Fallout

Alright, here goes:

In regards to combat, Fallout 4 has the best early game experience, as the gunplay is well made, but overall, it is a very lacking combat system that is just decent gunplay and that is it. Fallout 3 and NV both encourage strategy, partly due to the less than stellar gunplay, but also due to how characters are handled due to the fact it is an RPG. In Fallout 3 and NV, it matters a lot what weapons I decide to specialize in, not just for bonus damage, but also more options in combat and having a better time using the higher end weapons. Fallout 4 fails this entirely, as weapon "perks" only give damage increases and nothing else, meaning Every character you make in Fallout 4 is the same experience combat-wise. Fallout 3 cares less about its weapon skills, so NV gets the edge here as it cares a lot about combat in an RPG sense. Every time I play Fallout NV, I have to think about what weapons I intend to use late-game, my favorite run was using unarmed combat. Overall, NV wins Combat Design over the other two, but I'd still say Fallout 3 wins over 4 due to your choices still mattering more than just using the biggest weapon you can find, seeing as the 10mm is still useful all the way to the end of the game against some enemy types.

Exploration obviously goes to Fallout 3, as it has the most rewarding sense of exploration out of all of them. Right out of the tutorial, you can just go anywhere, pick a direction and start walking and you Will find something interesting, whether that be a neat quest, a fun encounter, something strange, or even something downright depressing, in a good way. You also are not often forced to navigate the map in a particular way, and rarely encounter obstacles designed to force you to stop exploring and stick to the path, unlike Fallout NV with its frequent invisible walls or massive canyon walls to keep you on the path they want you to take. Speaking of, NV doesn't just have the opening tutorial, it has an entire 3rd of the game dedicated to being what feels like an extended tutorial, as you are stuck walking what I call the "horse-shoe" of the bottom part of the map, going from set piece to set piece, slowly being hand-held through the world and taught how the game works before finally being allowed to play the damn game. Sure, technically you can go north out of Goodsprings, but shut up, no new player is going to seriously consider that, even players who have beaten the game before likely won't bother, and this results in the first several hours of every new game of NV being the Exact Same Damn Experience. For an open world RPG, this is Cancer, and that isn't even getting into the fact that half of the time, when you Can explore, all you find when you go to check something out is either A; an empty building with some loot and maybe some enemies, B; random NPCs that have nothing to do except maybe trade with you, or C; literally nothing at all, just a random structure with nothing around. Fallout 4 also has this, as often most areas you can explore are just another dungeon with nothing interesting inside, just enemies to kill and junk to loot, but at least it lets you go exploring early on so it beats NV on this, but falls very short of 3.

Visual themes, this is always going to be debatable and up to personal opinion. Some people prefer the colorful (ew) world of Fallout 4, some prefer the cold quiet oppressive desolation of Fallout 3, and I guess some will prefer the empty deserts of NV. Personally, 3 feels the most Fallout to me, as it constantly reminds you that no matter how good things are going, no matter how wacky things can be, this is a dark place, this is a future you want to avoid, you don't want to be here and you were better off in that vault. It constantly pushes in your face the horrors humanity is willing to unleash on itself, along with the inhuman consumerism that consumes us to this very day and where that leads to.

Quest design, now, this is where you again have to get a bit opinionated on, because is it better to have Technical or Emotional design philosophies behind your quests? Fallout 4 fails at both of these constantly, so we won't even bother to go too deep on that one, but 3 and NV take two different approaches to quest design. NV takes the approach of wanting to create as many options as possible (usually) even if that undercuts the tone of the quest and the story it tries to tell, so it does create a great technical experience due to how many ways you can approach a quest, but often they end up being... a bit dull and uninteresting. Sometimes the quests do have interesting stories, but often they just aren't memorable, fun to replay and see how you can approach it in different ways, but you'll forget what it was even about after a while. Fallout 3 goes the other way, the quests are simple, sometimes too simple, but they are often focused more on delivering on the emotions of the quest, leaving you with something memorable, whether it be something you laughed at, something you thought was awesome, or just something that tickled your brain in a fun way. You'll leave a lot more Fallout 3 quests with memories of what it was like doing it the first time than you will with NV quests.

Now then, writing, this is a BIG one and BOY does Fallout NV know how to both knock it out of the park and completely BOTCH it. Let's start with 4 as again, easy, it sucks for many reasons; the limited dialog options that often all mean the same thing, the limited choices, the flat dialog, the assumption the player will care about things without ever giving them a reason to care about said things, and so on. Fallout 3 is also fairly easy, the writing is simple, it doesn't get into complex topics very often, focusing more on either fantastical scenarios (that are fitting for the setting) or giving the player relatively straight-forward situations to deal with. To me, Fallout 3 is Star Wars, the original, in that nothing is complicated, just go with the vibes and have a good time, but doesn't often miss the target, outside of the original ending of course. NV on the other hand is the Star Wars Prequels, it is complicated and complex, sometimes discussing hard topics and trying to make the player question things about themselves or the world, but sometimes you get those moments where they had ideas but didn't know how to follow through and fell flat. Take the main conflict for example, in Fallout 3 it is simply good guys versus bad guys, nothing complicated but not inherently bad. In Fallout NV, the main conflict is between a corrupt government, a corrupt billionaire, a robot that says Yes to anything you want, and the most objectively evil faction since the Enclave, all while the writers are whispering in your ear going "Oh man, so many shades of grey am I right?" No, you have 2 shades of grey, one that is barely a color, and the blackest black you could have. Skyrim has the same problem, choose between a government with issues or racist idiots, OOOOOOH so complex! When NV writing works, it WORKS, but when it doesn't, boy does it suck the air out of you. I still give NV the credit in writing overall, but the fact that I so often felt that "oh... that's it?" feeling always made me prefer Fallout 3's simple writing that only failed me with the ending. (Which, BTW, I didn't have any companions with me, so I wasn't even aware of the big problem everyone had with it until years later.)

Speaking of, Companions, real fast here cause NV just wins. 3's companions are kinda shit, it took a long time for me to even learn about them, and the companions in 4, while fun sometimes, also often fall flat after a while. I like them, but NV companions are just more interesting as people.

Now then, you'll notice I didn't say anything about Overall game design yet, and that's because BOY is it complicated and BOY does NV fail often here. Let's start with the tutorial; Fallout 3 has that long ass tutorial, yes, I get it, but think back to the very first time you played it. For me, it was awesome, I loved it, by the time I left the vault I was genuinely curious where the FUCK my dad went, and I was invested in who my character was as a person, heck I was even worried about the people of the vault and what might happen to them. You learn how to play the game, and you get invested in your character, but on repeat playthroughs, yeah, it will get tiresome. Fallout 4 tried this same thing and FAILED miserably at it, you don't feel connected to your spouse or kid, you don't feel connected to your character, you don't care about that random form you filled out for your stats, nothing, you just feel like it is something you have to sit through. Fallout 3's opening didn't wear on me until my 4th or 5th time through, but Fallout 4's was so bad I have never replayed the game without mods, just because I don't want to sit through that terrible opening. NV's opening, while it has a good cutscene to get you to care about the main plot, boy is Goodsprings bland and boring. Half the people feel like they didn't want to be reading those lines, their characters are boring and uninteresting, and the opening conflict is even more bland black VS white than Fallout 3. Doc is great, I like that part, but once I leave that office I can't WAIT to get out of Goodsprings, fuck that dump.

Next up, the various mechanics of the games... well, looks like I am hitting the character limit, so I should probably stop here, but suffice to say: NV has a lot more mechanics than 3, and most of them suck. Survival is useless, ammo recycling is forgettable, different ammo types barely matter unless you play on high difficulties, disguises are pretty useless, damn near every new thing is just pointless or actively makes the game worse, like Reputation which actively conflicts with the morality system, pick one dammit.

Oh, and I don't blame NV for the bugs, they all have shitty bugs and NV needed more time to cook anyway.