New Vegas is my favorite Fallout game. I started replaying it a few days ago.

you havent listed fallout tactics or fallout: brotherhood of steel

the former is a mission based game in the style of 1 and 2 and is ok, but id say its worse than 1/2

the latter is a top down twin stick shooter with bawls energy drink product placement in place of nuka cola. the game itself is also really mediocre

yeah i decided to only include the fallout games that are remotely entertaining

Fallout 1 hands down.

The original mystery, the characters are compelling, story is fun, discovering all the stuff is great.

Fallout 2 got bogged down in wacky side-plot type areas that, while fun, ended up being too much - the ol' "you're finished when you can't take anything more away" problem.

I've simply never found a Bethesda RPG that held my attention beyond a few real hours of play time. Eventually I'll up and decide to give them more of a chance, but I feel like while yes, most RPGs have a power curve that eventually trivialize portions of the game (due to you being a God at some point) that point comes super early in basically every Bethesda title I've played and I end up quitting as I can do whatever I want with impunity - though they are pretty good at visual story telling in some places and have a lot of nice visual set pieces.

I tried out New Vegas, but it suffers from a real problem in that it presents a whole bunch of stuff to the player very rapidly and you don't really get a lot of time to slow down and smell the roses, which is fine if you're going for an intense story, but I like games that are more of a slow burn that slowly ramps up to a big crescendo, rather than being so hectic right off the bat - I'm old. It's like they were scared people wouldn't play more than 6 hours so they crammed tons of crap into the front end.

https://i.imgur.com/4BMt7A1.jpg

fallout 3 got me into bethesda games, my cousins and brother and i all played the shit out of that game

I find Fallout 1 and 2 to be remarkable in the sense of what they offered and the scope of the series at the time and I commend Obsidian for what they did, with what they had available to them and the length of time given to bring out the New Vegas IP they did very well. I find that Bethesda haven't done much good for the series lore wise and in most aspects have absolutely ruined it with the dumbing down of RPG elements, plus their abysmal storytelling... but it's opened it up to greater audiences I guess... I finished Fallout 4 once and was severely disappointed in it.

I'd have to go with Vegas as it's the closest game that would match Fallout 1/2 in all their glory and it's somewhat well modernized.

so why did you put Fallout 4 there

Fallout 1 and 2 had the best writing but the gameplay is pretty dated. Would love to see them get a proper remake.
Fallout 3 irredeemable trash. Fun to explore but the writing was dreadful.
Fallout NV while not as good as 1 or 2 in some ways (probably due to bethesda forcing them to rush it out the door unfinished) is a much more pleasant exspirience for me anyways. Best in the series IMO. Shines with mods.
Fallout 4 greatly improved the gunplay but the gunplay is still trash. Voiced protagonist was a fucking mistake. Severely dumbed down. A step backwards from FO3 in many aspects. Writing is just as cringe as FO3.

Personally i liked all the fallout games (except the two left out of your vote of course, we never count those). They all have something good to offer and excell over each other in different ways.

However its saddens me that fallout 3 gets a lot of unwarranted flak. I found a video that does a great job of reminding people whats so good about fallout 3, its abit long but if you didnt like fallout 3 before i went into this video with an open mind, it does a good job of turning opinions i think; https://youtu.be/5z8XHe2NoAE

I'm still voting for fallout 1 however. Last recent playthrough had be playing 18 hours straight.

i somewhat prefer fallout 2 to 1, it felt streamlined and a lot less clunkier to play though the rpg-based gameplay was still there and still fun

only major complaint is the god-awful tutorial where if you didnt main either h2h or pickpocket the dude with the key would beat you senseless, especially on hard

f1 fantastic story fantastic gameplay
f2 great story fantastic gameplay
f t never played
f3 never played
f nv great story good-meh gameplay
f4 meh story good gameplay

Nv all the way. Wished it had better gameplay