The Mojave Wasteland was an incredibly boring looking place
The story is better in pretty much every way though
Like holy stuff do you even Vegas?
Northside, Freeside, and the Strip were pretty good areas. This includes the entire area around Vegas and the fiends.
The entire area around Vegas was Internet and had depth- every place had a story and most of all was BELIEVEABLE. It's a big difference. Like, holy stuff, 200 years later the loving canned food in a supermarket is still good to eat. People building a city around a bomb because a whopping 3 people out of it's pathetically low population of 90+ worship the loving thing? Perfect sense.