Fallout New Vegas

Overly Dramatic Review in One Sentence

A revenge mission that somehow places you in the middle of a war for power, placement, and water.

The Actual Review

Game time:

PC: 24.8
Xbox: 19

Gameplay

This is the same engine, I'm pretty sure, as Fallout 3 making the game play relatively the same. The guns do feel different though. I am not sure why. There is something about the recoil or the damage that just feels like the enemies can take damage for days. Yes, you can do things to make sneak attacks good, but outside that, you wail on them.

It is really hard to move from the last game to this one without much changing in the gameplay realm. You do get a very open world with lots to do and a ton of different side quest that are more than just a single event. You also have quite a few events of people chasing after you, which you got in the last game, but this time it is a bit more unpredictable than just when you come out of the Metro.

I did run into some issues with the companions just disappearing at times. I believe they were all tied to story missions, but instead of being outside of Lucky 38 or where I left them, they would be randomly on the road. I never could figure out a pattern.

One of the better things about this playthrough was the mod. With having the Fallout 3 story be a part of my character, you had these other lines where you could say different things, and it might give you different options. For instance, I think you basically have to join the Brotherhood of Steel in Fallout 3, but this one you don't. If you find them, you can say you were/are a part of the brotherhood, and you get different options. It is a fun additional that made me feel like I was playing a version of Mass Effect Legendary Edition which the continuing story.

Graphics and Sound

Even with a couple mods to help the graphics, you can see the age. I am thinking about Fallout 4, and I am not sure whether that is much better. As a note, I will not play that game again for a VERY long time since I have played through it at least 4 times since it came out. The surrounding textures do look a lot better than 3. It does have a more realistic feel and less of a "Here is a piece of cardboard that is supposed to look like rocks" feel.

The sound hasn't changed. Solid.

Story and Characters

There are 2 different story lines. They do not really interact with each other without the concept of you walked into Vegas. That's it. One is getting revenge on a dude who shot you. The other is the control or destruction of the Hoover Dam which provides power to the area.

The first story, it's fine. There is nothing special about it, and in the end it doesn't really matter. You have to follow it the same way to a point. Then you get a dozen decisions that force you into the other one which you might have ignored up until this point.

The fight for the Hoover Dam is very much a weird thing of running around the whole area. Especially if you are wanting to support Yes Man. I am trying to avoid spoilers so forgive me with the vagueness. You end up having to work or talk to all the groups and each one has a series of quest for you to do to raise your reputation with them. They so tedious at times. Like the Boomers and their requirement for you to run around and tell people to leave them away or that they fell in love with someone through binoculars. However, these side questlines can give you some cool stuff, like the Boomers who do a bombing run on the dam (which magically doesn't destroy it) which I never knew about. However, running around the world do these errands gets old quick and can take the joy of the game out of you very fast.

My Rating

This was my first Fallout game. I remember being enthralled with the world that had been created, but playing this time, it has aged, and the story is extremely weak. I know this game is beloved, but the fact that you have to look for the quest line to finish the story is crazy. There is so much on the map that does matter that it feels overwhelming and wasteful just running around. One of the best parts is when you make a mistake and blow yourself up with a nuke or like in the video below, random granades and you fly through the sky. The story is disjointed, but I do find it to be an interesting survival of all of these groups trying to restart their lives. This is worth a playthrough, just wouldn't suggest running to play it.

Parental Rating

There is an incredible amount of gore and language in this. I didn't catch it in Fallout 3, but it had to be there. They would have hated this game being played at home.

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