Because you don't actually pay those 2000 caps. The robot just goes "Yep, you have 2000 caps, move on through." You don't actually pay. You keep those caps.
Whereas if you buy the pass, you lose those caps.
l337CrappyJack on
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KadokenGiving Ends to my Friends and it Feels StupendousRegistered Userregular
edited April 2011
Wow, that's uh.... Wow. I have to kill two shop keepers now. I'll see you in a while.
Edit: I remembered that I had not yet bought the passport on the current play through, which is good because I like those guys.
Are the Hoover Dam and the Strip 2 different objectives for the endgame?
I'm just trying to figure out when to save before doing the missions so I can come back and do the other options. I've got the boomers quest but have yet to do it, so I guess once I have their support I can pledge it to whoever I side with.
I think the only option I locked myself out of so far is
taking over the strip for myself because I gave the platinum chip to mister house.
Are the Hoover Dam and the Strip 2 different objectives for the endgame?
I'm just trying to figure out when to save before doing the missions so I can come back and do the other options. I've got the boomers quest but have yet to do it, so I guess once I have their support I can pledge it to whoever I side with.
I think the only option I locked myself out of so far is
taking over the strip for myself because I gave the platinum chip to mister house.
The Yes-Man path can never be closed off. You'll get the platinum chip back.
WhiteZinfandel on
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Iron WeaselDillon!You son of a bitch!Registered Userregular
edited April 2011
So I'm finally playing NV and having a lot of fun so far. I've recruited ED-E, Boone and most recently Veronica. I also found a shack belonging to someone named Raul, but he wasn't home. Guess I'll try back during the day.
However, I'm having some trouble reaching Nellis AFB. I paid a guy for information that's supposed to help me negotiate the kill zone outside the base, but I can't make heads or tails of it. First it says that I need to stay on the NE side, then it says to stick to the fence along the NW. All the while it doesn't seem to matter which way I go - once I crest the hill and enter the ruined area, I've got about twenty seconds before my companions and I are shelled to shit and back. Any advice for getting through? I'd like to wrap up this quest for the BoS before I finally head over to Vegas.
Iron Weasel on
Currently Playing:
The Division, Warframe (XB1)
GT: Tanith 6227
So I'm finally playing NV and having a lot of fun so far. I've recruited ED-E, Boone and most recently Veronica. I also found a shack belonging to someone named Raul, but he wasn't home. Guess I'll try back during the day.
However, I'm having some trouble reaching Nellis AFB. I paid a guy for information that's supposed to help me negotiate the kill zone outside the base, but I can't make heads or tails of it. First it says that I need to stay on the NE side, then it says to stick to the fence along the NW. All the while it doesn't seem to matter which way I go - once I crest the hill and enter the ruined area, I've got about twenty seconds before my companions and I are shelled to shit and back. Any advice for getting through? I'd like to wrap up this quest for the BoS before I finally head over to Vegas.
Straight run at the gates: stimpacks hotkeyed. Alternatively I think you can exit a tunnel of some kind at a shelled out area (dead cars and BOS members), then you head to your right hugging the scenery as far as you can and moving slowing towards the fenced area. If you can make contact with the fence you're fine and can just follow it left again to reach the main gates.
You should be able to tell your companions to stay put while you sprint at the gates, btw.
So I'm finally playing NV and having a lot of fun so far. I've recruited ED-E, Boone and most recently Veronica. I also found a shack belonging to someone named Raul, but he wasn't home. Guess I'll try back during the day.
However, I'm having some trouble reaching Nellis AFB. I paid a guy for information that's supposed to help me negotiate the kill zone outside the base, but I can't make heads or tails of it. First it says that I need to stay on the NE side, then it says to stick to the fence along the NW. All the while it doesn't seem to matter which way I go - once I crest the hill and enter the ruined area, I've got about twenty seconds before my companions and I are shelled to shit and back. Any advice for getting through? I'd like to wrap up this quest for the BoS before I finally head over to Vegas.
The best way to handle this is to ask your companions to stay on the safe part of the road, or at the shack that has a map icon nearby so you can fast travel to get there. I've had ED-E get blasted through the scenery into the void, never to return, by the artillary pounding, so you shouldn't risk it.
Then, take off any armor heavier than light. Armor slows you down, and you need speed here more than protection.
Finally, when you do make your run, use the cliff to the left as cover. Don't slow down or hide (there's maybe one or two safe spots along the whole length, but it's really not worth your time). Just run alongside the cliff until you get to the fence. They'll stop shooting when you get to any part along the length of the fence.
Dracomicron on
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Iron WeaselDillon!You son of a bitch!Registered Userregular
edited April 2011
Thanks for the tips, guys. I'm playing on Hardcore, so my companions getting shelled is more than the usual inconvenience - guess I'll tell them to chill at Fields' house while I run my ass off along the left-hand side towards the fence.
Hmm - will I still get bombarded if I use a Stealth Boy?
Iron Weasel on
Currently Playing:
The Division, Warframe (XB1)
GT: Tanith 6227
Thanks for the tips, guys. I'm playing on Hardcore, so my companions getting shelled is more than the usual inconvenience - guess I'll tell them to chill at Fields' house while I run my ass off along the left-hand side towards the fence.
Hmm - will I still get bombarded if I use a Stealth Boy?
Yes. That was my first reaction to the initial shells, didn't work.
Alright, having played Fallout 3 GotY after playing New Vegas, I have come to a conclusion.
I like 3 better.
Now let me explain why I think this while I slip into flame resistant armor. First, I must admit I have not played Fallout or Fallout 2, so my opinion is skewed. Now, onto the games in question. To me, at least, New Vegas didn't feel... Right. It lacked the feeling of a post nuclear world. It felt more like Mexico in RDR. I understand the lore reasons for this, but it still felt off tone wise. Second, New Vegas seemed to have less of that retro Fifties Sci-Fi feel that 3 had. The Mojave Wasteland felt smaller to me then the Capital Wasteland, and had less interesting sights beyond the Strip and the Damn. And the story was lacking, though the writing was well done.
But most of all, New Vegas lacked wow moments. Moments that made me go "Damn." The only ones were at the very beginning and at the very end. It lacked things like
Liberty Prime, seeing the wasteland for the first time, Tranquility Lane.
It also had less interesting settlements, and very few interesting monuments.
That said, the gameplay in New Vegas is vastly improved in every way, has better voice acting, and cooler weapons.
California and NV wasn't as hit as hard so it doesn't quite have that feeling of a complete wasteland that Fallout 3 strives for (but I think still failed to capture). Like you saw in the game civilization has been set up, NV is just the frontier of that civilization; a "Wild East" of sorts.
I prefer NV mostly because it presents civilization with more gray morality. I don't think any post-apocalyptic civilization would be as noble as Lyons' BoS presents itself to be.
One of my sole problems with NV is what I think is it's failure to present the Legion as a good alternative to the NCR. Though the latter is tainted by bureaucracy and the corruption that inevitably accompanies that, the Legion is not really shown physically in the game to be able to rule effectively. They enslave the women, kill the men, and are generally shown to be pretty violent outside of what some characters who have gone out east say. I think NV could have benefited from having the Legion control an actual settlement instead of just a reinforced Fort.
But you're right in that the gameplay is much better. The mêlée combat is really fun and I loved the introduction of weapon mods. With that said, how is the mod scene for Vegas now? I haven't played the game in a while.
The story also had little pull for me. Chandler shot me in the head, time to go do fetch quests for 40 hours around the Strip.
I also wasn't engaged by the shot in the head story. It was presented with very little emotion and then places a ton of content before the resolution, so that it has very little impact when you catch up with Benny.
Quite frankly, I thought they overdid the post apocalyptic stuff in FO3. Sure it was present in the earlier games, but not nearly to the extent that FO3 had it ever present, similar to FO2's deluge of pop culture references. It was what, 2 centuries after the bombs fell? In many places, it seemed like it was only like 2 years.
But really, the problem with FO3 is that it was a distinct tonal shift from the other games, NV included. Sure there were dungeons and exploring and stuff, but that was never the focus. Most of the game was about character interactions in the many towns, not grinding through quite frankly not very good combat for hours on end (though I will admit that none of the fallout games have good combat).
What FO3 does best is convey "an" atmosphere. It's not really "the" Fallout atmosphere, it's similar in a lot of respects, but the Fallout games were always about the re-emergance of civilization, but FO3 is mostly about isolated pockets of society that almost never interact (to maybe nuke each other for the lulz), and the force that's trying to bring them together is uniformly evil.
Yeah, there are some cool moments, but most of them are pretty hollow because they really make no difference in the long run (Tranquility Lane is just depressing; your choice at the end is about mercy, not hope or opportunity), and don't even get me started on the pointlessness of the original ending.
New Vegas is more of a sequel to Fallout 2, and as such is always going to come out ahead with someone like me who remembers the original games fondly. I've decided that, for all of its good qualities, I am having more fun playing Borderlands than I did playing FO3, and the fact that I can see them as similar enough to compare doesn't bode well for FO3 being the RPG it wants to be.
I felt there were 3 categories of enemy in the wasteland, godlike tech drednaught/super mutation that requires everything to defeat, well prepared/trained humans or deadly mutations/freaks, vulnerable squishy people who hide in towns behind walls and turrets for protection. It was satisfying to evolve from 3 to 1, but....the lack of raids was a bit of an irksome point for me not to mention that the Gamebryo engine categorized enemies into classes that were bitch for modders and didn't allow re-activation of robots.
The shift from 3 to New Vegas is a lot like the one from BioShock to BioShock 2. It traded atmosphere and story for gameplay and better character interaction.
Ooh, it's time for the 3 vs. NV stuff again! I'll get my poncho. Minor spoilers, and spoiling for size:
Having replayed 3 not too long ago, I'm still torn as to which game I like better as a whole. I'm not really bothered by canon fidelity these days as long as it's not especially egregious - I don't have a hard time believing the various BOS splinter groups ended up with stark differences - but then there are a lot of things about the series I kind of glossed over; never got how having certain gun models in F2 constituted heresy, for starters.
NV boasts major improvements at face value. The branching plot is new for the series, and while there are certainly issues, overall it does a respectable job in the larger context of post-nuclear frontier politics. I was actually pretty impressed with how they set Mojave up, sending soldiers into a meat grinder as local interests play tug-of-war with the region's resources. True, there were times where you could basically forget you were playing Fallout, especially early on, but for actually showing a changing world NV gets high marks from me. Incidental dialogue was hilarious, from the Vikki & Vance story to placards at the REPCONN office. If nothing else, NV is superior in the overall plot department just because its ending doesn't kick the player in the unmentionables.
Mind you, in retrospect I can appreciate certain aspects of 3's plot, and Broken Steel takes some of the sting out of the finale. Hoover Dam just has nothing on watching Liberty Prime go to town, and I liked that you weren't explicitly told what the purifier combo was. Despite the Enclave being cartoonishly evil, the story's key players - Eden, Autumn, Dad, Dr. Li, Lyons - had more tangible presences throughout the game. Caesar and Mr. House, by comparison, benefited from excellent writing and detailed backstories, but were both optional and non-entities for most of the game. That said, factions are far better established here, and NV wraps things up reasonably well by the endgame. 3's ending remains a missed opportunity at best, and whoever said it had upwards of 200 endings was flat-out lying.
As for the player character, I'm not all that interested in the courier's story and I get the impression that NV isn't either. This is one area where I do feel 3 had the smarter idea; for better or worse they bothered to let you play a history rather than simply saying you had one. It doesn't make the PC less of an empty vessel, and certainly the interactions could have use more depth, but there was at least an effort. Contrast with the vague, go-nowhere hints about the NV courier and the conflict with another courier, which at preset I could not care less about. When you do finally meet this dude, the very first question I'm going to ask is "Who are you and why should I care?" and this late in the game NV needs to have a very good answer for me to take it seriously.
On the gamplay front, there's no question that NV has more refined mechanics in and out of combat. Action is smoother, armor works better, stealth and conversation are more viable for conflict resolution, faction relationships work well, companions are more useful, there's greater quest variety, etc. Speech checks through secondary skills are always welcome, and talking down the Legate felt like a real challenge that could go south at any time. It's still not perfect - 3 made a wise decision in having a potential home base centrally located and accessible early on - but the mechanics in 3 were tolerated whereas NV more easily lent itself to being fun. NV also felt more populated out in the field, and it was nice to see trading outposts and ruined suburbs that still had signs of life.
That said, 3 has the benefit of a setting that's inherently more interesting. Despite the National Archives being functionally identical to any number of building subbasements, I rather vividly remember breaking in to nab the Declaration. Yes, it's ultimately a fetch quest, but the thing being fetched is literal US history. You couldn't throw a rock downtown without hitting something worth exploring, and I don't just mean major landmarks. Poking your head into unmarked raider camps at least net you a skill book or whatever, and sometimes you'd wind up with something unique: an artillery spot overlooking a battle, or a machine to purify molerat meat, that kind of thing. Even DLC areas were cool, at least he ones that let you look around; Point Lookout and the Pitt were worth every penny to me. In NV, exploration didn't seem as worthwhile, and wandering too far off the beaten path usually led to a quick death.
In the end I have no trouble admitting that NV holds up better as a game, and 3 can't help but feel shallower by comparison. Yet I think 3 is a more memorable experience, and it does a better job of encouraging the player to just get out there and explore. Scratch that itch and I don't care how many subways you put me through, I'm checking that shit out.
TL;DR: New Vegas is a better game with better writing, but I think Fallout 3 holds together more as an adventure. I should also stress I've sunk hundreds of hours into both games, so it's not like I have to like one at the expense of the other. They're both awesome games, just in different ways.
Also, I would pay DLC money for more Black Mountain Radio.
Alright, having played Fallout 3 GotY after playing New Vegas, I have come to a conclusion.
I like 3 better.
Now let me explain why I think this while I slip into flame resistant armor. First, I must admit I have not played Fallout or Fallout 2, so my opinion is skewed. Now, onto the games in question. To me, at least, New Vegas didn't feel... Right. It lacked the feeling of a post nuclear world. It felt more like Mexico in RDR. I understand the lore reasons for this, but it still felt off tone wise. Second, New Vegas seemed to have less of that retro Fifties Sci-Fi feel that 3 had. The Mojave Wasteland felt smaller to me then the Capital Wasteland, and had less interesting sights beyond the Strip and the Damn. And the story was lacking, though the writing was well done.
But most of all, New Vegas lacked wow moments. Moments that made me go "Damn." The only ones were at the very beginning and at the very end. It lacked things like
Liberty Prime, seeing the wasteland for the first time, Tranquility Lane.
It also had less interesting settlements, and very few interesting monuments.
That said, the gameplay in New Vegas is vastly improved in every way, has better voice acting, and cooler weapons.
THIS. This is what is lacking in NV and I agree with you a hundred percent. The atmosphere pales in comparison to three's, and the location pales. The whole desert thing is biggest peeve. In Fallout 3, it actually felt like a nuclear wasteland. In NV, it feels like a desert, however, a game already did deserts and was better at the atmosphere of them. This game is called RDR. I don't want to be in a desert, I want to be in a nuclear wasteland in a game about a world suffering from the effects of a nuclear bombing and the resulting fallout that damages the land.
But it doesn't suck, far from that. I love NV now that I'm playing it again, and it pretty much capitalizes on the things that were lesser in FO3 like the combat and companions.
Poking thru the game data with the GECk found some interesting tidbits, like Mr. House's other robot girlfriend that Veronica metions ("two robot sex slaves")
'Betsy the Brahmin', from what I could make out from the script, would have been a pack animal that would have wandered off at some point while you slept, and you would have to track her down to get your items back.
baaaaaaaaaah i just bought New Vegas and decided to pop in here to see what was being talked about before starting it.
How big a spoiler is the identity of the guy who shot you in the head, as stated above. Did I just get spoiled about the whole ending of the game, or is that just something you find out and continue towards some bigger goal.
Ugh Im so dumb.
mxmarks on
PSN: mxmarks - WiiU: mxmarks - twitter: @ MikesPS4 - twitch.tv/mxmarks - "Yes, mxmarks is the King of Queens" - Unbreakable Vow
Man I don't think I've ever loved and hated a dlc so much at the same time as The Pitt. I loved its atmosphere, and it's encouragement for you to get greedy and be risky/daring at times, but I HATED Trogs! I FUCKING HATED TROGS. Nothing scares the piss out of me more than when an enemy just suddenly jumps you from behind with little warning at all.
baaaaaaaaaah i just bought New Vegas and decided to pop in here to see what was being talked about before starting it.
How big a spoiler is the identity of the guy who shot you in the head, as stated above. Did I just get spoiled about the whole ending of the game, or is that just something you find out and continue towards some bigger goal.
Ugh Im so dumb.
Honestly, finding and dealing with the guy who shoots you is pretty much Act One of the game. About five minutes after that, shit really sinks in.
So far Ive beaten Anchorage and halfway through Zeta, and both are pretty meh. I dont regret them, just wish I came across them during normal play, because trying to play them now, after beating the main game, I just feel like Im forcing myself through endless fetch quests, when the normal game was fetch quests of my choosing. I did what I wanted, when I wanted, and how I wanted. Im a super nerd for PLANNING, and figuring out what route to take across the wastelands to fetch what I have to, drop off things I already fecthed along the way, and find new areas. In this DLC, it's very much just go from point A to point B.
Also now I have Chineese Stealth armor with no real place to use it.
mxmarks on
PSN: mxmarks - WiiU: mxmarks - twitter: @ MikesPS4 - twitch.tv/mxmarks - "Yes, mxmarks is the King of Queens" - Unbreakable Vow
Even the core game is pretty bad. Every one of those Reavers started going through that epilepsy glitch and so became nigh invincible. I was wasting entire clips from my Gatling Laser and it wasn't fazing them at all.
So I hear tell that details of a GOTY edition of New Vegas have surfaced (at least from British Amazon), so I guess it'll be just like the FO3 version - all the patches and fixes with the DLC released thus far included. . . and since it'll be a ways off probably (if true), I'm guessing that'll be the way to go for anybody who hasn't picked it up yet? Especially since it's apparently going for a lower price due to the small amount of DLC available. Glad I waited on it.
Posts
Whereas if you buy the pass, you lose those caps.
Edit: I remembered that I had not yet bought the passport on the current play through, which is good because I like those guys.
Bling!
I'm just trying to figure out when to save before doing the missions so I can come back and do the other options. I've got the boomers quest but have yet to do it, so I guess once I have their support I can pledge it to whoever I side with.
I think the only option I locked myself out of so far is
However, I'm having some trouble reaching Nellis AFB. I paid a guy for information that's supposed to help me negotiate the kill zone outside the base, but I can't make heads or tails of it. First it says that I need to stay on the NE side, then it says to stick to the fence along the NW. All the while it doesn't seem to matter which way I go - once I crest the hill and enter the ruined area, I've got about twenty seconds before my companions and I are shelled to shit and back. Any advice for getting through? I'd like to wrap up this quest for the BoS before I finally head over to Vegas.
The Division, Warframe (XB1)
GT: Tanith 6227
Straight run at the gates: stimpacks hotkeyed. Alternatively I think you can exit a tunnel of some kind at a shelled out area (dead cars and BOS members), then you head to your right hugging the scenery as far as you can and moving slowing towards the fenced area. If you can make contact with the fence you're fine and can just follow it left again to reach the main gates.
You should be able to tell your companions to stay put while you sprint at the gates, btw.
Currently playing: GW2 and TSW
They're pretty much invincible apart from rare events.
The best way to handle this is to ask your companions to stay on the safe part of the road, or at the shack that has a map icon nearby so you can fast travel to get there. I've had ED-E get blasted through the scenery into the void, never to return, by the artillary pounding, so you shouldn't risk it.
Then, take off any armor heavier than light. Armor slows you down, and you need speed here more than protection.
Finally, when you do make your run, use the cliff to the left as cover. Don't slow down or hide (there's maybe one or two safe spots along the whole length, but it's really not worth your time). Just run alongside the cliff until you get to the fence. They'll stop shooting when you get to any part along the length of the fence.
Hmm - will I still get bombarded if I use a Stealth Boy?
The Division, Warframe (XB1)
GT: Tanith 6227
Yes. That was my first reaction to the initial shells, didn't work.
Currently playing: GW2 and TSW
Now let me explain why I think this while I slip into flame resistant armor. First, I must admit I have not played Fallout or Fallout 2, so my opinion is skewed. Now, onto the games in question. To me, at least, New Vegas didn't feel... Right. It lacked the feeling of a post nuclear world. It felt more like Mexico in RDR. I understand the lore reasons for this, but it still felt off tone wise. Second, New Vegas seemed to have less of that retro Fifties Sci-Fi feel that 3 had. The Mojave Wasteland felt smaller to me then the Capital Wasteland, and had less interesting sights beyond the Strip and the Damn. And the story was lacking, though the writing was well done.
But most of all, New Vegas lacked wow moments. Moments that made me go "Damn." The only ones were at the very beginning and at the very end. It lacked things like
That said, the gameplay in New Vegas is vastly improved in every way, has better voice acting, and cooler weapons.
Shitty Tumblr:lighthouse1138.tumblr.com
I prefer NV mostly because it presents civilization with more gray morality. I don't think any post-apocalyptic civilization would be as noble as Lyons' BoS presents itself to be.
One of my sole problems with NV is what I think is it's failure to present the Legion as a good alternative to the NCR. Though the latter is tainted by bureaucracy and the corruption that inevitably accompanies that, the Legion is not really shown physically in the game to be able to rule effectively. They enslave the women, kill the men, and are generally shown to be pretty violent outside of what some characters who have gone out east say. I think NV could have benefited from having the Legion control an actual settlement instead of just a reinforced Fort.
But you're right in that the gameplay is much better. The mêlée combat is really fun and I loved the introduction of weapon mods. With that said, how is the mod scene for Vegas now? I haven't played the game in a while.
Steam: CavilatRest
The story also had little pull for me. Chandler shot me in the head, time to go do fetch quests for 40 hours around the Strip.
Shitty Tumblr:lighthouse1138.tumblr.com
I also wasn't engaged by the shot in the head story. It was presented with very little emotion and then places a ton of content before the resolution, so that it has very little impact when you catch up with Benny.
But really, the problem with FO3 is that it was a distinct tonal shift from the other games, NV included. Sure there were dungeons and exploring and stuff, but that was never the focus. Most of the game was about character interactions in the many towns, not grinding through quite frankly not very good combat for hours on end (though I will admit that none of the fallout games have good combat).
Yeah, there are some cool moments, but most of them are pretty hollow because they really make no difference in the long run (Tranquility Lane is just depressing; your choice at the end is about mercy, not hope or opportunity), and don't even get me started on the pointlessness of the original ending.
New Vegas is more of a sequel to Fallout 2, and as such is always going to come out ahead with someone like me who remembers the original games fondly. I've decided that, for all of its good qualities, I am having more fun playing Borderlands than I did playing FO3, and the fact that I can see them as similar enough to compare doesn't bode well for FO3 being the RPG it wants to be.
http://www.fallout3nexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=16534
Shitty Tumblr:lighthouse1138.tumblr.com
Is it some kind of welder or something? Obviously from the name it uses heat in some way.
NV boasts major improvements at face value. The branching plot is new for the series, and while there are certainly issues, overall it does a respectable job in the larger context of post-nuclear frontier politics. I was actually pretty impressed with how they set Mojave up, sending soldiers into a meat grinder as local interests play tug-of-war with the region's resources. True, there were times where you could basically forget you were playing Fallout, especially early on, but for actually showing a changing world NV gets high marks from me. Incidental dialogue was hilarious, from the Vikki & Vance story to placards at the REPCONN office. If nothing else, NV is superior in the overall plot department just because its ending doesn't kick the player in the unmentionables.
Mind you, in retrospect I can appreciate certain aspects of 3's plot, and Broken Steel takes some of the sting out of the finale. Hoover Dam just has nothing on watching Liberty Prime go to town, and I liked that you weren't explicitly told what the purifier combo was. Despite the Enclave being cartoonishly evil, the story's key players - Eden, Autumn, Dad, Dr. Li, Lyons - had more tangible presences throughout the game. Caesar and Mr. House, by comparison, benefited from excellent writing and detailed backstories, but were both optional and non-entities for most of the game. That said, factions are far better established here, and NV wraps things up reasonably well by the endgame. 3's ending remains a missed opportunity at best, and whoever said it had upwards of 200 endings was flat-out lying.
As for the player character, I'm not all that interested in the courier's story and I get the impression that NV isn't either. This is one area where I do feel 3 had the smarter idea; for better or worse they bothered to let you play a history rather than simply saying you had one. It doesn't make the PC less of an empty vessel, and certainly the interactions could have use more depth, but there was at least an effort. Contrast with the vague, go-nowhere hints about the NV courier and the conflict with another courier, which at preset I could not care less about. When you do finally meet this dude, the very first question I'm going to ask is "Who are you and why should I care?" and this late in the game NV needs to have a very good answer for me to take it seriously.
On the gamplay front, there's no question that NV has more refined mechanics in and out of combat. Action is smoother, armor works better, stealth and conversation are more viable for conflict resolution, faction relationships work well, companions are more useful, there's greater quest variety, etc. Speech checks through secondary skills are always welcome, and talking down the Legate felt like a real challenge that could go south at any time. It's still not perfect - 3 made a wise decision in having a potential home base centrally located and accessible early on - but the mechanics in 3 were tolerated whereas NV more easily lent itself to being fun. NV also felt more populated out in the field, and it was nice to see trading outposts and ruined suburbs that still had signs of life.
That said, 3 has the benefit of a setting that's inherently more interesting. Despite the National Archives being functionally identical to any number of building subbasements, I rather vividly remember breaking in to nab the Declaration. Yes, it's ultimately a fetch quest, but the thing being fetched is literal US history. You couldn't throw a rock downtown without hitting something worth exploring, and I don't just mean major landmarks. Poking your head into unmarked raider camps at least net you a skill book or whatever, and sometimes you'd wind up with something unique: an artillery spot overlooking a battle, or a machine to purify molerat meat, that kind of thing. Even DLC areas were cool, at least he ones that let you look around; Point Lookout and the Pitt were worth every penny to me. In NV, exploration didn't seem as worthwhile, and wandering too far off the beaten path usually led to a quick death.
In the end I have no trouble admitting that NV holds up better as a game, and 3 can't help but feel shallower by comparison. Yet I think 3 is a more memorable experience, and it does a better job of encouraging the player to just get out there and explore. Scratch that itch and I don't care how many subways you put me through, I'm checking that shit out.
TL;DR: New Vegas is a better game with better writing, but I think Fallout 3 holds together more as an adventure. I should also stress I've sunk hundreds of hours into both games, so it's not like I have to like one at the expense of the other. They're both awesome games, just in different ways.
Also, I would pay DLC money for more Black Mountain Radio.
Now playing: Teardown and Baldur's Gate 3 (co-op)
Sunday Spotlight: Horror Tales: The Wine
THIS. This is what is lacking in NV and I agree with you a hundred percent. The atmosphere pales in comparison to three's, and the location pales. The whole desert thing is biggest peeve. In Fallout 3, it actually felt like a nuclear wasteland. In NV, it feels like a desert, however, a game already did deserts and was better at the atmosphere of them. This game is called RDR. I don't want to be in a desert, I want to be in a nuclear wasteland in a game about a world suffering from the effects of a nuclear bombing and the resulting fallout that damages the land.
But it doesn't suck, far from that. I love NV now that I'm playing it again, and it pretty much capitalizes on the things that were lesser in FO3 like the combat and companions.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermal_lance
It's a weaponised version of the above.
Shitty Tumblr:lighthouse1138.tumblr.com
http://www.fallout3nexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=16534
'Betsy the Brahmin', from what I could make out from the script, would have been a pack animal that would have wandered off at some point while you slept, and you would have to track her down to get your items back.
How big a spoiler is the identity of the guy who shot you in the head, as stated above. Did I just get spoiled about the whole ending of the game, or is that just something you find out and continue towards some bigger goal.
Ugh Im so dumb.
Gotta finish up Zeta/The Pitt/Broken Steel first before I head to New Vegas. I forgot how much I loved this game. Its just so damn awesome.
XBL: GamingFreak5514
PSN: GamingFreak1234
Honestly, finding and dealing with the guy who shoots you is pretty much Act One of the game. About five minutes after that, shit really sinks in.
LoL, yeah, but leveling changers aren't a category.
http://www.fallout3nexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=16534
So far Ive beaten Anchorage and halfway through Zeta, and both are pretty meh. I dont regret them, just wish I came across them during normal play, because trying to play them now, after beating the main game, I just feel like Im forcing myself through endless fetch quests, when the normal game was fetch quests of my choosing. I did what I wanted, when I wanted, and how I wanted. Im a super nerd for PLANNING, and figuring out what route to take across the wastelands to fetch what I have to, drop off things I already fecthed along the way, and find new areas. In this DLC, it's very much just go from point A to point B.
Also now I have Chineese Stealth armor with no real place to use it.
Have you played The Pitt or Broken Steel?
I still have bad memories from my times in the Presidential Metro Tunnels.
Steam: CavilatRest
http://www.fallout3nexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=16534
Steam: CavilatRest
Only after you get to Novac, then Manny Vargas (or his personal terminal, tee-hee) tells you the shooter is "Benny".
XBL: GamingFreak5514
PSN: GamingFreak1234