Uh... what? Did you not play New Vegas at all?
Yeah, played it all the way through, sided NCR. I still think the DC ruins are far more interesting than anything New Vegas had on offer.
Despite that game also having the problem of the Brotherhood of Steel being the "good" guys. My main complaint of FO3.
Aye, that was kind of dumb. Probably would have pursued the same course of action anyway, but is odd you were railroaded like that.
But yes, the real fallout games were in the desert. And you may as well say FO3 is in the desert as well. It certainly doesn't look like the grasslands and wooded areas of the East coast. It looks exactly the same as Fallout: New Vegas (with a green/blueish tint instead of an orange tint). Barren desert with bushes here and there. So that's a nonsensical point imho.
I mean desert as in 'mostly empty', rather than a terrain point of view. More of an urban-rural thing than a forest-desert thing. NV's Mutant Town (the one with Worf, I forget it's name) is probably the prettiest place in either game.
Also, those tints are ridiculous. I don't know what they were thinking with those. Thank the heavens for Fellout and Project Reality.
I won't go into the turned based combat of the first two games, but for the time there's nothing unusual about it. Even the Baldur's Gate games were turned based in a way (if you used auto pause to pause at the end of each round). I do know modern times required the move towards a first person view. I'm not unhappy about that. Just don't turn it into a FPS game. There are plenty of those already. New Vegas kept the rpg elements in Fallout, and I'm happy about that. Now that Bioware has went to crap, there are very few prospects for good rpg games these days. We need RPG's, not FPS's.
Oh yeah, it fits right in with the meta-game world. I certainly don't fault Fallout 1 and 2 for that system.
But I don't know why you wouldn't want a properly build FPS. That certainly doesn't mean getting rid of the RPG elements; they are in no way mutually exclusive. But there's no reason for the combat side of things to be so unintuitive and generally terrible.
Rivet city just isn't convenient like the gun runners kiosk in New Vegas. I'll get there eventually.
Rivet City is super easy to get to, by like level 3 (assuming you're playing vanilla). Go to Megaton, do whatever, then go to the Potomac, and just swim right down the river. Nothing will even bad an eye if you stay in the middle.
Or just walk to the Pentagon via Wilhelms Wharf. At any low level, there's nobody in between you and the Citadel except for like 5 raiders, which you can avoid if you really try.
My main issue with FO3 is getting a proper flow to the game. What city should I head to after Megaton? Rivet City? I don't like doing too much of the main quest after Megaton because they have you go to the 3 dog who sends you to the Mall iirc which is crawling with super mutants. That seems like a harsh requirement for a low level character.
First thing to do in Megaton is as much of the Wasteland Survival Guide quest as you can I think. That'll take you a ways, and should lead you to Scrapyard, and probably Big Town and German Town as a result. The Robco portion should take you through Fort Independence and Fairfax, and probably Tenpenny Tower. Depending on how much you like your Metro's, it's also easy to get to Arlington and Falls Church too.
After meeting 3 Dog and starting that quest, you should probably come across Underworld, which will take you to Reilly's Rangers. You Gotta Shoot Em In the Head will take you all across the map (incl. Rivet). I also started Stealing Independence around the same time, which took me to Rivet.
Rivet is also plenty easy to get to from Underworld, as I think it's only two Metro stations away through Anacostia.
My main thing with FO3 is I want to see many areas of the game I missed before. I haven't even explored half of the vanilla game. I haven't explored much of the North East and North. I never had any quests take me up there. I know I can explore on my own, but I prefer to wait for a quest to take me there. I learned that from Skyrim. I never entered caves in Skyrim unless on a quest, because most caves were associated with a quest.
There is a lot of stuff on the North end that you don't normally get to. Though I explored much of it on my own after Raven Rock lights up that map point for you. It's super fun to clear out Raiders and Enclave from those big towers. And there's a random encounter that will give you the map marker for Oasis too.
Gives a bonus to melee, but otherwise crappy armor.
