I haven't played Fallout 3 unfortunately. I have beaten Skyrim however, and that game definitely has a ton of replay value. Plus there are seemingly endless mods for it. I would go for Skyrim.

Fallout 3 + New Vegas > Skyrim

Just found them better games period. VATS is pretty lame but it doesn't mean you have to use it all the time ;p

I hated Fallout 3 dunno why I just did... Like yea it was fun, but only for a day or two... Never played Skyrim, why not torrent and then buy what you like better?

Good 1

EDIT: re-read and saw you suggesting to pirate then buy ala "try before buy", instead of just flat pirating.

Carry on

I love them both for different reasons. Skyrim is great to get lost in. Definitely has a more magical "adventure" sort of feel and you can get countless hours out of that game. Fallout 3 gives you more of a gritty "survival" feeling and the story is indeed more compelling than Skyrim's.

Either way, you'll probably have a lot of fun and spend many hours playing whichever game you choose. I'd recommend just figuring out if you'd rather be in a fantasy world or post-apocalyptic world.

Fallout 3 because in skyrim it was annoying every time I left a town I had to fight or run away from a dragon and while it was cool at first got very annoying quickly

buy both

thank me later

Skyrim: Easy as fuck fights with a decent environment that gets boring after 10 hours of running ANYWHERE. Dungeons are so simplistic an 8 year old can beat them. Final fight is easier than the first dragon. Enchantment and Alchemy are still broken after quite a few patches.

Fallout 3: Consistently fun. The brown and bloom gets drab, but encounters aren't as cut and dry as strafe-kiting and power-hits. The ranged weaponry has more variety, while the melee is gratifying. The storyline makes little-to-no sense, but is alleviated because of the massive amount of content.

Skyrim completion time (main arcs completed and unique items collected as well as dragon shouts): Maybe 60 hours.
Fallout 3 completion time: I put around 100.

a lot of the fallout 3 sidequests/backstory are really fucking eerie/interesting

definitely a fun world to get lost in

Skyrim is gorgeous. I had a good time wandering around and appreciating the artsy fartsy aspect. But as for really playing it, I did grow a little bored. I can't say if this was because it was genuinely less engaging than previous Elder Scrolls games, or if I just preferred Oblivion. I don't know. But there's definitely tons to explore and tons to do, so you're definitely getting your money out of it (or not, you scumbag pirate). It's cool that you don't select your main stats at any point in the game, so you're free to switch up your combat style at will.

Fallout 3 was pretty great. I agree with others when it comes to the environment, it gets old pretty quickly. But, I mean, it is a wasteland, I don't know what I was expecting. The DLC is pretty neat but not something I would pay extra for, so getting GotY on the cheap is the best idea, just in case you hadn't figured such already. Like M said, the lore is very interestng, so I even find myself reading about it online.

A lot of folks will say that they prefer New Vegas over Fallout 3, and I can see a few additions that may make Vegas more worth your dollar if you're just getting one game (Survival mode, weapon upgrades, whatever). The map is also smaller though (at least as far as I can remember, correct me if I'm wrong, guys), and the main story line has a little more oomph to it than in Fallout 3--but who plays for the main story?

i enjoyed skyrim more mainly because i enjoyed the setting more

why not tomb raider

New Vegas

I find FO3/NV to be much better games in a lot of ways than Skyrim, from my time playing them, but if you're a lot more of a fan of western fantasy than tongue-in-cheek scifi and classic CRPG mechanics, you'll likely like Skyrim more even though it's generally worse. Skyrim isn't very good as an RPG even though it markets itself as one, but it's a great action/adventure game, and if you don't behave completionistic it has enough replay value. FO3/NV on the other hand belong a lot more to the open world RPG genre they fall under, with all the broken mechanics *coughstealth* and more than less of the dynamic worldbuilding the genre implies.

IT'S LIKE SKYRIM WITH GUNS.

I literally hate bethesda games, fallout 3 basically took my entire childhood, chopped it up in a blender, and handed me a pat on the back for their betrayal of the Wasteland legacy that they had produced. When I heard that Bethesda had won the rights to the fallout franchise over Obsidian/Tim Cain, I immediately knew it was going to be awful. At least they tried to say sorry by allowing Obsidian to make New Vegas, but as they used to say in the air force, a pound of meat, no matter how nice you wrap it even if you put it in a fighter jet, is still just a pound of meat. The only joy I found in fallout 3 was butchering every expressionless dumfounded character with my glorified potato gun, launching various absurd projectiles at them until they died (and in some cases got up again).

What can you expect from a company run by lawyers and not gamers :(

Skyrim was abysmal, not only was it broken and altogether boring, the story didn't make any sense, and the game was not play tested AT ALL (at release the main quest came with 2 game breaking bugs - that's always a + and reflects well on a company's QA dept.) but it wasn't even fun in the same way as watching "The Room" or as interesting as any of the other train wrecks that they've produced over the years - at least it was fun in Elder Scrolls watching your poor guy get fucked upon by a toad. And for the love of the sweet baby jesus TF2 has *far* better facial expressions than the blank 1000 mile stare you get from every bethesda game or the incessant recycling of voice actors - I literally would forget where I was because Jarl B and Jarl C had the same voice actor and looked virtually the same. Exploring the dungeons found in the game was fun at first too - until I realized that EVERY DUNGEON IS VIRTUALLY THE SAME. Do 1-2 of them and you've basically seen all they've got to offer.

Buy fallout 1-2, they're like 10$ and leagues better than any of the aforementioned swill in this post.

Having serious input here, I've only played a little of Fallout 3 (pretty good from what I've played) and only have seen bits and pieces of Skyrim. VATS in Fallout 3 is kinda meh, since it really doesn't feel like an FPS anymore when you use it. You can not use VATS, but your accuracy will be dreadful.

I must agree with the last bit of the previous post though, because Fallout 1 and 2 are awesome.

I would recommend Fallout 3 over skyrim because as brought up previously, the combat system in Skyrim gets old, fast. The environment of the Wasteland can be changed greatly w/ some of the better mods out there.

Fallout Triple, probably. Melee combat in that engine feels like cutting down a tree with a fish. Unless you want to go Full Waifu Simulator HD or something along those lines, grab Fallout 3. Swords versus guns. Take your pick.

Or just do this, although it's a completely different game that you may or may not be looking for. Chances are, if you wanted to play the 'classic' Fallouts, you'd have done so already, but this is coming from a guy who played Fallout 3, then 2, then 1.

The Fallout 3 wasteland gets really dull to look at after a while, but the locations are fairly varied. Skyrim has some really nice scenery but every cave in Skyrim is essentially the same exact thing replicated over and over again, which is really disappointing.

The combat in both games is pretty dull IMO. VATS makes a lot less sense in an FPS/RPG than it did in an oldschool over-the-top RPG game. You don't need to use VATS and can't all the time, but the FPS portion of Fallout is fairly flat. On the other hand, Skyrim has a really straightforward "swing or block" combat system. There's spells as well, but the dual handed spell feature really doesn't add much. The RPG aspect of both games is better than the combat.

To answer the question, I don't really know. It really is just swords vs guns when you get down to it. If you're more into oldschool RPGs I would highly recommend Fallout 1 and 2 like marxist said.

neither

dunno i cannot do bethesda games at all, apparently it works for some people but in every single bethesda game since (and including) oblivion the world just feels incredibly stilted and lifeless to me, the characters all chillin up in that uncanny valley, im constantly aware that im playing a game and cannot get any immersion going which is death to an open world sandbox wrpg for me cuz i stop giving a shit about any of it about 1-2 hours in

Save your money and spend it on hats.

On a more serious note, I've found that the only real difference in terms of quality with these two games is whether or not you prefer sci-fi or fantasy. They're both amazingly good and whichever one you pick will provide you with hours of enjoyment.

I haven't played Skyrim, but I seriously recommend Fallout 3 and New Vegas. Fallout 3 has a more open environment that let's you explore a little more than New Vegas, but the overall setting, story, and fighting is superior in New Vegas. In Fallout 3 you are pretty much forced to use VATS to aim well, but in New Vegas you have ironsights so using VATS is less needed

I've heard a lot of good things about skyrim; i'll probably get it at some point when the price drops and I don't have other games to beat first.

real talk, morrowind is far better than oblivion and skyrim combined tho

As far as bethesda games go, I've always considered Elder Scrolls games kind of just okay(at least without mods), while the Fallout games are definitely one of my favorite game series. I think it's mostly due to how the game takes itself; fallout has always been sort of the Weird Al Yankovic of games, in that the main focus is humor and just how ridiculous everything is, especially in sort of a dark comedy sense. Very little emphasis is put on serious situations, unlike the elder scrolls. I this makes it easier to overlook graphical flaws and gameplay bugs.

Morrowind = Bloody fantastic with the right mods installed. Also replay Fallout 2 again with the restoration patch. =D AS A MATTER OF FACT, the restoration patch just recently entered into the newest beta patch so definitely check it out Fallout 2 peeps. <3

Skyrim can be modded to make the combat harsher and some other mods can improve the gameplay aspect further. ._. I don't like dragons gulping up my followers like a certain someone.

Fallout 3 = Should be modded to get maximum replayability. Btw, get texture packs to improve the dreary textures in the game. It sure helped me out with enjoying the game, time and time again.

...Anyway, FO:NV = Personally my most-liked game atm if we have to pick a Bethesda game.

I guess Fallout 3 will be the better choice in my opinion of the two. It honestly depends on what you want, and I don't think I can add much to what has previously been said in this thread.

On a different note, if you are looking for an actually engaging RPG I strongly suggest you go pick up Planescape:Torment for 10$ on GoG or Baldur's Gate:EE for 15$ on Steam. Or you can go for the original two Fallout games. If what you value is a fleshed out and well realized story and fictional universe, I think either of those games will give you much more enjoyment than f3/skyrim.

skyrim because swords and dragons and fire.

I honestly don't think I used the VATs once

Never really liked either, but I guess Skyrim would be better since I HATED the guns in Fallout. You couldn't hit shit with any of them unless you were 2 feet away. The lack of terrible gun handling in Skyrim means it's probably a better game.