Fallout: New Vegas (2010)

Game #56/200 In a way, I regret playing this game so soon after Fallout 3. I loved my Fallout 3 experience, and having felt pretty satisfied with it after 25 or so hours (but not nearly finished), I chose to keep the momentum going and jump into Fallout NV. Like 3, NV was an outstanding experience (better than 3 in fact, although I had not felt that way in 2010), but had some issues that just barely prevent me from putting it on any all-time lists. It's a little discomforting to discredit NV, since it's really quite a full and well designed title considering its ambitions, and I wonder how much of what I didn't like should be attributed to my feeling of burnout, but I also have some pretty clear problems with the title. Something I found frustrating, but sensible from a design standpoint, was the lack of Stimpaks. These healing items are abundant in 3, and really just require a bit of scavenging, but in NV they're somewhat rare. You instead come by a lot of food. This is because NV introduces a "Survival" stat and wants you to do some cooking (guess how many times I used this feature?). It's not a bad idea, but it's slow and not the best implemented mechanic. You need to find a fire, manage ingredients (which require inventory space), and care enough to take a break from your adventuring to cook. I much preferred the simplicity of finding and using Stimpaks and the occasional food item when I had no other choice. To get my other qualm out of the way, I feel that the economy in NV was a little odd. In 3, caps are not too easy to obtain. You often have a big incentive to act immorally to gain caps when presented with choices. This adds an interesting dynamic to decision making. But in NV, you can come across some really valuable items without much trouble and sell them for huge numbers of caps (thousands). There are also other ways to make a lot of caps (gambling? I didn't get into it much, but it seems like it would work). And some items are also super expensive, while others are rather cheap. It didn't break the game or anything for me, but I do think it was a negative change from 3.

All other changes, though, I felt either positive or neutral toward. I will digress briefly to mention that I played the Ultimate edition and beat 2 out of the 4 DLCs. I found them both pretty exhausting to be honest even though the ideas were cool (Honest Hearts and Old World Blues). I was too burnt out to really do any more or even care much about the last ~10% of the main quest by the time I put the game down though, which is unfortunate. I really enjoyed playing with enhanced guns and I think some of the gun fighting was more satisfying because of the variety of weapons and enemies. The map is loaded was fun locations and you can have a blast just wondering around, not unlike 3, but the Mojave is more fun and better looking I think. The music, I forgot to add, is a MASSIVE downgrade. There is maybe one song I enjoyed, and several I downright despised ("Johnny, Johnny"). The main quest was also superior I think, and was incredibly well crafted with consideration to the game's "factions," or groups whom you can interact and side with who have conflicting interests. There is a pretty deep level of customization of how you can craft your experience based on who you side with. It's a lot of fun, and if I was not a brand new dad with a million other hobbies and interests, I could easily sink in 100s of hour exploring the map and the quest possibilities. NV takes a "quantity over quality" approach for most of its side quests, which is not to say they are all bad or that even most of them are, but there are quite a few that can be resolved in minutes. Some are interesting and, like 3, allow some player agency (Boon's quest where he snipes someone whom you choose was fascinating), but I think I prefer 3's quests overall. There is a certain dopamine rush one gets from not just completing, but also managing a large number of quests. Also, NV has a fleshed out companion system that is worth mentioning. This was nice; you can interact with and complete quests for/with a nice variety of partners within the game. They have some interesting dialogue/backstories/combat mechanics of their own.

Overall, NV is a hugely fun game with plenty of addicting (albeit, sometimes bite sized) quests, lots of dialogue and lore, and plenty of exploration and content. Although the lack of convenient healing options can be a bummer, there is always some kind of option for proceeding and succeeding. One day, when I have an abundance of time, I'd love to return and really sink my teeth into everything I missed (including the other 2 DLCs)... but who knows, I may revisit Skyrim before then.

After playing New Vegas I fully understand why people say this is the best Fallout. I LOVED the faction system, it made the world feel connected and react to my choices in a way that open-world games sometimes do not.

I thought the variety in goals and morality in choices was surprisingly detailed, with a lot of interesting choices at the hands of the player.

The core story-line is interesting and forces you to explore and meet the variety of factions which was cool.

However, even with all these positives, I am forced to accept I don't think Fallout is quite for me.

I generally don't love Open World games, and the Fallout setting doesn't speak to me nearly as much as the fantasy worlds of Elder Scrolls.

I found the world itself of New Vegas a bit boring/desolate. I get its a wasteland, but I felt like I spent a LOT of time wandering between settlements/points of interest, seeing very little, beyond legion assassins.

I appreciated that New Vegas tried to integrate mods and ammo types to give more variety and choice to the player, but I struggled to find any mods at most of the vendors I visited. Crafting at first seemed great, but was SO limited that I didn't like it.

I did like the system and method of shifting ammo from type to type, since I was sticking to 3 ish of the same guns.

Overall, I'm glad I finally played New Vegas, I see the hype behind it, but it wasn't really for me.

The general consensus (although some disagree) is that this is the best of the Fallout series. Although, not everyone loved it upon release. It, however, has gained in stature over time and many now consider it to be one of the best CRPG’s

The story takes place in the year 2281, 204 years after the great war between the USA and China devastated the world

You play the role of the Courier, who was ambushed, robbed, shot and buried, yet somehow survived

The writing and quests are terrific.

Some players experienced quite a few bugs upon release, ranging from minor to game breaking, but I can only recall 2 that plagued me

The combat is greatly improved from previous games

Crafting existed in earlier games, but it’s also greatly improved here with many more options

Your reputation which is based on your actions can be very important. There are many factions in the game. If you do something to help one, you’ll likely piss off another. On many occasions you’ll have to choose sides. Also, a good reputation will make NPC’s act kindlier to you, while a bad rep can make them outwardly hostile. Some missions can be made much easier if you’ve got a good rep

You can have up to two companions at a given time and you are able to alter how they approach combat situations. They can be aggressive or passive. Each companion has its advantages and disadvantages, but you can simply dismiss one for another companion, who is better suited for a given mission and then bring the other back to join you later

I found it to be a very immersive experience and fairly addicting to explore this vast world

Wonderful!

There isn't much more to add that people haven't said already. The quest lines are well thought out and, I found them to be very engaging. I enjoyed most, if not all of them. I love the little details and how there are things that you can miss depending on how you approach the game. The morality system is far more fleshed out than in its predecessor Fallout 3, adding a moral system and a faction representation system.

It is one of my favorite games for sure. I also recognize that there was much room for improvement, especially with regards to Caesar's legion for example. I think Caesar is a very compelling character, but I also understood, due to crunch time in development, a lot of what Obsidian had planned was unfortunately cut. So it does feel that side of the game is a bit lacking in content, and there are aspects of this for other factions as well.

I dearly love Fallout 3 and put 400 hours into it. I love this whole structure for a videogame, and the Fallout world has so much creative genius.

When I play a videogame like this, I prefer to fully roleplay and experience what would happen if it were me in that scenario. My experience with New Vegas was, near the start of the game there is a field of deathclaws, and I died once to them. I then travelled a desolate route to Vegas where the deathclaws were within visual distance. This route seemed to be between two of the game's pathways if I remember correctly. I then remember being killed over and over by Cazadors. I was curious about Brotherhood of Steel, and checked out their bunker, but they are locked down tight in isolationism and I did not want to bother them. Then I helped a computer billionaire and got a condominium.

There really is not much more to roleplay anymore once you realize you are playing as one of the luckiest people in New Vegas. In Fallout 3 I felt great struggle and homelessness, which gave me a sense of abandon that motivated me to explore everywhere, and I looked to each existing faction with a mix of feelings. The factions in Vegas are none of the player's business and seemed to be warring pointlessly (from the Courier's perspective).

The coolest thing that I saw was the GEKS vault, but I had a deflated feeling when I left it, for two reasons; my character would be doomed to die from the spores after the spore zombies hurt me (but the game did not acknowledge this), and that the GEKS vault makes it clear that the game is far more empty than it was meant to be.

I did not enjoy playing New Vegas, but I love its work on improving Fallout 3's upgrade system and dialogue options. It also did a quality job of fleshing out this region of the Fallout Universe. I found Fallout 3 to be the most I have ever appreciated an experience point system in a game, and the unpredictable utility of the upgrades and experience points in Fallout: New Vegas is peak quality. I just found it disappointing that the emptiness of the game detracted from the potential of this utility.

I finally got around to playing Fallout New Vegas (only 10 years after it was released!) and I really enjoyed it. I haven't played Fallout 4 yet but this is my favourite Fallout game so far. The story was good enough to keep me interested, the gameplay got a bit too easy but was overall fun, and I really like the character levelling system.

The companions were a lot better than in Fallout 3, they were still fairly shallow but at least they interacted a bit with the world and I enjoyed their quests. The factions were good - I liked having a different rating system with each faction although by the end everyone idolised me except the Legion and the Power Gangers.

I played through all four dlcs - Dead Money was great, it felt very different to the rest of Fallout and I loved the atmosphere, companions and gameplay. Old World Blues was very funny, especially at the start, but the gameplay was repetitive and it was too comedic for me to care about what happed in the end. Lonesome Road was excellent, the combat was properly challenging and the story and main character were compelling. The end was a little anti-climatic but overall it was great. Honest Hearts was the only dlc I didn't enjoy - the area looked good but it was basically empty, the main characters seemed interesting but they weren't fleshed out at all and the quests were all really dull fetch quests - very disappointing.

I used several mods, mainly unofficial patches and texture mods but Centered Third Person Camera is essential if you play in third person and Shut Up DLC Companions stops the dlc companions being insanely annoying.

The game looked pretty good with mods; I used Clarity to remove the orange tint from everything.

So I strongly recommend it, it's not perfect but I spent 70 hours on it and I enjoyed it to the end. Exploring isn't as fun as in Fallout 3, but I do think it is a better game overall.

Else don't bother.

FO:NV suffers from a lot of problems that also FO3 suffers from: plotline is barebones, enough to give you something to do or a goal to achieve. What changes from its brother, though, is that the DLC make the beef of this game.

From now on there will be heavy spoilers, just saying.

Dead Money has the coolest, most interesting setup than any of the other DLCs: the premise of having to go through a heavily, strangely irradiated Casino to catch the fortune of a lifetime is a godly premise. However, right off the bat it starts to bleed through its various loops and holes. Glitches and bugs aside (I managed to not die during one of the sound-pitches but, apparently, my head exploded, fixing me at 100% health for the reminder of the save game and DLC, taking away what little challenge there was. Couldn't fix it in any other way and my shortsighted self decided to overwrite after doing that particular segment without troubleshooting), the only character that resulted leaps and bounds interesting is Dean Domino. However, that is to say that he is also the only character to be 100% relevant to the Casino at hand - and also has the trickiest, most hidden "do this well or I die" mechanism trigger that seems to be triggered even by choosing a single line wrong than the intended line of thought you have to uphold with him. Premise crumbles once you reach the Casino and start poking through. Reasoning behind every motive is less than scarcely thought of (whilst, yes, a starlet doing drugs and heavy substance abuse might have been seen as wild by the critiques, a doctor with a certificate - which existed and was thought of - would have been a real game changer for the public opinion, rendering the process of what happened afterwards completely mental for anyone overseeing it as the timeline had a hiccup just in that moment and did not place the actual doctor's diagnosis after the entire betreyal and blackmail but before such, making it such a stupid oversight as it would have surely spurned someone so obsessed over VK to clear her name in a heartbeat considering he almost did so whilst she was merely a washed up actress from low income romance movies). Premise ruined, surprise dead. Whoop-dee-doo.

Honest Hearts surprised me: for how simplistic the line beneath it is, it appeared to be much more solid than the plot-twisted façade Dead Money tried to sling at people. Joshua Graham was a solid character, alongside with the tribal narrative that it brought on.

Old World Blues is... just... perfect: there is nothing I would change about it. Whilst there is a plot-twist at the very end, whilst it throws you into such wild and whimsical situation... it's so solid. It never annoys or bores you, despite the fetch quests that litter it all over. The environment is rich with lore to peruse and read, small details that can be overseen if not looked at directly. The characters are wild, terrifying but endearing in their own little quirks, despite how gruesome they can be (looking at you, poor Gabe). All the scientists, despite having lost themselves, despite being mental, are so interesting to talk to, are full of stuff to say. hell, even your brain is interesting, even good ol' Muggy. Even the furniture that you gather around the place has a mind of its own. And Doctor Mobius is just the cherry on top, with his kind nature and actual courage to go through what seems a living hell in order to keep his own friends at bay from the rest of the world. Best DLC out of all of them.

Lonesome Road is a damn shame and a damn mess: the premise is interesting, the surrounding too but the entire "it is your fault oh no, what did you do" when you have no real intention neither real will or knowledge of what could happen is simply a killer for me. Holding the Courier responsible of such an evil deed whilst they barely knew what the package contained simply on the terms that it could have been your house after your countless disgusting deeds is simply lunatic in my perspective. Ulysses tries, for the entire DLC, to come down upon a status of grandness, holier-than-thou status simply because he survived the Divide and it simply sounds hollow to the point of being frustrating and un-enjoyable. Knowing the deeds this man has done, knowing who he was and what he stood for and what he did was the killer. I could have felt guilty or proud, I could have felt reasonable disdain for having done such a thing and regret in having destroyed his home but, in the end, I put a gun to his head. Couldn't care less. As uneventful as a console command kill, just a good riddance.

All in all, the DLC force you to make choices but the game itself, in its vanilla glory, tells you that it matters, it doesn't matter, but it kind of matters. You can be everything and nothing but at the same time it matters only to some specific people and not the entire society at large. It's a mixed bag that wanted to give too much freedom and resulted in losing itself in the puddle of its own story.

Still worth playing it for some characters and at least two DLCs.