Where to get into fallout series?

[GloatingSwine]

I understand what everyone in Fallout 4 is fighting about and what the stakes are, which is more than I can say for Fallout 3.

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In Fallout 3 everyone is fighting over a limited necessary resource (clean water), it just doesn't do a lot with the worldbuilding to establish the scarcity of that resource. There's like one guy per city that seems to have a problem you can fix by giving them water.

In Fallout 4 everyone is just doing their own thing they just happen to be in the same place doing it. And they don't do a lot with the worldbuilding to establish why the Institute want to bother taking over the like ten guys who aren't mad or mutants or both in all of Boston. (They could have just turned up with an army of robits and said "We have shot all of the raiders and supermutants, you're welcome. Tax collectors will be along shortly." That, after all, is largely what the player does on behalf of the Minutemen except they have to do it all themself.)