Fallout: New Vegas

[Blackdragon]

Wow, there's no thread for this yet? Interesting...

Well who else has this besides me? It's pretty interesting so far. I'm starting it in hardcore mode (Where you have to worry about Eating, sleeping and staying hydrated while you play. Ammo also contributes to weight, and healing is over time instead of instant.) and it adds some decent involvement into the game that already has some deep gameplay elements. The inclusion of weapon mods and special ammo is a nice touch.

My only compliant are the enemy roster. Mostly the same as Fallout 3, but I suppose you would find some of the same creatures in a desert. I guess I'm just upset that 5 minutes into the game and I'm already running into giant radscorpions...

[Raph]

I've only gotten to put a few hours into the game the last couple nights. Haven't gotten very far in the plot, but I'm enjoying things so far.

I'm particularly liking hardcore mode. The food, water, and sleep meters don't seem to fill up very fast, they just add a bit more realism to the world and give a reason for all that food and water you find everywhere. I like not being able to just jam ten stimpacks into my veins instantly to get back to full health in the middle of combat either. And I found out first hand that crippled limbs mean a lot more when I got wounded in the desert nowhere near a town and without a doctor's bag and had to limp my way to safety.

[Ges]

I am planning on getting it at least before Christmas, but I need to finish up the main story on Fallout 3. Plus I'm gonna have to finish Fable 3, which I'm probably going to get before New Vegas, too.

It feels like early 2010 all over again. Too many games. Not enough time or money.

[Raph]

I really appreciate that you're able to get into the actual game much more quickly too, and aren't forced to sit through an hour long tutorial section every time you want to start a new game.

[Luisfe]

Will wait until there are game balancing mods and bugfixing patches. It is, after all, a Bethesda published Obsidian game.

[Raph]

^ That might be a good idea. I don't know how they managed it, but somehow Obsidian made this game even buggier than Fallout 3, quite possibly the buggiest game ever released. I guess Obsidian just couldn't help themselves--it's their trademark, at this point.

[drunken monk]

Or it could be the fact that Bethesda created a crappy engine. Everyone seems to be hoping that theyll use Id's Rage engine for Fallout 4. I hope they do. That would be badass.

Even though I was somewhat disappointed with 3 I do what to get this. Quite a few Obsidian members were the original creators of the series and you can tell that a lot of care went into making this game. I just dont have the money or patience to deal with bugs right now. Ill wait for a price drop and patches before I touch this one.

[Luisfe]

^ That might be a good idea. I don't know how they managed it, but somehow Obsidian made this game even buggier than Fallout 3, quite possibly the buggiest game ever released. I guess Obsidian just couldn't help themselves--it's their trademark, at this point.

Obsidian is pretty much TROIKA mark 2... Wait no, basically yes, but no, since both Troika and Obsidian were spawned from the demise of Black Isle.

Troika made EXTREMELY AWESOME games. 3 of them. They were also the buggiest pieces of shit ever made, but become some of the best experiences you will ever have in any game after extremely dedicated fans restore and fix the rushed out messes.
(The games are Arcanum, Temple of Elemental Evil and Vampire: The Masquerade: Bloodlines, by the way)

Hm, that also accurately describes KOTOR 2, to be honest.

[drunken monk]

Its good to know we can agree on something Luisfe. Bloodlines is one of my favorite games. It has its problems but damn its an amazing experience. Games like Bloodlines, Deus Ex, and System Shock have that special something that made PC games unique back in the day.

[Blackdragon]

I've never run into any bugs that people complain about, but I haven't given it much time than a few hours. I've taken a break to play some of the new games that I can rent thanks to my employment.

[Cyrus the virus]

I wasn't terribly interested despite really liking Fallout 3, but this hardcore mode sounds interesting. They should have made that a major selling point in those TV ads I've seen!

[Raph]

Really, I love the game to death so far, I've dropped 50 hours into it and I'm nowhere even remotely close to done. But one thing does annoy me - there's a ton more locations in the game and a ton to do, but the game seems way more slated towards dialogue and diplomacy than Fallout 3. Which I guess is closer to Fallout 1 and 2, but even then it feels less balanced than those two. With the factions and the like, I can understand that a bit, but I've gone hours at a times without actually having to shoot anything - even wandering the wasteland. It seems like the random encounters got lessened, and there's very few things like the subway tunnels or caves from Fallout 3 that I could just wander into and kill things, which makes me a little sad.

This game also has the best companions yet, both in and out of combat. The Companion Perks add a lot to the game, particularly really useful ones like Cass' Whiskey Rose or Boone's Spotter, and they're like waves of destruction in combat - when I've had Boone, Cass, or Veronica around, I've barely even needed to fire a shot, which is extra impressive with Veronica - it is so fun to watch her dart from person to person oneshotting them with her power fist. The companions are also incredibly interesting out of combat, from Cass' personal quest involving her Caravan and the directions you can steer it in (each possible outcome grants her a bonus perk to boot), to Veronica's stories about the woman she loved leaving the Brotherhood because their parents believed they should procreate and the conversations she has with other members of the Brotherhood in their bunker, they all feel more alive and fleshed out than Fallout 3's, or even most of Fallout 1 or 2's. The Companion Wheel, while mostly just shortcuts for commands given to companions through menu choices in Fallout 3, is also a really nice touch.

I also adore the new weapons and drugs they've added to the game. My only other real beef with the game is "Hardcore" Mode. It's... not nearly as hardcore as I expected. Honestly, it's done little to make the game harder. I still have retarded amounts of caps from selling stuff despite the respectable added weight of ammo, and having to handle healing over time isn't that big and issue if you're smart about your Stimpack usage (companions still heal instantly), and RadAway healing over time just doesn't matter at all. Having to eat, sleep, and drink is similarly easy to manage due to the prevelance of beds and water in teh wasteland, as well as food off of kills or sold by traders. It's there, and it's really just another little thing to manage, but never really something that matters. The only real nuisances are the fact that limb healing requires a Doctor, Doctor's Bag, or Hydra - which is overcome by how plentiful caps and Doctor's bags are, and the fact that Hydra //completely// heals your limbs, even if it's addictive - and the fact that in Hardcore Mode, companions can die (like in FO3) rather than being "knocked unconscious", which is about the only really hard thing about Hardcore Mode. So, yeah, a disappointment.

I'll post more thoughts later.

[Cyrus the virus]

the game seems way more slated towards dialogue and diplomacy than Fallout 3.

Really? Hm. The only information I've gotten about the game from casual observance is that it's Fallout 3... in vegas! The increase in dialogue and diplomacy is a good thing for me, Fallout 3 was too much of a shooter a lot of the time, in my opinion.

Two things I've learned from this thread make me want to play Fallout: New Vegas. The TV ads are worthless.

[Ges]

Fallout 3 lasted an entire summer for me, so is New Vegas too much of a timesink to get into now?

[Raph]

Oh also, anyone complaining about how this could have been an expansion... yeah, there's no possible way that would have worked. That would have only been possible with cutting out huge chunks of the game, really. This is a full sized game, there's no two ways about it.

Another thing about the game that I love is how much Chris Avellone and the other former Black Isle folks imported over from Van Buren (the original canceled Fallout 3), like the evolved NCR, Powder Gangers, Ceaser's Legion, the battle of Hoover Dam, and more, and it seems like all the background information written for it seems to be canon. Hell, it almost seems like parts of Van Buren itself were canon. That's great, //and// wonderfully consistent with the world they've built, so kudos to them. I would have liked a few more references to Fallout 3, though, besides a few passing comments about the Enclave, a single damage Eyebot, and comments about the "business out East". I did like the nice reference to the civil war between the Brotherhood in the Capitol Wasteland that resulted in the Outcasts splitting off.

[Cyrus the virus]

I have a strange affinity for games that reference earlier games from their series. It's interesting what nostalgia can do to a person... Remember fighting Miguel in Chrono Cross? The music and everything! Probably why I like Suikoden so much.

[Gibson]

I'm really loving the different companions in the game. Actually, scratch that, Boone is amazing. In an open area he just destroys everything. It's made my hardcore playthrough just that much easier, which is nice because the Legion assassin groups were kicking my ass left, right and centre.

[Priest4hire]

Some thoughts: I played on hard core and it wasn't all that hard, as has been pointed out. It did bring back memories of the days when cared more about realism as a means of improving immersion. A character that has to eat, drink and sleep feels more like a human. Of course, the same problem that plagued the old games came back here: Eating and drinking tends to become a chore and busywork.

The game did feel rough at times. I had a few crashes, but no worse than Fallout 3. And that is based on the fully patched and DLC content compete version. I certainly never had anything as annoying as a certain scripting bug that drove me nuts in F3. That said, there were places that needed more polish. Quests that don't quite work smoothly because the scripting hadn't been tweaked enough; dialog trees that clearly needed work; disappearing bodies and items.

I did appreciate the expanded and more realistic range of ammunition though. Shooting Powder Gangers with my lever action .45-70 was a blast. It was great to see the traits make a comeback and I took the Wild Wasteland one for extra fun. The game made much better use of skills and stats as part of the quests and that's also something I appreciated. I liked the new balance between combat and other aspects. Finally, some moments were difficult even at level 29 with sweet armor and weapons. Taking out Ceaser was a tough fight and I had to take a couple stabs at it.

One thing though is how poorly the HP system is suited for combat with firearms. It's bizarre to watch some dude take multiple hits of 5.56mm round to his unarmored head before going down. Eventually one has weapons so deadly that it doesn't really matter anymore, and it's not a huge problem in any event. It was less obvious than it had been in Fallout 3. Still, I wish the genre would be a little less conservative here, especially when RPGs from 15-20 years ago had better solutions.

All around though it was a fun RPG and definitely worth being a stand alone game. The stronger resemblance to, and references from, the previous Fallout titles was just icing on the cake.

[Raph]

I had a few crashes, but no worse than Fallout 3.

I've had a couple of crashes whilst doing nothing out of the ordinary (walking through Freeside, etc) and it's a huge pisser. Oh, and let's not go into the amount of times where an NPC has jumped and never come back down. Nor will we mention disappearing weapons (like the unique super sledge, which vanished from Veronica) or Rex's inability to actually attack.

It's even more of an annoyance since it's a good game. There's loads of improvements over Fallout 3, and nearly every change is welcomed, but, yeah, I'm lucky if I can hit the 60 minute mark without a hiccup or ten.

And Deathclaws in New Vegas are absurdly difficult, especially in the lower levels. Having a companion with high-powered weapons, like Boone for example, will help a lot, but if you get swarmed you are pretty much fucked. And if you see the Deathclaw Mother, Deathclaw Alpha Male, or Legendary Deathclaw, then run like hell because they can oneshot most players even at level 30.

[Poofy]

Loving it, but I definitely agree it's WAY more diplomatic/dialogue focused than Fallout 3, which isn't bad, I'm just not used to it. Everytime I go into a building and see red nametags I boot up VATS and go for the heads, but my wife yells at me and says they just wanted to engage me in a semi-hostile discussion..