Help me choose: Skyrim vs Witcher 3 vs Fallout: New Vegas

decoyplatypus said:
New Vegas's shooting mechanics work fine for an RPG where combat (and shooting in particular) shares the stage with several other game systems. It's no worse than TW3's swordplay, and because New Vegas gives you a wide variety of weapons (guns, rifles, shotguns, heavy weapons, grenades, melee, etc., some w/ physical or energy options) and the option of approaching combat scenarios in a number of different ways, in my view it comes out ahead on combat.

As for "not all that much more to do in NV quests," I'll just leave this here:

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This is a good post and also on PC there are many mods that help with combat. Still, I wouldn't get New Vegas on a console unless it's absolutely the only way to play. New Vegas will basically run even on integrated Intel chipsets.
 
Toss a coin and grab either Witcher 3 or Skyrim. Both are incredible. Story in Witcher 3 is superior imo if important. Or simplt just grab both. They are amazing experience, will personally buy back Skyrim on Switch since it will have all DLCs i never did, and would buy back Witcher 3 on Switch for thr same reason.
 
All are worth your time, but Witcher 3 to me is sublime. Probably my favorite game in the last...shoot...at least best game of the generation for me.
 
Either Witcher or New Vegas. Both are must-plays IMO, just see which setting appeals the most to you right now.

Skyrim is what you can expect out of Bethesda Game Studios stuff, which some people can't get enough of, but if that were you I don't think you would have asked
 
decoyplatypus said:
New Vegas's shooting mechanics work fine for an RPG where combat (and shooting in particular) shares the stage with several other game systems. It's no worse than TW3's swordplay, and because New Vegas gives you a wide variety of weapons (guns, rifles, shotguns, heavy weapons, grenades, melee, etc., some w/ physical or energy options) and the option of approaching combat scenarios in a number of different ways, in my view it comes out ahead on combat.

As for "not all that much more to do in NV quests," I'll just leave this here:

mAENC.jpg
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I probably said the wrong thing there. What I meant is that I rarely gave a shit about any of it because the engine is terrible, because I don't care about the characters, and because overall there is nothing but a janky mess behind the technical foundation of this game.

There are loads of connections in Skyrim as well. But guess what again? I don't care about any of those characters, whereas the Witcher 3 is actually a game that makes me care at least about some of its characters.

You might be able to make numerous decisions in Fallout, but in the end you are just climbing along on some janky and ridiculous slog. I really loved my first 20 hours of NV. As I started to open up the map, and things started to progress, I realized that this game was really low budget. 40 hours in and I didn't really want to continue.

There were almost zero set pieces worth a damn, the acting became hilariously out of touch, the writing just peculiar and weird to be weird, and I can't remember any characters anymore. Not a good sign for me anyway. I'm not saying the game is trash, but the engine it is built on takes a lot of away from what could have been.

With full mods it's worth a playthrough. But I tend to think that Fallout is just too dated for my liking. I spent a lot of hours in NV don't get me wrong. But near the last 30 I just said fuck it and quit.

It was about the time you went traveling into the snowy mountain area, which was just some mini area that seemed preposterous in scale to the map. I was expecting this huge area, and then all the stupid mutant stuff and yadda yadda. The story turned into complete trash at some point IMO. The dam and other things.... ahhh I just lost interest.

I guess the combat is okay. But it's the world immersion that just started to get to me. If you remade this game in 5 years it would probably be awesome.

It does have a great foundation theoretically, but Bethesda's engine is straight up trash.
 
New Vegas is the single greatest RPG. Make sure you get it on PC so you can mod it.

Skyrim is less an RPG than interactive LARPing. The Witcher 3 has good writing, but there's no serious choice or player agency and the gameplay is the same go-to-dot-on-the-map you see in any other open world game, with Batman-style "detective vision" to boot.
 
The Witcher 3 without a doubt.....the game is fantastic and it is much better and even on a different level than the other two games.
 
The only mistake you could make OP, would be choosing Skyrim.

The Witcher 3 has fantastic characters and a great story. New Vegas has a great world with tons of excellent emergent storytelling. Both have very good writing.

There is pretty much nothing I can recommend about Skyrim.
 
TheRedSnifit said:
New Vegas is the single greatest RPG. Make sure you get it on PC so you can mod it.

Skyrim is less an RPG than interactive LARPing. The Witcher 3 has good writing, but there's no serious choice or player agency and the gameplay is the same go-to-dot-on-the-map you see in any other open world game, with Batman-style "detective vision" to boot.
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You are pretty much going to dot on map in every single open world game including NV lol. Player agency is mostly a mirage if you ask me. It's not like NV is some grand opera. It's a total jankfest with hacky writing all over the place.

I enjoyed my time with it because well the first 30 hours or so are really good. But slowly it creeps up on you that nothing amazing is going to happen. That the constraints of the engine are totally holding the game back. IMO at least.
 
Neith said:
You are pretty much going to dot on map in every single open world game including NV lol. Player agency is mostly a mirage if you ask me. It's not like NV is some grand opera. It's a total jankfest with hacky writing all over the place.
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Janky? Definitely. Hacky writing? What game were you playing?
 
Neith said:
You are pretty much going to dot on map in every single open world game including NV lol. Player agency is mostly a mirage if you ask me. It's not like NV is some grand opera. It's a total jankfest with hacky writing all over the place.

I enjoyed my time with it because well the first 30 hours or so are really good. But slowly it creeps up on you that nothing amazing is going to happen. That the constraints of the engine are totally holding the game back. IMO at least.
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New Vegas doesn't just dump a million question marks on your map and scream GO THERE!!! all the time, you have to find quests and such organically. In Witcher 3, everything's already there for you on the map, and there's not much to be found by just wandering around and paying attention to your environment. It frankly feels less like a proper open-world RPG with exploration than it does a computer-generated quest simulator. Just walk to the nearest signpost and fast travel to one of the million question marks on the map, repeat ad infinitum.

There's also a ton more variety in New Vegas quests. I'm sure the "Beyond the Beef" quest line has been posted several times by now, and that's pretty representative of most of NV's quests. Whereas 90% of Witcher 3's quests are "Find place, find and/or kill something, collect reward." Throw in a detective vision sequence to make the finding and killing a bit longer when appropriate. It's a good game, definitely, but it still has a lot of the same tropes and pitfalls of Ubisoft-style open worlds with very little of what New Vegas brings.

Saying New Vegas has hacky writing is bizarre. It melds quality writing with player agency and choice in a way that is unmatched by even CRPG classics like Baldur's Gate II, let alone the Witcher games.
 
Witcher 3 for characters and story
New Vegas for roleplaying
Skyrim for exploration

But all three are very close in quality. They have their individual strengths and weaknesses.


If you care about combat, get Horizon and Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen. Both are better than the three you mentioned IMO. Both also have great story/lore. Horizon has the best story of them all and Aloy is a great main-character. Dragon's Dogma has the best customization and combat system.
 
I know OP only has first and third person games on his list, of which I easily enjoyed FNV the most.

But the RPG that for me trumps them all is Divinity Original Sins 2. Never in my life have I been so engrossed in a game. I just lose myself completely to the point where 1 hour can feel like 10 minutes.

Gorilla Shark said:
I'm looking for something with awesome story, side quests, exploration, and customization.
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OP, if you have a decent PC at least read some reviews and check it out!

Hopefully it will also find its way to consoles for more people to enjoy.
 
Fallout: New Vegas is the greatest game ever made. I liked Witcher 3 but felt the Witcher Sense made the game too easy and the crafting system was good, but not great.

Everything about New Vegas though, IMO, is perfection.
 
I'd personally rank them Witcher 3>New Vegas>Skyrim

Witcher 3 gets the top vote because it has the nicest production, memorable characters, cool atmosphere (a detective story amidst a weird middle ages world where mysticism is being stamped out against a background of bloody war) and a central story that is at least kind of interesting.

New Vegas has great quests and great writing but... is also a Gamebryo game, so it's ugly as sin. My favorite of all the Bethesda published Fallout games, without a question.

I finished Skyrim when I bought it but looking back on it it was kind of a nothing game, in hindsight. The only thing I remember fondly is using the dragon shouts to knock people off mountains, which means that it's about as good as the Force Unleashed games
 
TheRedSnifit said:
New Vegas doesn't just dump a million question marks on your map and scream GO THERE!!! all the time. In Witcher 3, everything's already there for you on the map, and there's not much to be found by just wandering around and paying attention to your environment. It frankly feels less like an RPG with exploration than a computer-generated quest simulator. Just walk to the nearest signpost and fast travel to one of the million question marks on the map, repeat ad infinitum.

There's also a ton more variety in New Vegas quests. I'm sure the "Beyond the Beef" quest line has been posted several times by now, and that's pretty representative of most of NV's quests. Whereas 90% of Witcher 3's quests are "Find place, find and/or kill something, collect reward." Throw in a detective vision sequence to make the finding and killing a bit longer when appropriate. It's a good game, definitely, but it still has a lot of the same tropes and pitfalls of Ubisoft-style open worlds with very little of what New Vegas brings.

Saying New Vegas has hacky writing is bizarre. It melds quality writing with player agency and choice in a way that is unmatched by even CRPG classics like Baldur's Gate II, let alone the Witcher games.
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I meant toward the end. I'm sorry but NV shit the bed a bit at the end kinda like F3 did for me. I thought both games lacked any kind of cinematic or storytelling greatness toward the end. Shit just happens. The ending in NV is fucking abysmal and pathetic.

I will agree with you that the roleplaying aspect is better for sure. No doubt about that. Which is why I said I would love a game like this made on a modern and much better engine.

IDK I feel like the writer did better on Horizon where he was tamed a bit. NV IS really cool for the first 20 hours or so. And then story slowly descends into a ridiculous yet complex narrative that honestly wasn't all that interesting because of the severe jank to everything around you. It just wasn't immersive. I'm not saying the writing is the worst or anything, because we are comparing competent games here with writing, but hardly any of the characters was ever real like some of the Witcher 3 ones were to me.

I mean don't even get me started on Witcher 3 flaws. It's skill system is fucking pathetic beyond belief, and CD really needs a complete overhaul to everything in that area.

All of these games are flawed, but The Witcher 3 has much better characters than any of them by a country mile IMO.
 
There’s no reason you shouldn’t ultimately play all of these games. They are all great. If it must be 1 I’d say Fallout NV.
 
Skyrim has the weakest story, Witcher 3 isn't worth it without blood and wine (base game is honestly the most overrated rpg praise ever seen, while blood and wine is what it should have been), New Vegas has by far the best settings - quests but graphically speaking its ... old

I'd say go for Fallout, just because of the settings / writing alone
 
Modded Skyrim is my favorite of the three choices, but it's also the most work (setting up the mods). People heavily criticize the combat but I played it with magic enhancing mods and I had tons of fun blowing shit up.

It's a tougher choice between FNV and TW3. If you don't want to take the time to install mods, then vanilla TW3 is probably the better choice. I modded FNV and overall had a better time with it than TW3. But you'll find most people think TW3 is a masterpiece and one of the greatest RPGs of all time. I wanted to love TW3 so bad but its combat was really not good, and ultimately led to me losing my patience with the game by the last ~1/3rd of the main quest.
 
To me it comes down to Witcher 3 and New Vegas. I feel Skyrim isn't really the right choice based on your wishes of awesome story, side quests, exploration, and customization. It fails on the first two imo. Witcher 3 doesn't offer as much customization and choice as New Vegas does, but I prefer it's story and characters. It helps that I've played the earlier games in the series too. And to me the world of Witcher 3 is the most fascinating to explore, it's most diverse of these three. New Vegas being a wasteland and all. So I'd go with Witcher 3, but New Vegas shouldn't be ignored either.
 
Duchess O'Death said:
Witcher 3 is superior in everyway. Amazing story and characters. Some of the best side quests in an RPG. Best open world to date.



100 hours?? I have 500 hours in TW3 and still finding new sidequests to do lol.
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On the flip side i put around 50-60 hours into Witcher 3 and I was as done as I wanted to be.
 
New Vegas. Maybe the finest example of actually role playing a character and the pleasure of seeing those choices manifest in meaningful ways. Many games play lip service to this but NV got it right. And the writing is top notch. Especially old world blues.

But Witcher 3 is worth it too. But that excels more at open world than role playing. Would be shame if you never got around to both of those.

Skip Skyrim with a clear conscience.
 
All three are excellent choices for different reasons and you'll probably enjoy every single one of them considering the games you mentioned you like. Skyrim is probably the safest choice since you mentioned how much you like Bethesda's Fallout games, and Skyrim is more of the same, albeit in the Elder Scrolls universe. It's greatest strength is in its world design that offers an amazing amount of exploration and environmental storytelling that you will probably be into if you like Fallout 3 and Fallout 4.

New Vegas plays like a Bethesda game, notably Fallout 3 since its all in the same engine and plays exactly the same. But it's the quality of the content itself that is the most significant difference, in that New Vegas offers so much more in terms of writing, quest design, characters, factions, and role playing. So many choices in how you want to go about a number of different situations in the game world and to further define your character. I would agree with the sentiment that New Vegas is up there in being the ultimate RPG experience.

The Witcher 3 excels the most at its characters and story, while also shining in some areas similar to New Vegas with some great quests and writing that almost always offer a choice to be made, sometimes pretty difficult choices. You can't role play like in Fallout since you're a set character, Geralt of Rivia, but there are ways for which you can decide how Geralt can act through dialogue. Again, not as nuisance as New Vegas, but it's there. Not to mention, this game has some of the greatest DLC you will ever play that offer amazing stories to experience.

Again, all solid choices and you can't go wrong with any of them. For your sake, I'd say play Skyrim then New Vegas and then The Witcher 3 in an order of games that starts from what you're most familiar and then getting to games that further differentiate from that.

Me personally? I struggle to decide whether I like New Vegas or The Witcher 3 more. Both are such equally good RPGs. I'd definitely say they surpass Skyrim, but Skyrim has its own strengths that can put it above both of them in a few areas. Like mountains. Such neat mountains.
 
Neith said:
You are pretty much going to dot on map in every single open world game including NV lol. Player agency is mostly a mirage if you ask me. It's not like NV is some grand opera. It's a total jankfest with hacky writing all over the place.

I enjoyed my time with it because well the first 30 hours or so are really good. But slowly it creeps up on you that nothing amazing is going to happen. That the constraints of the engine are totally holding the game back. IMO at least.
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This is exactly how I feel about New Vegas
 
Personally I really love Fallout: NV so I will say go for that if you have a pc and can do some mods. Its one of the best games I ever played.

The Witcher 3 is also really good though, so I would recommend that as well.

Skyrim is a decent game and I spent about 200 hours with it, but it is nowhere near the same league as the games mentioned above.
 
Mr.Deadshot said:
Witcher 3 for characters and story
New Vegas for roleplaying
Skyrim for exploration

But all three are very close in quality. They have their individual strengths and weaknesses.


If you care about combat, get Horizon and Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen. Both are better than the three you mentioned IMO. Both also have great story/lore. Horizon has the best story of them all and Aloy is a great main-character. Dragon's Dogma has the best customization and combat system.
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Yup.
 
Talking to people is boring in Skyrim and kinda boring in The Witcher, which is why I prefer New Vegas. Dialogue trees are just so much more interesting and varied, which is far and away my biggest point of interest in these games.
 
I'm a big fan of New Vegas and you should definitely play it but I have to go with The Witcher 3. It's *so* good. Geralt is such a great protagonist.

Like Oblivion before it, Skyrim was fun but it still feels like a watered down Elder Scrolls game. I'd like Bethesda to look back at their older games for inspiration,
especially when it comes to navigation.
MiloHoffman said:
I went with Triss btw....but at the end, I really had second thoughts, damn you Yennefer = |

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Triss is a dirty homewrecker. Second playthrough for Yen imo. And Shani.
 
MidnightCowboy said:
Talking to people is boring in Skyrim and kinda boring in The Witcher, which is why I prefer New Vegas. Dialogue trees are just so much more interesting and varied, which is far and away my biggest point of interest in these games.
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Somewhat agree. I still loved the dialogue and felt like my choices had an impact, if not to the outcome of the quest then atleast I was adding bit flavor to "my" Geralt. This being said, I do hope that Cyberpunk goes the extra mile with this. And I think they might, since there's no predetermined character this time, but it's all in the players hands.
 
epmode said:
I'm a big fan of New Vegas and you should definitely play it but I have to go with The Witcher 3. It's *so* good. Geralt is up there with my favorite protagonists ever*.

Like Oblivion before it, Skyrim was fun but it still feels like a watered down Elder Scrolls game. I'd like Bethesda to look back at their older games for inspiration,
especially when it comes to navigation.

Triss is a dirty homewrecker. Second playthrough for Yen imo. And Shani.
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Yeah I'm definitely gonna do it, and also for this mission

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Budi said:
Somewhat agree. I still loved the dialogue and felt like my choices had an impact, if not to the outcome of the quest then atleast I was adding bit flavor to "my" Geralt. This being said, I do hope that Cyberpunk goes the extra mile with this. And I think they might, since there's no predetermined character this time, but it's all in the players hands.
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For sure, that's why I said kinda. The writing is still good and the characters/scenarios are excellent, but it still boils down to two, maybe three dialogue choices 95% of the time. New Vegas has stat based choices, perk based choices, just choices, choices, choices.
 
All three had really huge flaws for me:

Skyrim is sorta pointless to go do anything because of level scaling, which is always on the back of your mind as your goal is to get stronger, but so do the enemies. Shops scale right on point with you, which makes exploring for better gear pretty pointless. Just farm shops. Atmosphere is thick though and the music is usually on point. On a side note, I know I'll get blasted for this, but I like the combat the best in this one out of the 3 choices. Yeah, it's sorta sloppy, but it's so raw. It's very to the point, swing a thing/hit a thing. Aim a spell/hit a spell. I just always felt very in control of my character.

Witcher 3 has the worst combat of the 3. I fighting feels really stiff and restricting. It's also just not very fun to be in fights, and the change of "battle stance" to "regular game stance" is glitchy and unfair sometimes. I also felt like I didn't get any stronger or made any progress whatsoever as a character over my playthrough before I got bored and quit (10ish hours). The story and world had really amazing presentation though, which I wanted more of, I just didn't want to play the actual game to get to it.

New Vegas. I just really don't like this game. It's ugly, it's flat, it's boring. Maybe it's just me, but this is a "You had to play it the moment it came out to tolerate the jank." The setting is just not at all a good showcase of Bethesda's engine. At least F3 had a very specific artstyle going for it with the 50's vibe and the dead foliage everywhere. The quests design and characters are undoubtedly good if you can jive with the story it's trying to tell. It's got slightly better combat than F3 since you aren't completely useless without vats being charged.

Those are my thoughts and opinions anyways. Everyone's different though so Idk.
 
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