The Fallout saga continues…

In the desert after a nuclear fallout, where mutations and thievery is an everyday occurrence, you find yourself asking if this is the end.

Business as usual, or is it?

One thing I like about this game is the immediate movie feel you get when entering into the world of New Vegas. It’s like you’re told a story that makes it extremely interesting to listen to and look at. Especially the voice acting of an all time favorite of mine, Ron Perlman does something special to me. I think the voice acting in this game is near spectacular – they have really found some good voices for the game.

When you’re introduced to the New Vegas world it’s like you’ve stepped into a wild western. Wandering through the Mojave Desert you realize that even though it’s almost a wasteland, you can find vegetation and fresh crops which you can combine and use to your advantage. One thing I have mention is that this game is extremely difficult to master if you have no experience in playing open world games or even RPGs. Plus, the combat aspect of it takes time to adjust too. It’s not just something you can jump into. Thankfully the main missions lead you towards the New Vegas strip rather safely without throwing you out to the wolves.

This game is much like the previous Fallout games, but this installment has a better story and is better explained. I especially enjoy the factions and how things are not black and white, but differing shades of grey. It makes for an interesting play-through, because you morally have to understand the consequences of your actions. During my first ever play-through I accidentally killed a peasant of sorts in the beginning of the game and my standing immediately changed to “Vilified”. I loved how the faction I was close to hated me because of my kill, and I decided to start over, because I wasn’t ready to be that sort of player.

It’s that way…

The side missions in this game and most open world games are what makes them truly shine. In this instance it’s no different. The missions are plentiful and exciting. With this Ultimate Edition of New Vegas, you’re also handed all DLCs for the game which makes the universe even bigger than before and this is where the game has its shining moments. You can spend countless hours on missions that not only give you a better understanding of the game and how it works but information on different factions.

Wandering the desert, you’ll meet friendly people and kill aggressive monsters and thugs. Or maybe you’ll kill friendly people and become friends with the thugs, though you should still kill the monsters. That’s what makes this game so infinitely interesting. You do have the chance to make a choice on what kind of person you want to be, and present to the world of New Vegas. You can be a badass like no other and have practically everyone cower in fear of you. Or you can befriend small communities and help them when they are in need which will make them practically idolize you. Or you can be a monster yourself and kill everything in your way to make yourself all powerful. It’s up to you.

You wanna be my friend?

The companions you can have in the game makes it for a more enjoyable and interesting play. You can have up to two, a robot/hybrid/animal and a “human” companion. The thing about this kinda bugs me, the AI is good but there seems to be something missing still. I couldn’t quite pinpoint how I felt about it, but I’ve seen companions in other games be done a bit better.

It’s also worth to mention that when you choose what factions to help out and which not to, you actually feel like you’re making a difference to the people you’re helping in this wasteland of a desert.

You’re S.P.E.C.I.A.L

After you complete enough quests you might notice that you’ve leveled up. New Vegas uses the character skills called, S.P.E.C.I.A.L. which determines your basic character stats and skill sets and perks. The S.P.E.C.I.A.L. acronym stands for Strength, Perception, Endurance, Charisma, Intelligence, Agility, and Luck. When you first start the game you’ll be prompted to allocate points to stats you’d like, then you have to build those and finally choose a perk. You can’t be foolish with your choices, because although a super strong but unintelligent character might be able to carry a bunch of stuff around, he or she won’t gain as many skill points.

The skills range from lock picking over speech to bartering and knowledge about guns – you will have to think carefully about how you want your character to engage with the world. This is probably one of the problems I had with the game. I tend to choose the same kind of character over and over again when I have the choice of actually choosing my character’s personality. A lot of people love to be able to customize everything they can, whereas I sometimes feel that I am asked to make too many decisions. In my mind, further and detailed customization would be better to be put later in the game, so you have a chance to try out different things…

Bugs of the technical kind

I had a few problems during combat, where I could get stuck in the weirdest places when I was battling against monsters. Even experienced a few camera glitches. Of course once in awhile would be fine, but this is a re-release of New Vegas so maybe there should’ve been a lot more quality control to ensure a smooth gameplay.

Regardless of the bugs and glitches I came across, this game was sure as hell enjoyable enough. There were plenty of things to get into, and I’m not even much of an open world gamer. Sometimes I think you can have TOO many choices. It confuses some players and they might even end up abandoning a game halfway through. This could also be a problem with this ultimate edition because of all the DLCs that are included. Side missions are fun, but it can be a struggle to finish them, because they are extra time to delve into a complex universe as Fallout.

Final comments

In New Vegas, the Fallout formula seems to be more or less intact, with more polished combat, high-quality side missions, and the exciting setting of the Vegas strip. Unfortunately, the combat system seemed to have some annoying bugs once in a while, and this shouldn’t be necessary to point out since this is a re-release with several DLCs attached. If Obsidian and Bethesda had polished up the game by fixing the AI, improving the animations or even gotten it to run smoothly, perhaps it would feel less like they just wanted to monetize on the Fallout series. But Fallout: New Vegas is still a fun ride. And this is definitely a wasteland worth exploring.

If you liked Fallout: New Vegas, you might like The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim and Borderlands.

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