items, a snippet of story, or a quest. In fact, if you only followed the main/major quests, you would miss half the game. I loved exploring the subway tunnels, old ruins and the vast wasteland. The best part was when during your exploration, you'd stumble upon a quest like with Riley's Rangers.

In stark contrast, New Vegas failed to make exploration interesting for me, despite the new survival mechanic and the potential the Mojave had. The locations, the story they conveyed or the loot to be found was often extremely underwhelming. Places that would lend itself perfectly for exploration were almost always empty, devoid of any reason for the player to check them out. Think of the outskirts of New Vegas, Boulder City and Searchlight, Eastside, Westside, North Vegas, to name a few. Also, a lot of the interesting locations are visited through quests, not exploration. Once I recognized this "one-quest-per-location" pattern, I started getting discouraged to explore places because I knew they were probably tied to a quest and I would be missing out on content (or potentially completing the quest in a manner I did not want to) by not starting the quest where I was "supposed to". Some of the design was also blatantly lazy. Numerous unique weapons are found simply "lying around", in a small shack, surrounded by a handful of critters or behind a Hard/Very Hard lock. Totally underwhelming.

A very interesting design feature which may account for this difference (apart from the unfinished nature of Fallout:NV) is the location of the central hub on the map. In Fallout 3 the central hub, Washington DC, is located in the corner of the map and you start relatively close to it. Consequently, you spend the initial part of the main quest in this corner, instead of traveling all over the map like in New Vegas. This keeps the player wondering about all the places they haven't seen yet. In New Vegas, Vegas is the center, and everything is relatively close to it. Ontop of that, the first part of the main quest sends you past almost all relevant settlements.

2. Morality;

Quite simply, I feel like the morality system in New Vegas a complete joke. There's very little incentive to play as an evil character and even when I try, I seem to end up with "very good" karma. It's like Obsidian finished the "goody-two-shoes"-part of Fallout:NV and then ran out of time to make the "evil/morally dubious" side worth playing. Again, the potential was huge, with all the crime families, slavers, the fate of Vegas, etc., the execution was terrible. Almost always the rational decisions lead to the "good" outcome, and the only way to be evil is to be a complete psychopath. Don't even get me started on the Legion, which is just criminally neglected. There is not even a Legion companion! There's not even a single "evil" companion, for god sakes!

Fallout 3 did this better. The evil side of things was simply more fleshed out. Not too long ago I played through Fallout 3 again and was amazed at all the options I had. Right from the start you're presented with tests of integrity and throughout the game there's plenty of room for opportunistic behavior. Paradise Falls, Temple of the Union, the Megaton Bomb, dealing with the ghouls at Ten Penny Tower, to name a few. Throughout the game you don't really have to break character when you're playing as an evil character. Even when playing rationally you're usually presented with an option to extort people for cash or otherwise benefit from someone's precarious situation. To top it off, there's actual incentive to be evil, because it'll provide you with a lot more caps than when you play a good character, unlike New Vegas where making money is a LOT easier.

In all, I think this difference can be explained by the unfinished nature of NV in general. A testament to "what could have been" is the amount of mods that add cut content, providing a lot more questpaths and options. Some may argue that it was NV's purpose to be morally ambiguous and not adhere to a "good/evil" system, but if this were the case they should've just scrapped the Karma-system all together. I also didn't find NV that morally ambiguous at all, apart from perhaps the main quest which lets you decide the fate of Vegas. Additionally, what's a roleplaying game without morality?

3. Atmosphere;

A lot of people may disagree, but I found the atmosphere in Fallout 3 superior by a mile. The feeling of loneliness and freedom when exploring the Wasteland was amazing and this started right from the moment you left Vault 101. I still remember feeling lost after exiting the vault for the first time, having no idea that the town of Megaton was nearby. The grittiness made the civillzed places stand out more, making me truly relieved when I found a sign of (non-hostile) life. Fallout 3 also did a much better job of making the hubs feel alive. Small quests and interesting characters which served no other purpose than to show the player that life was indeed going on.

In New Vegas, I hardly ever felt truly taken away by the atmosphere. You're dropped in the middle of a small settlement; so much for loneliness; and then put on a rail to New Vegas; so much for freedom. There's a war about to happen and the situation in the Mojave is critical, but there's very little to convey that to the player. Good moments include Nipton and traveling the I-15 for the first time and walking through Freeside with Metallic Monks playing in the background. I also thought the Mojave Outpost Barracks and the Atomic Wrangler captured much of the atmosphere that the rest of Fallout:NV failed to convey. Most of these things happened at the start of the game and after that, most atmosphere was lost for me. A lot of NV could've been improved had they done a better job with the Survival mechanic on Hardcore mode. In the end this mode was entirely trivial, unless I used mods, but even then it felt forced.

I'm not sure why the games felt so different to me in terms of atmosphere. I think the Mojave lent itself very well for a Fallout setting. Even more so with the (unused) potential of the survival mechanic. All in all, my general feeling is that the Fallout:NV was developed with a lot less attention to the emotional experience of the player. Again, people may argue that the point of Fallout:NV wasn't to convey the atmosphere of loneliness, but what atmosphere was it supposed to convey then? For the larger part of the game, I simply experienced a lack of atmosphere and it's not for my lack of trying.

 

[Norzan]

The morality of Fallout 3 is a black and white Saturday morning cartoon. None of the moral ambiguity presented all throughout New Vegas.

Exploration and atmosphere are absolutely murdered when you realize how nonsensical and implausible the world of Fallout 3 is. Just every 5 minutes some crap that completely breaks immersion.

 

[Apollyon]

Exploration and atmosphere are absolutely murdered when you realize how nonsensical and implausible the world of Fallout 3 is.

As opposed to the absolutely sensical world of cowboy robots, the Roman legion reincarnated and high society cannibals? (I could go on, but won't.)

C'mon, dude.

 

[Norzan]

As opposed to the absolutely sensical world of cowboy robots, the Roman legion reincarnated and high society cannibals? (I could go on, but won't.)

C'mon, dude.

Except all of those are explained in-universe with logic. Mr. House (more like RobCo) built the robots, Caesar is adopting the Roman way (he explains why), same for the White Glove Society and cannibalism. New Vegas might have some silly stuff but at least the game explains it one way or another.

Fallout 3 has stupid crap like a town built around a bomb, laser weaponry being found inside trash cans, not a single place showing where they get their food (eating irradiated animals doesn't count and Brahmins are rare). Packaged food in abandoned places that is still edible, somehow. Most of the locations don't make a lick of sense and are just there because they are "kewl". A lot of the stuff is not explained, leaving you wonder how this world even works.

Not to mention how the world just doesn't make a lick of sense from a lore standpoint. It's been 200 years and DC still look like the bombs fell like 20 years ago.

 

[TerminallyChill]

In Fallout 3 I was much more thrilled to wander off and explore every part of the map. More effort was put into making every corner of the map worth investigating. Even if it didn't yield big loot, it always had one or two semi-useful items, a snippet of story, or a quest. In fact, if you only followed the main/major quests, you would miss half the game. I loved exploring the subway tunnels, old ruins and the vast wasteland. The best part was when during your exploration, you'd stumble upon a quest like with Riley's Rangers.

You hit the nail on the head there. I'm still glad Josh Sawyer decided to prioritize narrative choice and utilization of character statistics in New Vegas though. It's way more important to Fallout than good exploration.

Additionally, what's a roleplaying game without morality?

I think this is an interesting point to make. Realism does not always equal good gameplay. I disagree that Fallout 3 did morality 'better' than New Vegas, in my opinion they were both pretty underwhelming in their own way. Fallout 3 was too black and white, and New Vegas had too much of a dominant strategy in being the "good" guy and siding with the NCR. Fallout and Fallout 2 didn't even have that great of a system in place to begin with, so in a way it's kind of appropriate for the series.

The feeling of loneliness and freedom when exploring the Wasteland was amazing and this started right from the moment you left Vault 101. I still remember feeling lost after exiting the vault for the first time, having no idea that the town of Megaton was nearby. The grittiness made the civillzed places stand out more, making me truly relieved when I found a sign of (non-hostile) life. Fallout 3 also did a much better job of making the hubs feel alive. Small quests and interesting characters which served no other purpose than to show the player that life was indeed going on.

Yeah that was obviously deliberate, and I felt it was much more in line with the original Fallout. New Vegas (developed by Obsidian) was understandably closer to Fallout 2.

Fallout 3 has stupid crap like a town built around a bomb, laser weaponry being found inside trash cans, not a single place showing where they get their food. Most of the locations don't make a lick of sense and are just there because they are "kewl".

Not to mention how the world just doesn't make a lick of sense from a lore standpoint. It's been 200 years and DC still look like the bombs fell like 20 years ago.

These things are such minor nit-picks that nobody would bring up if Fallout 3 was actually a decent RPG. Fallout 2 and New Vegas do a ton of non-sensical things. Don't get me wrong, Fallout 3 has some RETARDED writing, but it pales in comparison to the actual mechanical problems that it runs into as a game.

 

[Norzan]

These things are such minor nit-picks that nobody would bring up if Fallout 3 was actually a decent RPG. Fallout 2 and New Vegas do a ton of non-sensical things. Don't get me wrong, Fallout 3 has some RETARDED writing, but it pales in comparison to the actual mechanical problems that it runs into as a game.

Oh, the nitpick argument, i hate this argument. Read my edited post for more reasons why the world of Fallout 3 is stupid. Not showing where people get their food is a nitpick? Are you serious? Please tell me you're joking about this. Not showing how people are even alive is not a nitpick, it's a major flaw.

As soon as i start to see stuff that makes me question how the world even works in the first place, it doesn't matter if it's the best RPG. I'm going to criticize it because the job of a dev designing a world is to make a world believable. Fallout 3's world is just too much, the devs did too much stupid shit.

 

[Gizmojunk]

Packaged food in abandoned places that is still edible, somehow.

That at least is a fitting joke; par with indestructible Twinkies.

**In fact, I'd have laughed along with the game, if Twinkies were optional deadly ammo for the Rock-It Launcher.

(Especially if they burst on impact into a poison cloud, and caused a coughing fit. )

 

[R.Graves]

I have literally two things to say: fallout 3s mirelurk is way cooler than new vegas' lake lurk. And fallout 3s handling of the repair skill actually makes more sense than the way NV did it. Beyond that there's really nothing.

 

[Gizmojunk]

I have literally two things to say: fallout 3s mirelurk is way cooler than new vegas' lake lurk.

AFAIK... The New Vegas Lake Lurk IS the FO3 Mire Lurk King.

 

[R.Graves]

AFAIK... The New Vegas Lake Lurk IS the FO3 Mire Lurk King.

It is but fo3 has mirekurks

 

[Gizmojunk]

It is but fo3 has mirekurks

They'd have gotten flak for crab monsters in the desert too, though.