Let the voting begin!
What about them?
Which one has the shiniest DVD.
(what do you think?)
Oblivion was too “generic fantasy” with not enough unique sights to see (seen one cave? seen them all) and too much repetition (gods spare me from another Oblivion Gate). Shivering Isles was much more interesting, but alas, too short. Also, despite all the voice acting, the NPC’s felt very generic and flat. To keep me interested, the Elder Scrolls franchise needs more interesting game play and a more unique world to invite exploration (see: Morrowind) in their next installment.
Fallout 3 is the first non-fantasy single-player RPG I’ve played in a long time (maybe ever), and was surprisingly more enjoyable and interesting than I’d expected. Bethesda did a better job of making the world feel more alive and interesting, although the aiming system made the shooter aspect frustrating. Between the two games, I think Bethesda was more on the right track with Fallout 3, and if they continue that development path in future games, they’ll keep me coming back.
I liked them both, but I like more “shooting” weapons, and find swords-and-sorcery a less interesting setting, so my vote is Fallout 3.
Are you refering to how badly most of the weapons aim outside of VATS? If so. It’s what forced me to use VATS pretty much 99 percent of the time. Not that I didn’t love VATS anyway - the orgasmic slo-mo-s were… orgasmic.
In Oblivion, which I didn’t vote for but still love… I’m on my first run through it and it’s lasting longer than any run through FO3… the aiming was pretty good. I almost exclusively use bows and arrows.
Still playing Oblivion. Got bored with Fallout 3 after finishing Zeta, so…
I’m in a similar situation (though I have played FO3 three times)
What other expansion packs have you played?
All of 'em. Just found that there wasn’t really all that much to do in Fallout 3 after finishing everything. The setting of Oblivion on the other hand I just find more engaging, more to do after the end (even if you need to role-play it or use mods, both of which I find more engaging in Oblivion than Fallout 3). I also missed guild questlines in Fallout 3.
Yeah, FO3 failed badly with manual aiming; I love playing a sniper in Oblivion, but in FO3, the way they set up the hit box and trajectory was screwy. Also, the whole “start a 4-shot VATS run only to find invisible geometry is in the way” added to the general frustration with the combat system. Despite the issues with aiming in FO3 though, I still think it was a better game overall, because it was a better developed game world. To touch on some of the comments about Oblivion, the fact that so many mods are considered “required” to make Oblivion interesting and fun bolsters my opinion that Bethesda left Oblivion for the modders to finish (so much empty space, generic scenery and too many generic dungeons).
I got bored with Fallout 3 pretty quick, tired of slowmo shooting scorpions in the face. I still play Oblivion BUT it is pretty heavily modded, vanilla Oblivion was kind of lame.
I’m going by the vanilla game. Oblivion was beautiful, but flat-out broken on release as far as I’m concerned. Heavily modded, it’s a great game. But out of the box, Fallout 3 was stronger.
Mass Effect.
While I don’t like the enemy levelling system in Oblivion it did help spread the loot around. You have to play for a long time before you’re in full Daedric/Glass for example. In Fallout I feel that you get the ‘end-game’ items much too quickly. A Hunting Rifle, Combat Shotgun, Sniper Rifle, Chinese Assault Rifle… All easily available, with a max. Small Guns skill, within a couple of hours playing a new character. It’s a flaw of the open-world concept I guess. I bet most Fallout 2 players can remember where they got their first Powerfist, .223 pistol or Metal Armour MkII…
Vanilla Fallout 3 beats Oblivion hands down, IMO. The problems in Oblivion are easier to fix with mods though.
Still, I prefer the Fallout world to Tamriel so my vote is for Fallout 3
Batman, if he’s well prepared.
My smartass answer, because I love them both.
I didn’t know there was a Vanilla Fallout 3. I knew about Vanilla Oblivion.
What (in summary) does Vanilla FO3 do?
FO3 - The NPCs are often good looking.
Oblivion - The NPCs are scarily hideous. (And I’m refering to the human ones. The ones who aren’t supposed to be hideous)
When I say ‘vanilla’ I mean the original, unmodified version of the game. Sorry for the confusion.
Oh, Ok, Understood.
FO3 - [almost] perfect out-of-the-box. (except for a far too early level cap, which is only actually a problem once you reach it. I am up to level 35 and still have at least five or six perks to aim for and skills to play with, and an unknown amount of Point Lookout still to ‘do’)
ETA: Not to mention all the non expansion pack quests I haven’t done on this, my third time playing it.
ETA Again: How does one go about exploding a pair of pants?
Go to pick-pocket someone, and then slip something that goes boom into said pockets. The pants go boom, along with their wearer…
Fallout 3 is just more…fun and beautiful to look at than Oblivion. I could barely play Oblivion for twenty minutes and I had to stop. I just didn’t like the way the fighting interface/items inventory, etc was.