@tds418: I haven't played 4, but am one of the people that was on board with Fallout 3 and couldn't get into new vegas, so i bet 4 would evoke a similar reaction.

To me, Bethesda games are all about the world. So that first time stomping around a 3d fallout game with that old timey vibe & the music was a great experience. It also had some very memorable setpieces, especially the Megaton decision. Sure, gameplay wise it never felt great, but it was neat to play a first person fallout game. I expected to enjoy New Vegas after that experience, but felt that it just didn't offer the same pull anymore. I knew what to expect from the world, the style was the same and the quests never felt very meaningful to me. Eventually i just stopped playing the game. I tried to get back into it 5 times because people keep praising New Vegas as this masterpiece, but even as i clocked in at 50 hours with all mods enabled i was not having a good time anymore. The novelty of the world had faded away.

For what it's worth, i had a similar reaction to Elder Scrolls. Loved my first encounter with the series ( Oblivion) and spent many hours in it. Played a ton of Skyrim as well, but thought the world was less interesting , the quests weren't very satisfying and as my savefile on PS3 grew and grew, the amount of times the game locked up increased as well. Eventually stopped playing that as well.

Now that there are multiple fallout games out there, i bet that Fallout 3 is not fun to play at all. Just like how New Vegas is not a fun game to play. But experiencing that world in first person for the first time was pretty cool at the time, and Megaton still sticks with me in a way that no quests from New Vegas ever did.

@onemanarmyy: You might enjoy the world of Fallout 4! Exploring the wasteland in FO3 was fun for the novelty of it, but it's kinda blegh in retrospect. Fallout 4 has more distinctive areas that I had a blast exploring. Not as extreme as Oblivion's different regions, but pretty damn good variety I thought.

Didn't play New Vegas though, so I can't say how it compares there.

FWIW, I too loved Oblivion and found the world of Skyrim slightly less interesting, but find the world of F4 >>> F3.

Anyway thanks for some responses folks, there was no hostility in my original post just genuine confusion as to why F3 receives so much more praise than 4. (I mean geez, DC was such a pain to explore in F3, with giant pounds of bleh-looking rubble everywhere that forced you to take the similar looking metro tunnels everywhere. Ugh.)

@tds418: I think the world of Fallout 3 is way more interesting to explore. I found the quests to just be more fleshed out as well. The way you describe 3 is how I would describe New Vegas. The locations are not nearly as interesting in New Vegas. What makes New Vegas stand out is the writing and nature of how the player can manipulate the story. The politics of New Vegas are fascinating and they went crazy with the weapons. Fallout 4's world only sets itself apart because there is more color in the Boston area, but the actual locations didn't stand out nearly as much as they did in 3's.

One thing I have to consider is that I recognize the locations in 3 more than 4, so there could be that factor of seeing Capitol Hill and The Washington Monument in the game. It makes the game feel a little more special.

Ok. Let me have it.