Fallout New Vegas – Review – PC

Have you been itching to get back into the futuristic post apocalyptic wasteland, waste your caps in the Casino’s of New Vegas and cripple the heads of mutated animals and humans while listening to calm, classic 50′s music on the radio via your Pip-Boy?

The follow-up to the critically acclaimed, award winning game Fallout 3, Fallout New Vegas is here with improved gameplay elements, a new but similar storyline, a new wasteland with all new locations, characters, quests, and music with hours upon hours of gameplay.

Story: Set in 2281, about 200 years after the war and 3 years after Fallout 3, Fallout New Vegas is about an unknown courier on a quest to deliver a platinum chip to New Vegas. Along the way, he/she is stopped, robbed, and presumably dead. A friendly robot finds him and takes him to a local doctor who miraculously removes the bullet from his head and patches him up. Now he must find out who did this to him, why they did it, and get the chip back so they can complete the delivery.

In a nutshell, similar to Fallout 3, Fallout NV has you playing an unknown wanderer in search of one particular person and along the way he/she runs into one of the main factions controlling the sections of the wasteland which you most likely will join – especially if it’s the only way to get the answers you seek.

Gameplay: Being, for the most part, the same game, it’s hard to not compare Fallout NV to Fallout 3 so, why try to avoid it? In Fallout 3, you grew up in a vault and had no idea what it was like in the real world – the wasteland. Exploring the world, meeting people and gaining their trust, or having them trust you, felt right. It was a world you had never been to and the distance between places was long. In Fallout NV, you’d think as a courier, your character would know his way around and if his mission was to deliver a platinum chip to New Vegas he would have already traveled through some of the places in the world. But no, you wake up in Goodsprings, a town that is still quite a distance from New Vegas and no one has seen you before and you know nothing of the world. Where did you come from? Did you grow up in the wasteland? Did you come from a vault? How far was this vault from the location you almost died? Maybe you were knocked out and brought to this location from far away. This last point is the only thing that makes sense but it isn’t the vibe I got when I started the game.

From the opening cut-scene to the start of the game, starting out in the wasteland made Fallout NV, feel like a much more progressive and action packed game compared to Fallout 3. Right away you are given some good weapons and a good amount of supplies that will continue to easily be replenished throughout the game as you explore. For most of the game, you never really feel alone. Very quickly you are trusted, at least somewhat and most areas you can explore without being told to get lost or killed for being someone from a vault. Sure, travel between towns or quest based locations can be long, but they felt shorter and less boring than they did in Fallout 3. Of course once a location has been discovered, you can fast travel between two locations without that long walk.

So again, just like Fallout 3, Fallout NV has you exploring a vast and lively wasteland looking for answers as to who tried to kill you, why they tried to kill you, and eventually reach New Vegas to deal with the problem. Along the way, you come across small towns that have been built from the rubble with makeshift homes, destroyed buildings, and even structures that survived the massive nuclear attack during the war. Unlike the Capital wasteland, the Mojave wasteland seems to have been hit less from the attack and life seems to slowly be going back to the way it used to be. The people within these towns need help, so most of the game consists of quests having you explore, retrieving an item, fixing something or killing a target before you can get the answers you are looking for. As suggested with the name New Vegas, Vegas is slowly being rebuilt and looks to be the most important place in the wasteland with bright lights and full of activity. This is where many of the top, popular and controlling people live so knowing how to deal with them is crucial. Whether it’s joining a faction they control, or going in as an enemy, the option is up to you. With this in mind, you will come across some major factions controlling the wasteland such as Caesar’s Legion, the NCR (New California Republic) and even hear about the Brotherhood of Steel from Fallout 3. No matter what you do, chances are you will choose one side or the other which may make your main quest easier or harder to complete.

An added feature called Hardcore mode is for, as it suggests, the hardcore players that want a real challenge. With this mode, traveling the desert will make you dehydrated so drinking water is crucial for survival. Bullets will weigh you down so deciding what weapons and bullets you need for each scenario is important as well. This means finding a house to store your equipment is a good idea too. When hurt, Stimpaks are great for regaining health and fixing limbs but in hardcore mode, you must use a doctor’s bag to fix broken limbs.

For a game that has just released, in a way, it is expected to have bugs and glitches with patches to follow but it seems Fallout has a bad reputation when it comes to new releases. From the glitchy and unplayable DLC for Fallout 3 to many bugs and glitches day one in Fallout New Vegas making it unplayable for some players, it seems the games are not getting the amount of testing they need. Sure, it’s an open world RPG with the player making all the choices for a non-linear experience so testing all those choices can be a challenge, but having it work day one is crucial. With this said, I experience some bugs where people or animals would be stuck in the ground or rocks, blowing off the head of an enemy sometimes left the brain, eyes and jaw floating in the air, enemies would run away from me during one try, but dying and replaying the same part had them defending an area. None of the problems I encountered were game breaking so I didn’t really mind the minor bugs I had. To be honest, they were quite funny but they aren’t something that should be happening.

Graphics/Audio: Fallout New Vegas feels more western, as it should. The locations, accents, and music have more of a western vibe and more lively compared to the ruins of the Capital Wasteland. Graphically, Fallout New Vegas is the same as Fallout 3 but it feels brighter and provides a feeling of hope for the world as they try to rebuild what was once a great place to live. Keeping with the alternate 50′s history, Fallout NV features many robots, old technology and radio stations that feature great classic songs that may seem to not fit in the post apocalyptic world, but for some reason fighting a tough enemy while listening to Blue Moon or any of the other classics is so satisfying.

Overall: For the most part, Fallout NV is the same as Fallout 3 with gameplay improvements, a new wasteland, new locations, characters, weapons, enemies, with the mentioning of some familiar things from Fallout 3. Although the events between the two are not related, I couldn’t help at times feel like I was still playing Fallout 3, but with the new additions, a new experience is offered providing hours upon hours of gameplay with plenty of quests to keep you entertained.

Pros:
-New wasteland and story
-More progressive; less boring
-Great challenge for even hardcore players
-Amazing 50′s music and host on Radio New Vegas

Cons:
-Too similar to Fallout 3. But if something works, why change it?
-Many bugs and glitches. Patches have been rolling out though

Overall Score: 8.5/10

A Steam copy of this game was provided to the reviewer for reviewing purposes from the publisher

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