My sister, whom doesn't usually show too much interest in videogames, has asked me about fallout 3. I told her I would get her a copy soon (it was almost time for the steam sale). Personally, I understand that both these games are great but I know I cannot handle them. So here we are in 2013 and I am not sure if 3 is dated now and if it is better for her to get new vegas ( bc less dated?). Also, this is not really important for my decision but I want to know what you think of the Dlc's in both game (worth playing?) and how you actually start them(are they added into the world or a menu item you load into).

Fallout 3's DLCs are probably better than skyrim to be honest. not sure about new vegas but fallout 3 and its dlc are worth playing .

You can start most of the dlc's right after the you exit the first vault but one dlc you can only start when you have finished the main quest.

I only played new vegas, but it was a very fun game. I've never got around finishing it or the DLC. From what I've played there's tons of contents, fun combat, great atmosphere, intimidating enemies, and all sorts of good shit. The bad is that the bugs can get really annoying, the game has lots of glitches and graphical bugs.

I personally liked New Vegas more. Both are good games, though. And New Vegas is like $2.50 today so I say jump on that.

Both are worth playing, but New Vegas is better overall.

Most of the DLC for both of them were pretty good too. Old World Blues and Honest Hearts in particular were amazing.

I didn't really enjoy either Fallout game to be honest, although if I had to pick one it would be New Vegas. It just seemed it grab me more and be more 'familiar'. I don't really know what it is about post-apocalyptic games, I just don't seem to get it. Fallout for me was always a barren wasteland I didn't want to explore, it was everything I wanted to avoid in life piled into one game I guess.

For the price you can get them for today (on PC) pick them both up!

This? AGAIN!?

Both are well worth playing. Fallout 3's world is more fun to explore, but New Vegas is vastly better written and has somewhat better combat if only because of actual iron sights. If I were to recommend one, it would probably be New Vegas, but only by a small margin.

Base New Vegas is, but with all the DLC it's five dollars. Might as well get the whole package.

http://www.giantbomb.com/fallout-new-vegas/3030-25933/forums/is-new-vegas-better-than-fallout-3-506476/?page=3

"Better written" is definitely something that interests me, on the other hand, I love the idea of exploring. Could I ask you to clarify something a bit more? how much worse is exploring in new vegas? I am assuming not much worse but I would love to hear your opinion.

I have played a ton of both and throughly enjoyed them. Here are the pros and cons of each in my opinion.

Fallout 3

• More Free Exploration (Very few quests, most content is found just by wandering the world)
• More atmospheric
• More Serious Tone
• Decent Story
• Bugs

Fallout: New Vegas

• More Quests (Comes with a downside, see below)
• Very Linear until you get to Vegas which can take a lot of time
• More Choices
• Better Companions
• Better Story
• Style is more like the original Fallout games
• Worse bugs
• Mildly better combat

While New Vegas seems vastly superior it doesn't have the same openness that Fallout 3 had which I really enjoyed.

Both are still great gaming experiences. I think New Vegas eases into the gameplay mechanics a bit better than F3, however, I think the main story thread is more interesting in Fallout 3.

Not much. New Vegas doesn't use level scaling to anywhere near the same degree that Fallout 3 uses it. This means that if you decide to go north in the beginning of the game, from Goodsprings I believe, you'll run into all manner of higher level enemies that will rip you to shreds. The game clearly says "going north is dangerous!", and for good reason. The more you level up, the more practical it is for you to visit different areas. In Fallout 3, however, you can go anywhere you please and the enemies scale to your level.

I like New Vegas's way better, but it's definitely more of a "hardcore" idea. It requires a little more dedication to the game, which rewards the player with opening up new areas. But Fallout 3's level scaling has its merits as well - it's more casual and easier to slide into, and the actual world itself has some more interesting areas. When exploring 3, I would think "ooh, what's on this bridge?" or "ooh, what's in this town" or something like that - New Vegas felt a bit more barren in comparison. There's still no small amount of locations and stuff to find in New Vegas, though.

Again, you can't go wrong with either, and in practice both are very similar games.

Definitely, New Vegas. I tried Fallout 3, and it bored me after a few hours, I'm not sure if it was the gameplay or the story. When I tried New Vegas, I was hooked! The story and the setting felt way more interesting, plus the many companions you can choose from, makes the experience more fun.

I'd take F3 anyday over FNV, but that's just me.

New Vegas is infinitely superior. Imagine a Fallout 3 that's not shit, basically. The game was written and designed by a big bunch of the original series creators - the game's simply better than FO3 in basically every way. These guys created this world's lore and are responsible for how cRPGs even work, which is why it's a complete delight to see how they screw around with quest structure or the various tropes and mechanics they introduced themselves. Like how the entire concept of a luck stat is completely deconstructed by making it the ability to diagnoze and calculate probability on the fly. Or how Dead Money takes everything you've been taught by modern RPGs - including the ability to talk your way out of every situation - and puts it on its head, basically making it a survival game more similar to The Last of Us than FO3.

The DLC is just amazing - you can see that Obsidian were told to do whatever the fuck they want, because they play risky with the themes, narrative and gameplay in all 4 episodes. The story itself told in them could be a Fallout 4 with no problem.

As someone who hates Fallout 3 with a vengeance, I cannot recommend New Vegas enough. It's simply a lot smarter, better designed game in every regard - writing, gameplay, mechanics, hell, even the voice acting is miles better (apart from Benny; still, just listen to Dog and Dean Domino in Dead Money and try to explain to me why they didn't get nominations for any sort of award). It was buggy as fuck on release, but right now it's completely fine.

If by "less openness" you mean "the main quest line isn't complete garbage so you don't actively try to avoid it", then we can agree on that. New Vegas is just as open as any game in the series ever, you can solve virtually everyone's shit before you even talk to House.

New Vegas has Chris Avellone behind it, enough said.

I like you.

New Vegas easily. Reasons?

• Much better story, better writing.
• Less useless locations than 3
• More weapons
• Better combat
• Much more freedom with choice
• Better companions
• Sex

I will say that 3 feels more authentic as a post apocalyptic game though. Ammo is much more scarce, and I'll honestly say Fallout 3 can be kinda scary when you run into some tough enemies with nothing to kill them with.

Vegas is a better game more quests with way better writing, it also just has a ton more content.

Vegas. I found the quests in Fallout 3 terrible in comparison to stuff like Return to Sender, Wang Dang Atomic Tango, or King's Gambit. Not to say that Fallout 3's quests are bad or that all of the quests in NV are good, but the best of NV towers over the best of 3.

Also the DLC was all fantastic.

@animasta: I think the resentment for New Vegas from reviewers comes from the beating of the dead horse, the dead horse in this case being the gamebryo engine. New Vegas is still better in all accounts, it builds on everything Fallout 3 set the stone for gameplay wise, but still suffers from all the problems Fallout 3's engine had.

New Vegas is the better RPG and Falloutt game by far Same goes for the DLC. The dlc for New Vegas is vastly superior to the Fallout 3 ones. It adds a really cool and interesting story to the game. Something Fallout 3 never managed to do.

@irvandus: thanks, as a result of you and everyone else here, I got my sister the fallout 3 goty and myself new vegas goty.

@darji: I am totally hyped to play the dlc, some of those look amazing.

@super2j: Honest Hearts is my personal favorite, but Lonesome Road is an amazing experience.

They really are and the best thing is that they tell a really interesting story over the 4 big DLCs you will get with it. Hope you have as much fun with New Vegas I had. Personally I think Fallout 3 should not even be called a Fallout game. It is a good game but not a good Fallout game. Fallout is much more than the setting.

There are great mods for both games that ease the dated feel of the looks and gameplay. The story and characters are a lot more rounded and deep in New Vegas, but I feel the world in Fallout 3 is a lot more explorable. By that I mean diverse and interesting to explore. @super2j, in New Vegas the DLC is activated by going to certain places.

Fallout 3 was literally a buggy unplayable mess for me so that game can go suck a dick. It would literally crash to desktop every 10-15 min for no reason. So far that I will always hate that game. New Vegas I enjoyed my time with and only had one annoying bug where my companion disappeared and I had no way to dismiss them or to get a new one because the game still thought it was active when it was not. It of course magically appeared in like the very last mission of the game like 5 minutes before the end.

New Vegas is on sale on Steam right now for like $2 for the game and all the DLC is like $6. So get that.

@irvandus: I agree with all your new Vegas points except it being linear. In fact I think it's just as open as fallout 3 or more so. I must have gone at least 15-20 hours without touching Vegas and did quite a few quests. When you get there sure a lot more game opens up but to say its "very linear" is a bit misleading

Anyway, I prefer New Vegas to 3 for most of the reasons given. Much better story, better writing and companions. Somewhat better combat and yo, there is color. On the downside it is quite a bit buggier compared to fallout 3, which is kind of scary. But it's been out for so long that most stuff is probably fixed or you can download mods to make things work

I tried multiple times to get into Fallout 3 (on both PC and 360) and got bored 10 hours in. I played Nee Vegas to the end without a problem. So NV>3

I loved Fallout 3 more than New Vegas, but when I went back to play Fallout 3 a second time after having completed NV, there were a lot of changes that I dearly missed.

I like the simpler karma system and the random aspect of speech checks in 3, but ADS and Hardcore Mode were great in NV.

Fallout 3 still wins, but by a slimmer margin than I thought before replaying it.

EDIT: Oh, and enemy scaling. While I like the idea of dangerous areas of the world, I shouldn't have to use an overpowered DLC weapon to kill deathclaws once I reach the level cap. One more point for Fallout 3.

@mlarrabee: I've always been able to kill Deathclaws with the Anti-Materiel rifle, even at the level cap.

New Vegas is definately better, but also broken as hell. Fallout 3 had some buggy shit in it, but at least it didn't crash my Xbox multiple times.

If she asked you about Fallout 3 she asked you about Fallout 3. Get that.

Looks like you've already bought them, so hope you enjoy.

On that note, I'll just say hire some decent fucking writing staff, Bethesda! Or hire Obsidian again. :)

But JUST the writers. Not the coders..

yo, their coders are fine. Bethesda's engine was terrible and glitchy as shit already, and they gave it to a team that didn't know how to work it. They had no such problems with, say, dungeon siege 3.

and for the record, fallout 3 is way more crashy for me than NV is.

@animasta: I feel bad for Obsidian, it seems every game they make they're given barely enough time to make a shippable product. KoTOR 2 was made in less then a year, if you've ever played it you know what an amazing accomplishment that is. Alpha Protocol however, suffered worse then all of them, only game of there's I've really dealt with tons of glitches, I still love it though.

New Vegas us way better in my opinion (that being said, still not nearly as good as it could have been)

Fallout 3 just felt like a huge mess to me, and kind of boring. It was pretty obvious towards the middle/end of the game that they just ran out of ideas and just had you running all over the place. The quests were okay, but everything that wasn't the main quest (and a few side quests) was just mind numbingly boring.

I enjoyed Fallout 3 more than Vegas, but Vegas is still totally awesome. The Fallout 3 DLC is some of the best DLC I have played.

@super2j: I liked fallout 3 more then New Vegas. Both graphically look the same. But fallout 3 has more copy pasted environments, but is more open world. You can head in a direction and run across a hundred different points of interest, randomly.

Fallout NV is not very open world at all. You pretty much have to stick to the roads or you die to some horrible over leveled spider that eats you out of no where. This means that almost every encounter, and place is unique and scripted. It kind of kills the immersion of the whole wasteland for me when they restrict you like that.

Fallout 3 was an easier game to play in my opinion because NV was very glitchy and I could barely play it but maybe that was just the case on the 360. But you truly can't go wrong with either game.

I hadn't considered it before now, but I really think Fallout 3 and it's DLC has made a more lasting impact on me than Skyrim. Both are great games, but Fallout 3 had such a great story and really made me feel like I was just another guy in that world. Also Three Dog and the radio stuff in F3 is just the best.

Yeah, I actually had no problems with New Vegas, whereas 3 would crash to desktop at least once an hour.

That said, I think the purely mechanical side of gameplay Bethesda delivers is one-of-a-kind, and I wouldn't want to change that.

JUST PLAY THEM BOTH. Fallout 4 isn't coming out tomorrow so you have time to play and enjoy them both.

@gaminghooligan: same here dude.

I think New Vegas is better written with a more fleshed out world and more interesting characters. Fallout 3 has a massive patriotic robot. I think the gameplay is complete shit in both.

New Vegas edges out just slightly.

I enjoyed the exploration in Fallout New Vegas a lot better, because it had a much larger variety of interesting locales.

Fallout 3 had some cool places to explore, but the second half felt like I was just going through endless subway tunnels and abandoned office buildings.

New vegas is better, here's why:

skip to 9:20 if you only want the jist of it.

New Vegas was the better game, to me. Old world blues was one of my favorite dlcs of this gen.