Fallout New Vegas or Dragon Age Origins?

FONV all the way.

Whilst I enjoyed DAO for what it was, its not an RPG in the sense of creating a character that interacts with the world in the way you want him to.

DAO is basically the tried-and-tested bioware plotline of a linear beginning sequence, 4 linear paths in the MQ (you get to choose the order, and there is a limited amount of conseqence for this choice if I'm being fair though), and they then converge back to a single linear path to finish the game. This is essentially the JRPG model, and unfortunately with the death of the traditional western rpg, is becoming considered the 'norm' for rpgs. The writing is in places good in DAO, but they spent a lot of their budget on expensive but poor voice actors (Kate Mulgrew... really?). Having said that, some dialogues are funny.

DAO is entertaining, its fairly difficult tactically (if you switch on friendly fire and up the difficulty from normal), and is a good game.

However, FONV chews it up as an rpg. FONV is one of the few games in recent times that has anything resembling choices and consequences, it thankfully doesn't have an idiotic 'save teh world plotline', and the writing in places is extremely good. It also fixes a lot of the problems that FO3 had with its FPS combat (e.g. the addition of ironsights and properly calibrated scopes makes a huge difference to non-VATS gameplay). The skills and perks have been reduced so that the player can't make a polymath but instead has to choose where to specialise, and the game rewards the different creation choices (e.g. with an abundance of dialogue checks for different skills as alternative ways to finish quests).

The only criticisms levelled at it by critics is that its buggy, which is somewhat unfair as it has about the same level of bugginess as a fully patched up install of FO3 (unsurprising given they share the same engine). Personally, I've had numerous CTDs but then I play with a save manager mod (which I did for FO3 too) and usually I can play for several hours at a time without problems.

Finally, the modding scene is far better for FO3 and FNV than for DAO from what I've seen; the mods can be truly innovative because its a sandbox game, and so the mods don't seem out of place. Even at this point in time, you can download some pretty good mods that will easily add 10s of hours to your playtime (two very good quest mods at the moment are 'A World of Pain' and 'NV Bounties' both of which offer extensive additional stuff to do in FNV and are freely available to PC users).

 

stop equating linear to bad. both games has a linear sequence of main quest you have to complete.
fonv is still on the easy side, hard with hardcore mode on is still very easy compared to fo1&2. fo3 was a joke in this regard, what's an rpg if you can max every skill?
both game are fun, but they are different types, go for da if you want a more traditional rpg.

 

I usually agree with you, but have to disagree here. I've played DAO 10 times all the way through on PC and loved every minute of it. It's a great game with a great story and obviously with my playing it 10 times, it has mega replay value. Also, DAO mods are excellent. I have so many downloaded that I lost count.

 

Same here, I found DAO very good..played it 4 times, but like any game, not everyone's cup of chocolate.

While waiting for the BIG sales I'm back playing a real time killer..M&M6.