Fallout: New Vegas brings back that old, familiar feeling

Sorry about the wait - New Vegas has been owning my life for the past two weeks or so. And you're about to hear all about it.

Though Fallout: New Vegas came out just over a week ago, I’ve put in a considerable amount of time with the game. And what I’ve found is that if you loved Fallout 3, you’ll love New Vegas. But if you didn’t care for Fallout 3 and couldn’t understand what the big deal was about, then prepare to be left scratching your head once again.

Fallout 3 and New Vegas are, for most intents and purposes, the same game. Before you jump to any conclusions, this isn’t necessarily a bad thing. There are plenty of upgrades to game mechanics, new elements of gameplay (like modding weapons and combining items) and plenty of new items, quests and characters. New Vegas is similar to its predecessor in the way that it uses the same engine, graphically looks about the same, and really doesn’t introduce anything drastically new to the formula. If this were almost any other game, the internet and the gaming community would be throwing fits of simultaneous nerd-rage. But because Fallout 3 was so beloved, Obsidian and Bethesda’s “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” approach to New Vegas pays off – offering fans everything they loved about Fallout 3 with plenty of upgrades. (Don’t get me wrong, there are plenty of people on the internet throwing hissy-fits over the fact that New Vegas and 3 are incredibly similar. But people on the internet tend to throw hissy-fits about most anything, really.)

Before I get into anything, I want to get out my opinion on the matter of Fallout: New Vegas not being all that different from Fallout 3. In most console series, gamers have come to expect leaps and bounds worth of progress to be made on a game in between iterations. We’ve come to expect impressive graphical updates, new gameplay modes, etc. from each new update to our favorite series. But in the case of New Vegas, updating the graphics and implementing new modes, co-op or multiplayer would’ve watered down the incredible experience that New Vegas offers. Like I stated earlier, Bethesda and Obsidian know that the Fallout series is incredible and that its greatest strength is presenting a huge, open world with plenty of opportunities for exploration, combat, and storytelling and taking an “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” mentality towards 3’s established format.

First, and most importantly, it is actually possible to hit enemies outside of VATS in New Vegas. The FPS mechanics of Fallout 3 were so horrible, you were pretty much wasting your time trying to hit anything with out using the Vault-Tec Assisted Targeting System. Thankfully, they’ve been upgraded to play as well as any other shooter on the market.

Another great change from Fallout 3 is how quickly New Vegas throws you into the fire. In 3, you had to play through a series of events in your characters life as you grew up in the Vault. Creating a character, distributing skill points and even learning to shoot all took part during a 30-45 minute introduction to the game. In New Vegas, though, you’re given a bit of info on how you ended up in Goodsprings, you create your character, and you’re almost immediately given free reign to explore the Mojave Wasteland as you see fit. Granted, you’ll want to stick to quests early on since wandering the wastes can be extremely dangerous – enemies as insignificant as ghouls or Radscorpions can be hard to handle if you’re a low enough level. Not to mention Cazadors (giant, stinging flies) which I’ve found are a huge pain regardless what level your character is.

Stats and leveling up are pretty much the same, though there are plenty of new Perks to choose from. This time around, you’ll only get to pick a Perk every two levels, instead of every level like Fallout 3. Also making their way back into Fallout are Traits. Like Perks, Traits will give your character a specific boost to your stats. Unlike Perks, Traits are only taken once (when your character is created) and each have certain trade-offs. For instance, a Trait may up your character’s Intelligence considerably but at the same time reduces your Charisma. You don’t necessarily have to take any Traits – I nearly didn’t but ended up picking one, which would increase my accuracy by 20% but decreases my firing rate by 20%. It’s a decent trade-off, considering I mainly use single shot weapons like pistols and rifles.

The biggest change to the formula is perhaps Hardcore mode. Though you may suspect that Hardcore would be a difficulty level, it’s actually a game modifying choice separate from the difficulty. While difficulty seems to only affect the amount of damage you and enemies take, playing in Hardcore mode requires you to sleep, eat and stay hydrated while you explore the Mojave Wasteland. Hardcore also gives ammunition as well as items weight in your inventory meaning you need to pay close attention to what you carry while traveling. Having NPC companions doesn’t hurt, though, as I (and many on the internet) have started viewing them basically as “walking storage lockers.”

I’d recommend installing New Vegas, regardless of how often you plan on playing it. The game is plagued by bugs and frame-rate issues and installing the game alleviates these problems slightly, but doesn’t completely fix them (more on the bugs later). The loading screens are bad when installed but painful without and since they can happen quite often (for example, I’m in a building, I walk outside, load screen, fast travel to The Strip, load, open the door to The Strip, load, walk into a casino, load, etc.).

Honestly, I’m not sure what else I can write about New Vegas without going into my own experiences with the game (and offering my own biases at the same time). Since it’s practically identical to Fallout 3 (and remember, that’s not a bad thing), I’ve basically already covered most of the latest additions.

As I played through Fallout: New Vegas, I kept having déjà vu/ flashbacks of Fallout 2 on the PC. I’ve been a fan of the series since the very first Fallout (which was released way back in 1997) and even though the first game is a classic, I’d pick Fallout 2 as my favorite between the two original games. Being back in the Southwest was just part of it – having gambling (like in New Reno from Fallout 2), plants (like Xander Root and Broc Flower) as well as Healing Potion, as well as groups of people like the Nightkin and Great Khans all had me remembering the countless hours I spent with Fallout 2. I’m pretty sure (not certain) that some of the music in New Vegas is straight out of Fallout 2 – specifically the creepy music from the Children of the Cathedral in Fallout 2 is used in New Vegas.

I almost feel like I’m not doing my job very well by only just now bringing up how many glitches and bugs there are in New Vegas. Honestly, if it were any other game or series, I’d probably be joining the rest of the internet in complaining about how “unfinished” New Vegas is, or that is “unplayable.” Sure it could use a little more polish, but it’s completely playable. And Obsidian has also already released patches for the PC and console versions of the game. While I’ve only experienced a few freezes and the “rotating arms,” as I call it, glitch (your character’s arms will sometimes disappear, then slide down the front of the screen like it’s doing circles around your head), others have had it much worse. Corrupted saves, game-breaking glitches, getting stuck in scenery, quest-giving NPCs disappearing/dying randomly – these are only some of the problems many have reported. You know what, though? The reports of these glitches even had me feeling nostalgia for Fallout 2 – and if you’ve played it, you know what I’m talking about (or should anyway). Fallout 2 had this ridiculous glitch that affected the car you could find, which would make traveling between locations faster. You could store items in the trunk of the car indefinitely but the game shipped with a terrible glitch – when you fast traveled for the first time after getting the car, the front half of the car would disappear and only the trunk would show up at your location, effectively making the car useless. In this day and age of immediate information you would have heard about this kind of glitch all over Facebook but back then, I was pretty angry at having to start the whole game over after finding and installing a patch to fix the car after I had already begun a game.

I’m having a TON of fun with New Vegas – maybe even more than with Fallout 3. Everything feels so much larger, more involved and more in depth in this game than the last. Perhaps this game’s biggest accomplishment is actually giving your choices weight. There are numerous different factions in New Vegas and even more decisions on the path you can take through the game. With all your actions affecting your reputation with the different factions and tribes, you don’t even necessarily have to be part of the NCR or Caesar’s Legion to complete the main story. For the first time in a long time, I really had to weigh my choices when it came to who to side with, who to help and who to undermine.

Honestly, even taking all the bugs and glitches into account, the most annoying aspect of the game is that the American Southwest is a huge pain to navigate. The relatively flat, low land of the Capitol Wasteland made wandering and exploring easy and fun. Exploring the Mojave Wasteland feels more like a chore with all the rocks and impassable hills that require you to find specific routes to destinations instead of being able to wander into pretty much any location. I can’t even count how many times I’ve tried to make my way to an unknown location (marked with an open triangle on my compass) only be met with a stretch of impassable rocks that seemingly offers no way through or around. Not only that, but what’s with huge locations (like Camp McCarran) only having one entrance? I had to walk all the way around that huge place to find the one way in.

I can already tell I’m going to be playing New Vegas more than 3, if only just to finish each faction’s particular line of quests. I’m being a good guy right now, telling people they don’t need to give me rewards for finishing their quests and helping the NCR (the typical good guys). But I’m really looking forward to my next character, who will most definitely be evil but will work with Caesar’s Legion or may even take over The Strip for himself. Either way, I’m already nearly 50 hours into my first playthrough and still haven’t had the desire to put the controller down.