Fallout: New Vegas - 10 Things Nobody Admits It Did Better Than 3

2. Reputation And Factions

Fallout 3 didn't really give you any incentive to play the game any other way than as either a straight bad guy or a straight good guy. With exclusive perks and dialogue options only becoming available if you leaned to one side more extremely than another, you€™d be shooting yourself in the foot from a gameplay perspective if you tried to play through the the third game neutrally. However, New Vegas' faction reputation system would constantly force you to make difficult decisions between the game's different gangs. Because your reputation between different factions influenced how they'd treat you, it meant you were constantly playing through faction quests as a middle man, keeping your allegiances balanced in the process so you wouldn't fall out of favour with one group and be murdered on sight the next time you saw them. The mechanic meant you were always playing as a double agent between the different gangs, essentially manipulating each group so you could ultimately get what you needed out of them. The focus on reputations created a scenario where your interactions with the people you met genuinely made a difference to how your game would pan out €“ and constantly trying to juggle the often contradicting gangs to suit your own needs always made for exciting and unpredictable gameplay.