Damn that do be a lot of games son, on another note one franchise I’ve never played but heard crammed around ear so much is the Fallout series, It’s raved about so often as being a genre defining masterpiece that helped shape Open game worlds and the post apocalyptic genre of shooters forever, with its brilliant art direction, characters and combat. Yet with the absolute trashfire that was 76, my interest in the series has become skeptical, do the earlier games like 3, Vegas and 4 still hold up. Everyone I’ve ever known says Vegas is like the one of the fucking best Shooters they’re played and it features prominently in nerd and game culture and game personality community as an all time classic? Is it worth it now?
Caveat that I've only played 3 and NV and only on console, so no improvements that PC power or QoL mods might provide. I've heard that 4 is worse than both 3 and NV, but from the videos I've seen the gameplay is pretty close to identical, so I'm not sure why the zeitgeist doesn't like it specifically (maybe the story isn't as good? I know it starts out kind of strange).
I didn't buy either when they first came out, but I can imagine that they both felt like "old" games when they were first released. They can be kind of ugly, with framerate drops and places where the action starts to get kinda frantic but then the game decides it can't keep up with your input so it just starts dropping your button presses and you end up selecting actions that you didn't want to do… pretty frustrating at times.
That said, 3 and NV are still fun to play, yes. As others have said, there's just a massive amount of story and lore, if that's what pushes your buttons. For me, more than that, it's the really massive worlds full of places to explore and loot to collect (kinda similar to a Borderlands game in that respect though the action is very different). In between doing tasks, it's fun to just wander into an unexplored area of your map and see what's there. If it turns out that the monsters/religious extremists/political LARPers there are too tough for you, there's a decent chance you can still escape with your life, then make a mental note to go back there once you've leveled up and have more powerful loot. You eventually will obtain the game's best weapons and armor (for your play style, anyway) and bonk your head on the level cap, but it will take a
long time to get there. It all just
feels fun in a hard-to-describe way.
I would definitely suggest giving both games a try if you haven't yet. Just be prepared to sink over 100 hours into them, especially if you get the "ultimate editions" with the DLC areas - some of those can add well over 10 hours of gameplay if you don't rush through them. (They also raise the level cap of the base game so I recommend them for that reason alone…)
