Fallout: New Vegas is....... good! I can see the strengths and weaknesses comparing this to 3. Fallout 3, I think, has probably better area design, I can see that clear as day in Honest Hearts and Old World Blues. Like those areas are great set dressing, i will not deny, but I think Bethesda does a better job at the gameplay loop in this style of game. However, Obsidian does beat them out on dialogue, hard.
Besthesda NPC's kind of feel like they are there to serve you, the player. They give you the quest, maybe have lore stuff, but its all there to empower and enlighten the player. Obsidian decides to make the NPC's people. If you actually decide to talk to 90% of the named characters in this game, they will have dialogue how their thoughts of current affairs, or just give you their story that has nothing to do with the plot at all. On your journeys you will be able to get to know the people of this land, and what they think should happen, how they feel about this struggle thats beyond them. When they talk, they talk true, these are real beings alive in my computer. Possibly the most real i've felt with dialogue. Just borderline mundane dialogue with random people, accruing more worldly knowledge. Through your connections with the lands and its inhabitants all really help you decide what you want to do. Do you think these people would benefit from the cold, uncaring touch of a foreign nation who just want to control them, but give them protection? Will you find that these people don't deserve anything, and should be put under the boot of strength? Maybe the luxury of the high life will tempt you, kicking out all outer forces so that you may life it up while a man past his prime runs everything. You could find that the corruption runs deep in both major parties, better to just nuke them both and wipe the slate clean, maybe someone else will build a nation that doesn't repeat the same tired tropes of the old world. Maybe, fuck it, you think this whole land is squalid and should be wiped out under a genocidal cloud. Point is, the flavours of the interactions and the tangibility are really fucking good.
Besthesda NPC's kind of feel like they are there to serve you, the player. They give you the quest, maybe have lore stuff, but its all there to empower and enlighten the player. Obsidian decides to make the NPC's people. If you actually decide to talk to 90% of the named characters in this game, they will have dialogue how their thoughts of current affairs, or just give you their story that has nothing to do with the plot at all. On your journeys you will be able to get to know the people of this land, and what they think should happen, how they feel about this struggle thats beyond them. When they talk, they talk true, these are real beings alive in my computer. Possibly the most real i've felt with dialogue. Just borderline mundane dialogue with random people, accruing more worldly knowledge. Through your connections with the lands and its inhabitants all really help you decide what you want to do. Do you think these people would benefit from the cold, uncaring touch of a foreign nation who just want to control them, but give them protection? Will you find that these people don't deserve anything, and should be put under the boot of strength? Maybe the luxury of the high life will tempt you, kicking out all outer forces so that you may life it up while a man past his prime runs everything. You could find that the corruption runs deep in both major parties, better to just nuke them both and wipe the slate clean, maybe someone else will build a nation that doesn't repeat the same tired tropes of the old world. Maybe, fuck it, you think this whole land is squalid and should be wiped out under a genocidal cloud. Point is, the flavours of the interactions and the tangibility are really fucking good.