New Vegas isn't perfect of course, and has a lot of faults both in itself and carried over from 3 without fixing, but I just think the writing is worlds better than 3's. I mean, I guess it's subjective in the end, but when I play NV I feel like when I'm going somewhere it's for a reason and not just mindless exploration. I like goals and seeing the result of my actions and how I did things in games, and I pretty much never feel like those two criteria are ever fulfilled in a satisfactory manner in 3. I mean, mindless exploration can be fun, but compared to meaningful, quest and story-related storytelling, it feels shallow.

I largely feel the same way about Fallout 4 as well, though I like that one more than 3.

You were doomed into this outcome as soon as you passed the first skill check in the first conversation with Dean. It's completely within his character -- he's vain, insecure, overconfident and absolutely loathes the very notion that someone might one-up him in anything --but yeah, a bit of a dick move to reward skill check pass with delayed failure (although the expansion itself is kind of one big dick move with a middle-finger tattoo on it) The only way to keep Dean alive is to ignore all those pesky [Explosives 100/25] prompts and with timid "Yes, sir" just place your behind onto that chair with Dean's little surprise.

Because Vera is dead, and this "Vera" is nothing but mindless security system unit with Vera's distressed voice attached to it. It obviously is not aware of what it's saying and basically is a cousin of similar abomination from Old World Blues, trauma harness (walking rescue suit with a corpse in it).

But what is Fallout then? Mutants, ghouls, vaults, BoS, post-apocalyptic ruins? Mutants, ghouls, vaults, etc., retro-future, people trying to rebuild? S.P.E.C.I.A.L, perks, turn-based combat? Does the coat of paint -- ghouls, vaults, decay, ruins etc. -- make true Fallout, or does the substance (humanity's struggle to rebuild)? Maybe amalgamation of both? Or maybe what's important to you is insubstantial to someone else with different perception of "Falloutness"?

The funny thing is that I was mega looking forward to Fallout 3 (was a huge fan of 1 and 2) but when I got it I played it for a while and couldn't really put my finger on why I wasn't super into it and ended up selling it. Years later New Vegas comes out and I became nearly obsessed with completing every bit of it. I remember saying to my friend "wow, Bethesda sure learned their lesson from 3 and made this one so much better!" Then my friend replied "Bethesda didn't make it" and that was when it all made sense. Not saying Bethesda is bad; Morrowind is one of my favorite games of all time, but Black Isle/Troika/Obsidian plain and simple KNOW Fallout and how to make it.

Also about the "blistering stupidity" thing, count me as one of the very few that has a hard time getting through Old World Blues. I roll my eyes at its attempt at humor, sigh at its repetitive quests, and groan at its difficulty spikes in places (the legions of roboscorpions). I love all the other DLC for NV but I don't really get the huge praise that one gets.

And that's absolutely ok with me. I'm not arguing taste or preferences, nor do I "defend" F3 or Bethesda.
But if someone feels the need to point out all the flaws that bothered him / her in F3, yet fails to acknowledge same or similar stuff in NV, that pushes all the wrong buttons with me.

You sort of have been defending F3 nonstop in this thread since you came in though, actually. With posts like this:

You're not being a crusader against hypocrites, you're outright defending faults of F3. Just saying.

We've already established, that neither Fallout game is a well researched and scientific future. But where is the breaking point based on what?
Realism? They all fail at certain points.
Previous Fallout lore? There's none for the east coast, yet the appearance of BoS, Enclave, Super Mutants, Drugs, certain critters is ruled out as not fitting. Why? Where was it established in previous Fallouts, that they are in fact all regional problems that never managed to spread?

There are somewhat reasonable explanations for F3 available, be it based on realism, Fallout lore or whatever else. One can take a rather restrictive viewpoint and deny them all in one way or the other - if one does, I just ask to do the same with NV.
- the Divide. Big explosion nobody in NV ever heard of. Wrecked the place completely, except for 30 war heads still laying around. The NCR sending not their own elite force, but a hired Courier with advanced tech into it. The trigger was brought there without the NCR knowing it's purpose (otherwise they likely would have pulled their men out before), yet the trigger was programmed to launch the ICMBs.... on it's own base? Never heard of such security measures before. Ulysses was saved by medical Eye-bots who, somehow, weren't affected by the nuclear explosions around them. At the end of the Divide, you can send ICBMs (again, unaffected by previous nuclear explosions around them) towards NCR or Caesar homeland, yet it doesn't influence the battle at Hoover Dam. No cut supply lines, no shortage of mens, nothing.

For all of that are somewhat reasonable explanations around. But taking a rather restrictive viewpoint, none of them should work. Yet it does.
Why is it, that seemingly every explanation in NV is ok and quality writing, while every explanation in F3 is a lazy hack job?

You can pick what- and however restrictive viewpoint you want while looking at F3. Not to change that viewpoint when switching over to look at NV, is all I'm asking.

You have your answer right here, in your own sentence -- one does quality writing, and another does lazy hack job. :-} When you read Obsidian's writings it's obvious they absolutely did their research and because of that even when they interpret it usually is plausible, whereas for Bethesda "research" is: supermutants=trolls, ghouls=zombies, BoS="Hey Bob, aren't paladins supposed to be always Lawful Good?" Also, Obsidian's writers clearly read more than one book themselves and took a "How to write" lesson or two, while a baboon on Buffout withdrawal and Wasteland Tequila would write more coherently than whoever at Beth is tasked with dem wurdz -- and I'm not sure if I'm generous to Bethesda or unfair to baboons here.

Although, if it's any consolation for you, quality writing seems to be important only to the rather small subset of people, since Bethesda's stuff sells way better than Obsidian's, lazy hack job of writing be damned. It's probably just your bad luck to happen onto forums where said small subset is somewhat an active majority. (-:

Completely ignored my example, second try.

It's plausible that:
- nobody in New Vegas or the Mojave ever heard what went down in the Divide nor the explosion. Yet everyone knows you targeted the recent launch.
- the Divide gotten wrecked completely by nuclear explosions, yet 30 war heads remained intact - on the surface of the Divide.
- the NCR entrusting a Courier with valuable tech so advanced, that they don't know what it is for - not one of their own. Chain of command? Military standards? Apparently none.
- the (previous) launch targeting it's own base. Or blowing up without lifting off. Because of what exactly?
- Ulysses surviving thanks to medical bots - ok. Yet with nuclear explosions (electromagnetic pulse) happening around them, those medical bots managed to work flawlessly, as they weren't impacted by it at all...
- no effects on the gameworld, regardless where you send the (recent) ICBMs at all (except for infamy).

I'd have to replay it with looking for every nook and cranny to confirm this, but afaik those all aren't explained ingame.

Yet there plausible. Because Obsidian used more words to paraphrase around it, so everyone gotten so distracted, that they didn't bothered to question it?
You're telling me that this wouldn't show up in a Shamus blogpost about NV, because it's all plausible? That you wouldn't slash Bethesda for it, if they would have put this into F3? If so then sry - not buying it.

I get where you're coming from but it seems like you're nitpicking small details in NV and justifying huge gaps of logic in F3 and calling it the same thing.

I'm not gonna expand on the points brought up. And again, it's not my intention to justify the story / setting / whatever of F3 - that will remain as stupid as anyone wants to see it, with or without NV.

But if that all is just nitpicking and small details that can be overlooked, I do question how many using the same standards when looking at those two games. And my answer is just a few - all others certainly can't honestly claim, that they took the same critical point of view for both.

Your whole post from which I've quoted there is excellent.

The quoted statement points to the same reason why I was shocked & flabbergasted at how awful Fallout 3 is. Before I played it (which I never did until it came to GOG the other month), I had seen legions of people praising it on the internet. I'd seen professional reviews give it great scores. I saw "GOTY" in its title of the GOG version which I bought.

Then I played it.

And all I could I think is, "WTF?!?!?! did I just buy, install, and play a different game than the game which I thought I was playing? How could a game with tons of acclaim possibly have writing, characterization, and storytelling that is all so terrible?"

I still don't know of any sensible answer to that question.

I've seen some posters say things like, "Fallout 3 is good because it has a great open world and is great for exploration." But that explanation makes no sense to me, because those aspects are bad too. Fallout 3's "open world" consists of the same few environments & few enemies, endlessly copy and pasted together. After seeing any one of those environments once, you've seen all the copy & pasted versions long before you ever visit them. So why bother "exploring?" FO3's "open world" and "exploration" is pointless, because for 99%+ of the time the player spends "exploring the open world," all he/she will be doing is seeing the same old crap that he/she has already seen the previous 10 million times when those exact same assets & enemies were copy & pasted onto his/her screen. How is that appealing? How is that fun?

To me it's more evidence that "open world" is usually synonymous with "bad game with a weak story, and full of boring, extremely repetitive gameplay." I am bewildered as to why "open world" is presented as a selling point in a game's favor, when (especially given the many bad open world games that Bethesda and Ubisoft have made) it should be presented as a warning sign against a game.

Maybe too high expectations? Your previous post simply describes an old game... Could you name other games from the same year, which are similar, and compare them? That could be more interesting :)
And not NV, because that one is specific with using sets made by Bethesda. And it was written a lot about it already :p.
I'm still not decided about the writing. NV is far better, but for me Fallout 3 is not bad either, just different. Less focused, slower. Also without all the special quests, the world seems to me more real - it does sound strange, but I just walk around, chat with NPCs, no busy quests. It could be better, but I'm OK with this version too.
Bethesda games had 1 plus which is erased with years - they were first in their area, so it looks like they were more "engine working" focused and less "story telling" focused.

Lol, Angry Joe, the IGN of Youtube reviews.
Naah, it's not _that_ bad. I finished re-playing Dead Money and Lonesome Road in the meantime; chose those cause I distinctly remembered that those two were plain not fun. The problem with the beepers and traversing that DLC in general is that this kind of gameplay doesn't go very well with the Gamebryo engine. Trying to get over broken ladders with your movement accelerating perk in the final sequence of the DLC was never fun, and the timer they put in didn't make it more exciting.
The timing on the beepers was usually sufficient for you to detect and eliminate the source if you could make it out in this lighting/color palette. Usually, but then there are those that can't be shot/turned off and those that overlap, all the while your stupid follower ai would do its best to stand in your way... To be fair, there were some that could be shut down via terminal. After you died a few times till you found out. If you had enough science skill to do that.

I see what they were going for there (this being the third time I finished it) but all the single elements just don't gel well together in this engine. In addition you didn't really have the possibility to solve problems in different ways, which is a thing Obsidian gameplay is kinda known for.

Never played Outlast(not my genre) but from what I got it 's a never ending pixel hunt for that specific path where you wouldn't be insta-gibbed from begin to finish. Plenty of trial of error with the beepers, but not anywhere near that extreme and there obviously were some other things to do in the Sierra Madre.
Not that I'm calling you out or something, just thought adding those thoughts won't hurt. Have fun if you're still on it! 0/



ps: Hardcore-Mode really isn't hard. You don't need to 'git gud' or something silly like that, the layer it adds is very tiny.