SGR

I'm playing Ninja Gaiden 3 again - except this time it's the Razor's Edge version. Currently working my way through the Master Ninja difficulty.

**** me.

SGR

Hello fellow kids, how do you do?

The Batlord

Got a new 360 controller cause mine is useable but kinda busted so now I'm playing New Vegas for the 100th time but this time it's only cowboy guns and survival mode to make it spicy.

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SGR

I never understood the love for New Vegas - perhaps because I only had it on 360 and not on PC. It's better than 4 for sure, but it aint as good as 3.

The Batlord

3 is fun for one play through and then you never need to play it again cause there's limited things to do, the world is largely empty, the story is uninteresting, and the choices you have to make are stupid. People love 3 cause it's the first Fallout they played.

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SGR

There's probably an element of truth to that, but it always felt much more free as soon as you got out of the vault (that opening segment ****ING SUCKS on repeat playthroughs, that I will concede). I hated how New Vegas 'tunneled' you away from immediate exploration by filling up areas you "weren't supposed to go to yet" with overpowered enemies. I also don't think that New Vegas was any less empty than 3 - in fact, it felt more empty to me because you'd get map markers for stupid ****. You'd find some barren and abandoned tent with a couple shotgun shells and a stimpak and that **** would get marked on your map as a new location - like what the **** is up with that?

Some people clamored about the Strip in New Vegas, but it felt entirely underwhelming to me - very lifeless really. And there was never a moment where I felt I had as much impact in my choices as a player as I did in 3 when I decided to nuke Megaton out of existence. After New Vegas though, the gunplay in 3 feels really dated as you can't aim down your sights in that one. I'd also pick 3 as having a better soundtrack too (only slightly). GNR was the ****.

Both games are better than 4 though. Fallout 3 remains the only game that I've ever pulled all nighter with - as in I was playing it when the sun went down and I was still playing it when the sun came up.

The Batlord

Bro nuking Megaton was lit as **** but it's such a dumb choice. Do you nuke a city or do you not nuke a city? Where's the interesting moral choice there? It's spectacle over substance. After you nuke Megaton that first time there's no reason to explore that path ever again.

And the scaling enemies of 3 vs. the standardized difficulty of NV gives structure to the experience of NV that makes it feel more like a real place rather than just a soulless sandbox where freedom is a mask for an uninteresting world. I mean Deathclaws are just potentially everywhere in 3 which makes the map feel stale whereas in NV you know where the Deathclaws are and it feels like an actual environment.

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elphenor

yeah you gotta be able to wander to a spot where you get your **** wrecked to make leveling feel like anything

the first time you make it into The Strip is awesome

NV is just awesome in general, wayyy better main quest too

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Just another marketing ploy

SGR

I don't give a **** so much about the "moral choice", if I did, I'd just play Mass Effect or something. It's more about feeling like my decisions matter. Obviously, you'd have to be completely ****ing evil to nuke a city, but it's a video game, so it's a blast to do it anyway.

I honestly prefer scaling. Knowing where certain enemies are and knowing how difficult they'll be makes a game less immersive, not more so. Scaling helps because it doesn't matter what way you approach the game, or in what order, you'll still feel a sense of natural progression regardless. The 'freedom as a mask for an uninteresting world' sounds more like Breath of the Wild than Fallout 3.

The individual stories in the quests of Fallout 3 were more interesting than the individual quest stories of NV. Weird vampire cannibals, a strange religious cult based on a bomb, a town wracked by giant mutated ants, a tree cult that worships a demi-human-tree, etc. Many of the quests in this game stuck with me in terms of story and the quests in NV just fell flat in comparison.

elphenor

there is no real meaningful progression with scaling

a good rpg should make you feel wimpy starting out, causing you to sweat for the easiest fight using all your resources...some fights you should have to run from practically ****ting your pants

so at the end game when you trounce through the same area you really feel like it was worth it

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Just another marketing ploy