The Dust Has Settled - Thoughts On Fallout: New Vegas

[Dominic Tarason]

So, a year and a bit ago, Quinns wrote a review of the game for RPS. He really didn't like the game much. It was very controversial. Based on that, and general hearsay about terrible bugs, I put off buying the game until a Goaty edition was available. During the Steam sale, the game + all the DLC came up to about £10, so my girlfriend bought it for me, because she's brill. I finally got round to trying it last week.

So far, I've seen *an* ending, but only scratched the surface in terms of content. I ended the game at a mere level 17, having not touched any of the faction quests or the DLC packs, and I've already jumped back into the Mojave for another try, rolling back to a save I made at Lv13, before I tried (and succeeded) in wrenching the game off the rails.

So, my first and foremost thought on the game is: This is the real Fallout 3. The story continues on directly from where Fallout 2 left off - unsurprising, given that a lot of the original writers and designers are back on board. It's drier and dustier in a lot of ways, but that's very much intentional. While Fallout 3 was a theme park dressed up as a post-apocalyptic adventure, it could easily pass for a prototype Skyrim if you replaced 'Vertibirds' with 'Dragons'. New Vegas drops you - confused, wounded and vengeful - into the middle of a complex three-way power struggle over an independent state, while a dozen or so minor factions try to carve out their niches in the chaos.

The setting in general feels so much more convincing than it's predecessor. Yes, there are huge empty spaces of nothing - rolling sand dunes punctuated with occasional giant scorpions and (if you're lucky) a bleached corpse dragged under a rock. That's because it's a desert. You're not constantly patted on the head with loot and rare encounters over every hill - you'll often find an abandoned house and discover that it's already been picked clean by someone. You can tell that people have passed through, even - empty cans lie around a campfire, and boxes indoors lay upturned. It makes finding something still unopened all that more special.

While the desert feels bleaker and more hostile, the settlements feel much larger and more convincing, though. While the number of people on the streets is limited due to the engine being fairly old and creaky, you've got multiple large farmsteads and fields surrounding each major town, providing a clear food-source, and people genuinely seem to struggle to maintain clean water supplies, wheras in Fallout 3, the only guy who seemed to care was the perpetually thirsty old guy outside of Megaton. They put a lot more thought into world-building here, and while it all adheres to B-movie logic, there's nothing as implausible as Little Lamplight.

Yes, it's a lot less vivid and cartoonish. Characters talk more, have more depth and thoughts to share on pretty much everyone and everything in the region. They're also more expendable - outside of two unique NPCs (who are immortal for actual plot reasons, which is clever), EVERYONE can die and you'll still be able to reach a proper end to the story. You can literally murder every single named NPC in Nevada and the game will keep on trucking. You can ally with or betray any faction, and generally do things to the beat of your own drum. There's a bare minimum of two solutions to almost everything (and it seldom feels like a binary good/evil decision - Karma is an invisible stat in this game, anyway) - it's this which allowed me to skip most of the story and launch straight into the endgame on a whim.

In short, it feels a lot more like an old-school RPG. It feels a lot more like Fallout. Mod-wise, all I ran for my first playthrough was a couple of fan-patches which fix things like navigation meshes and floating items, and the Project Nevada pack, which tweaks the gameplay (effortlessly and seamlessly - the entire design doc for it is basically 'this shouldn't feel like a mod') to be a little more like STALKER, making gunplay more interesting and less VATS-dependent. Oh, and a little tweak to make the DLC stuff not trigger until you wander into the appropriate area at the right level.

So, yeah - this is one of the better RPGs I've played in ages, and dragged me away from Skyrim pretty effortlessly. I've still only scratched the surface, and probably have another 30-40 hours worth of wandering and questing to do before I even start looking at content mods, too. So, now the dust has settled, what are your thoughts on New Vegas?

[Wizardry]

In short, it feels a lot more like an old-school RPG.

Hmm. Interesting.

[apricotsoup]

Nicely written.

I approached New vegas with a sense of foreboding after not getting on that well with fallout 3 but I found new vegas to pull me in in ways that fallout 3 completely failed.

Not going to go into more than to say I agree.

[Flint]

So, now the dust has settled, what are your thoughts on New Vegas?

You've basically saved me the trouble of telling mine, because I agree with more or less everything in your post.

A brilliant game that should have been released as the primary Fallout continuation in the first place instead of Bethesda's F3.

[Heliocentric]

I'm totally playing this over my fiancée's shoulder, she's passed level 30, has literally 30 or so unfinished quests and they are not letting up. Only bothered getting one DLC (old world blues) and she hasn't touched it yet after stumbling across its start early on and being warned she should try and be level 15.

She unlocked power armour at my request but she is sticking to a green summer dress and a straw hat, a machete thing and grenades/TNT and the occasional landmine. Legitimate moments of elation and horror, not horror as in fear(but the occasional surprise deathclaw did a good impression of that kind of horror), or a jump but horror at the dreadfulness of people represented by the game. Its broached mature themes, hope and sacrifice but never taking the gun out of your hand. I'm sure there are people the game wont let her kill, but whenever she felted she could right a wrong or save a victim the game has offered a chance. 2 stand out moments were a bomb on a [barely even a spoiler]metro bomb and masufabish[barely even a spoiler] Which left her wanted more choice than she seemed to have, but overall thats a good score.

The voice work seems endless and its all been good enough to hold the theme, I cannot fault its graphics except old peoples faces look like they have been gotten wet and been left folded up to dry and the utter lack of grass anywhere except these grey weeds (really now, grass as hardy, it would be everywhere but straight desert). So yeah, and considerations of game play have to wait until; i play it but I'll say this, Morrowind had these oppressive environments, Oblivion lost that you were a powerhouse, but again many places in new vegas are unwelcoming, death comes quickly and safe places are few, and without magic healing an injury is a lot more menacing. It is not a game that wants you to see it all without working for it, maybe I respect it more for that.

[Dominic Tarason]

I'm sure there are people the game wont let her kill

Aside from children? (And that can be fixed - it makes them running around Freeside in the middle of a gang battle all that more nerve-wracking to see), the game puts a magical 'gets up after a while' tag on just one single character, and it's not who you'd think at first, either [spoiler - highlight to see]Victor[/spoiler]. A second - [spoiler]Yes Man[/spoiler] has another, more clever kind of story-based immortality.

[vinraith]

New Vegas is pretty great, and it's definitely a better Fallout game than FO3, but I think I prefer FO3 anyway. Maybe that's because, while I liked FO1, I bounced off FO2 and never really cared that much about the world. As later games in the series have become more and more populated and quest heavy (New Vegas being the ultimate expression of this) they've lost the qualities I value most in a post-apocalyptic setting: Isolation and desperation.

FO3 with FWE is a game about survival, about scrounging and scratching out an existance in a hostile wasteland with minimal population. It's entirely about exploring, and the plot is something that's best ignored. New Vegas is so bound to its quests, its plots, and its characters that it can never convey that same sense of lonely, desperate clinging to existence. Then again, it's not trying to, and it certainly IS good at what it IS trying to do. I just personally like what FWE is trying to do more, that's all.

[Drake Sigar]

I've been checking around RPS for opinions on this game for the past few days because the complete edition is coming up. Reading the official RPS Wot I Think initially caused me to think twice about purchasing the game. That hasty opinion was soon contested when I glanced at the comment section at Wulf's passionate 42 page essay on why the author is wrong. Plus the feedback on the forums has been generally positive s-

The story continues on directly from where Fallout 2 left off

*Orders New Vegas*

[vinraith]

Reading the official RPS Wot I Think initially caused me to think twice about purchasing the game.

Nothing against Quinns, but that was the worst WIT they've ever published. It was riddled with factual inaccuracies, and read like something of a hatchet job. To this day I don't know what was going on there, maybe the game just rubbed him the wrong way or maybe he was just in a shit mood. Either way, if you liked the original Fallouts (and don't mind the transition to first person action from isometric turn based) you'd be remiss not to give NV a chance.

[Dominic Tarason]

*Orders New Vegas*

To be specific, it carries on a couple generations later. The New California Republic has expanded into the largest government in America and is gradually annexing everything in it's path. Oh, and Marcus is back, still up to his neck in super-mutant problems. Dude never catches a break.

FO3 with FWE is a game about survival, about scrounging and scratching out an existance in a hostile wasteland with minimal population.

Oddly enough, I've actually found there to be a much more survivalist atmosphere in this one compared to Fallout 3, especially when you combine the game's own Hardcore mode (you need food, water and sleep) with Project Nevada, which is FWE V2.0 and similarly lowers the amount of stuff you'll find just casually laying about. The 'survival' skill is pretty useful, as being able to kill stuff, then cure it's hide to sell and roast its meat to eat and get buffs is super handy.

The pockets of civilization in Vegas are larger, but they're more spread out, too. There's a lot of wasteland between them.

And yeah, after playing through New Vegas (at least in part) to get a good feel for it, I went and re-read Quinns' review and really disagreed with pretty much everything. He even moaned that there were too many characters that talked about too many things.

[vinraith]

Oddly enough, I've actually found there to be a much more survivalist atmosphere in this one compared to Fallout 3, especially when you combine the game's own Hardcore mode (you need food, water and sleep) with Project Nevada, which is FWE V2.0 and similarly lowers the amount of stuff you'll find just casually laying about. The 'survival' skill is pretty useful, as being able to kill stuff, then cure it's hide to sell and roast its meat to eat and get buffs is super handy.

The pockets of civilization in Vegas are larger, but they're more spread out, too. There's a lot of wasteland between them.

I've never even tried to play it without Project Nevada, to be clear. While I agree that the survival elements in PN are well done, and that the survival skill is quite useful, I still don't get the same sense of desperation and isolation I did in FO3. Maybe it's because, having played less of FNV, I've never gotten much outside the "civilized" areas (which don't seem at all spread out to me).

[Drake Sigar]

To be specific, it carries on a couple generations later. The New California Republic has expanded into the largest government in America and is gradually annexing everything in it's path. Oh, and Marcus is back, still up to his neck in super-mutant problems. Dude never catches a break.

Please tell me the PC in New Vegas is related to the Chosen one from Fallout 2, who was the grandson of the Vault 13 Dweller from Fallout 1. I eat that shit up.

[Flint]

Please tell me the PC in New Vegas is related to the Chosen one from Fallout 2, who was the grandson of the Vault 13 Dweller from Fallout 1..

No, but one of the NPCs you can have in your party is the daughter of [notreallyaspoilerbutjustincase]Cassidy.[nrasbjic] (and in general the game has quite a number of relatives/direct references of F1/F2 people and even a couple who come straight from those games).

[Nalano]

So, my first and foremost thought on the game is: This is the real Fallout 3.

Pretty much, yeah. But did we really need a year's hindsight to come to that conclusion?

[Althea]

My thoughts on New Vegas:

Good for what it is, but like vinraith I preferred FO3, although likely for different reasons.

I found New Vegas to be perhaps too big and same-y. The gameplay itself was little different to what I'd done for many hours in Fallout 3 before it, and the mechanics - whilst slightly refreshed by Obsidian - felt a bit clunky. The weapon selection was way too large for my liking and I didn't feel it was as friendly to multi-purpose characters as FO3 had been (also a complaint I have of Skyrim). I also wasn't impressed by the story, but that's because I have a dislike of multi-faction narratives and I didn't feel New Vegas was particularly clear about it, especially with the Wild Cards section, which I managed to balls up.

On top of that, it inherited flaws from Oblivion and Fallout 3. Ugly characters, ugly landscapes, ugly buildings, bad lighting and so forth, and on top of that it brought its own flaws. The balance of enemies was one that really got my goat. I played on the lowest setting as I prefer to just wander, explore and so on, and I felt the balance rocketed at some points. The assassins which Caesar sent after me time and time again did my head in as they were bullet sponges, and I found the Deathclaws to be disproportionately hard compared to other enemies. Now, if I was playing on Normal or higher, fine, but I was playing on Very Easy.

I guess that New Vegas was worth the money, even for the DLC - I've spent about 100hrs in New Vegas. But it's not a game I'm likely to go back to. It didn't grab me as much as I'd hoped, and all things considered it felt like a more complex Fallout 3, but one I couldn't get into as easily.

[Drinking with Skeletons]

The balance of enemies was one that really got my goat. I played on the lowest setting as I prefer to just wander, explore and so on, and I felt the balance rocketed at some points. The assassins which Caesar sent after me time and time again did my head in as they were bullet sponges, and I found the Deathclaws to be disproportionately hard compared to other enemies. Now, if I was playing on Normal or higher, fine, but I was playing on Very Easy.

I'll agree with you on that point. Deathclaws are quite nasty compared with everything else, at every level, although there's nothing I found as annoying as those redneck guys from FO3's Point Lookout.

My big problem with balance was that it tended to be very easy to run out of ammo and some of the unique equipment was inordinately hard to repair because of compatibility differences (Old World Blues' stealth suit being a good example). You could never really tell beforehand what kinds of ammo would be available in an area (the DLCs in particular were very bad about making you jump through hoops to get even a little ammo should you not be skilled in whatever weapon type they favored), and it made it hard to properly prepare ahead of time. Also, I never really understood the armor system. There's Damage Reduction--which directly removes damage from an attack--and then...DT? AV? Something, it's been awhile, but the point is that there were two different values that never made sense to me (and I played through the game about 3 times).

Oh, and the ammo system was convoluted and I found it too difficult to keep track of what kind of ammo was in my gun at any given time (though I generally didn't have any ammo other than the basic type, since the crafting was cumbersome).

[Dominic Tarason]

My big problem with balance was that it tended to be very easy to run out of ammo and some of the unique equipment was inordinately hard to repair because of compatibility differences

Even using the reduced ammo drops from Project Nevada, I've found myself swimming in bullets by level 17. Stores stock more and more ammo as you rise in level, too.

As for the difficulty repairing things, it's intentional. There's a perk you can get if you have repair 90 or higher that lets you cross-repair using anything from the same weapon class (so you can repair a unique laser rifle with a junk plasma rifle you picked off a corpse), but otherwise you need to rely on the understandably expensive NPCs in some locations that can do extensive repair work for you.

As for Deathclaws being nasty - well, duh. They're supposed to be pretty scary even to the Brotherhood, after all. They're the toughest, meanest creatures in the Fallout setting, and are best avoided unless you're got a really good battle-plan. It's great fun to come back to them later with a .50cal and a couple of gun-toting party members in tow and tear them apart, though.

About those guys who wanted a STALKER game in Fallout, as much as I love STALKER, i don't really like the idea. To me, Fallout is more of an RPG, less of a survival horror. So, giving it some STALKER-styled survival gameplay felt more aggravating than challenging.

You should try Project Nevada - it's one of the highest-rated NV mods for a very good reason. It just tweaks the gameplay to be a little more action-oriented, so you've now got sprint and bullet-time abilities that run off your AP bar as well as VATS (and perks/cybernetic upgrades that affect them, too), HP pools are lower in general, and weapons are more powerful. Weapon handling is a ton better as it works via a clear expanding reticule that shows your firing cone for your current stance/speed.

Oh, there's a handy off-hand grenade hotkey, too. Makes thrown weapons much more useful. Oh, and a very neat cyberware system. A couple of doctors in the game used to do cybernetics work, but now they sell cyber-modules that you can get doctors to install. You start out with two cyber slots in your head and chest, and one in each arm and leg, but you can get perks to open up more slots.

It doesn't ever feel like a mod, though. What little new stuff it adds is so seamlessly integrated, it feels like its always been there.

[Althea]

As for the difficulty repairing things, it's intentional. There's a perk you can get if you have repair 90 or higher that lets you cross-repair using anything from the same weapon class (so you can repair a unique laser rifle with a junk plasma rifle you picked off a corpse), but otherwise you need to rely on the understandably expensive NPCs in some locations that can do extensive repair work for you.

Jury Rigging. One of the vital perks of the game.

As for Deathclaws being nasty - well, duh. They're supposed to be pretty scary even to the Brotherhood, after all. They're the toughest, meanest creatures in the Fallout setting, and are best avoided unless you're got a really good battle-plan. It's great fun to come back to them later with a .50cal and a couple of gun-toting party members in tow and tear them apart, though.

I agree they're meant to be tough and hard, but they're disproportionately so relative to most other creatures, which also goes for the Legion Assassins and a few other creatures.

[metalangel]

I agree they're meant to be tough and hard, but they're disproportionately so relative to most other creatures, which also goes for the Legion Assassins and a few other creatures.

Like the three monsters they added in Broken Steel (Feral Ghoul Reaver, Super Mutant Overlord, Albino Radscorpion) they just soak up ammo. It's stupid. I don't care how tough you're meant to be, especially the creatures, plasma will still melt you and bullets will still tear a whole in your flesh and shatter bones.

The original Fallout had something when it made weapons like the laser and especially the plasma rifle absolutely lethal, one-hit kill weapons in the hands of a skilled user. That's the whole point of a weapon like that, and it made sense. Then Fallout 3 gave you access (as in go and pick up) to a sniper rifle and laser pistol within five or so minutes of you leaving Vault 101. It just cheapened the whole thing, same as in Oblivion where eventually every scraggly highwayman and thief you met was wearing priceless glass/dwemer/daedric armour.

Silly Bethesda. I remember in the first Fallout when the SMG and the Wasteland Eagle were effective. I remember getting to the Hub (which felt huge) and going to the weapon dealer and seeing gleaming weapons like the combat shotgun and the sniper rifle, and the huge price tag associated with them, and thinking 'wow, it'll take me forever to afford that and I bet it's awesome'.

[Drake Sigar]

It's great fun to come back to them later with a .50cal and a couple of gun-toting party members in tow and tear them apart, though.

You can have more than one party member?