Review edit: A recent playthrough has changed my opinion.
Fallout: New Vegas is the most recent release in the vastly successful Fallout series from Bethesda Softworks, you know, those guys that made Skyrim.
Skyrim was actually one of the major reasons that I bought this game. Skyrim was brimming with great graphics and smooth controls, and just felt like an overall complete and perfect game to me. Fallout: NV on the other hand, is far from that.
One of the first major gripes that I have with this game, is just the vast amount of bugs. Everywhere. Technical problems, glitches, and everything of the sort make this game unplayable at times. This is honestly one of the most bug-infested games that I have ever played.
Second, the long load times. The loading times are horrendous. If you open a door to head into a small shack, you better be ready to wait twenty to thirty seconds before you can see what is inside. Games with long load times like this are an instant turnoff.
Third, the controls. The controls are extremely... clunky. It feels like your character weighs three hundred pounds. Combat, especially melee combat, just doesn't feel fun because it just seems like something is... off.
Graphics are one of the few positive things about this game, as they are pretty well done for a game of this caliber.
The game also has a large amount of customization options available to the player in the category of perks, which can enhance your character in any way that you want.
Overall, I feel like the developers tried with this game, because once you get past all of the technical problems, it honestly is not an awful game. Sadly, tons of glitches and long load times just make this game unplayable and ruin it's vast potential.
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A recent playthrough has just changed everything. I had returned the game a while back, and recently saw it on a retail shelf for eight bucks, so I thought I'd pick it up and give it another go.
Pretty much all of the amazing detail and characters that I mentioned in my first review are still there, but the long load times are gone.
I'm still getting stuck once in a while, and end up having to reload my game or killing myself to get out of it, which can be irking if you've went a while without saving your game.
I'm starting to think it was my first disk that really had problems, and picking up a new disk actually helped the way the game played.
The game is still buggy in areas, and the character controls are still clunky, but I'm looking forward to where Bethesda can take Fallout on the next-generation consoles.