Well I played through FO:3 a couple times, but there is way to much familiarity in it for me to play through to find a few new things, so i'm basically looking for the same game, with new stuff to do.
Will this game provide, or is it a different experience?

It is different.

Core gameplay is the same.

It's different...and the same.

Did you play GTA 3 and GTA: Vice City?

It's pretty much like that.

I'm going to have to dispute this. Iron sights and DT are changed elements within the core combat mechanics. As well as the generally less common combat and minimal levelling enemies.

At first sight it feels and looks the same, but there are some pretty big differences.

I beg to differ, I in fact rely on GTA - actually SA and VC - to compare the notion that Rockstar developed SA on its own foundations but with the essential mechanics, obviously, of VC, 3, etc.

It is same and different, it really depends what you are looking for to renew your interest.

Reno

I don't understand where your disagreement lies.

Do they matter? General gameplay is identical but for the enhanced crafting mechanics.

Content aside... the games are as alike as Doom 3 and Prey.

by most measures its better..........and the annoying magic walls can be removed with a mod.

Yes, they matter. How can they not matter? They change the entire approach to combat. And make the game a lot less combat heavy.

If one game focuses on delving into dungeons and killing 100s of monsters, while another game focuses on flipping switches and talking to people, it's hard to say they're identical.

They also change the way armor works, making it more useful and introducing the concept of armor penetration. They re-worked the skill point economies to make character development decisions more weighty and replaced a lot of the +skill perks with more unique ones. Iron sights and scopes on weapons are nice as well. They also added more uses for skills like Science, Repair, and Medicine, made Agility affect walking speed and reload times, made pulse weapons affect power armor users, added strength requirements for weapons, and a bunch of other things you might not notice right away but IMO make the game mechanics more enjoyable and meaningful.

Beyond that, as was already mentioned, the game is more quest and story-driven, the player is presented with a lot more decisions to make, and the factions, people, and places are fleshed out with more detail and inter-connectivity.

The New Vegas area is not a wasteland. So the experience is much different. There is far far less of wandering off in one direction and exploring (to my chagrin). It is much more densely packed with towns, outposts, etc... and travel is mostly by well defined roads. On the other hand, It is extremely well written with respect to quests and character background. The factions all have believeable complex motivations. It is a very different game eventhough, the gameplay itself is the very simmilar. There are many more things to do, people to meet, and storylines to get involved with. All of those things make the game a lot of fun. Just don't expect to be able to wander off the road and head north for 15 minutes exploring and finding random places. The replay value comes from making different decisions in which faction to support and choices in doing quests. In F3 the replay value was that the wasteland was so vast that there was no way to see everything.

Same game? No. Your character's crumpled dead body rolls down far more mountain sides and hills than FO:3.

Tale is correct, they did change the combat system so that may affect your opinion - although to the casual gamer you may not notice.

Reno

Someone mentioned the Reputation Sistem? (maybe its no too important, but is new after not being used in FO3)

It's actually very important since it decides which quests you can/can't do, which people you can/can't talk to, which locations you can/can't visit as a town (alternative is an enemy base), etc.

Wow! Alot of replies!

Well let me clear this up abit.

One of the things I LOVED about FO:3 was walking around, story or out of story, and finding new places, NPCs, and such. I always love being somewhere i'v never been, killing something i'v never killed, and finding stuff i'v never found, like loot, guns, equipment etc.

I'v been told you can't explore as much in NV, but aside from that, am I going to experience the basic stuff again?

And the new combat stuff i'v read in your replies seems like a plus to me

So exploration?
Heh, New Vegas is erm... Not "bad" but... Not really that good either in that aspect.

I'd say there aren't nearly as many small places to find, but there are more big places to find with more stuff going on in them. The sheer number of places to find is less, but the amount of stuff to find and do is similar or more. I feel like NV has more actual stuff to do while FO3 has more places to find, if that makes sense.

If that's all you're looking for, then yes it will provide. There, a straightforward answer. Wasn't too difficult.

Yeah I like the locations and stuff too but what I have a hate/love thing for is fixed level enemies.
Once you reach a higher level then it gives you no reason to go back to earlier points in the map and explore since the enemies are of no challenge and the loot isn't good.
So by lvl 30 the game becomes very cornered and the only places which might post a challenge is west of Vegas and the north-east part of the map.

On the other hand I love that it makes more sense with enemies now.
In FO3 when you reached lvl 20 there were little to no molerats and mostly yao guais.
It didn't make sense for some enemies to suddenly become extinct and replaced with a higher leveled enemy.
So I like that it's realistic.
But I hate that the game becomes such a cake-walk with exploration at higher levels.

So that's the beef I got with it.

Vegas has less breadth, more depth. There are fewer locations but what locations there are tend to be better fleshed out.

It's also a deeper roleplaying experience that rewards explorers more because unlike FO3 people don't literally sprint up to you from a football field away to give you a quest, you have to find them.

The faction rep system also makes doing quests more satisfying than just a few caps, a shiny gun and some XP, in my opinion.


The core gameplay is the same basic system (same engine after all) but with numerous polish adjustments like damage threshold making "heckling" down tough monsters with weak guns harder, iron sights, some balance tweaks, weapon mods, ammo choice, ect.

Nope, its not the same. It took the tarnished Fallout image of Fallout 3, and brought it closer to the originals. So it's better.