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Review: Fallout: New Vegas
Nov. 13th, 2010 05:48 pmSo, after a mere fifty-seven hours, I’ve finally finished New Vegas. Caesar’s Legion and New California have been forced to retreat, and the city of Vegas stands free and independent once again! Now, maybe I can concentrate on something else for a few days.
The game really harkens back to Fallout 1 and 2, setting wise – both in the return to the west coast setting, and also in a shift in focus. Fallout 3 was all about the pre-war world; you spend half the game in old museums and monuments, and the two main factions are both about preserving the remnants of the old world – the Brotherhood of Steel preserving technology, the Enclave trying to restore the United States. New Vegas is more about what arises from the ashes after the war, the struggle between the new nations that have arisen. It’s very much a western, with the Mohave as the frontier being forcibly ‘civilized’ by the expansion of the nations of New California and Caesar’s Legion.
Interestingly, this is the first Fallout game where one can actually choose sides – Fallout 1 and 2 had a lot of freedom, but in the end, you had to oppose the Master and the Enclave. Here, there’s three factions to choose from, plus the option to go for total independence. The Good/Evil karma setting isn’t as important; gaining a good reputation with the individual factions plays more of a role. The system’s interesting, if a little broken – it seems very easy to dig yourself into a hole with a faction with no chance to redeem yourself.
Cute touch – one faction is the Roman styled Caesar’s Legion. Amusingly, while most people refer to the legion’s leader as “See-zar”, members of the Legion pronounce it in the proper Latin fashion, as “Kai-zar”.
Gameplay’s almost identical as Fallout 3, though it feels like Obsidian took a look at Fallout 3’s modding community for ideas – weapon modifications, craftable ammo and an optional food system are all built into the game, which is nice – both for the features themselves, and it means future mods will presumably be more consistent in their handling of these features.
On the negative side – well, while the writing’s a lot better than Fallout 3, I felt quest design and exploration was a bit weaker. Most quests only give you money and experience as a reward, while F3 tended to give more unique benefits. As for exploration – Obsidian got rid of the collectable bobbleheads, and there aren’t many valuable items like Nuka-Cola Quantum or Pre-War Books to collect, so a lot of locations don’t really provide much exciting loot.
Related to that –there’s a lot of items that can be crafted at workbenches or campfires. Unfortunately, the craft able items often require ridiculously rare ingredients and are rarely worth the effort. Worst example? Medical stim-packs can be crafted with a few common herbs and an empty syringe. Unfortunately, in my 50+ hours of gameplay, I found precisely three empty syringes. Making things worse –stim-packs themselves are very, very common. Crafting them would be hardly worth the effort even if syringes were less rare.
Also, the game’s horribly bug-ridden – and I didn’t even get any of the really critical problems people are complaining about. It crashes fairly regularly, and some quests end up broken through no fault of the player.
I also wish the ‘hardcore’ mode features could be toggled on or off individually – I like the hunger system and some of the other difficulty increases, but I don’t like companions being permanently killed, especially since New Vegas’ companions all have unique quests and bonuses.
On the whole, though, a wonderful game. I’m already trying to work out what my next play though will be as. Either a stealthy energy weapons user, or a tough brawler. Not sure if I’ll back NCR or Caesar’s Legion this time around…
The game really harkens back to Fallout 1 and 2, setting wise – both in the return to the west coast setting, and also in a shift in focus. Fallout 3 was all about the pre-war world; you spend half the game in old museums and monuments, and the two main factions are both about preserving the remnants of the old world – the Brotherhood of Steel preserving technology, the Enclave trying to restore the United States. New Vegas is more about what arises from the ashes after the war, the struggle between the new nations that have arisen. It’s very much a western, with the Mohave as the frontier being forcibly ‘civilized’ by the expansion of the nations of New California and Caesar’s Legion.
Interestingly, this is the first Fallout game where one can actually choose sides – Fallout 1 and 2 had a lot of freedom, but in the end, you had to oppose the Master and the Enclave. Here, there’s three factions to choose from, plus the option to go for total independence. The Good/Evil karma setting isn’t as important; gaining a good reputation with the individual factions plays more of a role. The system’s interesting, if a little broken – it seems very easy to dig yourself into a hole with a faction with no chance to redeem yourself.
Cute touch – one faction is the Roman styled Caesar’s Legion. Amusingly, while most people refer to the legion’s leader as “See-zar”, members of the Legion pronounce it in the proper Latin fashion, as “Kai-zar”.
Gameplay’s almost identical as Fallout 3, though it feels like Obsidian took a look at Fallout 3’s modding community for ideas – weapon modifications, craftable ammo and an optional food system are all built into the game, which is nice – both for the features themselves, and it means future mods will presumably be more consistent in their handling of these features.
On the negative side – well, while the writing’s a lot better than Fallout 3, I felt quest design and exploration was a bit weaker. Most quests only give you money and experience as a reward, while F3 tended to give more unique benefits. As for exploration – Obsidian got rid of the collectable bobbleheads, and there aren’t many valuable items like Nuka-Cola Quantum or Pre-War Books to collect, so a lot of locations don’t really provide much exciting loot.
Related to that –there’s a lot of items that can be crafted at workbenches or campfires. Unfortunately, the craft able items often require ridiculously rare ingredients and are rarely worth the effort. Worst example? Medical stim-packs can be crafted with a few common herbs and an empty syringe. Unfortunately, in my 50+ hours of gameplay, I found precisely three empty syringes. Making things worse –stim-packs themselves are very, very common. Crafting them would be hardly worth the effort even if syringes were less rare.
Also, the game’s horribly bug-ridden – and I didn’t even get any of the really critical problems people are complaining about. It crashes fairly regularly, and some quests end up broken through no fault of the player.
I also wish the ‘hardcore’ mode features could be toggled on or off individually – I like the hunger system and some of the other difficulty increases, but I don’t like companions being permanently killed, especially since New Vegas’ companions all have unique quests and bonuses.
On the whole, though, a wonderful game. I’m already trying to work out what my next play though will be as. Either a stealthy energy weapons user, or a tough brawler. Not sure if I’ll back NCR or Caesar’s Legion this time around…