I would always recommend 3 over NV, since the way I see it there's more to it, more to explore and more to do overall, and I don't think NV has quite the same charm.
However, 3 has been known to have some issues running on windows if that's what you'll be doing.
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My room mate played 3 and I later bought and played NV. I got super board with it, 3 looks like the better decision.

From what I can see, Fallout 3 has more of a story element, and your decisions won't make much of an impact as a result since the story - while being pretty damn good - won't change a whole lot depending how you approach it.

New Vegas has perhaps less of a story going for it - mostly just a leadup to a final big event and that's about it - but it's more of a "game" in that there's many more varied places to explore and more things you can alter the events of.

I guess it comes down to preference.

If you ever played the first 2 games you will like New Vegas probably more, what i disliked a bit was the theming that happended though, New Vegas is somehow a bit more cowboy and western like (well mojave) and fallout 3 is more based on technology. The obvious benefit of fallout new vegas is that you have a lot more decisions to do stuff, and overall the story of fallout 3 isnt that much better, they have the enclave bonus though (gotta love the Enclave).

I would suggest New Vegas over Fallout 3 as it offers better gameplay and a better story with different endings more replayability and simply more intresting characters, fallout 3 feels like "okay dudes we have the fallout license, dont mess it up" while New Vegas shows a bit more guts i could say. Its not so easy to get into new vegas if you havent played fallout 3 before, but new vegas gives you also moddable weapons, different ammunition types, a improved armor system with the dmg threshold and not plain percentage dmg resistance values, Also New Vegas offers actual iron sighs and aiming is a bit more a skill thing by the player.

Overall i just want to say, Get NEW VEGAS.

Edit: Also in Fallout 3 it only matters how fast you do damage with your weapon, not the armor penetration value of your weapon per bullet.

Fallout 3 is a far better experience in my opinion.

Although I enjoy fallout 3and all its DLC much more, I suggest you get new vegas because FO3 on steam has some really big issues with actually launching the game that they never got around to fixing. New Vegas will launch no problem and you will save yourself the headache of wading through FAQs and workarounds to launch the game.

I see a lot of support for 3 over NV here, but my experience was the opposite. I enjoyed new vegas a lot more. I just like the general theme and setting a lot more, and I found that they made some minor improvements to the overall gameplay.

Fallout 3 is definitely the better in my opinion, but getting it to load and work without crashing on a modern system can be a little tricky without consulting a forum.

NV > 3
I enjoyed it WAY more.
Get Project Nevada. Makes it even better.

Project Nevada! Just great^^ build in Nightvision in Power armor :3

I agree with tuora, made my comment before I did haha

Finally a true debate has emerged...As someone with nearly 10,000 hrs between the two titles, Fallout 3 by a wide margin. The story was more develeoped than NV, the missions and encounters held my interest better, the overall style was better. Long story short where NV is an obvious Fallout 3 makeover, 3 is a complete experience.

Slate, I'd personally go with Fallout 3, Game of The Year if you can afford it, and just download a Mod That improves graphics. If you'd like a link to a good mod, I'll drop a link to a guy who did a walkthrough of Fallout 3 with it

Fallout 3 has a deeply moving, disturbing and oppressive atmosphere with probably hundreds of vignettes of the final minutes before the bombs hit. It conveys the feeling that you're in a place where something terrible and inescapable happened through rich scenery gorn. In NV you're a member of a civilization, whereas in FO3 you are the civilization, a lone force in the wasteland. NV was a fun game, but IMO it just lacked the defining post-apocalyptic character that FO3 had.

first of the whole 'for the sake of productivity you should only buy one' is your first mistake, honestly you could stick a hundred hours plus into either one, so lets just throw that out the window. I just finished fallout 3 and am looking down the temptation of fallout new vegas. While I enjoyed New Vegas it was a bit more of a hollow experience the first time around, though still enjoyable and I hated the decisions at the end.

My advice is that if the prices are good, buy both, you will only likely play one at a time anyway.

Make a Strawpoll and see the results. :)

I love fallout 3. BUT A SERIOUS WARNING; Fallout 3 does not work well on systems that run windows 7/8 Especially those that are more than duo core processors (majority of modern computers have quad core).

As much as I love fallout 3, it crashes just too often. I honestly would recommend fallout NV just for the stability. (Though, at the moment. Maybe its best just to save for fallout 4)

Ultimately, I feel it really comes down to the environment and gameplay you're hankering for.

Do you like exploring interiors, dungeons, ruins, underground structures, and vaults, doggedly going it alone, fighting against the big bad enemy? Fallout 3.

Do you like spending time outside, exploring the open desert, towns, and actual post-apocalyptic civilization, with many different factions at play? Fallout New Vegas.

NV, it's much more stable for modern PC's, Lasts a bit longer and has more DLC stuff to do for it. and I like how it handled armor alot better [plus the option to turn on ammo weight, eating and drinking was nice! I always play in hard core mode]

Flip a coin

I'm serious!

Flipping a coin when you cant decide will reveal to you the one to get! If you flip the coin and you are happy to accept the flip with no regret, then that's the one to go with. If you flip the coin and find yourself wishing you got the other one, then it shows you want one over the other, so you should go with the one you want.

In either case, a coin flip works wonders!

YAY for psychological goodness!

What a shame. I would have been the one starting the both-hype.

I still am. The both-hype train starts here everybody.

Easy fix... BUY WITCHER 3 and be done with it XD

New Vegas is the one I played, and I did enjoy it, though I never pushed myself into the heart of that fabled city. It was enjoyable for what I ran of it, though. :)

hmmm, tough choice, I thought New Vegas had better small quest stuff, and the way enemies could totally wreck your shit if you were too low level made a lot of areas more interesting for me, (the tension of risk vs reward decision making is really fun IMO), plus the weapons, and scenery are both more varied, if only slightly

meanwhile Fallout 3 has MUCH more compelling primary questline stuff and is a lot less buggy (unless they patched the heck outta New Vegas)

personally, I think I'd go with New Vegas


speaking of Fallout 4, I REALLY hope they update their animation tech. I don't want ghouls running up to me in a strait line and stopping to robotically claw at me while soaking up bullets like a sponge, that's not scary or tense at all

I've owned and played both, and honestly, I'd go with Vegas just fpr the gameplay and modding elements. I also prefer it over 3 because you don't have to navigate those damned labyrinthian ruined city blocks and subway systems (GOD I hated those worse than the cazadors)

As for cazadores, theres a very helpful mod that gives them a well deserved nerf. They're still wicked fast and more or less the same effort to kill, but their venom is far less potent and does far less damage over time. Lets face it, cazadores are too fucking OP, if I'd rather see a goddamn deathclaw over a nest of cazadores...theres something seriously wrong with that.

I like the bigger selection of weaponry and the ammunition types in new vegas. I also like the new factions and explorable areas, the companions and followers (though I'd prefer dogmeat over rex...just....no, no cyberdog with a brain in a jar for me please...)

Then theres the vast quantity of modder content for new vegas, lots of new homes, tons of new weapons and armors, and my personal favorite was a truck home that you could use to fast travel places and have a mobile little base of sorts, it was so cute and functional!

Sure, vegas has little story content and the wastes felt dead, but thats what modding is for! ^^

I preferred NV over 3, as there were definitely infinitely more unexpected moments in NV. 3 was just much too predictable story-wise for my liking, and the DLC were okay, but nothing really special. (To be fair, neither were most of NV's DLC). NV just felt like there was more to do, and a lot more of it was player driven. You got to make so many more choices in NV than in 3, and a lot of the felt like they really mattered, as opposed to some choices in 3 (big choice in the first town you encounter is a great example. Once it was over, that was it. Say I took the violent approach, I might feel a little bad, but I could rest easy knowing it didn't really impact anything other than what was available to me resource and quest wise.)

Then again, I'm not a super psycho Fallout fan and will probably pass on 4 until it goes on sale or something of the like, so if you prefer a die-hard's opinion, don't look here.

I personally liked New Vegas more than Fallout 3, simply because New Vegas felt more, well...alive. There were colors *besides* green/brown, for example, which might not seem a big thing at first, but after prolonged play i found horribly draining and dreary. I could never bring myself to play more than a couple hours of 3 at a time, if that, meanwhile NV would draw me in for a whole day if I let it.

Both are good games, for sure, but I think NV wins in terms of gameplay/atmosphere. Plus Old World Blues was a *fantastic* bit of DLC.

I'm really glad to see you're alive! Dunno much about the games though ^_^

I prefer 3 over NV. The ability to freely explore is very important to me, and the atmosphere and story are better in 3. But gameplay wise NV does have the edge. I myself haven't suffered the startup problems with 3, but I acknowledge that many do say they have such.

NV > 3

The mechanics of the game are fine-tuned in NV. I adored and played countless hours of NV and hoped to do the same to 3, so I gave it a try. I made it about 3 hours before deciding it wasn't really as fun.

Get NV. Get some mods. Play some god damn Fallout.

If you're going to try to maintain productivity, go with Fallout 3 - I didn't like it nearly as much as New Vegas and didn't end up putting half as much time into it in the end :p The place was just too monochromatic and the amount of variety was surprisingly small despite the size of the game world.

I would play Fallout 3, because there is way more Brotherhood of Steel in it. ;)
And more subway tunnels, oh yeah!
Fallout New Vegas is really cool, too and I would play through both of them, but if I had to decide, it would be definately Fallout 3.

What, no option for Wasteland 2? Made by people that did the original Fallout games...

But seriously, of the two, I ended up favouring Fallout: New Vegas over Fallout 3. I had bad stability issues with Fallout 3 that still exist. No matter what computer I use, Bethesda games seem to love crashing a lot.