Press Start to Continue: War Never Changes
So Fallout 4 is now a thing and I've never been more excited. To celebrate this I have been playing Fallout 3 (3) and New Vegas (NV). Both games came out last generation and were very successful. Now the games while being very similar are very different. Now there are many out there that say one game is better than the other. Now I've played both and enjoyed them both immensely but for very different reasons. So to start this countdown to Fallout 4 we will compare the two and decide which one is better by looking at the game mechanics, story, DLC, and game performance. Let's get started
Game Mechanics
Ok so the mechanics of the two games are pretty much similar. Both games use the new S.P.E.C.I.A.L. system, are primarily 1st person, and use V.A.T.S. Now thats mostly where the stop being similar. New Vegas makes some changes to the formula that are better and not entirely needed. We will look at these changes and evaluate if they are even needed or not. The 1st minor change is the armors dame reduction system. Fallout 3 use a Damage Resistance (DR) which is a percentage of which damage is reduced. For example T-51b Power Armor had a DR of 50(highest in the game) lowers it by 50%. New Vegas uses Damage Threshold (DT) which is best described by this quote:
So same example the T-51b has a DT of 25 meaning that if the weapon doesn't do at least 26 damage it won't even hurt you. Now this sounds better but it is not if you can afford a a vendor with a high repair then you can make yourself virtually invincible. This is not a good thing because you lose that sense of threat building over confidence making it bad thing. So winner here 3 next is weapons mods a feature that 3 didn't have but NV did and 4 is doing even better. Mods are simple components that improve the weapons in some way whether it be damage, durability, or a scope. This one is a no brainer NV did it better for now. Another change though minor was with dialog checks 3 would just be a percentage in which no matter what needed skill was leaving a chance to fail. New Vegas however told you what skill and what level it needed to be at to successfully pass the check. this made dialog a bit more intuitive letting you know there another option if your skill was high enough. This is another win for NV. The next difference is in the companion system NV add a wheel that pops up when you initiate dialog. This wheel makes accessing certain functions easier by not having to go through dialog. This makes thing more simple and easy to use, however this removes the need to talk to your companions. That alone make this a loss by NV. While the wheel is nice removing the need to talk to your allies is not needed. The last difference is a major one NV add both a skill and a mode that complements that skill. The Skill is Survival it allows players to make food and water work better for healing and adds campfire recipes for food and healing items as well. This skill also compliments the new hardcore mode which adds the statistics of Dehydration, Starvation, and Sleep. these are all key for the mode as it make the player need water food and sleep to be able to progress in the game. The downsides to this mode are that ammo and healing items now have weight, and healing items work over time not all at once. Now how does this fall is it a good thing or a bad thing well it's neither. Hardcore modes like this exist in other games most commonly the survival genre (that a real thing now) and they are not this in depth. So remember when I said that some things where not needed above this is one don't get me wrong if you like this level of difficulty good for you but I feel this distracts from the game experience on a whole. So this is a loss by NV making the final score NV 2 to Fallout 3 3.
Story
Ok this one is completely objective on my part the stories are good but different we will look at how each games start. companions, and how the games end. Each one of these is different so it based on my personal experience. The beginning to 3 is very simple you are born and this leads to character creation. after that you are and infant in vault 101 and you set your S.P.E.C.I.A.L. Next you are 10 and you get your pipboy and your 1st gun and learn the combat system as well as how the dialog works. The last hold your hand tutorial is the G.O.A.T. which sets your skill points and lets you tag 3 to raise them higher. after all of this the story begins and you leave the vault to hunt for your father but not before to quote Will Smith your " life got flipped-turned upside down." this was a good way to build a connection to your character have you relate to them. NV does things a little different with a pre rendered cutscene showing you getting shot in the head and then dug up by Victor. After that you wake up in game with the town doctor you run trough some test to set your S.P.E.C.I.A.L. and skill tags. After that you given a pipboy and told you see a local hunter for the rest of the tutorial which you can skip(I recommend not skipping). I have a hard time here because this intro doesn't really connect you to the character I've always felt detached from the Courier. This is one of the only shortcoming with NV story it in no way builds a connection to the character. the Point goes to 3. Now on to companions this part will judge their respective involvement and their personal stories. So Fallout 3 has 8 companions divided up in to 4 categories based on the player's karma good, evil, neutral, and no karma. With the exception of Fawkes this companions have no impact on the story and when they die they stay dead. Now in NV there is no Karma requirements for companions and each a a compelling quest line to require and up grade the character later on. This one goes to NV. Now for endings this is not how the story ends but the last mission that that will make this one. In 3 the last mission is an all out assault on the Jefferson Memorial with the Brotherhood of Steel and the mech Liberty Prime (who I'm convinced is voice by an uncredited Peter Cullen). Now while this sounds awesome it in truth sucks because you don't have to do anything just let Prime handle the dirty work.. when you get to the last part and meet the final bad guy you can totally talk him out of it and then you sacrifice yourself, to save the world or damn it all by doing what the Enclave President wanted, however you still die. NV is very similar you assault the damn with an army at your back depending on who you sided with and all your companions and some side quest characters Then you come to your final boss fight of either Legate Lanius, General Lee Oliver, or both depending on the ending. This was more worth it than 3s ending this was what the whole game was building to and you had a much more involved role. Point to NV and it all tied up 4 to 4.
DLC
Now I separated this from the story for the reason being that they stand out from the story and often carry different themes than the core story. Both games have a multitude of DLC this section will only focus on the story driven DLC and not the item packs. Let's start with 3 which has 5 DLCs that are: Operation: Anchorage, The Pitt, Broken Steel, Point Lookout, and Mothership Zeta. each DLC tells a different story with the only linking theme being the Brotherhood of Steel in the first three. now while the amount of extra content was awesome the quality was a little off. Anchorage, and Zeta are the best of the bunch doing some really unique stories and adding awesome gear. the other 3 however are very well boring while The Pitt added some awesome weapons but that was about it. Broken Steel added a post game quest and 10 more levels however the quest line was handled poorly. Instead of increased difficulty they just threw ridiculous number of enemies at you. I'd speak badly about Point Lookout but any DLC that let you return to the main story at any time for just a cap penalty knows it sucks. now as for what the DLC did for the main game Broken Steel raised the level cap from 20 to 30 that was about it. NV's 4 DLC Dead Money, Honest Hearts, Old World Blues, and Lonesome Road are also short contained stories that were separate from the main game. The major difference with these 4 where while separate they developed The Courier's character by building on the story as to why he had the chip in the 1st place and would conclude in Lonesome Road. Now while that story is a connecting theme for the 4 DLC each DLC has it's own separate story that makes it unique. Each DLC also raises the the level cap by 5 levels making it a total of 50 with all 4 installed. Now I could go on for days about how great the NV DLC is but let's just move on and give the win to NV. NV now leads 5 to 4
Game Performance
This section is not how well the games runs but how well the game was received by critics and fans. This section will also look at awards the game received that year. before I get into the scores and awards and everything this whole section though with 3 parts will only be worth 1 point. So lets look at review scores. Fallout 3 release in October of 2008 on PC, 360, and PS3. The Game was very well received getting very high scores GameInformer gave the game a 9.5 praising the graphics and the game play. The Metacritic score is also very high at a 93 little to no negative reviews. New Vegas released two years later in 2010, however while getting high scores of 8.5 from Gameinforer and a Metacritic score of 83. While the game was praised for the same thing as 3 it was, however there were many graphical glitches that hurt it's score. Now as for awards 3 winning many Game of the Year awards including G4 (RIP) and GDC. NV however because didn't receive any GOTY awards it did however get best RPG from GDC. NV's shortcoming where not because of the game it had very stiff competition form Red Dead Redemption and Mass Effect 2 that year. So on reception the point goes to 3 tieing it up 5 to 5.
Conclusion
At this point I'm tired I've looked at math, stats, and reviews. and the games are both very good and very different, and honestly can not really be compared so stop trying and love them both they are great games. Be on the look out for my in depth looks at the vaults in the games as we begin to count down to Fallout 4.
"Imagine that there is an amount of damage that armor directly subtracts from damage... a "threshold" of damage, if you will. While a small percentage of damage may get through even the thickest armor, damage threshold can effectively neutralize a lot of small arms." J.E. Sawyer NV project director
So same example the T-51b has a DT of 25 meaning that if the weapon doesn't do at least 26 damage it won't even hurt you. Now this sounds better but it is not if you can afford a a vendor with a high repair then you can make yourself virtually invincible. This is not a good thing because you lose that sense of threat building over confidence making it bad thing. So winner here 3 next is weapons mods a feature that 3 didn't have but NV did and 4 is doing even better. Mods are simple components that improve the weapons in some way whether it be damage, durability, or a scope. This one is a no brainer NV did it better for now. Another change though minor was with dialog checks 3 would just be a percentage in which no matter what needed skill was leaving a chance to fail. New Vegas however told you what skill and what level it needed to be at to successfully pass the check. this made dialog a bit more intuitive letting you know there another option if your skill was high enough. This is another win for NV. The next difference is in the companion system NV add a wheel that pops up when you initiate dialog. This wheel makes accessing certain functions easier by not having to go through dialog. This makes thing more simple and easy to use, however this removes the need to talk to your companions. That alone make this a loss by NV. While the wheel is nice removing the need to talk to your allies is not needed. The last difference is a major one NV add both a skill and a mode that complements that skill. The Skill is Survival it allows players to make food and water work better for healing and adds campfire recipes for food and healing items as well. This skill also compliments the new hardcore mode which adds the statistics of Dehydration, Starvation, and Sleep. these are all key for the mode as it make the player need water food and sleep to be able to progress in the game. The downsides to this mode are that ammo and healing items now have weight, and healing items work over time not all at once. Now how does this fall is it a good thing or a bad thing well it's neither. Hardcore modes like this exist in other games most commonly the survival genre (that a real thing now) and they are not this in depth. So remember when I said that some things where not needed above this is one don't get me wrong if you like this level of difficulty good for you but I feel this distracts from the game experience on a whole. So this is a loss by NV making the final score NV 2 to Fallout 3 3.
Story
Ok this one is completely objective on my part the stories are good but different we will look at how each games start. companions, and how the games end. Each one of these is different so it based on my personal experience. The beginning to 3 is very simple you are born and this leads to character creation. after that you are and infant in vault 101 and you set your S.P.E.C.I.A.L. Next you are 10 and you get your pipboy and your 1st gun and learn the combat system as well as how the dialog works. The last hold your hand tutorial is the G.O.A.T. which sets your skill points and lets you tag 3 to raise them higher. after all of this the story begins and you leave the vault to hunt for your father but not before to quote Will Smith your " life got flipped-turned upside down." this was a good way to build a connection to your character have you relate to them. NV does things a little different with a pre rendered cutscene showing you getting shot in the head and then dug up by Victor. After that you wake up in game with the town doctor you run trough some test to set your S.P.E.C.I.A.L. and skill tags. After that you given a pipboy and told you see a local hunter for the rest of the tutorial which you can skip(I recommend not skipping). I have a hard time here because this intro doesn't really connect you to the character I've always felt detached from the Courier. This is one of the only shortcoming with NV story it in no way builds a connection to the character. the Point goes to 3. Now on to companions this part will judge their respective involvement and their personal stories. So Fallout 3 has 8 companions divided up in to 4 categories based on the player's karma good, evil, neutral, and no karma. With the exception of Fawkes this companions have no impact on the story and when they die they stay dead. Now in NV there is no Karma requirements for companions and each a a compelling quest line to require and up grade the character later on. This one goes to NV. Now for endings this is not how the story ends but the last mission that that will make this one. In 3 the last mission is an all out assault on the Jefferson Memorial with the Brotherhood of Steel and the mech Liberty Prime (who I'm convinced is voice by an uncredited Peter Cullen). Now while this sounds awesome it in truth sucks because you don't have to do anything just let Prime handle the dirty work.. when you get to the last part and meet the final bad guy you can totally talk him out of it and then you sacrifice yourself, to save the world or damn it all by doing what the Enclave President wanted, however you still die. NV is very similar you assault the damn with an army at your back depending on who you sided with and all your companions and some side quest characters Then you come to your final boss fight of either Legate Lanius, General Lee Oliver, or both depending on the ending. This was more worth it than 3s ending this was what the whole game was building to and you had a much more involved role. Point to NV and it all tied up 4 to 4.
DLC
Now I separated this from the story for the reason being that they stand out from the story and often carry different themes than the core story. Both games have a multitude of DLC this section will only focus on the story driven DLC and not the item packs. Let's start with 3 which has 5 DLCs that are: Operation: Anchorage, The Pitt, Broken Steel, Point Lookout, and Mothership Zeta. each DLC tells a different story with the only linking theme being the Brotherhood of Steel in the first three. now while the amount of extra content was awesome the quality was a little off. Anchorage, and Zeta are the best of the bunch doing some really unique stories and adding awesome gear. the other 3 however are very well boring while The Pitt added some awesome weapons but that was about it. Broken Steel added a post game quest and 10 more levels however the quest line was handled poorly. Instead of increased difficulty they just threw ridiculous number of enemies at you. I'd speak badly about Point Lookout but any DLC that let you return to the main story at any time for just a cap penalty knows it sucks. now as for what the DLC did for the main game Broken Steel raised the level cap from 20 to 30 that was about it. NV's 4 DLC Dead Money, Honest Hearts, Old World Blues, and Lonesome Road are also short contained stories that were separate from the main game. The major difference with these 4 where while separate they developed The Courier's character by building on the story as to why he had the chip in the 1st place and would conclude in Lonesome Road. Now while that story is a connecting theme for the 4 DLC each DLC has it's own separate story that makes it unique. Each DLC also raises the the level cap by 5 levels making it a total of 50 with all 4 installed. Now I could go on for days about how great the NV DLC is but let's just move on and give the win to NV. NV now leads 5 to 4
Game Performance
This section is not how well the games runs but how well the game was received by critics and fans. This section will also look at awards the game received that year. before I get into the scores and awards and everything this whole section though with 3 parts will only be worth 1 point. So lets look at review scores. Fallout 3 release in October of 2008 on PC, 360, and PS3. The Game was very well received getting very high scores GameInformer gave the game a 9.5 praising the graphics and the game play. The Metacritic score is also very high at a 93 little to no negative reviews. New Vegas released two years later in 2010, however while getting high scores of 8.5 from Gameinforer and a Metacritic score of 83. While the game was praised for the same thing as 3 it was, however there were many graphical glitches that hurt it's score. Now as for awards 3 winning many Game of the Year awards including G4 (RIP) and GDC. NV however because didn't receive any GOTY awards it did however get best RPG from GDC. NV's shortcoming where not because of the game it had very stiff competition form Red Dead Redemption and Mass Effect 2 that year. So on reception the point goes to 3 tieing it up 5 to 5.
Conclusion
At this point I'm tired I've looked at math, stats, and reviews. and the games are both very good and very different, and honestly can not really be compared so stop trying and love them both they are great games. Be on the look out for my in depth looks at the vaults in the games as we begin to count down to Fallout 4.
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