In our office we have me: a person who loved Skyrim but struggled to get into Fallout 3 for some reason. We also have Luke Hopewell, Gizmodo Editor. He loved Fallout 3 more than any other game ever made, but couldn’t get into Skyrim.
Now I’m not saying that you can’t like one and not the other — both games are similar — but people tend to prefer one over the other. Which is your favourite?
Comments
70 responses to “The Big Question: Fallout 3 Or Skyrim?”
Alright, it was 100% Fallout 3 when I voted. I will not be back to check. Good day.
better check back, its now 55 to 45 in Skyrims favour….
50.14 to 49.86 in Fallout’s favour currently…
Wow this is a really tight poll!
New Vegas.
I cant vote, the poll is missing New Vegas
are you kidding? are you one of those people that think KOTOR2 Was a good game?
Skyrim leading at 51% pew pew
never played kotor or kotor 2 so i cant answer that question, but to me New Vegas was the Superior Fallout game when up against fallout 3. also i played the pc version and i experienced a lot less game breaking bugs with New Vegas than i did with Fallout 3 ( though i blamed most of those on G4WL). Even then the bug testing was done by Bethesda and not Obsidian.
Now i have 1000 hrs in new and 1300 in skyrim and about 300hrs in fallout 3. that would say i prefered skyrim over New vegas but thats not quite right in those 1300hrs i kept finding more and more that skyrim just wasnt ready for release. the skill trees were very lack luster, magic while graphically better than oblivion was extremely weak compared to melee and archery. The world was also very empty and non threatening and then just all of BGS games, there was no game balance to the point that with out using any exploits you were a god by the time you were level 15.
You could have learned a trade with that number of hours in a game. Or gotten a degree, or a pilot’s licence – that’s insane 🙂 What an enormous investment in the games – you are a master of games, sir.
eh its not that much when you consider that skyrim has been out for 4 years and New Vegas for 6 years, it works out to playing them each for around 45-90mins a day
I voted for Skyrim, then got Fallout nostalgia as soon as I did.
Skyrim is the technically superior game (unless you own a PS3), and I’m certain that if they’d been made in reverse order then Fallout would be on top.
By that logic Fallout 4 should be at least better than Skyrim…. and that’s a thought that near paralyses me with excitement!
Tough choice. Oblivion with guns or Fallout with swords and magic
Went Fallout 3 in the end although I have spent a lot of time in both worlds. At the end of the day fallout is more of a location and world than I found in Skyrim. Skyrim was a bit more generic, amazing fun but it could be cut and pasted anywhere. Plus I have been a fallout fan for far too long to vote any other way
It would probably be fairer to compare Fallout 3 with Oblivion.
My answer is always going to be Elder Scrolls though because I prefer fantasy over post apocalyptic 50’s retro future.
50/50 exactly upon my vote. If the next person is the last to vote (which naturally I’m assuming is the case) then he/she will decide how history judges these games. Godspeed. With great power comes great responsibility.
474 hours in Skyrim
435 hours in Fallout 3
Skyrim by a whisker gets the nod
massive respect..
but you gotta get outside some more 🙂
I work outside, I prefer my leisure time in 🙂
pfft light weight 😛
For me: Skyrim : 1684 hours
Fallout NV* : 33 hours
So like you Claymore, it was Skyrim by a nose. :p But to be fair, I really only just got into the Fallouts from late last year
*I used NV only because I can’t go back to Fallout 3, ever, even though I was digging it.
Played a lot of Skyrim but only just started playing Fallout 3. Definitely prefer Skyrim. Might enjoy Fallout 3 more if it didn’t rely so much on guns.
Its funny, when I play fallout i’m more likely to be melee and in Skyrim I prefer to play ranged like a caster or ranger.
New Vegas is brilliant fun as a melee character and the sound it makes when you crit someone with a power fist is amazing.
So far rippers are my weapon of choice. Nothing like sawing your enemy in half!
I do like the humour in Fallout 3 though. My original comment probably made it sound like I don’t like the game much. I do. Just not the gun battles.
Gun play in Fallout 3 is pretty bad compared to New Vegas, in F3 the bullets kind of just spray out in a big circle even if your guns skill is 100. In New Vegas if you aim down sights your bullets are going to go where you are aiming.
I’ve played a bit of NV when F3 kept crashing on me (got both at the same time) and agree gun play is better. I’m hoping Fallout 4 will be much improved on both.
I played a TON of Skyrim (all of them…way back…) and Fallout (yes, I remember when killing rats in a cave outside my vault with a knife and AIMING at its head was thrilling …click …bleep … miss… wait for my next turn…)
Got to say though the thing that swayed it for me was the humour of Fallout.
And Elder Scrolls Online bored the hell out of me… (sad face) I know, not in the vote.
FALLOUT 3. SKYRIM IS ONE OF THE WORST RPGS OF ALL TIME, EVERYTHING ABOUT IT WAS HORRIBLE.
Silly potato.
Silly SHOUTY potato.
I agree with the shouting potato. However Darklands is better than all of them
I got into both. But Fallout takes the cakes…just.
Tough one…
Skyrim for me but maybe just because its fresher in my mind.
Neither and both. I spent hundreds of hours in each, it’s easier to pick a favourite offspring than it is to pick a favourite out of these 2.
I’d lean towards Skyrim slightly more only because I prefer the lushness of the world compared to the devastation of Fallout 3.
Uh.. well Skyrim was boring as all hell (repetitive, slow dull combat and mediocre story) and I’ve never played Fallout 3 so I’ll refrain from voting 😛
Only a Stormcloak would say this^^. :p
I think you’re confused. Stormcloaks are the true sons of Skyrim.
And here I used to think you were a decent guy who wouldn’t get seduced by fascist Nord nationalists like the Stormjokes. *sighs & shakes head dissapointingly*
True sons of Skyrm love the taste of mead and freedom, not Thalmor ****, like the Imperials!
PRAISE MIGHTY TALOS!
Hey, I’m with you on the Thalmor dickbags. My favourite game is to play “Lets ethnically cleanse the Thalmor”. But the stormcloaks are nuthin’ but a bunch of religious juiceheads following a strategic dunce (and his sidekick in a bear suit!) who’s efforts are playing into the hands of the Thalmor.
And for the record, Windhelm is the ass-end of Tamriel. Deal.
cantwehaveboth.jpg
I get nostalgia for the game I’m not playing at the time hahaha Fallout 3 the locations were genuinely exciting and different to discover, Skyrim had more of the generic fantasy setting to it, but it was still fun to run around in. Variety in quests I’d give to Fallout 3. Obviously Skyrim has the benefit of being newer and so can still look fantastic (especially modded, but even vanilla Skyrim I still think looks great).
The leveling system of Skyrim is a lot more organic as well (I really don’t get the hate for Skyrim’s leveling system from ‘RPG purists’ who hate change). Your style of play dictates what you level up in. What is more role playing than that rather than gaining a level by shooting things in the face and then putting all your skill points into speech. It’s a system that’s never made sense to me and I’m glad Fallout 4 seems to be going away from that
Sooooo, Fallout has the better gameworld and quests but Skyrim plays better. All I know from that conclusion is that I’m excited as hell (more than any game in the last 15 years) for Fallout 4
have always loved skyrim, still dive into every now and again. havnt finished the story line yet. love that addons and the mods and being able to play how i want wherever i want.
Decided to give Fallout 3 a go a few weeks back, to understand what all the FO4 hype was about. Didn’t even make it through the tutorial before the game crashed on me repeatedly.
So yeah, Skyrim! I’m probably going to give New Vegas a whirl at some point, since it apparently doesn’t have the same Win7 compatibility issues as FO3, but I’m gonna be pretty pissed if that won’t run either.
Fallout 3 has compatibility issues because GFWL is no longer a thing. Apparently there’s a pack still available from Microsoft that, once downloaded, magically fixes everything.
I found some good tips here http://pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/Fallout_3#Issues_fixed
and you can find more help on the Steam forums if you need it
(my game still crashes occasionally but not too bad)
The multicore issue is the main one to get it up and running on Windows 7 as far as I’ve experienced
Yeah, fixing that worked for me too but others seem to have a lot more trouble. I don’t know what the random crashing is, maybe playing for too long or something. It’s not every time I play. I just save often.
It wasn’t crashes per se… but basically the game just stopped allowing any input. Can’t move, can’t look around, can’t do anything, have to alt-tab out and kill the game before trying again. Always at the same point in the tutorial too.
I’ll try giving it a go after I’ve finished my new X-Com: EU playthrough… man that game is just the best.
That sounds like the multicore issue which causes random freezing and crashing.
Sweet, I’ll give it a go.
Cheers for the advice!
I’d say Skyrim had a number of improvements over Fallout 3 and probably told a better story, but I never really engaged with the world and my character. I sometimes dislike how in fantasy RPGs you’re simultaneously the most awesome revered powerful person in the world, but also everyone’s errand boy.
In Fallout 3 I felt more engaged because I was just some idiot that crawled out of a hole in the ground and had a distinct, personal purpose, and most of the things I did were a means to that end. Sure there were sidequests but they largely appealed to me personally. Meet an old lady who’s lost her violin and music? I want to help her.
Some of the logic behind the quests in Skyrim felt more flimsy than that. It was highly enjoyable, I just didn’t get into it the same way as Fallout.
Haha, this made me chuckle and couldn’t agree more…
“So you’re the legend in all that prophecies that everyone’s talking about, here to save us from the end of the world… Sweet, but first can you take these eggs to my mother in another village, she’s hungry” – Most character’s in a open world RPG.
I like how you can pick those eggs or whatever up in the first hour of the game, carry them with you across deserts, climbing mountains on horseback, as bandits fill you with arrows and dragons blast you with fire. They sit in your inventory as you endlessly craft daggers and study magic grimoires and visit the actual afterlife to fight spirits or something.
Long after you’ve forgotten what the eggs are for you find some old woman, patiently sitting at her kitchen table and hand her your hard boiled ghost eggs with ice crystals made from pure mana vibrating gently in place of normal yolk, and she’ll happily thank you despite having not eaten for probably four and a half years.
I vote Skyrim purely from a setting point of view. I like to play games as a bit of escapism, and so wandering through forests to quaint little villages and across snow covered mountains is somewhere I would prefer to ‘escape’ to as opposed to a post apocalyptic wasteland.
That being said, I did enjoy Fallout 3 and will undoubtedly play 4.
Skyrim 3 will be the balls!!!!
Doubt TES VI be set specifically in Skyrim. I’d bet decent money that it would be a game that covers the entire map of Tamriel, maybe even with some of the further reaches like Yokuda, or the Akaviri and Atmoran continents. But if they can’t do the entire continent, I reckon they’ll do something in the South of the continent covering Alinor, Valenwood, Elsweyr. None of those have had much (if any coverage) since TES: Arena. They have a good storyline going with the Aldmeri Dominion/Thalmor. I hope they don’t screw it up by doing another prequel though.
Fallout 3 for me. Played it when it first came out and loved it. Tried to play Skyrim after I bought it in some Steam sale, couldn’t murder children without a mod or something, total deal breaker. But seriously just didn’t like it for some reason.
My wife hated the idea of Skyrim at first, she doesn’t mind high fantasy but once dragons get involved she reaches a point where she can’t suspend her disbelief enough to enjoy it.
Skyrim was the first time she made an exception, the second being Game of Thrones. Despite loving both of these things, she’ll still profess to hate dragons.
I’m voting for Fallout. Don’t get me wrong, TES games are great, but Fallout just has way more character to it. Also, Fallout doesn’t have that annoying “save the world” conceit that TES games generally do. “Save the world” plots are usually pretty flimsy and not easy to relate to. Not saying that’s the case 100% of the time, but generally it is, and I don’t believe TES is any exception to that rule.
Fallout FTW. I’m so over fantasy settings, between all the movies, TV shows and games about them now… Post Apocalyptic is still reasonably unique, well except for games, where it seems to have a decent representation, but none at the same level as Fallout, unlike Fantasy, which has the like of Dragon Age and The Witcher competing directly at that level.
This is like asking me to choose between blonds and brunettes..
Never could
Go red heads. Hard to handle but hot.
I voted Fallout but wanted to vote for darklands
You’re doing it wrong. Should be New Vegas, not Fallout 3. Then both of you in the office would like both games.
My vote is for Fallout 3.
For some reason I just couldn’t quite get into Skyrim fully.
Now if we were talking TES vs. Fallout, or Oblivion or Morrowind specifically, whole different story.
I’ve never been a fan of snowy climates, so maybe that’s why I just couldn’t get into Skyrim.
It is on the top of shame list, and I truly intend on actually going back and finishing it (just doesn’t feel right when I’ve finished Morrowind and Oblivion a half dozen times each).
Now ask me to compare either game with The Witcher 3.. and I’d be biting my nails over the decision to pick Witcher instead of Fallout 3.. Skyrim just felt so vanilla.. grand.. wonderful.. inspiring.. but vanilla.
Skyrim! I think everyone loves both but Skyrim had a much deeper soundtrack which lent itself to better world building for me. I think fallout is amazing and I love the radio, but nothing beats hearing the Streets of Whiterun and walking around a familiar warm city environment. Fallout is a truly amazing game and I dont think 4 should change the feeling and atmosphere much, but due to its post apocalyptic setting I find it a bit harder to feel that warm magic feeling, I would rather live in Skyrim or Tamriel over some nasty post nuke world haha. I dont think they should be compared gameplay wise as they’re pretty much twins, so I voted off the feel of the world itself.
Skyrim for me, only slightly though. I just prefer the setting a bit more. It’s kind of hard to compare the 2, they’re similar but so different haha
To me it’s like being asked to choose between Pizza and Pizza. I love Pizza. I guess it’s Skyrim Pizza, only because Fallout 3 Pizza was a little jankier in it’s combat than Skyrim Pizza was.
Im gonna get some pizza.
I’m going to have the go with the most obvious choice…
Neither.40 Hours into Fallout 3 yet it had a better story than Skyrim.
I put in 120+ hours into Skyrim though. It sure was pretty at the time.
Being honest here… Neither… I couldn’t get into either, I just don’t get the appeal…
I went Skyrim, both were great games and Fallout would’ve won if it weren’t for the enemies getting ridiculously overpowered in the endgame. But was a tough choice