Fallout 3 or New Vegas?

I'd say get New Vegas. It's more true to the originals than FO3.

I played the originals, and I liked Fallout 3... the first time I played it. There were quite a few little things that I found annoying that gave me the impression that the writers/designers hardly played the originals, but overall I liked it. The main quest left me kind of scratching my head. It wasn't until the second time I played it that I began to understand why a lot of people hated it. The main quest and a majority of the side quests are linear. I still don't hate it, but it stands as the worst game in the series IMO.

I'll just leave these two links for you:
The Shandification of Fallout
The Blistering Stupidity of Fallout 3 (contains spoilers)

*Edit: If you get New Vegas, you should get the Ultimate Edition as a lot of mods require the DLC. Wait a few weeks for the fall Sales and it will probably go on sale for the usual 75% off.

In terms of environment and story, play Fallout 3. If you prefer having a non-linear story plot, interesting characters, weapons, and lots of things to do, take Fallout: NV

How many hours of gameplay on the games:
Fallout 3 or NV?

I will never understand choosing between two good games and I'll never understand playing games out of order. Just get 3 and then NV when you get the money. I assure you F3 will last you a long time so by the time you finish it you'll have money for NV. And make sure to pick up F3: GOTY with all the DLC's.

New Vegas is the best !!!!

I prefer Fallout 3 but trying to get it to work in newer Windows is a PITA. Therefore I would go for New Vegas.

Honestly, you're better off with Fallout: NV if you want a truer Fallout experience and a general better RPG with a story that isn't completely railroaded.

But honestly, if you want one of the greatest RPGs ever made, you're better off playing Fallout 2 and just grabbing the entire classic Fallout collection for cheap either on Steam or on GOG.

I prefer New Vegas because of:

-fully fledged crafting systemboss
-Skills make sense in discussions, finally. YOu can convince one with speech to give them the explosives. Or with decent explosives skills you can make them trust you, because you're an expert. In FO3 there was barely any other choice than Speech (do it fo rme) Barter (gibe more money) or SPECIALS (Rarely occurs and you can't really improve them during gameplay.
-Story makes so much more sense. Fallout 3's main story is lacking and the ending purely sucks. No boss to speak about.
-Great DLCs
-Much varied weapon collection
-Way more quests in New Vegas without dropping in quality
-FACTION SYSTEM, finally! For example you make a quest for a major group, they'll like you more, and you can achieve bonuses with this. Or if you go a quest for X faction and kill a few soldiers belonging to faction Y, X will love you more while Y will hate you. Also, you can get their clothes as a disguise to get neutral reputation with them. Way more than Fallout 3's system where enemies will stay enemies forever, and good guys will be good guys.

Fallout 3's better points:
-Random events at designated areas. Now this is a feature I don't know why is not in New Vegas.
-Very few crafting recipes, but extremely good, almost unique weapons. In NV you can make for example 50 timebombs, lots of new healing items, etc. In Fallout 3 there's like 5 weapons, but like making a gun that shoots railway spikes, or one with scorpion stingers, or shooting any clutter at enemies (kill lthem with a Teddy bear!)
-Better postapocalyptic feeling - though if you look for an authentic Fallout experience, it's New Vegas - every Fallout game had quite a few settlements, and focus was on social interactions. FO3 made an overly ruined world to excuse the lack of social line, civilization, and overall lore.
Basically Fallout 3 is a shooter with semi-strong RPG elements -not counting the combat it, because it's obvious that improving guns improves your fighting, I wouldn't say the option to choose from various weapon types makes a game an RPG at all. Sadly the non-combat skills don't matter that much here - while Fallout New Vegas is an RPG that's presented though a shooter gameplay.

i found new vegas more relaxing, since i spent a lot of time exploring the wasteland instead if being inside a building (f3 has the washington area filled with buildings, houses and subways).

both are good, and if you can you should play them. the order doesn't matter though so if you start with nv you can go back to f3.

Trick question: Fallout 2

Fallout 3 is the only Fallout game that I've not replayed, and it's a game that I don't look back fondly at. I think that answers your question in regards to which game I think is better.

Site search box, or Google search?

http://www.steamgifts.com/discussion/bka4i/fallout-3-vs-fallout-new-vegas
http://www.steamgifts.com/discussion/3SrGb/fallout-3-or-fallout-new-vegas
http://www.steamgifts.com/discussion/sU9eX/fallout-3-or-new-vegas
http://www.steamgifts.com/discussion/tTRKE/fallout-3-vs-fallout-new-vegas
http://www.steamgifts.com/discussion/7SM6M/fallout-3-or-fallout-nv
http://www.steamgifts.com/discussion/UBOHc/fallout-new-vegas-or-fallout-new-vegas-complete-edition
http://www.steamgifts.com/discussion/pcar6/fallout-3-or-new-vegas
http://www.steamgifts.com/discussion/yKMd1/fallout-3-goty-or-fallout-new-vegas
http://www.steamgifts.com/discussion/pyRbp/which-to-buy-fallout-3-goty-or-fallout-new-vegas-ultimate-editon-or-both-or-neither
http://www.steamgifts.com/discussion/YlcZk/fallout-3-vs-fallout-new-vegas
http://www.steamgifts.com/discussion/cWAuy/fallout-3-vs-fallout-nv
http://www.steamgifts.com/discussion/55Cft/fallout-3-or-new-vegas
http://www.steamgifts.com/discussion/ypP3e/fallout-3-and-new-vegas
http://www.steamgifts.com/discussion/Z9RvF/fallout-3-or-new-vegas
http://www.steamgifts.com/discussion/mhnfu/fallout-3-or-nv
http://www.steamgifts.com/discussion/4wvCY/fallout-3-vs-new-vegas
http://www.steamgifts.com/discussion/8yD1A/fallout-3-or-new-vegas
http://www.steamgifts.com/discussion/7EmEd/fallout-3-or-new-vegas
http://www.steamgifts.com/discussion/fbyb3/fallout-3-or-fallout-nv
http://www.steamgifts.com/discussion/zCQOp/fallout-3-v-fallout-new-vegas
http://www.steamgifts.com/discussion/Tl3s4/another-fallout-3-and-new-vegas-thread
http://www.steamgifts.com/discussion/B6cIJ/fallout-3-or-fallout-new-vegas-best-editions
http://www.steamgifts.com/discussion/I84zn/fallout-3-or-fallout-new-vegas

get New Vegas on a SALE

If it's not the Ultimate Edition of New Vegas, go for Fallout 3. But both deserve a play-through at one point or another.

for some reason, i loved #3 and got bored of NV.......

Fallout: New Vegas Ultimate Edition

Unless you just plain hate isometric view RPGs I'd say get the Fallout classics collection and play through them first, then get NV when it's on sale. FO3 was a good game in it's own right but did not really feel like a Fallout game, it was too linear and the plot and writing was.....eh.

I usually say this to that particular question:

Short version:
You want a shooter with dungeon crawling: Fallout 3.
You want a cRPG with focus on story instead of fighting: New Vegas.

Long version:
You like to wander aimlessly and dungeon crawl for loot and don't care about story, characters, consistency, or anything involving writing, but enjoy an open world theme park where your main goal is to just kill random spawns, then Fallout 3. It is an exploration game with a great map, but about as much RPG as CoD is. It's an open world shooter with RPG elements and a bunch of corridor shooter DLCs.
FO3 is also a better game if you never played Fallouts. It completely disregarded the old lore and invented a mess of its own that contradicts the old games in roughly every imaginable ways. Fallout 4 will be a direct sequel of this game, not New Vegas.

If you want to play a good story where every action has short to game-spanning term consequences and where you are frequently presented with the option to not fight to solve problems, but don't care about so much about exploration on a fairly desolate map, then New Vegas. It's a story-oriented old-school cRPG with FPS mechanics and narrative-focused, gimmicky DLCs.
It's highly advised for those who played the original games since it is a direct sequel to Fallout 2, and also builds on the never-released original Fallout 3 (Van Buren). You can understand it just fine, but there are many references to the old events.
Also, Bethesda regards this game as if it never happened. Fallout 4 will have no references since the lore here is the old lore that is incompatible with the one found in Fallout 3.

Both games are the same in the regard that it is impossible to die after playing 3-4 hours as you exponentially outlevel enemies in all stats. FO3 balanced this out by cheating (added mobs that have ten times better stats than base game boss creatures), NV by levelling enemies with you either in stats (critters) or equipment (humans).
Both games offer mods, although NV mod support is superior with larger amount and more complex mods.

Bump