This made me smile. It wasn't quite that flat, but I agree it was pretty close.

It's fun sometimes to look at games and boil down the objectives to their critical elements. Like, look at a lot of first person shooters. No matter how involved the story, all the player generally has to do is "Navigate this level. Now navigate this level. Now navigate this level." In other words, the ultimate goal is "get to the last room." Generally if you could simply break into the final area and get into that last room, you could win the game in 5 minutes; it's just that there are 20000 guys between you and that last room.

Fallout 3's goals can really be summed up almost that easily. Find your dad and take him to the Jefferson Memorial. There are plenty of obstacles in the way, but that's pretty much it.

In New Vegas things are nowhere near that simple.

First of all, I didn't say anything about Fallout 3 being better, I said Bethesda has good story ideas, plural. I'm not particularly thinking of the main quest. Note also the word ideas. The Pitt is a great story that could form the basis of a whole game. "You've got to shoot them in the head" has a compelling plotline. Come to that, there's nothing wrong with the basic plot of the Fallout 3 main quest either, it has lots of potential. The problem with all of them is with the execution, as I have already said. They are rushed, details are glossed over or missing altogether, characters are throwaway, the impact of player decisions is not really thought through or expanded upon. There's no doubt that Obsidian care much more for their characters and for getting the details of their stories right. As for FNV, there are some really good, involving stories here too (I'm particularly thinking of Vault 11), but a lot of it is just go there, fetch that stuff and I, personally, found myself asking "why am I doing this?" over and over again, and simply getting the answer "to play the game" rather than "because my character has a good reason to do it" or "because it sounds interesting". That's what I mean by flat and uninvolving - a lot of the time I'm playing the game rather than being part of the world it creates.

Personally, I felt that Bethesda was able to draw me into the world of Fallout 3 more than Obsidian have drawn me into the world of New Vegas, even though their story writing was of lower quality. Something about that intangible quality of "atmosphere". I actually don't really have a view as to which game I prefer, I think they both have their good points and their flaws and they are without doubt the two best games I have played.

I think I see what you mean, like in New Vegas there was a bunch of quests that your either dropping off something or picking up something for someone (mainly the supply dealer in McCarran and the crimson caravan). But speaking of quests that really draw me out of the role, in Fallout 3 when you first meet Three Dog, he tells you to fix his satellite for him, all I can think is "you want me to crawl through ghoul infested metro tunnels, super mutant filled city ruins, and fix your satellite so you can tell me my father left?!?! NO SIR" and kill him on the spot every time.

But when I do think back to it New Vegas is lacking the cool quests like enslaving people, or the oasis. (id say the pit and PL but those are DLC so we cant compare those yet). but what it lacked in abstract quests like those it made up in side quests that made the main story even more interesting. Like getting the boomers to help, or destroying the monorail. or assaulting Nelson. Also i loved vault 11 too, that place was crazy! it was even more freaky because the random traps kept getting set off by the stuff inside there around the corners so im just hearing all these booms and stuff thinking something nasty is going to come kill me.

Honestly, I don't see much of a difference between how the quests are set up in Fallout 3/New Vegas. Ultimately both games have side quests that come down to going somewhere and talking to someone or fetching something. It's more noticeable in New Vegas because NV has way more content, but I don't think these quests were handled any worse than they were in Fallout 3. On the contrary, I found that for the most part New Vegas at least offered more diversity in how you handle these situations than Fallout 3 did.

As for motivation, I don't see any difference here either. Whether you're talking about Fallout 3, New Vegas or Dragon Age you're going to find that your character doesn't have any genuine reason to do 95% of the available side quests/optional content. Side quests and other types of optional content are generally just that, optional irrelevant side stories that usually don't impact or matter to your character no matter what game you're playing. You can of course feel that a certain side quest is more compelling or engaging, but I don't see how I as the Lone Wanderer have any more reason to do "You Gotta Shoot 'Em In The Dead" for Mr. Crowley than I do "Bye, Bye Love" for Joana as the Courier. I didn't even find one of these quests particularly more interesting than the other either, but the latter was definitely better written.

I think one can argue that Fallout 3's side content was just as flat and uninvolving as you claim New Vegas' is. I certainly didn't feel any more motivated to do Fallout 3's stuff than I did New Vegas'.

A lot of the 'F3 is better/FNV is better' thing is down to personal taste...that doesn't make one view right or wrong. Personally, I enjoyed both, but I enjoyed F3 more. I would like to have seen some of the gloss from FNV included as part of F3....things like the extra choice in weapons, the ammo and crafting business, the changed interaction system with NPC's, etc. But, when it's all boiled down, those things are simply gloss - enhancements on top of what was already provided in F3.

For me, the major difference between the two games is simply this:

When my character walked out the gate at Meg', he knew he was straight up in the killing fields...notwithstanding that you eventually knew where the encounter zones were, you had to fight to get anywhere at most times. There were areas of the map that I simply didn't go until I had built my character up a bit...it was just too dangerous.

In FNV, it's all safe. You have to actually look for trouble...and then you can either avoid it or talk your way out of it, many times.

Mind you, I could be biased...I've pretty much given up on it until a bug fixing patch comes out...the effort to keep playing simply isn't worth it. Judging from the way the forums have slowed down, I don't think I'm alone in that.

what system do you play on? because I am playing on the PC and havent had any bugs and iv been playing since day one. only crashes or bugs i have had where from modding and messing with the .ini.

PC. But platform doesn't matter - all platforms have had the issues. Some people get them, some people don't. If they were only minor, easily correctable issues, a fix would have been out by now.

I don't think there is any question that there are problems for some people, though, but that wasn't my main point.

Personally, although the game is good, and it does add to what F3 presented, it simply didn't have the atmosphere that F3 did...and when it became an effort to keep going because of the programming issues, it then became a game that was a chore to play.

I feel the opposite about them. FO3 had scalable enemies and I could kill the gatling gun robots with a broken pistol at level 2 as effectively as using a rocket launcher at 20. NV on the other hand I had to avoid stuff like cazadores and giant radscorpions because I knew I did not have the firepower to take them on. At low levels I found myself watching merchant/NCR/CL patrols fighting critters and each other with rapt anticipation as I waited to pounce on their bloody corpses for all kinds of item upgrades. Watching a pack of geckos eat a guy then looting his stuff was good times. Sometimes I help the people out, but I also wish I could bet on the outcomes of the fights. I do wish for more random patrols to shoot/follow.

I like both the same but for very different reasons, the same for 1, 2 & even tactics.
Each takes the same story and world, but spins it to suit varied tastes, every one will have a favourite, I sometimes lean towards FO2 as I like he scale, over the top humour, and difficulty.
Others will disagree, and have reasons for which I agree with them.

As for bug's outside of gameplay issues, most bugs and I've had two, one in fact a very bad one can often be found rooted elsewhere...
Not that I'm saying yours is Gungho I believe you hen you say the game is the cause of yours, just after finding out it was my AV a few weeks back has made me loathe to directly blame NV as the cause first.