Why does this website dislike Fallout 3 so much?

[Cliffy McEdgeface]

Fallout 3 had better architecture. Sorry, but it's true. Doesn't help the game, though.

What gets me about that is how little the architecture matters. It makes sense that the CW is going to have more interesting architecture because of all the memorials and other neat buildings in the area pre-war, whereas it makes little sense to see that in the Mojave outside of New Vegas itself. Todd and co. had a lot to work with by setting the game in the CW and manage to squander that by failing to do much of anything interesting with it most of the time.

 

[Hassknecht]

What gets me about that is how little the architecture matters. It makes sense that the CW is going to have more interesting architecture because of all the memorials and other neat buildings in the area pre-war, whereas it makes little sense to see that in the Mojave outside of New Vegas itself. Todd and co. had a lot to work with by setting the game in the CW and manage to squander that by failing to do much of anything interesting with it most of the time.

Indeed. If the only redeeming thing about your game is that some buildings look pretty, there's nothing really redeeming about your game.

 

[Hulk'O'Saurus]

Yeah, I remember watching part of that video some time ago... Didn't hold my interest for long.

I thought the author goes too deep in one direction concerning one thing--for instance, the Overseer encounter, then puts varying amount of focus on the context surrounding it. If the thing has choice and consequence then its a roleplaying mechanic. If we are constantly making choice and consequence, then we are going through a complex role playing experience. If we are going through a complex role playing experience, then it's a good role playing game. It simply is missing the forest for the trees.

As for the NV bit: well... I just want to say to OP that NV aims at achieving something entirely different to F3. If you look at F1, before you level up, your combat experience is generally difficult(considering the various builds people may opt into), but once you find your first Psycho(a rare and expensive military-developed drug from before the bombs) you have the option of turning any one single combat into a cakewalk. Then it's back to normal. If this sort of thing cannot appeal to you, then you probably won't enjoy NV too much.

 

[Risewild]

Most of your post is about personal preference, so I will not comment on that, but I have to comment on two things.

In Fallout 3, there's no notification pausing the game and telling you that now a faction hates you. You actually feel within the environment the effects of your actions. If you're too much of a goody two-shoes some Talon Company mercs try to kill you. If you're evil, you can get in certain places just because of your reputation.

This is not true at all. If you for example kill someone in a town, all you have to do in Fallout 3 is to run away and wait 3 days and the town will magically have forgotten you're a murderer. If you're a very evil person, you can just donate some caps in a church, give some bottles of water to a beggar or even just kill some feral ghouls in the metro tunnels and you will be a very good person very fast.
On contrast, if you're a goody two shoes, all you have to do is go to someone's house while they aren't there and steal all their junk like empty cans and pencils, you will be evil in no time.
How is that for a "feel within the environment the effects of my actions?". Most of the effects can be countered easily to change my karma.
And there is only one place you can access when you have evil karma, Paradise Falls. And you can access it in other ways easily too.

Now put these things in contrast with FNV reputations, which if a faction hates you enough to shoot first and ask questions later, they will always do it. There is no going back on your actions there. If you get a bad or very bad reputation with a faction, you will never get a very good reputation with that faction again, no matter if you then do all their quests and increase your relationship with them, you will just end up having a more neutral relationship. That is feeling the effects of your actions in the environment. Also if there are factions that hate you enough to want to kill you, they will send hit squads to attack you, just like Talon and Regulator squads.

Also Karma is used in Fallout 3 to have access to Companions, but they still stay with you even if your karma change. Which is really stupid... So Jericho refuses to adventure with a "goody two-shoes", but it doesn't refuse to adventure with someone who was a tiny bit bad (all you need is to have 1 negative total karma value) but then became the savior of the wastes?

Now put that in contrast with Fallout New Vegas Companions, that will leave or outright attack you if you mess with factions/do things they don't approve. Yep... Fallout 3 is much better... right?

When you turn ten, you can use dialogue to make Butch pussy out of the fight. Violence is a secondary option

This is wrong. There is no dialogue option that makes Butch pussy out of the fight. The options you have are (paraphrased):

• "Old Lady Palmer said I didn't have to share" - This leads to Butch making fun of you and it just goes back to the remaining dialogue options.
• "How about we share it. Half-half?" - This leads to Butch making fun of you and it just goes back to the remaining dialogue options.
• "You can have it." - Butch gets your sweetroll.
• "Sure Butch *spits on the sweetroll*" - Makes Butch angry and he tells you he will get you later for spoiling the sweetroll.
• "Go soak your head. I am not giving it to you" - Makes Butch attack you.
• "You look hungry. Your mother drank all the ration coupons again?" - Makes Butch attack you.
• "Hmm, it was delicious, I already ate it." (appears only if you already ate it) - Butch gets annoyed, but doesn't do anything else.
• "I threw it away. You can eat it from the floor if you want to" - Makes Butch angry and he tells you he will get you later for it.

In no option he "pusses out". No option makes you be a tough kid that actually confronts a bully without a fight. Well, I wouldn't even call it a fight since you can't fight back, you have to take Butch's punches like a pussy until Gomez stops him.

 

[Norzan]

You can go for a long time without ever interacting with anything.

Can i say how much of a bullshit this is? I recently played Vegas and every two minutes, i would always find a new location either to explore like a gas station or some other building with loot and enemies or a place with people or just run into raiders and other enemies. This myth that the Mojave barely has anyhing in it it is complete bullshit.

 

[Risewild]

Fallout 3 had better architecture. Sorry, but it's true. Doesn't help the game, though.

It does have better architecture, but it also doesn't.

It does have better architecture in the way that it is a urban setting with nice general architecture (statues and stuff like that) and it contains all the memorials and other monuments Washington DC also contains (like Pariah Dog mentioned). Which is pretty cool.

But Fallout New Vegas also contains very good architecture, but it is a more localized and focused one. Here are some examples of nice architecture in FNV (since an image is worth 1000 words):

Spoiler

Of course, the Strip casinos inside and out (some pics of those):

And the giant Vault 21 sign:

And some of the other "attractions" the Mojave offers:

Let us not forget Bison Steve Hotel with a "frikkin" roller-coaster! :

Or the Yangtze Memorial:

And yes, those dark walls are actually covered in readable names with their army ranks!

Those will have to do, I got tired of looking for the places I remember, finding good pics, then shrink them as to not have ginormous pics, then upload them to imgur and then posting then here .

 

[TheHouseAlwaysWins]

By architecture he meant detail in the environments in it. I believe the only environment in Fallout New Vegas that has the same amount of detail as in something in Fallout 3 is the hoover dam and that's about it.

 

[Cliffy McEdgeface]

By architecture he meant detail in the environments in it. I believe the only environment in Fallout New Vegas that has the same amount of detail as in something in Fallout 3 is the hoover dam and that's about it.

Gomorrah's interior cells easily compete with most of FO3, I think. Tops is a bit simpler, but UL's interior cells aren't too shabby either.

Also, the Vegas sewers are reasonably easy to get lost in IMO.

The seeming lack of verticality in a lot of FO3 encounters surprises me, though, given the environments they had to work with.

 

[Hassknecht]

Both, really. Fallout 3 had a lot of the classic Art Deco/Raygun Gothic style in a much more pronounced way than NV, and I'm a sucker for that style. Fallout 3 did well on the art direction for sure.

 

[Cliffy McEdgeface]

Both, really. Fallout 3 had a lot of the classic Art Deco/Raygun Gothic style in a much more pronounced way than NV, and I'm a sucker for that style. Fallout 3 did well on the art direction for sure.

The style is probably one of the more ubiquitous and easy to pick up on things in the Fallout series, and recognizing and adhering to it well is like the entry-level achievement for making a Fallout game. If you can't do that, go home and make a different game, basically. If they had managed to screw THAT up somehow I don't think people would even really recognize it as a Fallout game at all.

Hey, has anyone mentioned the absolute bullshit that is "Michael Bay-esque nuclear exploding car hulks" yet? Because that's some real fucking bullshit, let me tell you.

 

[Risewild]

By architecture he meant detail in the environments in it. I believe the only environment in Fallout New Vegas that has the same amount of detail as in something in Fallout 3 is the hoover dam and that's about it.

I am confused about what you mean by "detail". do you mean more "clutter"?

I already mentioned before that Fallout 3 has piles of rubble everywhere, even when there is nowhere from those piles of rubble can come from. That is a very poor attention to "detail". Also places where people live for decades are still full of rubble and trash everywhere, another lack of "detail".

We can quickly compare the saloons in both games:

Spoiler

Which one seems to have more attention to detail? Also I like the fancy ceiling in the Prospector Saloon.
Not depicted is that Trudy actually has a wall with shelves full of drinks behind her/the counter, while Moriarty's Saloon has a shelf with metal pans and junk.

Or how about comparing the most luxurious place in the Capital Wasteland with a luxurious place in the Mojave:

Spoiler

Or the war memorials on both games:

Spoiler

The FNV one has (like I mentioned before) thousands of readable names on those walls:

I am not saying that these examples of FO3 are bad architecture, they are not (and that memorial is pretty cool, although the game doesn't have that type of flamers), but in relation to detail I would say FNV usually has a pretty good attention to detail too.

 

[TheHouseAlwaysWins]

I am confused about what you mean by "detail". do you mean more "clutter"?

I already mentioned before that Fallout 3 has piles of rubble everywhere, even when there is nowhere from those piles of rubble can come from. That is a very poor attention to "detail". Also places that where people live for decades are still full of rubble and trash everywhere, another lack of "detail".

I mean in how much stuff there is in the whole picture of it. The Book of Kells is an artpiece with a lot of detail to it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_of_Kells

We can quickly compare the saloons in both games:

Spoiler

The Goodsprings Saloon is visited within the first 30 minutes that you start Fallout New Vegas, of course it's going to have detail in it.

Or how about comparing the most luxurious place in the Capital Wasteland with a luxurious place in the Mojave:

Spoiler

The latter has more color but the former has much more detail in it.

Or the war memorials on both games:

Spoiler

The FNV one has (like I mentioned before) thousands of readable names on those walls:

The Goodsprings one is better but it is still an area at the start.

 

[Risewild]

I mean in how much stuff there is in the whole picture of it. The Book of Kells is an artpiece with a lot of detail to it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_of_Kells




The Goodsprings Saloon is visited within the first 30 minutes that you start Fallout New Vegas, of course it's going to have detail in it.






The latter has more color but the former has much more detail in it.



The Goodsprings one is better but it is still an area at the start.

Megaton is the first town you are supposed to see in the game. So it is also a start location...

How does Tenpenny Tower lobby has more detail in it? Just in terms of "set pieces" it uses much less, in terms of furniture it uses much less too, in terms of wall decorations it uses much less, even different floor elevation is used in the second image while in the first it is all flat...

Also New Vegas locations are full of details even places you won't see at the start, like Jacobstown (which the player will usually only reach late in the game). Or the NCR memorial on Boulder City (again another location where the player will usually reach several hours into the game):

Spoiler

I think people just forget how much detail FNV actually has in it's locations.

EDIT: How could I have forgotten this:

Spoiler

EDIT 2:
I just remember I was gonna point something out to the OP, but then I forgot:

Most places in the Mojave are boarded up and there's lots of invisible barriers. In Fallout 3, most buildings were explorable and had a perfect risk:reward ratio in the "dungeons".

You must have played a very different Fallout 3 than I did. Most buildings in Fallout 3 are boarded up... That was why a great modder named ChuckSteel made a very popular mod for Fallout 3, named DC Interiors. Where he went around the game and "un-boarded" many of the buildings that were "boarded-up" and made interiors for those. And his mod never touched many boarded-up buildings that weren't in DC (he didn't un-boarded the ones in Canterburry Commons for example).

He made interiors for more than 100 boarded up buildings in Fallout 3 and didn't made it for all the boarded up buildings... Fallout 3 has too many buildings that have no interiors, way more than Fallout New Vegas.

So please tell me more sweet lies.

 

[Cliffy McEdgeface]

I like Cass' commentary on the Mojave Outpost's sculptures.

Megaton is the first town you are supposed to see in the game. So it is also a start location...

Oh hey are we talking about Megaton? Can we talk about how it makes absolutely no fucking sense at all? Why is there a crater around an UNEXPLODED bomb? Why are people building around a live nuke? Why was there a strategic bomber in that airspace at all anyway?

EDIT: OK, for the last question apparently there were SAC airfields in the area (Andrews Field and Bolling Field), so that might explain that part.

 

[Crni Vuk]

The most important question. What do they actually eat in Tenn Penny tower?

 

[Cliffy McEdgeface]

The most important question. What do they actually eat in Tenn Penny tower?

They subsist off of a cache of pre-war alcohol and huffing their own farts.

Here's a real headscratcher for you all, though - how the fuck does Little Lamplight exist in a world with slavers, Deathclaws and cannibal Super Mutants? LL is some straight-up Disney shit in a world that has no fucking time for Disney shit.

 

[Norzan]

The most important question. What do they actually eat in Tenn Penny tower?

That question can be pretty much applied to the entirety of Fallout 3.

 

[Cliffy McEdgeface]

I like how OP went dead-silent after 4 posts while we continue to put nails in FO3's coffin.

 

[Pwener]

I like how OP went dead-silent after 4 posts

This is literally what I was going to post. I still stand by them being a troll.

 

[Norzan]

FNV vs. FO3 by hbomberguy

Hbomberguy's video wasn't even about comparing just Fallout 3 to NV, he talked about how Fallout 3 just fails as a Fallout game at a very basic level in the context of the franchise. And he used examples from the first two games and New Vegas to make his point.