Fallout: New Vegas
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Fallout: New Vegas is an action role-playing video game developed by Obsidian Entertainment and published by Bethesda Softworks. While New Vegas is not a direct sequel, it uses the same engine and style as Fallout 3. It was developed by a few of the employees who worked on previous Fallout games at Black Isle Studios, along with a larger number of new employees. It is set primarily in a post-apocalyptic Nevada, although some areas of California and Arizona are also visited.
Why It Makes The House Always Win
- A great and interesting storyline that improves over Fallout 3's story.
- Four factions/leaders to choose from to complete the game.
- Mr. House, the leader of New Vegas and the man who the Courier was supposed to deliver the chip to.
- Caesar's Legion, an empire founded and ruled by Caesar who models it after ancient Rome.
- New California Republic, a growing republic that models itself after the pre-war government.
- Yes Man, a robot that can assist the Courier to make New Vegas independent.
- The world-building is fantastic, and the characters have interesting characterizations. Even characters you aren't supposed to root for have interesting backstories that make it legitimately hard for you to choose sides.
- The opening is very engaging and instead of being slow and exposition-heavy like Fallout 3, it actually gets right to the point and also opens up your first main conflict in the story.
- While the game starts off linear, with the main quest just having you being directed to different areas to eventually meet the men who killed you, it soon becomes more open with later quests.
- It stays closer to the roots of the franchise, considering that several former Interplay and Black Isle Studios staff members joined and worked for Obsidian.
- It has many elements of the classic Fallout games such as some music tracks from the games playing on the Pip-Boy's radio and some characters returning such as Marcus from Fallout 2.
- The gameplay, while almost identical to Fallout 3, has many improvements over its predecessor such as the ability to make food and ammo from a campfire and workbench.
- Weapon modifications make a return from Fallout 2 and you can now customize weapons on the fly, ranging from silencers for stealthy players to scopes for longer range distances that you can even attach to pistols.
- The level progression is also superb, as you raise your skills accordingly and select from many game-altering, or at least useful, perks.
- It actually feels like a role-playing game, unlike the more action-based approach Bethesda was trying to do with their games.
- There are several factions to join that impact the story, and the game makes it legitimately hard for you to choose one because of the history behind each faction. For example, siding with Caesar's Legion makes the NCR vilify you and vice versa.
- There is a plethora of dialogue, choices, consequences, and other roleplaying mechanics to be found. These systems all work together in perfect harmony, which puts real weight behind your actions.
- A better S.P.E.C.I.A.L. system, with many new perks and to make things even better, traits had been brought back after being absent in Fallout 3.
- The karma mechanic from Fallout 3 has largely been replaced by the reputation system returning from Fallout 2, where if you save or attack a town or someone belonging to a faction, the place/faction will either hate or like you, and judging by the faction armor you wear, either attack or praise you.
- Nice soundtrack by Fallout 3 composer Inon Zur that matches the Las Vegas setting. The radio station has lots of music that fits the setting too like "Big Iron" by Marty Robbins (which saw a massive boost in popularity after the game's release).
- Tons of mods and due to the engine being more stable than Fallout 3, complex mods can even be made such as drivable vehicles in the form of XRE Cars. They range from relatively small ones like alterations of the Rorschach patterns (one notable standout is the two-bears-high-fiving mod, which later got referenced as a Wild Wasteland Easter egg in Honest Hearts) at the beginning to total conversions that are basically new games in their own right, like New California, a prequel to this game, and Tale of Two Wastelands, a conversion mod that combines both Fallout 3 and this game into one game.
Bad Qualities
- It has too many similarities to Fallout 3's gameplay since both games run on a nearly decade-old engine.
- Due to the game having a rushed development, crashes, bugs, and glitches were very common at launch and a lot never got fixed. Just like its predecessor, the PS3 version is an unstable mess that has way more bugs than the other versions and freezes more frequently the further you progress, usually requiring the console to be reset as it freezes the PS3 as well.
- One of the more infamous glitches was Doc Mitchell's head spinning in circles, though this was eventually fixed in a patch.
- Killing a character that you need to complete the story with prevents you from getting their ending, though you can always complete the Yes Man ending since he respawns.
- Subpar voice acting for some minor NPCs and many are also voiced by the same actors who can be easily recognized, though it is an improvement over Fallout 3's.
- Random encounters are completely absent from previous games, the handful of encounters that are in this game are scripted with no chance of being a random scenario.
- Lots of content was cut from the game due to time constraints. Thankfully there are several mods that can put most of it back in the game.
- The ending is rushed as you can finish the game within a few hours if you focus solely on the main quests.
- No post-game after finishing the Battle of Hoover Dam. Once you get past the slideshow you're taken back to the main menu. A post-game similar to the Broken Steel one introduced to Fallout 3 was planned, but this was unfortunately cut midway through development due to a load of new bugs being added and time constraints. Unused scripts and voices are in the files for characters to react to the outcome but that's pretty much it. There are multiple post-game mods of varying quality, including one that has the approval of the head designer.
- Due to the cost of rehiring voice actors to record new lines, base games, and DLC characters can hardly interact with each other. This is most apparent when you can't mention Christine to Veronica after finishing the Dead Money DLC or mention Joshua Graham to Caesar after Honest Hearts.
- The Dead Money and Lonesome Road add-ons have very linear worlds compared to the base game and the other add-ons.
- The Sierra Madre in Dead Money cannot be revisited once the add-on is completed, and Zion Canyon in Honest Hearts becomes a walking simulator once the White Legs are gone. The developers took note of the complaints about this and made Old World Blues and Lonesome Road with visitable maps and respawning enemies once they were completed.
- The Couriers Stash add-on can make the beginning of the game way too easy with its overpowered weapons that are given to the Courier as soon as you exit Doc Mitchell's house, though players can simply store the items in a safe container early on or uninstall the add-on.
Reception
Fallout: New Vegas received a positive reception, and despite not having the same critical acclaim that its predecessor received, many have considered it to be the best installment of the franchise.
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