Fallout 3 is the better exploration game, New Vegas is the better RPG. Now, I love Fallout 3 and I think it has the best world design in the series (lore not included), but I get a great deal more enjoyment from leveling a character toward a specialization and seeing the different ways my small decisions affect the world than I do from dungeon crawling.
New Vegas has me covered there, its perks are really fun and a large part of its many quests have 3 or more solutions (or an alternative quest). Contrast that with Fallout 3, where perks often don’t do more than raise a skill and the quest outcomes are largely binary between angelic and pure evil.
However, if I want to scavenge through the wreckage of a dead world I can think of no finer game than Fallout 3. It really just seeps atmosphere from every pixel.
It really does depend on your preferences.
Fallout 3 is the better exploration game, New Vegas is the better RPG. Now, I love Fallout 3 and I think it has the best world design in the series (lore not included), but I get a great deal more enjoyment from leveling a character toward a specialization and seeing the different ways my small decisions affect the world than I do from dungeon crawling.
New Vegas has me covered there, its perks are really fun and a large part of its many quests have 3 or more solutions (or an alternative quest). Contrast that with Fallout 3, where perks often don’t do more than raise a skill and the quest outcomes are largely binary between angelic and pure evil.
However, if I want to scavenge through the wreckage of a dead world I can think of no finer game than Fallout 3. It really just seeps atmosphere from every pixel.