Fallout Best 'Modern' Fallout Game

Sorry, we're not talking about the inherently superior Fallout, Fallout 2 or that Fallout: Tactics dealio. We're talking about the more modern games with their decade old game engine. Which of the recent Fallout games do you feel was the best of the bunch?

Fallout 3 which relaunched the franchise in 2008 thanks to Bethesda. It took place in the ruins of Washington DC primarily, otherwise known as the Capitol Wasteland. It kept the SPECIAL system but was the first Fallout game to adopt the first/third person over the shoulder perspective which all of the later games would adopt.

Fallout: New Vegas, released two years later in 2010 and developed by many of the original Fallout developers, Obsidian Entertainment. This was a more direct sequel to the previous two Fallout games, taking place in the Mojave Wasteland between the Legion (of the never released Van Buren fame) and New California Republic (which rose in earlier Fallout games) and was centered around the intact post-apocalyptic city of Las Vegas.

Fallout 4 which was released by Bethesda in 2015 and a more direct sequel to Fallout 3. It took place in the Commonwealth area centered around Boston. It also had a new game engine, though still based off of the original 'Gamebryo Engine used in earlier games. Also it was the first game to feature full voice acting for the protagonist.

Fallout 76 which was released by Bethesda in 2018 as that companies first open world multiplayer game. Taking place in Appalachia, a post-apocalyptic West Virginia, it was noted for not only being a multiplayer game but also taking other liberties including the lack of any NPC's (until the April 2020 add-on), creating parties of up to four players and being able to launch nuclear missiles to temporarily change terrain.

Which game is your favorite and why? Or rank them... whatever. Whatever foments discussion.

Easily New Vegas. It's story and DLC are just the best.

That's easy!

1. New Vegas: Easily the most iconic game of the later franchise with the most thing's to do and in a franchise the most weapon's and best weapon system's of the series the most content of the series and in a game that is based around human choice the ones you make ramifications are shown in clear detail in any one of the final ending's.
2. Fallout 4: Nowhere near as good as Vegas but still Bethesda's best developed fallout game with four good ending's, nice characters and a great setting, the only thing that holds it back is the bad weapon system and the fact that this game takes a step back and doesn't show like NV what happens after your victory like how does your faction treat everyone and show what happens to the various groups in Boston as a result of your actions.
3. Fallout 3: Bethesda's first attempt into the 3d fallout world and it shows with considerably less content compared to NV and the worst Karma system and ending's of any fallout game are we shown the ramifications of our actions? No, we aren't but that's nitpicky compared to the faction endings either you insert a vial and join the brotherhood or you don't join the brotherhood, no optional enclave ending and before anybody says but Fallout-Man101 the Enclave are pricks! To that I say the game allows you to join a literal gang of slavers if you wish so that doesn't hold water and adding a Enclave quest would be as simple as Autumn convincing you to join up with dialogue options before seeing Eden.
4. Fallout 76 : The first thing I will say about this is as someone who loved Appalachian culture I wanted to desperately like it. BUT HOLY F*CK IS THIS A FLAMMING DUMPSTER OF Sh*T...'cough.' Sorry, I had to get that out of my system. Fallout 76 is one of those games that I see great unrealized potential in similar to The Hobbit films it has a good backdrop and interesting locations, but due to greed or people not caring it's potential was squandered and it flopped. Don't get me wrong it has come a long way with Wastelanders but that doesn't excuse the fact that it should have had that at release not two years in, to say nothing of the rest of the controversy 76 generated.

I'll go with 3, actually. It's story has issues, for sure, it's perhaps the weakest of the 3D games on that front. But that's the only downside, and it's not even a bad plot, just a weak one that's a bit derivative. It started the trend in 3D fallout games of the devs refusing to ever let the player ever be able to resist 100% of the damage of any attack, no matter how tougher thier armor and how feeble the strike was, something that constantly annoys me.

Everything else, however, is excellent. It has a brilliant atmosphere, memorable locations, characters, quests, weapons, etc. The DLC has it's flaws and doesn't perhaps reach the heights of something like old world blues, but then against it also never sinks to the level of dead money. The game also has you able to keep playing after the ending, something I'm baffled NV continues to get away with lacking.
And of course, 3's few flaws are easily fixed by mods and backporting mechanics from NV, while the same does not hold true for NV.

As for NV, well, let's take a look at the game's supposed strong points...

Fallout-Man101 said:

New Vegas: Easily the most iconic game of the later franchise with the most thing's to do and in a franchise the most weapon's and best weapon system's of the series the most content of the series and in a game that is based around human choice the ones you make ramifications are shown in clear detail in any one of the final ending's.

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Most things to do?....I'm sure that's not the case, NV has about as many quests as 3, possibly less when you factor in that many quests are not available because they're locked behind factions. It certainly doesn't referring to the game world itself, which is much emptier and more boring compared to 3 or 4. It certainly doesn't refer to things like collectables, unique encounters, unique locations, etc, all of which are either missing or vastly reduced from 3.

Most and best weapons....technically correct, or at least half correct. However, as I've said before on this site, the problem with NV weapons is that has loads of redundant or useless weapons (IE, the single shotgun, which I don't think I've fired more than a half dozen times in total), and because of it's armor system and the developer's decision to follow standard video conventions and "balance" automatic weapons by having them do far less damage than slow firing weapons of the same caliber for reasons, many of those weapons are either discriminated against by the mechanics or end up feeling very similar to one another, such the game's series of basically identical lever action rifles.

I would also contest that "there is a slide in the ending somewhere that says what happened" counts as "showing the ramifications of one's actions", that's just lazy. The way you do that is you do what 3 did, and have the player encounter those ramifications in the game....oh, wait, no post ending gameplay NV (granted, this can be fixed with mods, but only kinda, and it took until last year for someone to try and catch up to what broken steel managed and still feel short).

And this doesn't even touch on the game's biggest flaw, which is that the game is mechanically unstable and badly designed. Want to unlock Boone's personal quest? Better hope you have the foresight to have him with you at all the right times, or it'll not happen. Ditto for Arcade, and even more so for Raul.
Want to complete the Great Khan's quests and learn their unique unarmed move? Hope you didn't kill motor-runner during the earlier quests at McCarran that sent you into vault 3, because if runner's dead the Khan quests don't work. Oh, BTW, the quest from McCarran that sends you into 3, specifically asks you to kill motor runner. This is inexcusably bad quest design.
And that's just off the top of my head, there's probably a bunch of other issues I've forgotten or not encountered.

Now, to NV's credit, it does have some strong points. Having unique weapons that actually look unique was a good move, as was the changes to the repair system or make skill checks more useful in dialogue. And the overall plot is better than 3, though I think it's not nearly as good as it's supporters make it out to be. The "every faction gives you a reputation do over for reason, no matter how hostile you've been to their interests beforehand" moment after you exit the lucky 38 being one of the more obvious flaws.


4 is generally in the same boat. Much better quest design, much better world design, much better gameplay and shooting and weapon design, 4 actually feels like a shooter while 3 and NV had gunplay that was at best serviceable. The companion system finally works right, and the overall plot is....fine. The main issue is the settlements, which are far more complicated and time consuming than they should be, and the fact that so much of the RPG and skill based systems were cut back or removed, in favor of the infamous "no, yes, yes, sarcastic yes" dialogue wheel.

Battlegrinder said:

4 is generally in the same boat. Much better quest design, much better world design, much better gameplay and shooting and weapon design, 4 actually feels like a shooter while 3 and NV had gunplay that was at best serviceable. The companion system finally works right, and the overall plot is....fine. The main issue is the settlements, which are far more complicated and time consuming than they should be, and the fact that so much of the RPG and skill based systems were cut back or removed, in favor of the infamous "no, yes, yes, sarcastic yes" dialogue wheel.

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The weapon system is also pretty bad, as weapons don't level up with you and pipe weapons get old after awhile theirs just no variety.

Battlegrinder said:

I would also contest that "there is a slide in the ending somewhere that says what happened" counts as "showing the ramifications of one's actions", that's just lazy. The way you do that is you do what 3 did, and have the player encounter those ramifications in the game....oh, wait, no post ending gameplay NV (granted, this can be fixed with mods, but only kinda, and it took until last year for someone to try and catch up to what broken steel managed and still feel short).

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I concede that a post game in NV would have been nice but my point is that not everything can be shown in the post game as far as factions go and ideally the slides would be something unlocked optionally in the post game.

Battlegrinder said:

And this doesn't even touch on the game's biggest flaw, which is that the game is mechanically unstable and badly designed. Want to unlock Boone's personal quest? Better hope you have the foresight to have him with you at all the right times, or it'll not happen. Ditto for Arcade, and even more so for Raul.
Want to complete the Great Khan's quests and learn their unique unarmed move? Hope you didn't kill motor-runner during the earlier quests at McCarran that sent you into vault 3, because if runner's dead the Khan quests don't work. Oh, BTW, the quest from McCarran that sends you into 3, specifically asks you to kill motor runner. This is inexcusably bad quest design.
And that's just off the top of my head, there's probably a bunch of other issues I've forgotten or not encountered.

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That is because it's a game based on choice and it's simulates the very real aspect of going into one door closes another and not all doors shutting are immediately obvious to us when we do so.

Battlegrinder said:

Now, to NV's credit, it does have some strong points. Having unique weapons that actually look unique was a good move, as was the changes to the repair system or make skill checks more useful in dialogue. And the overall plot is better than 3, though I think it's not nearly as good as it's supporters make it out to be. The "every faction gives you a reputation do over for reason, no matter how hostile you've been to their interests beforehand" moment after you exit the lucky 38 being one of the more obvious flaws.

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Be fair NV handles karma a lot better than Fallout 3 did despite this, say you kill somebody in the middle of nowhere in Fallout 3 in complete stealth then suddenly the whole wasteland, (Not just the faction the man was apart of) thinks your the devil despite the fact that nobody witnessed you kill the guy or the common fact of why would people on the other side of the wasteland care about this one guy's alleged murder? they have their own problems...

Fallout-Man101 said:

The weapon system is also pretty bad, as weapons don't level up with you and pipe weapons get old after awhile theirs just no variety.

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...That applies to every fallout game. None of them have weapons that level with you, and NV has terrible weapon varity given it mechanically favors weapons with a slower RoF.

Fallout-Man101 said:

I concede that a post game in NV would have been nice but my point is that not everything can be shown in the post game as far as factions go and ideally the slides would be something unlocked optionally in the post game.

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Between knowing every detail of what happened to every random town and person you meet, and being able to keep playing post game, one of those is nice and one of them is something to be expected from open world fallout games, both now and at the time.

Fallout-Man101 said:

That is because it's a game based on choice and it's simulates the very real aspect of going into one door closes another and not all doors shutting are immediately obvious to us when we do so.

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No, it's not. It's just badly made. There is a fundamental difference between a game making you live with the results of your actions, and a game intentionally screwing you over. The NV devs had to know that when Hsu sends you into vault 3 to rescue anders, most people will clear out the vault while they're there. They also had to know that most people would get to McCarran before they got to the great khan's camp, because the map was designed to funnel people along that route. And just to be sure this would screw people over, they made anders give a quest to kill motor runner when you rescue him, and then designed the Khan quest to auto-fail if runner is dead, with no workaround even though they clearly have the ability to do so. They either intentionally set out to screw over the player, or did so via sheer incompetence.

And really NV, as a game, is very cowardly when it comes to player choice. Virtually every quest has a "win-win" option that negates all tension from a quest that's supposed to be about choosing sides, and on the rare occasions when you have choose, it's almost always a choice between the obvious good choice and the obvious bad choice. The game resets faction standing at the mid game, because I guess people shouldn't have to live with the results of going out and making enemies.

It's also bad with choice because, to my knowledge, people rarely play it based on IC choices, they check the strategy guide first and make sure this quest won't screw them over, check which companion they need to bring to avoid missing out on progressing a personal quest, and then play the game based on what the guide tells them to do, because otherwise it's all too possible to screw themselves over.

Fallout-Man101 said:

Be fair NV handles karma a lot better than Fallout 3 did despite this, say you kill somebody in the middle of nowhere in Fallout 3 in complete stealth then suddenly the whole wasteland, (Not just the faction the man was apart of) thinks your the devil despite the fact that nobody witnessed you kill the guy or the common fact of why would people on the other side of the wasteland care about this one guy's alleged murder? they have their own problems...

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NV barely uses karma, and the reputation system has the exact same "I killed a patrol in the middle of nowhere with no witnesses, but their faction instantly know I did it and responds accordingly" issue that karma had in 3, plus karma in NV still has that same issue.

Battlegrinder said:

NV barely uses karma, and the reputation system has the exact same "I killed a patrol in the middle of nowhere with no witnesses, but their faction instantly know I did it and responds accordingly" issue that karma had in 3, plus karma in NV still has that same issue.

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NV barely uses Karma partly because the system was so broken in Fallout 3.

Again I am not flouting NV as perfect but as far as Karma and stealth kills is concerned it's still better because NV nerfed the karma system and subdivided it into the reputation system in NV. for example, if I killed three or more people in Fallout 3 with good or negative karma I will have effectively shut myself out of the good/negative faction with ironically the only way to get back into it be by being gamey by killing the same number of people with the opposite karma and then suddenly your everyone's friend again.

The problem with Fallout 3 is that without the system that subdivides Karma by faction's or town the game gets insanely boring due to the map treating the entire wasteland like it's divided into a single good and bad faction.

Because like I said earlier while you do have choices in fallout 3, you just have relatively little compared to NV. Your only faction ending is the brotherhood victory and your only choice in that ending is either poison the water or don't that's it.

That is the games biggest downside when I play Fallout 3, I constantly feel like I am limited by the game itself and feel locked in on choices or outcomes/access to the grand scheme of things because save every settlement in the game or destroy them, nothing barley changes the only exception to this being the decision to put FEV in the purifier which has ramifications seen.

That's not how karma works in 3. The only "faction" good or evil karma locks you out of are the ones gated behind the lawbringer and contract killer perks, perks that are honestly more valuable for RP flavor than for the in-game rewards. But you can still join the brotherhood, the paradise falls slavers, enter any town, or buy from any merchant without issue, regardless of your karma.

And, as the wikipage notes, there's a lot more ways than just killing people to raise/lower karma. It is still a rather gamey system, but no more so than it is in NV, which is much more blatant about tie in game effects to reputation, and just as easy to manipulate via the disguise mechanic.

And while that's an accurate if unkind way to summarize 3's ending, again NV is not much better. There are technically 4 endings, but they're really all just slightly different takes on the same sequence, and half of them are just sidepaths from the NCR ending. That's not what I'd call a meaningful endgame, at least 4 managed to make the endgame senarios for each faction unique and fit the theme of that faction.

Also, this bit?

Fallout-Man101 said:

That is the games biggest downside when I play Fallout 3, I constantly feel like I am limited by the game itself and feel locked in on choices or outcomes/access to the grand scheme of things because save every settlement in the game or destroy them, nothing barley changes the only exception to this being the decision to put FEV in the purifier which has ramifications seen.

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That's just bizzarely wrong. Player actions are way more meaningful for 3 than NV. Every town has quests involved with it, and depending on the choices you make, you can visably change the state of most of those towns. you can see the effects of your actions at big town, megaton, canterbury, tenpenny, and the republic of dave, vault 101, etc, in major ways. Talking to people and hearing from them how things have changed or seeing something happen and realize that, for good or ill, that happened because of your actions.

Or we could just summarize everything in a ten minute long slideshow. That's basically the same as experiancing it yourself, right?

Battlegrinder said:

But you can still join the brotherhood

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The brotherhood is meaningless to the Karma discussion as it is a requirement to win the game it's more of a game mechanic that they still accept you despite being allied with the slaver's than a display of their character.

Battlegrinder said:

That's just bizzarely wrong. Player actions are way more meaningful for 3 than NV. Every town has quests involved with it, and depending on the choices you make, you can visably change the state of most of those towns. you can see the effects of your actions at big town, megaton, canterbury, tenpenny, and the republic of dave, vault 101, etc, in major ways. Talking to people and hearing from them how things have changed or seeing something happen and realize that, for good or ill, that happened because of your actions.

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...Your completely missing my point, the capital wasteland has major trouble in the storyline of supermutants and that is the main problem facing it at the moment not the Enclave or the lack of fresh water.

"My soldiers cannot stem the tide nor can this cult you have come into contact with this 'Brotherhood of Steel' President Eden.

Eden is insane but he is still a supercomputer and since he is talking about this after the Wanderer was taken from the now secured Vault 87 that's telling, the fact is that regardless of what ending you take except the FEV one you know that any choice you made is worthless because the wasteland is dying either way as even Maxon admit's their is no stopping them.

The fact that we now know thanks to fallout 4 that the brotherhood stopped helping people in the capital wasteland entirely and abandoned it to the commonwealth speaks volumes, Blowing up megaton doesn't matter, Big town doesn't matter, Tenpenny, the republic of dave that doesn't matter at all in the big picture because in the end the game was rigged from the start to one outcome.

In short the game ending doesn't provide any closure on the actual threat unless you want to be a prick.

Battlegrinder said:

Or we could just summarize everything in a ten minute long slideshow. That's basically the same as experiancing it yourself, right?

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Okay Battlegrinder I understand that our opinions may differ and you seem too have a more confrontational argument style but when I made this comment earlier.

Fallout-Man101 said:

I concede that a post game in NV would have been nice but my point is that not everything can be shown in the post game as far as factions go and ideally the slides would be something unlocked optionally in the post game.

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You should have put the matter to bed because this comment is distasteful, especially when you are ignoring and mocking a concession I made.

The fact is that Fallout 3 not my favorite game for many reason's.

1. I hate the Karma system, no if's or but's thank god NV toned down it's affects as getting good Karma after easily loosing it due to a little random thieving that nobody witnessed is annoying especially when trying to get companions why would R3-L abandon you after you get good or negative karma he's a robot!
2. I hate the lack of closure for the story as the main ending it garbage that doesn't give any inclination of if the wasteland survives long term or not.
3. I hate how my play is limited by the game mechanics and that's a opinion you may not like it but by God that's my position and I am sticking with it!

New Vegas is my favorite Fallout game and regardless of if you think Fallout 3 is more worthy of that title or not, the fact is that out of both it's NV that has always kept me coming back.

So in the end we must agree to disagree and move on.

Fallout-Man101 said:

...Your completely missing my point, the capital wasteland has major trouble in the storyline of supermutants and that is the main problem facing it at the moment not the Enclave or the lack of fresh water.

"My soldiers cannot stem the tide nor can this cult you have come into contact with this 'Brotherhood of Steel' President Eden.

Eden is insane but he is still a supercomputer and since he is talking about this after the Wanderer was taken from the now secured Vault 87 that's telling, the fact is that regardless of what ending you take except the FEV one you know that any choice you made is worthless because the wasteland is dying either way as even Maxon admit's their is no stopping them.

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Maxton admits no such thing, and he rose to command after crushing a super mutant warlord that was trying to regain the upper hand in DC, for someone who thinks they're unstoppable he sure does devote a lot of effort into stopping them.

Also, Eden is manifestly wrong in his judgement of the mutants. They're out of FEV, they're doomed no matter what because they'll inevitably fade away to attrition. They can't replace their numbers anymore, and with thier main base wiped out, they'll only decline faster in the long run.

Fallout-Man101 said:

The fact that we now know thanks to fallout 4 that the brotherhood stopped helping people in the capital wasteland entirely and abandoned it to the commonwealth speaks volumes, Blowing up megaton doesn't matter, Big town doesn't matter, Tenpenny, the republic of dave that doesn't matter at all in the big picture because in the end the game was rigged from the start to one outcome.

In short the game ending doesn't provide any closure on the actual threat unless you want to be a prick.

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Um....no? There's nothing in 4 that says the brotherhood stopped helping people, if anything it suggests the opposite given they doubled down on the "hate the mutant, purge the mutant" thing. Since the primary issue in DC is mutants, and Maxton rose to command in part after killing a super mutant warlord, and Maxton is not only 100% aboard the mutant murder train, but is in fact the one driving that train, it's absurd to conclude they stopped fighting mutants.

Also, are you under the impression the brotherhood expeditionary force in 4 is the entire brotherhood? Because it's explicitly not, it's just an expeditionary force.

Fallout-Man101 said:

You should have put the matter to bed because this comment is distasteful, especially when you are ignoring and mocking a concession I made.

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I'm ignoring it because it's not a valid point. 3 has towns that actually change in response to player action. NV has towns that don't. It's absurd to claim NV is better because you misinterpreted what happens in 3 by trusting the insane computer and not your own eyes and therefore it's better to have a slideshow rather than an actually evolving wasteland.

Fallout-Man101 said:

So in the end we must agree to disagree and move on.

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Sure.

I played Obsidian's The Outer Worlds and found it basic and unimpressive at best, so while I haven't played New Vegas I'm a bit skeptical when I hear everyone praising its story.

ParadiseLost said:

I played Obsidian's The Outer Worlds and found it basic and unimpressive at best, so while I haven't played New Vegas I'm a bit skeptical when I hear everyone praising its story.

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Obsidian was a completely different company by the time of The outerworld's release it was nine years later so the studio had lost just about everybody from NV by that point and one of the reasons that NV is taunted as being one of the best 3d Fallout games at least lore wise is that several of obsidians higher staff officials at that time had previously been employed by Black isle Studio's Fallout 1 and 2's original developers.

So the game is good have no doubt if you have played Fallout 3 or Fallout 4 you basically know what your getting as it isn't radically different.

Fallout-Man101 said:

Obsidian was a completely different company by the time of The outerworld's release it was nine years later so the studio had lost just about everybody from NV by that point and one of the reasons that NV is taunted as being one of the best 3d Fallout games at least lore wise is that several of obsidians higher staff officials at that time had previously been employed by Black isle Studio's Fallout 1 and 2's original developers.

So the game is good have no doubt if you have played Fallout 3 or Fallout 4 you basically know what your getting as it isn't radically different.

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Yes, but those same original developers who were employed on New Vegas were still employed for The Outer Worlds; that was even a huge part of The Outer Worlds marketing - that it was being led by the same creators of Fallout 1, 2, and New Vegas.

ParadiseLost said:

Yes, but those same original developers who were employed on New Vegas were still employed for The Outer Worlds; that was even a huge part of The Outer Worlds marketing - that it was being led by the same creators of Fallout 1, 2, and New Vegas.

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IDK that, well you learn something new everyday in anycase NV is a great game especially with how low the price is now.

Yeah Fallout: New Vegas is fantastic. And it's like fifty times bigger then Outer Worlds which still got plenty of acclaim and a strong fanbase. Personally it's my favorite of the modern Fallout games to be honest and maybe one of my favorite RPG's period, definitely of games released this side of the millenium.

Fallout 3 might have more locations and whatever but it always felt so drab and while I get its a wasteland, it felt too much of a wasteland. It was nice discovering everything on the first playthrough but I felt the world of New Vegas, even if less populated by locations of interest, was far more colorful and interesting and fun to explore. I thought the various factions like the Legion and NCR and Powder Gangers and Vegas families and Boomers and Khans... even the friggin Fiends and Kings, were all so interesting and fun to interact with. I loved the small towns like Novac and Goodsprings and Freeside. They were so much more interesting then Girdershade and Cannibalville and Lamplight with its invulnerable plot device children.

Rivet City and Megaton were neat and I liked characters such as Moira or uhhh... I can't think of anyone I truly liked in Rivet City... they were all okay... but I could rattle off every character I dug in New Vegas for ages and hours... even if I can't recall the name I can still picture them in my mind. There were some neat quests in Fallout 3, like bringing Roy Phillips into Tenpenny Towers and the moral conundrum that all entailed or dealing with Von Braun in his VR world but there just wasn't as much memorable I feel in Fallout 3, especially to the point of wanting to play it over and over again. I've played New Vegas repeatedly and love doing the quests... and love doing them different. I loved the quest with that moron Fantastic and the power plant, and Veronica's heartbreaking story in relation to the BoS. I could listen to Caesar and House and Boone and Rose of Sharon Cassidy for hours and they were treats to listen to.

Even with that dork Benny, it wasn't until I played through the game a third or fourth time that I chose a different path in dealing with him and this ending was so different I was like 'Wow... I actually found myself liking him.' I played through Fallout 3 maybe twice... or two and a half times and I only played through the whole thing including the Broken Steel DLC (which came waaaaaay too late for the pathetic and even insulting "a true hero BS") to give the game an actual ending. I've played through New Vegas lots. People talk about the post game... what? I barely care about a post-game if it's not an MMO. Those slides and seeing how everything turned out made me want to play through the game again and again... just playing the game different made me want to play it again and again more then any shallow post game content would.

And the variation in playthroughs was great. I played as completely different characters everytime. And I loved the companions way more. The only companion I care to recall from my 2.5 playthroughs in Fallout 3 is Sarah Lyons and that Fawkes guy, and Fawkes didn't show up until almost the end of the game. And he sure as heck ain't no Marcus. There was the older Paladin lady and the Raider asshole and some other people/bots. Rose of Sharon Cassidy. Veronica Santangelo. Boone. Raul to a lesser extent. My Stealth Suit from Old World Blues.

Oh that reminds me, I loved the DLC in New Vegas way more. I loved the horror theme and steadily impending doom and dread that Dead Money presented even though a lot of people thought it was the weakest of the bunch. I loved the atmosphere and stealth and I realize it's unbalanced for some but I still enjoyed it thoroughly all the same. And the story at the center... it really was quite poignant to me. Elijah was a great foil and I thought all of the NPC's were very interesting.

Old World Blues was just a wonderfully delicious treat. I laughed out loud and loved the quirky insanity of it all. And I fell in love with my talking Stealth Suit, the Book eraser and all of the other talking appliances. Except the toaster... he was intimidating.

Then there was Honest Hearts and wow... that was... I don't even know. I'm almost speaking aloud as I think about it. Meeting Joshua Graham for the first time and hearing him talk shop about religion and faith and politics and human nature. He was just as strong a character as Caesar or House and profoundly more interesting. And it's so rare to see a DLC take concepts of faith and religion and revenge so well. Plus I loved the side quest with the Survivalist raising a bunch of children indirectly into becoming The Sorrows.

And then there's Lonesome Road which was... a thing... *coughs*

For Fallout 3 DLC... Broken Steel should've been there from the beginning and honestly, the only character I liked from Broken Steel was VARMA... and no I am not joking. I loved the idea of a very limited but highly capable virtual intelligence. I liked her more then President Eden and all of his mehness.

The rest of the DLC were extremely uninteresting to me. They weren't bad... but I don't think any of them approached the quality of the FNV DLC except maybe The Pitt. I loved the moral questions and issues that so suddenly came up and more importantly that I would have an important part in shaping. Some of the DLC involving the aliens was neat to, but mainly from meeting all of those crazy characters from different timelines. Some of them were quite likable.

But yeah, in almost every respect I found New Vegas vastly more interesting. Even the random NPC's encounters. I found Powder Gangers, Fiends, Khans and Nightkin far more interesting to encounter then the anonymous generic raiders and mutants of the Capital Wasteland. And for every Gary filled Vault that was fun, there was a gun happy Vault or a Lottery Vault that was even more interesting. Things like the Republic of Dave or Girdershade were just like one quest towns and the locales in New Vegas with their towns just seemed more interesting and less... tacky. The superhero rivalry dealio was kinda fun I guess as well. Ant-tastic perhaps.

But yeah... overall.... I think I played New Vegas like ten or twelve times as much as Fallout 3.

Can whoever voted for 76 please stand up and explain themselves?...

I'm somewhat conflicted. I really enjoyed New Vegas, and likely have the most completed playthroughs. However...the world itself feels empty. I know, they were put into a position to rush out the game, but I was hoping to see a more lively New Vegas. It did have unique factions (the Boomers, for example) but I felt there was more that could have been done. Honest Hearts suffers from the same thing. I wanted to see New Canaan (the Mormon city. Been a while since I've played), but the destruction happened before you even arrive.

Fallout 3 felt like a ruined city. The fact that you had to use subway tunnels to get around was logical, even if it was a way to make the map bigger than it was. It worked. It was highly effective. Fallout 4's Boston is also a blast to explore, but it's much easier to do so since the city itself is mostly intact. I fully expect that there are a large number of places in D.C. I never explored. But....part of the reason why I never bothered exploring is that...unless there was a magazine or unique weapon...there was really no need to go into every building and search any nook and cranny. Fallout 4? The settlement system gives you a reason to go into buildings. No unique stuff? No matter, you need copper, aluminium, and ceramic for some new settlement upgrade.

The best overall is a difficult thing. I think I have the most fun with Fallout 4, but Fallout: New Vegas had the best story. Fallout 3 had the best game world/environment. Since I game for fun, I suppose I'll pick 4

I've never played 3, so can't really comment on it, but have played the others.
New Vegas was the one that first got me into fallout, and was an experience I greatly enjoyed. The Old World Blues Stealth Suit was my favorite, even if it kept getting me addicted to Med-X.
Fallout 4 I enjoyed, even though I eventually got tired of building all the settlements.
Fallout 76 was basically a stripped down version of 4; got bored really fast shortly after my brother did and I was wandering the wasteland on my own.

For me it's Fallout New Vegas and, funnily enough, Fallout Shelter.

Fallout 3 is so and so. It plays really clunky forcing you to use the VATS system. It's honestly really forgettable and I'm struggling to actually remember anything from the game.

Fallout 4 is just frustrating to play. The new perk system is aggravating and it's incredibly easy to dead-end your character. It plays as an incredibly blatant and irritating Skinner Box where it's blindingly obvious they're trying to sucker you in to keep playing till you get that extra level up and then be able to unlock that skill you've been wanting for the last couple of levels.

Fallout Shelter is a mobile game so it's quite basic but there's something satisfying about the gameplay loop. My main complaint is that it ran down my phone's battery really fast but it captures the humour of the setting nicely enough for a fremium game. After you've completed all of the missions though there's little else to really enjoy but for while it lasts, it's quite fun. It's on Steam too.

I like all of them quite a bit excepting 76 as I haven't played. With 3 though I absolutely despise the subway if that was removed. Then I'd say 3 is on par with the other two.