Fallout New Vegas might just be the best RPG ever made. Just one problem though: It isn’t finished.
I’ve spent the last week or so wandering across the post apocalyptic expanse of the Mojave Wasteland, fighting off raiders, thieves, mutated insects, and radioactive monsters, all while double and triple-crossing the various armies, politicians, and power-hungry maniacs who populate (and are fighting for control of) the titular city of New Vegas. This is a game that I’ve already poured dozens of hours into, and judging by the amount of incomplete sidequests I have left to do and the vast swaths of unexplored territory still remaining on my map, I’m still probably going to have to pour dozens of more hours into this game before I’ve seen all of the content it has to offer.
And I can’t wait to explore more of the wasteland, but there’s just one big hurdle that’s preventing me from doing so: the bugs. No, I’m not referring to the radioactive, giant insects that populate the wilderness outside of New Vegas, I’m referring to the various glitches, lock-ups, and game-ending bugs that pop up on a regular basis while playing this game. Far more dangerous than any of the enemies stalking the wastes, the amount of bugs in this game will cause you to lose hours of progress, force you to re-do entire quests, and, if you’re anything like me, will probably cause you to toss your controller in frustration. I understand that a game of this epic size and scope is bound to have a few issues here and there, but sloppy programming pervades every aspect of New Vegas: save files will refuse to load, important items and characters (that are mandatory for progress in the game,) will just simply disappear and never respawn, and frequent crashes and freezes all combine to create what is perhaps the most unstable, buggy,and seemingly unfinished game to be released on any platform in this generation. The game is so rough and so broken that oftentimes it feels more like an early beta test rather than a supposedly finished, final retail product that they’re charging $60 for.
But despite the frustration (and believe me, you will get frustrated) of dealing with the game’s broken programming and the seeming absence of thorough bug-testing on the publisher’s part, I have for the most part enjoyed my time with New Vegas, because as ineptly as the game was programmed, its still one of the best written and designed role-playing experiences I’ve ever played. When the game decides to work properly, it’s brillaint; it’s deep, challenging, rewarding, and addictive, and it even manages to fix some of the problems associated with Western-style RPG’s.
First and foremost of those issues would be the level of challenge. Previous games in the series had a sort of backwards difficulty curve; they started off hard when your character was low level and lacked the skills necessary to fend off danger, with enemies capable of killing your character in a few hits, but as your character leveled up and gained more useful skills and more powerful equipment, the games became progressively easier as you neared the end. New Vegas still has this to some extent, but the beginning of the game is definitely better balanced than previous entries, as the game does a good job of easing you into wasteland rather than dropping you into the middle of it and expecting you to fend for yourself.
The big appeal of these games has always been their non-linear, emergent gameplay, and New Vegas manages to improve on this aspect as well; instead of merely playing a good or bad character as you do in most games of this type, New Vegas forces you to choose sides in a morally ambiguous, three-way war for control of the wasteland, where your choices aren’t necessarily “good” or “bad” but rather beneficial to certain people or factions while costly to others. You’re almost always given more than two or three choices on how to handle a situation, and every choice you make has genuine, branching repercussions that permanently change the world inside the game. While most Western RPG’s give you the illusion of having freedom in your choices, usually the only major difference you get for your behavior is a “good” or “bad” ending, but in Fallout New Vegas, the choices you make having a lasting, tangible effect on the entire game, and by the time you reach the end, chances are the political and social landscape of New Vegas in your game will be vastly different from anybody else’s.
New Vegas also manages to retain all of the aspects that made Fallout 3 great as well; the ruins of the American southwest are just as vast and beautifully rendered as the Capitol wastleand from Fallout 3, and despite the bleak setting, the series’ trademark black humor and quirky personality remains intact. The game’s story is also probably the best in the series, filled a memorable cast of characters and some of the most well written, clever dialogue to have ever appeared in a video game.
The combat and character-development systems are still as addictive as they ever were as well, managing to strike the same sweet spot between traditional turn-based RPG combat (courtesy of the game’s V.A.T.S. targeting system,) and twitch based shooter that Fallout 3 managed. Customizing your character has been streamlined as well, with new perks (the Fallout term for special abilities) and some much deserved simplifications done to how skills are categorized. If you (were crazy and) didn’t like how Fallout 3 handled these aspects, chances are you still won’t like New Vegas, but fans of the series will appreciate the streamlining and new additions, while newbies will have no trouble getting used to it thanks to how accessible it is.
So, Fallout New Vegas basically manages to get everything right in terms of how it was designed and planned, but in terms of how it was executed… Well, I already went into that. If this game managed to work properly on a consistent basis it would be perfect, but it doesn’t, so it’s a shame that I can’t give it a perfect recommendation because of technical issues. If you have the patience to deal with having to redo entire sections of the game or restart repeatedly when the game inexplicably (and inevitably) craps out due to a bug or an outright crash, you will be treated to one of the best RPGs ever made. However, if you understandably don’t want to/won’t deal with the game’s multitude of random bugs, I don’t blame you, because while the game was designed perfectly, it’s sloppy, unfinished nature often turns it into an experience that’s just as frustrating as a badly designed game would be. If you simply can’t wait for the next, great RPG, then you might as well get Fallout New Vegas now, just be aware that you’re paying full-price for an unfinished product. Everybody else would be advised to pick this game up in a few months, after it’s (hopefully) patched to completion.
Final Score: 8/10
William
Really good review, but one comment, Fable 3 is way better….
Apocacrux
Sounds like it’s better to just go back and play Fallout 3 again, or finish the game for the first time instead of spending the extra on this.
Also, I would say Fable 3 doesn’t quite compare to New Vegas any more than Halo Reach does. Though I am sure both are better games I can’t say with out playing either.
RetroSpective
Damn Bethesda sure has ballz trying to feed us shit like this I mean 60$ for New Vegas … WoW . I know this post is kinda old but I did not had the time to play New Vegas until a couple of days back and I must say it really Blows.Why you ask ? Well … 1st of all its way to funking expensive for what it offers.
I am gonna say it from the start Fallout New Vegas is just Fallout 3 with some DLC’s included and should have been a DLC not a new game , this means that 60$ its just sounds like a ripoff to me …
And like his predecessor ,New Vegas, crashed all the fucking time starting from opening the inventory and ending with random encounters crashes and the game was parched ,I don’t even want to think about the poor suckers that preordered this game, and guess what?!? The game Readme has the ballz to include windows 7 as an operating system.
About the story … its ok I guess but it really did not make me want to complete the main quest and to be fair its kinda perfectible … also I wold like to note that there are some references to some Fallout 1 locations,people and gorps ,witch reminded me that I cold be playing that game instead of this piece of shit, but I am not gonna punish the game for being average so moving on.
There are some improvements for the last game stuff like a(useless)crafting system and (boring) trading card game just to name a few and if you are asking me why I think that the crafting is useless well I never used it since it seem like waste of time collecting plants to create a Stim pack that you can easily steal from a vendor as for the card game boring as shit (unlike say pazaak form Kotor).
There are some “new” enemies and ammo types but that’s nothing new since they existed before Fallout 3 , gecko’s and ammo types appear from the 1st Fallout game.
Another new addition is Hard Core Mode … winch is not that hard core since you can find all you need in the desert,food can be obtained by hunting animals and Water can found it in the various ruins along the way not to mention that you can use quick travel to get supplies almost anytime so there is no real danger in dieing from starvation,fatigue etc.
The AI … ok the AI sucks you can almost kill any melee enemy as long as you have some something to jump on , I remember jumping on a pipe and killing a nightkind (I think that’s what they are called),that wold normally kill me in 2 hits, without suffering any damage at all …
They the fixed Perk system so now you get a perk every 3 levels (unlike Fallout 3) witch is the best improvement this game has but is not a big deal since its only natural to get a perk every 3 levels.
In conclusion this game its not really worth the money or the time, Bethesda’s Fallout did what Twilight did to the vampire genre … it made it suck.