Fallout: New Vegas is an addicting, post-apocalyptic adventure through a desolate wasteland, but is a technical mess!
Contains: Infrequent Strong Bloody Violence, Language and Sex and Drug References
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Fallout: New Vegas is a post-apocalyptic, open world RPG game, that is very similar to its predecessor in terms of visuals, gameplay and presentation, but is unfortunately a horrible step down in the technical department.
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STORY - 2/5
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Fallout: New Vegas is not a direct sequel to Fallout 3, despite presenting the player with so many similarities almost making it stand-out like a very long DLC package. Despite the similarities, Fallout: New Vegas takes place in a completely different region of the nuclear devastated America, and takes place in the year 2281, 4 years after the events of Fallout 3. The setting is in a post-apocalyptic Las Vegas, Nevada and Mojave Desert, and the map area is titled The Mojave Wasteland. The nuclear apocalypse wasn't the end of civilisation as it would first appear so, and in fact, Las Vegas remains intact, and wasn't struck directly by a nuclear attack. Its buildings and casinos remain strongly intact and the mutation of the inhabitants is minimal. The game presents various factions throughout the Mojave wasteland, with civilisations of each faction scattered, and strongholds on positions developed and secured against the many inevitable dangers that could threaten them. Most notably are the New California Republic (NCR), now bloated and corrupt; the slave-driving, Roman-army styled Caesar's Legion, and the many factions located on the ever popular Strip of Vegas itself, all of whom have tasks needing completed, desires being fulfilled and revenge being exacted in some profitable way.
Fallout: New Vegas starts off with a typically engrossing introduction by narrator Ron Perlman before presenting you with a short cutscene which is the first stepping stone among many, on a long and desolate journey towards one of the many possible endings. You play as a courier, attempting to deliver a platinum chip to New Vegas, but your mission turns sour when you get ambushed by a volatile character named Benny, who steals the platinum chip, shoots you in the head, and leaves you for dead in a shallow grave. But Benny didn't complete his task in eliminating you from the delivery mission, and after a robot takes you to a small western-like town called Goodsprings, you get fixed up back to normal, and it is here that you define the couriers skills, attributes, name, gender, age and appearance before you set off investigating the assassination attempt, find clues to recovering the stolen package, and allowed complete freedom to traverse and explore the Mojave Wasteland.
The main plot line for New Vegas isn't interesting at all, what's interesting is the way the story becomes dissected more and more the further you go down a certain path. Your flexibility with factions enables and disables plenty of various side quests, depending on your reputation with that group. Do you choose to assist them with tasks, or go against them with another faction fighting for the same outcome, or maybe the opposite? The complexity of all of this information regarding quests takes some well produced thoughts to take it all in and then make your decisions. Either based on sheer instinct or purely intentional, evil attitudes to establish your karma and strength, it is a marvellous strategic development that enables lots of flexibility to rattle your brains and to witness the core substance of the game to expand upon in its skeletal structure which is the main story.
The quantity of side quests is outstanding, but more so is the multiple possibilities to approach objectives, and then also the amount of ways to complete them, where you can either increase your reputation within a faction or subsequently demoralize yourself amongst a specific group. Each way not only accompanied with enhanced likeness within a faction, but also your rewards at the end, which can also be affected by your skill, granting you further rewards if you have the capability to demand more. Certain missions might have you being persuaded to commit unlawful acts which will affect your reputation status for more than one faction but then also make the faction you work for idolise you more, and some examples of the more memorable quests include exploring a vault that is overgrown with plant life and home to dangerous contagions that camouflage with the lush and green surroundings, and one where you investigate a testing facility that is home to hostile and ravenous ghouls, invisible assailants utilising stealth devices that are lurking in the basement, and also a small group of friendly ghouls on a mission to blast into orbit and beyond the stars that require some technical assistance for takeoff. With so much variety it's easy to become sucked into the apocalyptic world of New Vegas, brimming with personality and violent encounters, despite an unsatisfactory main story that is the centre stone for everything.
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CHARACTERS – 2/5
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On your travels through the forsaken and undermined Mojave Wasteland, you'll often make contact with different groups of people stationed somewhere, whether it's a building, campsite or small town, who usually have tasks for you, meaning a steady amount of reward income for your money count (currency remains the same as Fallout 3 – bottle caps). Whether they need protecting, an item collected, or in need of a hitman to do their dirty work, the characters you speak with all have a good, convincing personality and persuasive voice acting to force you to negotiate further in conversation and to commence the quest available from them. Miscellaneous characters also take into account your karma level or reputation when wandering around their camp, and usually always comment on your status if you pass close to them, which is a nice added effect to your decision making, but proves unfortunate when you notice the same voice actors over and over again. That's a flaw with the game that hasn't been corrected from Fallout 3, and while it's been improved, it's still a disappointing and highly noticeable aspect of the game. There are some well known actors used, but a lot of the characters you start dialogue with have been heard elsewhere in the game multiple times already under a different faction or a random character, and it's not just a case of occasionally being repetitive, but it's a frequent issue that you'll notice. Why don't the developers recruit more voice actors to the game than the seemingly small handful of 20 people to voice 100 characters? An answer to this remains to be seen, and does break the illusion of talking to a new character when you're certain you've heard the voice too many times beforehand.
Throughout the game there are some rare companions to be encountered at specific locations in the Mojave wasteland, if you play your cards right in speech you can recruit them to help aid you in your travels. From a robotic dog to a Mexican ghoul, each companion when recruited will give you a perk associated with their abilities, which will remain active as long as you keep them at your side. You can have up to 2 companions at a time – an animal/robot and a human/ghoul. You cannot have two of each species so to speak, but if you can maintain 2 companions you'll keep double the rewards, until a companion dies, or you choose to dismiss them. Keeping a companion can prove a nuisance soon enough though, as you have to keep them stocked up with medical supplies and ammo in case they get injured or run out of bullets, and sometimes thinking of yourself can prove enough of a handful to deal with, or if you're the type of gamer to play alone without assistance. And as most companions rely on unarmed or melee combat rather than long range weapons, it's a constant task in having to engage in conversation and going over their tactics and stance before you engage in combat scenarios, where their presence will only aggravate things, with a higher chance of dying. But overall, having a companion at your side is totally optional if you don't want to look after an AI character.
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GAMEPLAY – 4/5
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What makes Fallout: New Vegas such an addicting experience is the exploration, and the intricate moments of discovery when you find a glorifying and carefully hidden prospect inside a small landmark, which can then be sold for hefty profits or kept for a maintainable reward for your efforts. Not as many buildings are accessible in New Vegas, which can produce moments of dismay if you see a rather interesting, abandoned airport in the distance, and then on closer inspection you realise every entrance is bordered up. But despite this, all landmarks encourage you to go over and explore the area around, and the corridors inside, in the hope of something special hidden from view, whether it be a skill book to add a few points to a certain skill, or schematics for a very rare and unique weapon, you'll be proud of your discoveries, and with the collecting of food, water and chems to use which are much more frequent finds, the fun rarely hinders during exploration. You can also find yourself unintentionally avoiding set objectives for quite some time if you keep finding yourself being directed away because of your awareness of an undiscovered location on your mini-radar functionality which you can't help but get the urge to go and check it out (radar also displays enemies, friendly AI, discovered locations, and objective markers – When they appear on the map though depends on your perception statistic). Eluding your objectives is no penalty to the game though, most have you being allowed unlimited time to complete them, so there is no forced approach to the quest markers, but simply at your own will.
Your reputation with factions also has small ways that can cause you to be idolised more or rejected from the group and with similar repercussions to your karma level too. The way to deteriorate yourself within a group and to lower your karma level not only requires major criminal acts such as murder, but also minor acts, such as pick pocketing someone, stealing an item that is highlighted red (red means it belongs/or is owned by someone), or even being rude in conversation. You have to make sure you are hidden before stealing to avoid the faction noticing you and so no consequence to your status with them, but no matter how well hidden you are, minor acts will always have an effect on your karma. Good acts such as helping people will increase it, and stealing or committing unfair acts when seen, or even unseen, will decrease your karma. These all have repercussions to factions far away from where you are too, and so if you become evil, an evil faction will speak more respectively to you, whereas a good and harmless faction or town will treat you differently, where maybe speech options are disabled, quests become incompletable, and they will be more weary of you, and won't trust you until you perform a good act for them and help them out of a predicament. It's complicated, but allows for so much flexibility where you'll never have the same playthrough twice. Dialogue in the game is an aspect that is always fun and occasionally proves humorous, and no matter who you talk to, there will always be options for whatever you plan to be (evil or good). There's so much variety when talking to someone and you can ask all sorts of questions if you wish to find out more about them, or what's going on around in the area. There are also speech challenges that may appear during a conversation, and if you have a high enough speech skill, you can access information that the character previously didn't want to talk about. Sometimes the barter skill will be shown in the dialogue options, which will usually be needed if you want to negotiate further rewards, or if you have a high strength attribute, you can put some sense into an aggressive character. Lots of variety and reward will come from having a high enough skill, so it's always best to focus on key skills when you level up, because the benefits during speech can be outrageously enjoyable to watch pan out. Unlike Fallout 3, you can only choose a perk every 2 times you level up, which is a shame because you are forced to choose wisely, and there will be many you won't be able to pick, maybe because you don't focus on your gun skill enough, or maybe your perception is too low, and so your attributes and skills have a big effect on the future of the game's unlockables for you.
A new implementation to this sequel is ammo benches, campfires and weapon mods. Ammo benches allow you to break down certain ammo types to help create ammo that you are low on for another weapon, or perhaps create some scrap lead you need to make something else. Most weapons have different ammo types, and it can get quite complex when you are trading with someone and notice many weird ammo types they have, but all ammo types have unique advantages towards different enemy types, so keeping well stocked with various ammo is beneficial in the long run. Campfires are interesting gameplay developments too, and if you collect certain herbs and food, and have the required survival skill, you can create a unique food or salad, that has health healing benefits. There are many recipes to create a new concoction of item, and if you manage to create a rare food type, it will greatly help you when your health is low, or on the other hand, it can bring you a nice amount of caps if you sell to the right people. Rare recipes can also become unlocked by talking to certain people around the wasteland too, and so the possibilities become endless to create a good stock of food and drink supply. Weapon mods are rare modifications that various vendors may be selling that will increase a specific gun's damage, or add a scope on the end of one, or for a shotgun, decrease the spread of bullets for a major advantage in combat. There are many different ones out there to be seen in vendors stock, and new ones will become available after a length of time when they restock, so checking back and seeing if they have a modification for a certain weapon of your choosing if always worthwhile. They aren't cheap though, and neither are many powerful weapons that can either be found or brought, but much more commonly found in someone's inventory. Certain dealers specialise with certain weapons, but most have random supplies and weapons. To make sure you have caps available, it's always best to pick up valuable items when exploring, and you can see the value of an item when you go near it, where it'll show you the weight of the item, aswell as its value. Although you won't get the exact amount of the value since it depends largely on your barter skill, keeping many items in your inventory will allow you to sell them all off if you don't want to use them, and before you know it, you'll be making lots of caps over a period of time. Your caps will not only come in handy with purchasing items, ammo or weapons, but also for negotiating with a difficult character to gain information, or more commonly, keeping your weapons in good condition. The more you use a weapon, its condition deteriorates, and then that has negative effects to its damage, and the same goes for your armour, so keeping them in good quality will have huge advantages during the action scenes. But you don't always have to use caps to repair them, because if you pick up the same piece of armour or exact weapon, then you can repair them using the parts from the similar weapon or armour by using your Pip-Boy on your wrist (if you've played Fallout 3 you'll know all about that), which makes searching enemies after killing them a priority and opportunity that shouldn't be missed.
Fallout: New Vegas is a very violent game, just like Fallout 3, and during the gunplay you'll notice all kinds of limbs explode with critical shots, dismembered arms or viscera fly off an opponent, all accompanied with a gush of blood and messy entrails being spread across the surface. VATS combat system returns in New Vegas, exactly the same as it was in Fallout 3, and this allows precise targeting of an enemies limb, displaying a percentage of the chance to it, and how much action points it'll use up. The more powerful the weapon, the less times you'll be able to fire the weapon in a single VATS use, and the with the ability to set points on multiple targets, making sure you have the correct amount of hits on an enemies head to ensure a instant death, will make all the difference to taking their life from the devastated world and allowing you to proceed to your designated location of choice. The game is best played from the First-Person view, as the third-person perspective just doesn't look right and seems out of place when traversing around, but the choice is there for you to choose. The VATS system also has a brilliant cinematic effect when you unleash your bullets, showcasing the action from a cool angle, displaying the brutality of the violence up close. The gore is ideally suited to this game, and the many chunks of flesh after a heated battle will roll with the wind in the direction it's being forced, leaving trails of blood splatter behind it in great Fallout fashion.
On the New Vegas strip there are many casinos to gamble in, including well known games such as the Slot machines, Roulette and Blackjack. Just change up a certain amount of caps for chips and you can gamble away all you have, but if you win too much money then the manager will get suspicious and you could get banned from gambling in the casino ever again. Outside the Vegas strip, is a new card game called Caravan, which many folks play around in towns, and it will prove challenging and confusing at first, but once you get the hang of it, the gambling addiction will kick in and you'll find yourself unable to stop until you've robbed your opponent of all the caps they have. You can improve your deck of cards all the time by bartering with travellers and merchants for rare types, which will give you an edge over the more difficult opponents, and overall is nice aspect to break up the exploration and dangerous threats of the wasteland. Although you'll have your fair share of combat, New Vegas isn't a game that contains frequent amount of violence, and more often than not, you won't be engaging in combat for long lengths of time. It's by no means a negative point despite how it sounds, as it'll make the combat feel much fresher each time you find yourself in a difficult situation where violence is the only option to abort a conversation and subsequently escape.
But... no matter how entertaining it sounds, Fallout: New Vegas is full of shocking glitches and is overall a technical mess. The constant stuttering framerate always makes the game look unsteady, and often it can freeze up unexpectedly, causing you to have to reboot the system and load up previous data. Save data can get corrupted however, meaning its vital to create at least 3 saves, with one being the auto-save, and its also essential to save frequently as you never know when it will lock up completely. The framerate is the main issue with the game though, since that's what causes most of the freezing issues, if you ever have a battle involving several opponents, you can almost guarantee that the framerate will turn hideous, making it almost unplayable at times. Glitches are also frequent aspects of the game, that seemingly interfere with almost every element of the game, sometimes it'll just be a minor interruption where an enemy will get stuck in the environment which won't stall your progress, but sometimes a rare one may occur. Since there are so many possible glitches, I'll simply name a couple of the major ones I encountered here: The first being a mission objective constantly flashing up onto the screen telling me to go and complete it, despite me already completing the entire quest. For over 50 hours of gameplay it continued to repeat itself and it was an aggravating sight, eventually I got used to it, but that wasn't the point, it should not have happened. Another one involved a quest being incomplete, and there was no way to finish it. I would follow the quest marker to a person with the robot I was assigned with to take to the person, but no speech option opened up, and since then the quest has remained incomplete for no fault of my own. These aggravating glitches are just a handful of the possibilities that could interfere with your game, and there are many out there on the internet which causes you to have to restart the game from scratch. Its quite simply unforgivable and unacceptable for a game such as this. It's expected to encounter some disturbances in a game this size, but what the developers have released here is an unfinished game, and its absolutely terrible in the technical department. What Fallout: New Vegas needed was an extra few months in development to fix the framerate and patch most of the major glitches, because if it didn't have so many problems it could have been something truly special to remember it by, but so far, you'll likely remember the glitches and problems above the addicting exploration elements. Long range combat is still a problem that needs assessed too, since even with a sniper rifle, the chance of hitting an opponent in VATS is very low, which doesn't make sense seeing as it's such a long range weapon, so more often than not it's a good idea to take advantage of the new iron sights function implemented for most weapons which will give you a much greater chance of scoring a hit on the enemy, and as everything appears, Obsidian presents the new features and improvements based upon the foundations that Bethesda made with Fallout 3.
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GRAPHICS – 2/5
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Fallout: New Vegas is not a good looking game, the graphics are below average, and many texture and visual blemishes will capture your eye and interfere with the game's atmosphere, but what it succeeds on is its artistic design on the Mojave Wasteland, that will capture your imagination and provide you with a realistic and gritty insight into what a nuclear apocalypse could do to the world. The exploration factor will be greatly enforced upon you because of the intriguing looking environments that always look inviting, and even some sights, most notably a night encounter standing outside of the Vegas strip all lit up, will cause you to momentarily lapse in concentration as you marvel at the fascinating visual of the apocalyptic environment displayed before you in the First-Person perspective. The original Fallout 3 engine was reworked for New Vegas to accommodate the extra lighting and effects for the New Vegas strip, which was a much needed necessity to grab your attention to marvel at the distance you were from it. The draw distance is good at highlighting big monuments from far away, but details of the environment become very jagged and from distance you can see the textures really suffering on particular surfaces outside of the limits of access for you to go, and like most open world games object pop up is frequent as you draw closer to a location, and the same with the grass and surface details on the ground. But, despite the visual setbacks, Fallout: New Vegas is artistically outstanding. Some buildings and colours are perhaps overused from time to time, but overall the artistic quality provides a great sense of scale for a believable world to explore.
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SOUND – 4/5
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Throughout New Vegas, the highlight of the sound is the small sound effects that take place in the background. The usual light patter on the drums when you level up is a welcoming rhythm brought back from Fallout 3, and new effects that have a great, substantial outcome are the slow rumble when experience points are earned from discovering a location or completing a quest. It really ties in well with the rest of the sound department including the bloody splatter when chunks of brain explode, and if you take on the Bloody Mess perk, bodies will explode upon death, and despite this not granting you much bonuses to the game, it's more of a dynamic sound of chain reaction splatter effects that really are resonant to the style of gameplay. But another aspect that can't go without mention is the soundtrack, which alternates depending on your location in the wasteland and whether you are under attack, and the subtle change over is unnoticeable and extremely well done to compliment the atmosphere.
Voice acting is surprisingly impressive, with the best voice acting performances coming from well known actors such as Ron Perlman and Kris Kristofferson, who quickly establish importance in the roles they deliver their lines, but like I've mentioned before, there are far too many repetitive voice actors used which break up the realism in the roles they are playing, and it quickly becomes tiresome. Sound effects can also become frequently out of place, and that's because of the lagging framerate which causes not only freezing issues, but the sounds when entering VATS and the bullet detection all become out of line and it gets real messy and annoying.
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CONTROLS – 4/5
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Fallout: New Vegas doesn't touch any new ground with the controls layout, and so if you're used to playing Fallout 3 before playing this, you'll have no trouble in getting into the swing of things, but if you are a new user to the Fallout series, then memorising the controls will come with time, since the layout could prove slightly confusing with the sheer amount of options to keep in mind. Most of the time, the controls are all decently responsive, but the framerate is the guilty factor here aswell when the controls become unresponsive, and when combined with the out of place sound effects, gameplay can get hindered quite unusually and annoyingly when you have to avoid some combat situations because you're certain the game will tilt into a frustrating moment where nothing is running smooth.
All glitches, out of place sound effects, stuttering framerate and freezing issues all become common problems the longer you play, and for the first 50 or so hours of gameplay they will be noticed infrequently, but the longer you play the game, the more and more it becomes apparent and showcases its disastrous true identity in technical terms as a complete mess.
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ATMOSPHERE – 5/5
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The atmosphere is one of Fallout: New Vegas' strongest points, since not only is it realistic and make you feel uncomfortable in the barren wasteland scarred by human nature, but its sustained throughout the entire game. Whether you're treading carefully in enemy territory, stepping onto the New Vegas strip for the first time, or seeking to trade your supplies in a western outpost, you can not only feel the atmosphere enveloping you, but it's heavily dependent on the soundtrack and it truly works out perfectly and is utterly engrossing for the opportunities you'll come face to face with. If you are wandering the Mojave Desert alone, you'll really get a lonely vibe from the soundtrack which corresponds with the atmosphere on screen, where tumbleweeds blow effortlessly with the wind, and bloody corpses are found rotting with flies buzzing about the empty malnourished carcasses. The post-apocalyptic world feels alive and dead at the same time if you get what I mean, and so if you're seeking a game to showcase you a nightmarish future then Fallout: New Vegas is just the game to do that, if only the graphics were better to produce even more realism for a hellish tomorrow.
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ENEMY AI – 2/5
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Every enemy on the game has only one objective during the game – as soon as you become visible, kill you quickly and efficiently. Problem is, this AI response is the only one you'll likely notice, and there is no intelligence about enemies on the game, the only piece of variety they'll show is the ability to perform a variety of moves if they are mutated creatures or using a melee weapon. The great thing about New Vegas is the large amount of enemy variety, particularly insects and other mutated, overgrown creatures. Each type forces you to adapt to their swift attacks, whether from long range or up close, you'll need to be aware of each enemy's attacks, especially when most of the time you'll be faced by groups of them. Taking chems provides you with damage resistance, or more action points depending on the chem, and you'll need these quite a lot if you encounter creatures or abominations that are tough and your weapons don't deal the appropriate damage. Of course you'll need to be aware of taking them too frequently however, because otherwise you'll become addicted to the substance and if you don't constantly keep your body filled with the drug, then you'll suffer withdrawal effects, and will need to be cured by a doctor. Abominations such as Deathclaws are perhaps the most frightening of all the enemies on the game, lunging at you from great distances, dealing heavy amounts of damage and artistically designed to look menacing and terrifying, you'll need to put up a gruelling fight to emerge victorious, though its likely you'll only emerge the winner if you are an extremely high level, otherwise you'll never survive. The attack patterns are predictable but because of your sluggish and deliberately slow movement depending on how much stuff you're carrying, enemies don't give you a rest, and like I mentioned, the only thing they know to do is become aware of you, and then attack you until one of you is dead. Human enemies using conventional firearms will just shoot non-stop, never really effectively taking cover and simply standing out in the open, and it doesn't help that most of the animations are wooden and poor and don't reflect basic human stances.
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LENGTH – 5/5
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By playing through Fallout: New Vegas the way it was meant to be played, in terms of exploring every area, taking your time over a relatively short main story with only a few missions involved before the credits, and finishing all the side quests that should be dealt with before you enter the last stages of the last mission, you are looking at approximately 80 – 120 hours of gameplay time, and your time will no doubt be well spent despite the inevitable mixed reactions you'll have with it in the technical department. Quests will be displayed in your Pip-boy, and just when you think you are closing the gap between the last mission, you'll enter an undiscovered area of the map and realise there are several more missions to advance on yet before the game concludes. The map size looks similar to Fallout 3, but in actual fact, the Mojave Wasteland is quite a bit smaller, with many inaccessible areas surrounding the map, and seemingly less locations to discover. You are also limited to some areas, as the Mojave is full of high hills, forcing you to navigate around from a different angle, but despite this, the Mojave is still full of surprises - Some good, some mysterious, some creepy, and unfortunately, some bad.
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REPLAY VALUE – 5/5
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Fallout: New Vegas sporadically changes from moments of brilliance and then to moments of downright disgust, and it's a shame that the fun factor cannot be sustained because of interfering technical issues which hamper nearly all aspects you set your eyes on. But fortunately, most of the blemishes and glitches can be looked past, and the addicting gameplay is as rewarding as ever. The flexibility between factions, and the way in which situations evolve from one situation to the next, allows for so much replay value that there is unlimited playthroughs available to change up the way you act, the way you look, the way you neutralize a problem and the way you eliminate quests that you previously completed on an earlier playthrough, and wish to change your approach to every single character in the game. With a huge amount of various and fun side quests, not all can be completed in a single playthrough, since when some are taken on, another one may be disabled for good, and so for future playthroughs you can play an almost entirely new game, where you change your skills and attributes, and take your karma level in the completely opposite direction, changing everyone's response to you. With inevitable DLC content coming out in the near future, Fallout: New Vegas is a game that is worth every penny, you won't like what the game can sometimes throw at you unexpectedly, but in the end this post-apocalyptic adventure through a believable and dangerous world is one of the most addicting gameplay experiences where if your luck is high, nearly every gamble you make will pay off with awesome and positive results.
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OVERALL SUMMARY – 8.5/10
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Good Points: Sustained atmosphere makes for a believable post-apocalyptic world, Great Soundtrack, Lots of dialogue options with good voice acting, VATS provides for lots of gruesome encounters, Most side quests are cool and intriguing, Exploration is greatly encouraged by many inviting looking environments, Absolutely loads of flexibility within factions and quests that allow for so much replay value, Plenty of varied enemy and weapon designs.
Bad Points: Constant stuttering framerate causes freezing problems and sound faults, Many glitches that range from minor to major interferences, Noticeable visual blemishes and texture issues, Frequent and long load times, Occasional unresponsive controls can lead to cheap deaths.