It seems Fallout: New Vegas is very popular here on TSA, with it winning yesterday’s poll by a mile. Personally, I’ve never really understood the draw of the Fallout series of games, they just seem to huge and terrifying for me to get to grips with. Also every time I see someone using the series’ VATS mechanic it looks straight up crazy, but that’s probably because I haven’t played enough of the games.
Fortunately, Peter seems to have a better grasp of the series, reviewing New Vegas back in 2010. Perhaps unsurprisingly he felt the game was remarkably similar to Fallout 3, going so far as to say that “In the first few scenes of the game you could be forgiven for thinking you had put the wrong disc in.” In and of itself that’s not necessarily a bad thing, but it’s annoying that the game didn’t just bring Fallout 3’s visual and gameplay style along, it also inherited its predecessor’s renowned bugs.
In the review Peter complained about a number of familiar bugs in the PS3 version, in particular performance issues plagued the game. It will be interesting to see how you’ve found the game since release, and whether patches have managed to fix up any of those problems Peter identified.
On the plus side Peter liked the way the game improved on Fallout 3’s faction system, praising the fact you had to be genuinely careful not to sully a group’s opinion of you. He also enjoyed the quest structure, finding it “fantastically complex”.
Ultimately, the game warranted a 7/10, with Peter having this to say about it:
Fallout: New Vegas is a peculiar beast. It is so similar to its predecessor that it can be difficult to see where the development time was spent. While that is certainly not going to be seen as a problem for the millions of fans who spent hours with Fallout 3, it would be disingenuous to pretend that this is much more than a tweaked and relocated return to the Fallout universe.
The fact that the many issues with glitches and bugs weren’t ironed out of this release would be unforgivable if the core game wasn’t so tirelessly compulsive and complex. As it is, we have to warn our readers that there are some serious problems here. Your enjoyment of the game will largely depend on how much you’re willing to forgive the issues. If you don’t mind working around them then this could be a game of the year contender, otherwise, you might just think it’s broken.
Of course that was nearly two years ago now, so it’s time to see what’s changed since. Do you agree with Peter’s view of the game, or has it improved with age? Does the game’s complexity redeem it, or did you find it tiresome? Would you have preferred some more differences from Fallout 3?
If you feel like sharing your answers to those questions, or any other thoughts you may have about the game, then you just need to drop a comment below. Once you’ve formulated your opinion, remember to attach a score from the Buy It, Bargain Bin It, Rent It, Avoid It scale so we can get a good sense of the community’s overall verdict of the game. If you want to take part, the deadline is Sunday afternoon.
blast71
Loved this more than Fallout 3, which i loved as well. Just checked my save file to see how long i’d played it for – 93 hours! Didn’t think i’d been on it that long ;)
Only had a few bugs, crashed about 10 times (mostly in the last few hours) but not half as buggy as 3 was.
One of the only times i got pissed off with it was when I ended up in a full-on battle by mistake (pressed wrong button -DOH!), exited area to get away and was surrounded by loads of legionares, all intent on killing me. Died, the auto-save chucked me back at the same point, died again, rinse and repeat. Must have taken me 3 or 4 days of rage quitting before i finally survived. Yes i’m crap i know :)
blast71
Oh, forgot to say BUY IT!
XisTG
Well, taking in account the current price for it I’d say Bargain Bin for anyone that liked the previous game. If you’re new to it, better Bargain Bin Fallout 3 GOTY ;)
Megamoppy
Fallout New Vegas is definitely an improvement over Fallout 3. The addition of Aiming Down Sights does a lot for overall immersion and the speech checks being a statutory check is a welcome change. However there are a few elements that let it down, a few examples being invisible walls on the world map, cluttered inventory (A Crafting tab would’ve done wonders to remove weapon shells and powders and such), increasingly glitchy quests (My personal example being unable to finish my initial play through the way i wanted as my partner who had glitched off the map made me unable to enter certain areas (as I wasn’t “solo” so to speak).
A big minus is also the enemy difficulty when some enemies can take multiple weapon magazines to the head and still not die , also hardcore mode was disappointing as all it really did was add a few progress bars to the stat menu with no real interesting impact on gameplay. However all the negatives pale in comparison to the fun and customization on offer here, the storyline is interesting, the voice acting a vast improvement (apart form that same american kid voice thats in all bethesda games) and the joy of just wondering around a nuclear wasteland make it very endearing Buy It from me.