Fallout New Vegas Review

[Herbert1405241469 0]

Fallout New Vegas... Hmm. Well I've finished the game with about 50 hours of gameplay, so I can't say it's a bad game. I definitely get more game hours per dollar on a Bethesda title than any other game out there. But as far as the game itself... Let's dive into the review, shall we?

If you've played Fallout 3, and liked it, prepare for more of the same. Fallout New Vegas takes place in the desert areas surrounding the city of Las Vegas post-apocalypse. I've never played the first 2 fallout games, but I hear that New Vegas feels more like the original games in terms of types of characters you run into and such. I love it when games get a sort of "reboot" and go back to their roots. I mean, that's why the games themselves became popular and have sequels, is because the first ones did so well.

Fallout New Vegas, though it takes place in the desert, feels too much like Fallout 3, which takes place in Washington D.C. The desert doesn't feel HOT enough, considering the lack of water in most places. There are no heat artifacts like you would experience in Far Cry 2... Now even though Far Cry 2 wasn't the best game, as far as feeling like I was in a sweltering desert, the graphics were the tops. Fallout New Vegas just feels like I'm wandering around the Capital Wasteland from Fallout 3 with a sand texture on the ground instead of dirt.

New Vegas does present a lot of new things, though, as far as gameplay. You can craft guns, ammo, and so forth, which is a nice touch. I like the ability to break down ammo for some guns I don't use to create the parts of ammo I could use on another gun.

Sounds are as good as they were in Fallout 3. I wasn't crazy about the radio stations, or lack thereof. You would expect the game developers would have found/licensed more music for the game when they know that an average first time playthough takes between 30-50 hours. I kept finding myself listening to the same songs over and over and over... And the one or two radio "DJ's" they had kept repeating the same news over and over again, rather than progressing the news as long as the character moved the main plot forward as in Fallout 3... There are radio mods out there that add new music, but I believe it's the principle of the thing! Ambient music gets old after awhile as well, so even if you shut off the radio, you will get tired of the same musical "cues" depending on your situations. The music they have is good, it just gets repetitive...

As far as the Strip itself that they promoted so much... Ah, disappointment.

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Now, looking at this video and having the developers hype up the Vegas Strip in the game, interspersing clips of REAL Las Vegas, makes you think that the city in the game is going to be HUGE and populated by tons of people doing all sorts of things...

The reality is that the "city" of New Vegas consists of 3 casinos. That's it. There is nothing else on the strip. You have a couple of big signs, but it's not nearly as glamorous as they made it out to believe... And the insides of the casinos themselves have no more than a handful of people in any given area, giving these huge buildings a sense of emptiness. You can see this twice when they pan across the casino in the above video.

A.I. is the same as Fallout 3. The don't really hide or anything, they just move back and forth when attacking and come running straight at you if they need a cleaner shot. Not much in the way of tactics that I can see. Enemies seem way more overpowered in this game than Fallout 3. I played on a medium difficulty setting, and I found myself overwhelmed by bugs and Deathclaws on my level 30 character... Even mini-nukes, which in Fallout 3 were pretty much death sentences to enemies, have little effect on deathclaws now. It makes it more challenging, and forces you to re-think strategies.

The story is a basic revenge story, and though there are lots of characters with semi-deep background stories, you really don't get too deep as far as actual story telling. I guess the majority of the story you make up as you go, which is nice because that helps immerse you into your character. Chasing the elusive man in the Checkered Coat made me feel like I was the Gunslinger Roland from Stephen King's Dark Tower series following the Man in Black. In fact, I focused on guns for my first character and basically re-created the Gunslinger, which was fun. The atmosphere was perfect for it.

Overall, you are going to get many hours of game time with this game, and it is definitely better than Fallout 3, but new environments are needed, which are probably going to appear as DLC, which I actually might buy for this game, unlike any other DLC that's come out for other Bethesda games... This one actually might be worth it... IF THEY MAKE IT AVAILABLE FOR PC. Right now, I hear the only DLC will be xBox exclusives, which I think is crap. PC is the format that made this series popular, I don't see why we PC gamers have to get crapped on because of consoles >.<

[iGuest 3]

HerbertFallout New Vegas Review

Fallout New Vegas, though it takes place in the desert, feels too muchLike Fallout 3, which takes place in Washington D.C. The desert doesn'tFeel HOT enough, considering the lack of water in most places. There are no heat artifacts like you would experience in Far Cry 2... Now evenThough Far Cry 2 wasn't the best game, as far as feeling like I was in a sweltering desert, the graphics were the tops. Fallout New Vegas justFeels like I'm wandering around the Capital Wasteland from Fallout 3With a sand texture on the ground instead of dirt