Fallout 3 or Borderlands?

[natowarhead]

I've recently received a gift card to a local gaming store. I've been meaning to get another game for a while now. And I've had my eye on Fallout 3 and Borderlands for the PC.

I don't have much extra money these days and, to be honest, want to make a purchase worth my while. And there's just enough on the gift card to get either game, but not both.

I've read reviews and seen videos of both games but still am not able to make a decisions.

Any opinions on which one would be good? I'll take any comment into consideration.
I don't want to start a competition between the two games. Basically just looking for information that's not apparent from reviews or video clips on youtube.

Much appreciations in advance ^_^

P.S.

If it helps, my background includes:
- A LOT of World of Warcraft (quit it a few months ago after finally killing the Lich King)
- some Unreal Tournament (not good, but decent)
- A little Team Fortress 2 (I'm more cannon fodder than anything, but I like playing)
- A few Diablo clones ( I <3 RPG's)

[Azisien]

Fallout 3 is the superior RPG, Borderlands is the superior shooter.

Fallout 3 will probably last you longer, but it is single player. Borderlands is best played with 1-3 other buddies.

At the end of the day, both are pretty good. I'd go with Fallout 3 based on your "I <3 RPGs" comment though.

[BloodyMage]

I've never played Borderlands, but I have played and would recommend Fallout 3.

[Marc v4.0]

I have them both, and it can be a tough call.

Fallout 3 is worth your money more if none of your friends have Borderlands

Borderlands is much more entertaining and crazy then FO3 if your friends have it and you are playing with them.

[CABAL49]

Yeah, it really depends on if you prefer multiplayer or singleplayer. For getting Fallout 3 for PC all I can say is mods mods mods mods mods.

[Karrrrrrrrrrrresche]

Do what you want cause a pirate is free~

Anywho; Fallout Vegas is supposed to be coming down the pipeline soon. You might want to give that a check before taking the plunge.

Better still, if you're buying for PC normally Valve will put up some special offer for older games when the sequel gets to Steam. Look out for that.

[synkr0nized]

BOOOOOORDEERRRLAAAANDDDSSSSS



Both are good games, though.
Borderlands has a loot scaling system akin to WoW's, at least in the categories if nothing else, and is often marketed by people as a Diablo 2 style RPG merged with an FPS. If you go this route, make sure to get or plan to get as soon as you can the DLC, at least Dr. Ned's and General Knoxx [the former for being quite funny and well done and the latter for having more of that humor and the raised level cap/better loot].

Fallout 3 has, at least in my opinion, more open-endedness in the world and customization and can take much longer. It's also got a nice amount of DLC to explore and will definitely take your time and last you. This is where Borderlands could fall short -- some people don't enjoy playing it alone AND don't like dropping in on random games online, so they're kind of hosed/reliant on their friends if they have the game also. Fallout 3 is always there waiting. BUT on the other hand it lacks any multiplayer and exploration with friends.

[Aerozord]

I'd say both will eat up about as much the same time, and enjoyment depends on preferance. But while you can get just about all there is out of boarderlands in ten hours fallout3 is ALOT deeper. Boarderlands is, walk to point A, kill everything, repeat. I just like my variety too much to favor it.

Boarderlands is a game you pick back up every so often, Fallout 3 is a game I have 3 80-hour playthroughs already completed and thats before I got DLC.

[synkr0nized]

Borderlands doesn't keep you due to the time needed. It keeps you due to addiction to drops and hoping the RNG works in your favour whenever guns drop, chests are opened, and store supplies are refreshed. And the humor. Sure it's not new after the first time, but it's still fun. Then you can experiment with builds, try the other classes, try different class mods, and switch up your weapons. Just playing the story is only part of that.


OH MY GOD I NEED MORE GUNS PLEASE. You took away New Haven but gave me that whole armory. Mmmm.

And also driving your friends off of cliffs and other such nonsense 'cause you have more money than God and enjoy keeping them from finishing objectives. Why, yes, I do want to see what it's like getting smashed in the face by a drifter*! Oh, I'm sorry, gunner, did you not get a second wind after our car exploded? Also, the physics, or lack thereof, in the game engine make for a lot of... things that are silly and fun when playing multiplayer. Then there's the sabotage like blowing up vehicles before people get in them and making them walk. I'm a siren; I'm as fast as a car on foot anyway.


* I am the head of the Drifter Aeronautics Program. We have reached high into the sky in our quest to graduate ace pilots. Sadly, most applicants have not survived.



I suppose having good friends who like to play -- which we have been doing quite a bit of recently -- "correctly" and otherwise makes this much more appealing to me than wandering around chasing after my dad. That said, man, Fallout 3 is an amazing game and totally worth the hype it generated, and as Aerozord noted it can eat up huge chunks of time. I doubt the total time logged on any of my characters in Borderlands comes close to the played time for a single run-through.

EDIT: Also of note is that while there are arenas and duels and things set up for PvP in Borderlands it's really not balanced. And I'm not talking about going online and having a modder drop into your game; It really seems like I can kill anything without much effort as a siren or gunslinger with tresspass, but *shrug* maybe my friends just suck.

edit2: See below. That's kinda why I play F3 rarely. I have to have a nice bit of time just to progress little parts of the quests and story. I enjoy the NPC interaction and the different ways to level/build your character and even the combat system, for the most part, but the in-between travel, realistic as it may be, can get old fast.

[Kim]

Only get Fallout 3 if you like walking... a lot. Still good though.

[Sithdarth]

Only get Fallout 3 if you like walking... a lot. Still good though.

Eh I got to level 30, maxed all my special stats at 10 and all my skills at 100 as well as picking up every Bobble head and discovering every location on the map and I didn't really end up walking that much. Sure at first you have to walk to a place but after that you quickly just start fast traveling to the nearest place and taking very short walks to where you want to be. Although I might suggest not going my route with Fallout 3 because it has lost absolutely all challenge. Chinese stealth suit + 100 sneak + dart gun = absolutely no challenge. I eventually had to stop that and switch to my winterized T-51b but even in the Mothership Zeta addon I had so many stimpacks, so much health, and so many high damage weapons that I managed to walk through the entire addon over encumbered without dieing even to swarms of upwards of 6-7 enemies. I've really got to try running around naked or something. On the plus side I've collected like 80 mininukes or something obscene like that. Maybe I should just go on a town killing spree again.

Either way depending on how you do it either can be a major time sink. Oh and for Borderlands if you can get the Underdome or whatever addon because it gives you a bank to store stuff in and that is absolutely worth it. It also includes more multiplayer action but this multiplayer action you can try and tackle solo for a much greater challenge.

[Aerozord]

Sith, how did you max out all stats and find 80 mini-nukes? I thought there were like 20 in the game. Though in any case with the MIRV 80 doesn't go as far as you'd think

[Sithdarth]

Sith, how did you max out all stats and find 80 mini-nukes? I thought there were like 20 in the game. Though in any case with the MIRV 80 doesn't go as far as you'd think

Addons. I waited until level 30 to pick up the almost perfect perk which instantly made all my special stats that weren't at or above 9 into 9s. Then I picked up all the special bobble heads each of which added one to my special score raising them to 10. Although something glitched with my luck stat so that it goes back to 9 when I drop the lucky 8 ball. I actually planed this from the very start of this character as I started a new one after I got the addons. I actually sat down during character creation and pretty much planned out his stats and skills up to level 30 from the very start to make sure I could max everything. This is a very twinked character using my entire experience from a previously completed game.

As for the mini nukes they show up in various parts of the different addons and they also start showing up as random drops from certain much higher level enemies. I think my actual count is closer to 70 but I still have two entire addons to go through at this point and I always seem to find more and well 10 shots with the MIRV is a lot of destruction. Of course now I've got all sorts of super alien tech to play with too which might be fun.

[The Artist Formerly Known as Hawk]

Both are good games, and I would reccomend them both. However, only one of them still keeps me playing, and that's Borderlands. I have probably played more time on my Siren alone than I ever spent on Fallout, though admittedly I never got any of the DLC because my saves got wiped and it was to much effort to start over.

I'd say if you like WoW and Diablo you'll be right at home in Borderlands. Yes it may not be as deep storywise as Fallout and if you do it solo it can be slightly boring at times (though no less than the endless wanderings of Fallout), but get yourself the DLCs, get some friends and you can spend hours having fun in the game. The main hook is in finding better weapons and equipment, which is incredibly addictive. I've been playing for months and still haven't seen all the guns that can drop and I'm still trying to farm the rarer types to complete my collection.

Wheras with Fallout I maxed out my character, had endless amounts of ammo and all the best weapons within about 30 hours and had all the quests completed, then got bored because there was little else to do or even replay. It was still good, but not as good as Borderlands.


Sith, how did you max out all stats and find 80 mini-nukes? I thought there were like 20 in the game. Though in any case with the MIRV 80 doesn't go as far as you'd think


It's easy to get maxed out stats, even without the addons. There are enough bobbleheads and skill books in the game to max everything out, especially if you use the perk that gives you 2 skill points for every book. Also dropping charisma at the start of the game to 1 helps out greatly, because it's a mostly useless skill. As for the nukes, there are actually about 120 or so in the core game alone, though I'm not sure if more were added in the DLC.

[EVILNess]

Me personally I would get Fallout 3, cause I get bored with Diabloesque games very easy. I am really the kind of guy who spends hours poking around random places looking for cool stuff. Fallout does that well.

Now I'm craving New Vegas again. Go GO HARDCORE MODE! Woo!

[Lak44]

I love fallout, i'm still rocking my "Brute" 100 in melee, explosives, and big guns ^_^
But borderlands has a lot of fun, the 4 classes, the UNGODLY amount of guns ranging from the shotgun rocket launcher to the sniper revolver...

If i wasnt a massive rpg fan, i'd pick Borderlands due to it's sexy "Roleplayering Shooter"'esk

And New Vegas is going to rock!

[Azisien]

Everything is not challenging at the end of Fallout 3. I had the most basic, non-planned build at all but by the time I was doing DLCs I was unstoppable. Still really, really fun.

Course, you could get Borderlands and just wait a month for New Vegas and enjoy Fallout 3.5.

[natowarhead]

As a follow up, I decided to go with Fallout 3.

Main reasons for My decision:

- Can play either as FPS or more RPG-ish with VATS depending on my Mood.
- More focused on Single player mode. I get bored of Multi-player FPS easily unless friends are playing with me; And I doubt I would be able to convince my friends to pull away from WoW or MW2.
- GOTYE has all DLC at the moment, whereas Borderlands' content still need to be purchased separately.

Note - These are my decisions for my circumstances. I'm sure Borderlands is a great game (Read the testimonies of some great forum members); It just wouldn't be the best use of my limited funds at the moment.


P.S. - 100 sneak + Pickpocket + a lot of Frag Mines farmed from the Mine Field is Over-powered. At least, early on it is. ^_^

[Sithdarth]

It stays that way. It is instant death to anything you can pick pocket. Later on when you start seeing super mutant overlords it is one of the two guaranteed ways to kill them in one shot. It just sucks that not everything has pockets to pick. Also, essentially any grenade of mine works just as well. The other guaranteed way to kill them is The Terrible Shotgun (a named and stupidly powerful weapon) + 100 Sneak + a point blank sneak attack to the face so every shot gun pellet scores a critical. I'm sure a sneak attack nuke to the face would work as well (did that once to every death claw in the Old Olney underground during my first play through and it was epic) but a little wasteful and dangerous.

Oh and I highly suggest doing the Operation Anchorage DLC like now. It'll get you awesome weapons and armor as well as the ability to use any power armor long before you could get it from the main quest. It is well worth the time to do it well before level 5 even.