Welcome to New Vegas. Please ignore the raiders.
Fallout is a strange series, being passed from studio to studio it hasn’t had the most stable of lives. The original fallout games were RPG/RTS like turn based strategy games while the more recent installments are hybrids between FPS/RPG’s, and don’t even get me started on the spin offs. Despite this however the series has proved consistently popular and the most recent outing of the series, Fallout New Vegas, is still a wonderful game with plenty to do.
Firstly if you haven’t played Fallout 3, this is essentially that game but with a different setting and a whole load of mods attached to it. The story is quite interesting though, you are a courier who was tasked with delivering a mysterious package. You are ambushed however, have the package stolen from you and are quickly shot in the head. You survive (amazingly) and have to travel across the ruins of the Mojave desert in order to find the person that shot you and discover what was inside that package. The main story sets to provide a personal story to you, giving you an incentive for revenge and giving you a driving goal for continuing the story. There are also of course many side missions and characters and so you don’t even need to follow that main quest, instead choosing to simply wander the wastes and discover what is out there. The world of New Vegas isn’t nearly as apocalyptic and desperate and the capital wasteland from Fallout 3 and personally I preferred the capital wasteland, but that’s just personal preference.
Welcome to the strip…
The game for it’s time looks pretty good. While it is only a slight graphical upgrade from Fallout 3 the colour pallet is changed entirely. The greens and grays of the capital wasteland are replaced by the blues and browns of the Mojave desert, providing a nice change of scenery. The locations in the Mojave prove to be interesting to visit, from the small outer town of Novac to the lustrous strip of New Vegas everything has it’s place in the wasteland. During the game you will encounter 2 groups trying to control New Vegas, the NCR and Caesar’s Legion. The NCR are a huge army that wish to bring back law and order to the wasteland, including all the taxes that come with it. The legion however are perhaps more interesting, a group of tribal like soldiers who talk, fight and behave exactly like the roman legion of the past, being led by their tyrannical leader, Caesar. These interesting groups each have their positives and negatives and you can even join them if you want! Just be sure to choose what you think would be best for New Vegas.
Gameplay wise the game is almost exactly the same as Fallout 3. An open world game with an emphasis on gunplay, raising your stats and skills and completing quests. The staple of Fallout 3 returns to New Vegas in the form of the V.A.T.S system. An ability that allows you to pause time and select which specific body parts to target on an opponent. This then plays out in slow motion with a percentage based chance on whether you will hit, with benefits for each part hit. This was the main feature of Fallout 3 and though it returns to New Vegas it thankfully isn’t as overpowered as it was, making it a much more viable option for a fair gameplay run. What New Vegas brings to the table in terms of new gameplay options are the weapon modding systems and the disguise system. The weapon modding system allows you to purchase and place specific modifications onto your weapon such as scopes or silencers. This allows you to personalise your weapons more and make them feel more like your own. The disguise system works in tangent with the new factions of New Vegas. If you can use a piece of armor used by one of the factions then you will be disguised as a member of that faction, this works in tangent with a reputation system that allows you to be loved by those you dress up as and hated by their enemies. This allows a greater diversity of options for tackling tasks, especially for sneaky characters.
Meet the Nightkin. Lovely fellows aren’t they?
There are however downsides to this game. At launch this game had the trademark Bethesda buggy launch with many graphical glitches, crashes and freezes. Even today though the modding community is still alive and well there continues to be glitches and stability issues many patches in. Along with this if you have played Fallout 3 before then this may just feel like a huge expansion pack to you, with not that much exactly being different from Fallout 3. This combined with the strange lack of exploration after the end of the game leads to a disappointing finale even after people made their voice heard at Fallout 3’s ending.
In the end though this game is exactly what it sets out to be, Fallout in another location. The gameplay is wonderful and addicting. The land is interesting and has fun quests. The characters you meet are dynamic and unique and overall the game is huge. If you can get this with the DLC for a cheap price I would highly suggest giving yourself a trip to New Vegas.
Jinx The Game Critic (Archive) 