In what ways is Fallout 3 BETTER than New Vegas?

I've read a lot of things about how New Vegas is a better, more interesting "neo-Fallout" game. Better story, less backtracking, something about not having a train station which by itself makes it a better game.

But I'm wondering, in what ways is Fallout 3 a better game? My gut answer is gameplay, because we all know Obsidian make great interactive games whose only flaw is that they interact like shit. But I could be wrong since I haven't played it! So what is your answer?

Bonus question: I recently got a sick gaming PC and I got NV on Steam, what are the best mods? :D

Edit: I only want mods that make the game pretty and fix well-known issues, nothing that changes the experience since this is my first time.

Liam Neeson

You start as a child and kill bugs with a BB gun, bad ass!

I... uhh, nothing really. NV has a world populated with more interesting characters, more interesting encounters, more interesting factions and quests... and pretty much everything else. It has similar enough gameplay to F3 because of the engine, but because Obsidian had hindsight on some stuff (companions for instance) they fixed some stuff. Also, it's pretty bug free on vanilla PC at this point (or at least I never got a single bug 30 hours in).

Fallout 3 lets you wonder alot more freely. Where as Fallout: new vegas pushes you round the map in a certain direction and round. They also use too many Deathclaws in places.

Thats what it felt like to me anyway.

The world most of all, it felt really big. Even though places like Washington DC were cordoned off by tunnels and rubble it still felt huge and even after a 100 hours there were still quests and hidden buildings hidden away in DC. Compare that to Las Vegas which feels about the size of your local mall.

When I first started the game as soon as I finished in Megaton I just decided to walk to the NE corner of the map and I found so many side quests to do. There was just so much great stuff and story off the beaten path in that game, the radio stations were great even though they played the same songs over and over, they updated the dialogue with quests had finished and such, I remember finding a hidden side quest that involved rescuing a violin for a old lady, when you finished that quest she gave you a new radio station you could listen to with just her playing the violin and in between songs she would thank you for rescuing it, something that really didn't need to be in the game and was so off the beaten path but they still put so much effort into it. That quest pretty much why I love Todd Howard games, hidden away stuff with so much effort put into it, after doing it just gives you a awesome feeling that you found that hidden gem in the world.

New Vegas was alright as well but it just felt really small compared to FO3, didn't have all the small details FO3 had and the characters tried to hard to be funny and it was glitchy as hell, I lost my save file for wearing a damn hat! But saying that I do hope the New Vegas team are involved in Fallout 4 even just for the zany side quests.

Nothing damnit!

I can't really think of any ways that Fallout 3 is better than New Vegas.

Even in terms of gameplay and RPG mechanics New Vegas is much superior to the rather broken, poorly balanced mess that was Fallout 3. New Vegas actually has some variety to character builds and different armour categories are actually viable. In Fallout 3 all characters can easily become 10 in all stats, 100 in all skills demi-gods in power armour as no other armour types are really viable.

New Vegas cut out some of the unwarrented or somewhat broken perks and made it so you get them every 2 levels, which prevents the player from being so flooded with perks that there is only one way to correctly build/play a character as was the case in fallout 3.

In terms of narrative and setting there really is no contest, New Vegas presents a rich, extensive setting based on years of work from the cancelled Van Buren project. Every faction has both good and bad points. Fallout 3 felt more like a fallout fan-fiction; morally pure and good brotherhood paladins vs. evil Enclave. It really wasn't very true to the more grey tone of the setting.

As for a comparison of the choices and number of potential endings, there are all of about 7 choices (right at the end of the game) that Fallout 3 factors in towards your ending. Fallout New Vegas (without addons) has 176 choices/variables for the ending, which are ticked off throughout the course of the game. Technically around 288 if you include all the addons assorted endings. So New Vegas provides a lot more information and closure.

Fallout New Vegas is a much deeper and well written experience. The only issue it really faced was bugs on launch but that has been largely resolved now. I enjoyed Fallout 3 at the time, but after playing New Vegas so much I really can't go back.

Anyway as for mods that don't really drastically alter the experience beyond a visual tweak perhaps better textures might be a good idea?

Also i'd probably recommend playing the various DLC in order as there is actually an overarching plot thread that is hinted at through all of them and is the focus of the final DLC addon.

It came out before New Vegas, that's the only advantage I can think of.

In their release order? And after beating the game itself?

The atmosphere. Fallout 3 is more lonely. It has a larger environment but less people, and the capital wasteland feels more intimidating than the mohave. I love both games though.

Fallout New Vegas was somehow way more buggy early on, especially on console, than three was. That was big one for me, but at this point I think I prefer New Vegas in most ways.

Concerning mods, I was recently reading about Project Brazil which is a big mod coming out for New Vegas soon and it could be very cool! Current mods though, I recommend the EVE mod to enhance the energy weapon visuals and the Nevada Skies mod is also a lot of fun for the weather effects. Bonus recommendation is the Electro-City mod, makes things look nice at night and doesn't really change the experience much. You can get all these on New Vegas Nexus I believe and i really recommend using their mod manager.

It's a shame that I got burnt out on the Fallout universe after sinking hundreds of hours into Fallout 3. I would love to have spent more time in New Vegas to see what exactly made the game better than its predecessor but I just can't get back into it any more after losing all my progress and cannot be bothered reinstalling all the mods I previously had (most of which are lost as well).

I always felt that Fallout:NV tried to explain too much but that is just a mechanical nitpick. It would have been more interesting to just start the game with the player waking up in the grave and only having the items in their pocket to clue them into where to go.

Butcher Pete, but that's all there is.

My biggest problem with New Vegas was the level of polish. Keep in mind I haven't finished it, though I did play a substantial bit (34 hours). I just feel like so much of the game feels like a tacked-on mod. Specifically, texture work, area layout, and lighting all feel a bit amateurish in spots, and were I not too lazy, I'd provide screenshots of specific areas (most of them are interiors).

The fact I never finished the game can be mostly attributed to fatigue for that style of game and then the eventual release of Skyrim, which just blows the socks off off it graphically and mechanically, even if the two are totally different tonally. I adore the universe, though, and I can't wait for a new Fallout game. Heck, give me a more polished New Vegas in the Skyrim version of the engine and I'd be game.

I felt the atmosphere in Fallout 3 was a lot more eerie than it was in New vegas, especially the DC area. I haven't played either game in a while so correct me if I'm wrong, but I always felt there was a bigger scale to the firefights that would occur in areas such as DC and I thought that was cool too.

Gosh, when I think about it, New Vegas was better in a lot of ways, but it still didn't add a ton to the core game.

Fallout 3 is less buggy, which is almost like saying that you can play shooters better than an armless person.

It's also a bit more open, but really that boils down to taste. I really like the idea, at least in theory, of not being able to roam anywhere you want from the start. The idea of wandering into a place where you get absolutely slaughtered, and then coming back 20 hours later to find that you can hold your own pretty well now. Of maybe seeing something you really want far away, and finally getting powerful enough to make your way there, I'm not sure that is really a bad thing.

Fallout 3 has the stronger opening and at least for me personally, I liked the atmosphere more. New Vegas handled the endgame better and refined a lot of things about 3. Both are great games.

@believer258: fallout 3 being less buggy really isn't true. I mean, it may have been for you, but I still get crashes every like 2 hours if I play fallout 3 where I don't in NV.

I really don't know why.

as far as the OP goes, I can't think of a single thing fallout 3 dose better than new vegas.

@officegamer: Yeah in the release order would probably be best (So Dead Money, Honest Hearts, Old World Blues and finally Lonesome Road in that order). As for when to do them, I would say take them on before finishing the game (as you cannot continue after the ending) but after having gone far enough to be past the point of no return in terms of deciding which main story ending path you want to go down.

From what I recall there is some mention (especially in Lonesome Road) if you have done certain things in the main game, so to make the most of that it is probably best to do the DLC stuff fairly late into the game.The DLC ties into the game fairly well really, characters, locations, etc. present in them have usually been hinted at in dialogue around the world, or even within the world on posters, etc. So it dosn't feel as forcibly tacked on to the narrative as a lot of DLC does sometimes.

@officegamer: @gravier251: actually you can do honest hearts whenever. Probably best after you meet caesar but it doesn't really tie into the DLC story so...

also honest hearts has the best armor

Fallout 3 has a better atmosphere. A better environment. A better map. Less quests which involve "go to this guy, now go to this guy, now go back to this guy again" (which is pretty much every NV side mission). Better DLC.

NV was just boring to me. It's a desert with nothing in it, and no place comparable to the DC ruins.

Personally I play Fallout 3 inside NV. NV mechanics but with the FO3 world.

Also the faction stuff sucks shit in NV, whereas the karma stuff is somewhat entertaining and impactful in 3.

Generally speaking, New Vegas was buggier than Fallout 3. But yes, some people do have more issues with one game over the other.

From a purely design perspective, I don't really think that one thing is better than another, I just think they're two different games. Yes, they're similar in big, overarching ways, but they are different in so many smaller, subtler ways. Fallout 3 is darker, more open, more hopeless, more oppressive, etc.; New Vegas is a little better written but it's more linear in its design, its surroundings give a sense that society will eventually get back on its feet and grow massive again, etc. Everyone should probably take the time to play both.

I tried to get back to Fallout 3 a few weeks ago. Couldn't do it since it kept crashing. Need to check how NV works now so I can determine which one is better.

@believer258: yeah but when did you play new vegas? I concede it was really buggy at launch but a year after the launch I rarely got bugs that ruined my play time.

also a little better written? that's like saying fallout 3 had a little more liam neeson

Fallout 3 had a bigger world to explore and being on the east coast definitely gave it a different atmosphere. Almost a sad mournful overtone about the glory that once was Washington DC and the US as a whole. It rehashed a lot of stuff that was in the two previous games in terms of super mutants, the FEV, and the Brotherhood of Steel, but I can understand Bethesda wanting to play it safe and not mess around with the franchise too much on their first time out. Basing it in DC also gave them the opportunity to have that game be self-contained and cut off from the rest of the series, if fan wound up not liking the direction they went in.

Fallout New Vegas had a smaller overall world, but at the same time it felt more concise with plenty to do still. The characters were great and the story was excellent, being one of the few games that had allegories about modern events that didn't come off as ham-fisted. The atmosphere and environment was similar to Fallout 2 in that rather than focusing on what the world was like before the bomb, civilization was trying to pull itself out of the wreckage and rebuild. It definitely helped that a lot of the folks who made Fallout 2 were on board for New Vegas.

Overall, I enjoyed both games a lot and realize they have certain characteristics that make them different from each other. I like to look at Fallout 3 as Bethseda's take on the Fallout Universe. It's not the one I grew up with, but I was just happy to see another Fallout game. It was also an enjoyable experience. I'm also happy to have New Vegas because I got a game that continued the story of the West Coast that was central to the first two games. I also got to see Marcus again.

Sometime in 2011, I think? I still haven't actually beaten New Vegas, I've just dicked around in it for a few hours every few months. I did the same thing with Fallout 3 and with, well, every Bethesda game.

And yes, New Vegas is more than a "little" better written than Fallout 3, but Fallout 3's writing isn't atrociously bad. It's just not anywhere near as interesting.

It's... bigger. I'm in the camp that asserts that New Vegas is vastly superior to Fallout 3 in pretty much all aspects.

The wasteland setting of FO3 was probably better. It felt much more like you were alone in a dead world, with few signs of an attempt by anyone to rebuild.

New Vegas did pretty much everything else better, but it didn't have the same feeling of hopelessness and isolation (which did make more sense and was much closer in style to the original games, but still).

Fallout 3 had less stuff but almost every story beat, location and random event had more impact. Quality over quantity, New Vegas had a better main story but the sidequests lacked depth. Also, the imagery of a burned out DC was way more shocking than a burned out Vegas which is already a desert. Finding the town full of cannibals , fighting firebreathing bugs in the subway tunnels with barely any ammo, and finding out that the White house is just a smoldering hole, was amazing.

I prefer the Capitol Wasteland to New Vegas and the radio in FO3 is infinity better than the one in NV. Other than that, I would say NV is the better of the two.

If this is true then you just shat on my anticipation to fire up New Vegas for the first time.

it's really not even close to true, don't worry

It is a bit less buggy... and that is about it.

Except for the part where it is. There's way too much of this in NV. There's some in Fallout 3, but not nearly as much as in NV.

That being said, you should still play NV.

fo3 has a bigger world and that's about it. Everything else in nv is on par or better than fo3.

there isn't though? and I should know since I got all of the achievements in NV.

@animasta: So you did all there is to do, yet you missed the part where you had to ferry yourself back and forth between quest givers on opposite ends of the map for no particular reason?

Ok, then. Continue to remain deluded or ignorant.

While I think the actual level design in FO3 isn't as good as in NV, I like the setting more. Plus Moira in FO3 is one of my favorite NPCs of all time.

Fallout 3 had a better world to explore and it had a better atmosphere, but the story and characters in typical Bethesda fashion are pretty bad. Fallout: New Vegas is better on all fronts in terms of story, companions, rpg mechanics, balance, difficulty, weapons and mods etc. It also felt more like Fallout 1 and 2 than 3 ever did. Plus I liked F:NV DLCs better than i did with FO3, Broken Steel and Point Lookout where the only good ones out of the five released by Bethesda that I enjoyed, I really liked all of F:NVs DLC mainly because i enjoyed all the story.

From what I remember both FO3 and F:NV had the same problems, in that you usually finish the quest by going back to the quest giver, FO3 was allot worse because the actual story and writing was allot worse, making it allot more noticeable.

sure there was some of that but you said it happened in almost every side quest which is completely untrue.

The only egregious one I can think of is the quests to get performers for the tops. And some of the DLC quests. but that is nowhere near almost every.

For me it was simply the fact that Fallout 3 came first and by the time New Vegas hit I was kind of tired of those mechanics. Also I had a crash in New Vegas that caused me to lose 3-5 hours of progress. It was kind of hard coming back after that. Even though Fallout 3 was known to have a million bugs I never experienced any that impacted my progress. So that sort of impacted my impression of the game as well.

I'm partial to Fallout 3 just because of the time in my life when I played it, I was out of work, and had just recently gotten back into gaming after after a multi-year hiatus. So I was consumed by Todd Howard's take on Fallout for literally hundreds of hours.

Keeping that in mind, I think that the randomness to the world of Fallout 3 is done much better, and lends itself to being able to just explore the wasteland for much much longer than in New Vegas. I can't tell you how many times I would wander the same parts of the world, and crazy shit would pop off, just because of the random encounter system. Once I was on the roof of a mini mart trying to decide where to go next, and down on the street intersection, a group of Enclave soldiers ran across some Brotherhood outcasts as well as the Brotherhood of steel. It was amazing watching the way they dealt with each other, going so far as to loot corpses of killed enemies for better weapons and armor. I think the outcasts won the fight and left in someone else's gear. Then as they were walking off two Yao Guai's walked up (or maybe a couple giant Radscorpion) and killed them both. Then I went down and looted EVERYBODY!! The way that you could walk the same parts of the world and never know what would happen made it really cool.

Later in the main quest when the Enclave start to populate the wastes, the random encounters get really wild, at least potentially.

I also just find the atmosphere to be more oppressive, which gives everything a bleak feel that I really got drawn into,especially with the weird cheery soundtrack. Then after I got sick of the music, listening to the ambient sounds while wandering was fantastic.

Now New Vegas has much better writing. Most of the characters are more believable and the quests don't feel as slapped together for the most part. Also the mechanics of the game, as far as character building were really good. I played on survivor mode for the entire first play through, and it was pretty cool. There was a lot to micromanage but it was satisfying in a weird way. However, I couldn't get into the world, or the setting, it felt too upbeat for lack of a better word.

I think if Bethesda were to bring some of Obsidian's writers on for the next Fallout. You'd have the strong story and hopefully some of the better rpg mechanics of NV, on top of the second to none worlds that Bethesda make. To me that would be a winning combo.

Well New Vegas' gameplay was identical except for the addition of looking down scopes. So... I don't think that necessarily applies.

Honestly I got no answer for you, I think New Vegas outclassed Fallout 3 in every possible way. And I'm not some old school Fallout fan either, so it's not to do with being truer to the original games. I just thought the setting was cooler, more varied, more interesting, had better factions, and more to do and see than Fallout 3. Also some of the quests were pretty wild in New Vegas, gotta love the idea of helping the ghoulies launch themselves into "space".

Also fuck yeah no subway dungeons, for me that was like "say no more, New Vegas wins by default."

Nothing at all.

@cannedstingray: to be fair, if you played fallout 2 that world was already getting it's shit together and fallout 3 was silly only because even after 200 years, it's THAT shitty? get real. New Vegas was much more believable a place than 3, if only because of the two earlier games.

New Vegas put a bunch of shitty invisible walls on top of rocks and hills in the open areas of the game, specifically I remember them being around the quarry. That was annoying and I never ran into any while playing Fallout 3. Like a few other people mentioned, I also felt that the random encounters in the wasteland were much more interesting in 3 than in New Vegas.

New Vegas is the better game, but it came out two years later so it should be expected. And when I say it's better, I mean barely, because Obsidian barely improved upon anything gameplay related. Although it is one of my favorite games, I don't get how some people can gush over New Vegas and hate on Fallout 3, it's all the same shit.

@peasantabuse: because the writing was terrible in 3 and wasn't in new vegas and that's basically all I want out of RPG's.

It's not. Well okay except the atmosphere, it was more post-apocalyptic in Fallout 3. Still prefer New Vegas though.