Okay Geek Farm
PC Review - Fallout: New Vegas
Alex TretropStory: It’s made very clear right from the beginning that although New Vegas is running off of Fallout 3’s engine, they aren’t related to each other in the slightest. So if you’re jumping into a Fallout game for the first time you won’t need to have known any of the previous ones. You play as The Courier, a male or female character who’s delivering a package containing one platinum poker chips to the New Vegas’ Strip. You’re quickly ambushed, shot, and left for dead in the middle of the Mojave Desert. You survive that encounter and quickly head out to seek revenge. Thankfully, it gets much much more complicated as it progresses, and the storyline has a real knack for letting you choose some extremely meaningful decisions, much more so than Fallout 3 ever did. It really feels like you can experience this game not just once or twice, but multiple times just to see how differently the storyline can play out.
Gameplay: If it aint broke, don’t fix it - just refine it. This is the strict principal that New Vegas upholds as it the player continues throughout the game. You still have VATS, tons of guns and stats to put points into, but each aspect of the game feels like they’ve added little things to improve the gameplay that, when put together, make for a much tighter package. I’m talking about adding iron sights to the guns or just the much improved, believable conversations. Even the new locations in and around New Vegas feel much more fascinating and less repetitive to explore than in Fallout 3.
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Visuals/Audio: Maybe not the series’ best point in general, New Vegas suffers from the same muddy gray and weird texture issues that were present in the original. While I haven’t played the console versions, I have been reliably informed that PC is the way to go because there are apparently long load times and big frame rate issues on the 360 and PS3. My experience with the PC version’s visuals however were a much more pleasant experience. Sure, there still are some minute technical problems but the game finally takes away the all too repetitive subway tunnels that all just looked exactly the same from Fallout 3, and replaces it with areas that don’t repeat themselves all that often, if ever. The strip itself, which is still receiving electricity (an unusual trait in the Fallout universe) is a wonder to behold because you’d never expect to see something so extravagant and flashy in a game that is otherwise filled out with muddy browns and greys.
Audio is also excellent, with Obsidian making each character feel unique, and not copping out by reusing the same voice actors in this title as Bethesda typically does in their previous games (like Oblivion or even Fallout 3). New Vegas also benefits from having a star studded cast, with extremely standout voice actors like Felicia Day and Wayne Newton. Seriously, you don’t know how happy I am to not have Three-Dog shouting into the radio stations and destroying my ears every time I tune in.
Hours to Complete: At the very minimum, 30. And that’s only talking the main quest as well as a couple of very fun side missions. I don’t even feel like I’ve scratched the surface and I could easily play another 20 to 30 hours to experience everything. Add in the inevitable mod support and ridiculous amount of different ways you can experience the story, and you have one game you’ll be playing for a very, very long time.
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Opinion: Fallout: New Vegas absolutely feels like it merits to be its own standalone title. It takes all the core concepts of Fallout 3, the shooting, the RPG elements, the dialog and everything in between, and adds meaningful additions that really improve the game experience when taken as a whole. The only thing is that Obsidian seems to always release extremely buggy games and New Vegas is no exception. Twenty minutes in and I was already watching a moonwalking dog prance around my screen upside down. No, seriously! Interestingly enough, the phrase that ran through my mind at the time was, “Yep, this is a Fallout game alright”, and to this very moment I think that sentence holds very true in my opinion of the game. If you liked Fallout 3 you will love all th work that Obsidian has gone through to make New Vegas what it is, and if you didn’t like it… well, there is almost nothing new that this game brings to the table that will get you interested, unfortunately.
Play or Pass: Regardless of its annoying bugs, New Vegas is a fantastic game that improves all the gameplay problems with Fallout 3 while providing you with a better story and world to roam around in, making this an absolute pleasure to play if you’re a fan of the series or just want a good RPG to play. And you’ll definitely be playing this for a long time too, because the replayability is astronomically high. I have a feeling I’ll be playing this way into the months to come!
