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| It's the famous New Vegas sign! |
| Quick Info | |
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| Reviewed by: | Mark Goninon |
| Developer: | Obsidian Entertainment |
| Publisher: | Bethesda Softworks |
| Release Date: | 21 Oct 2010 |
| Time played: | 36 hours (INCOMPLETE) |
West Side Story
At the end of the first season of the "Fallout" TV series, there were hints that the second would be set in New Vegas, and there just happens to be a game set in New Vegas aptly named Fallout: New Vegas. While I've played all the games in the main series (although I never finished Fallout 2, only 1, 3 and 4), I've never played the most beloved 21st century Fallout game (at least as judged by the fans). Currently the game holds an "Overwhelmingly Positive" rating on Steam based on 95% of the 202,300 user reviews rating it positive. The game also has a Metascore of 84 on PC but despite many critics acknowledging how good the game was as an RPG, some marked it down because of the number of bugs the game had on release (FORESHADOWING).
Fallout: New Vegas was developed by Obsidian Entertainment and published by Bethesda in 2010, a couple of years after the release of 2008's Fallout 3. The game was developed using Fallout 3's engine but instead of Bethesda developing the game, they passed the torch to Obsidian Entertainment, which for fans felt like the series was returning home somewhat, as Obsidian is a successor to Black Isle Studios, the original studio behind the West Coast Fallout RPGs. Not only were some of the original developers involved but the setting also shifted away from the remains of Washington D.C. in Fallout 3, to the remains of Nevada, meaning fans could now experience what happened after the events of Fallout 2, to find out what happened to the New California Republic (NCR) and what threats have emerged since. I love the callbacks to the original games, no matter how subtle, such as being able to see the face of President Tandi on NCR dollars.
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| President Tandi features on the $100 NCR note |
More than Just a Fallout 3 Clone
As New Vegas was built using the Fallout 3 engine it retains many of its quirks and yet Obsidian went to great efforts to improve gameplay: right at the beginning you have a more involved character customisation process even including a neat pseudo-psychometric test to determine which skills would be most relevant to you. Also, I sometimes feel less is more and it's actually refreshing playing a Fallout game where you don't have the ability to be distracted by settlement building or radiant quests: the focus here is on the story and the ability to curry favour with all the factions living in the Mojave Wasteland. In the Bethesda Fallout games, there aren't many factions which you can have an impact on and many of the quests don't feel like they're really helping shape the Wasteland. In New Vegas you can do quests big and small and you can keep tabs on your standing with each and every faction (tracked using your Pip-Boy).
There's definitely no shortage of things to do in New Vegas but unfortunately with all this freedom it can create two common problems with RPGs in particular: difficulty spikes and bugs.
Difficulty Spikes
In New Vegas it's entirely possible you'll come across areas or situations which your character isn't ready for yet. Many modern RPGs get around this by gating content, either by preventing you from entering a new stage of the game or providing you a warning that recommends which level you need to be prior to proceeding with a quest. I'm not quite sure if either approach would work with a game like New Vegas as the ability to roam freely through the Wasteland is one of its strengths, but twice I came very close to ragequitting over tricky situations.
The first instance was actually early on. As you'd expect in a post-apocalyptic setting, weapons are generally not in good nick but the worse the condition of the weapon, the less reliable they become. Unfortunately, early on in the game there is no way to repair your weapons unless you have repair kits and in order to create repair kits, you need to have already picked certain levels of skills to do so. If you neglect to invest points in repairing things, you'll end up having to carry multiple pistols, sub-machine guns, rifles etc. and you can only carry a limited number of things in your inventory, meaning a lot of time spent managing it and throwing things away. Thankfully, I eventually made it to a location where someone was able to repair weapons for a price and not a moment too soon.
The second tricky situation that required many restored games (as I died a few times) was escaping a Brotherhood of Steel base. While leaving the base I was ambushed by a posse of knights in Power Armour. As I had no Power Armour of my own nor any terribly powerful weapons, taking on four knights was not a viable option, nor was talking my way out of the situation which required a whopping 95 points in your Speech skill! Thankfully (and this is through sheer dumb luck) I happened to have a Stealth Boy that allowed me to sneak away as soon as the conversation was over and after I managed to snipe a couple of them from the shadows, the encounter was thankfully over.
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| Now that's one difficult speech check |
So Many Bugs (and I'm Not Talking about Radroaches)
In terms of technical issues with the game, my first sign of problems were the graphics. Now, obviously the graphics look rather dated for a game released 16 years ago, but it looks okay with highest settings on. However, despite the game being so old and running the game on relatively modern hardware, I experienced multiple instances of framerate drops. Not cool.
I also experienced multiple crashes to Desktop and by the 18th time I was close to giving up on the game. I was aware of mods that apparently help make the game more stable but these were mainly targeted for the game shortly after release. Reading the comments for those that have used the mod on modern Windows 11 machines reveal that they could in fact make things worse. So I stayed clear of the mods and besides, I prefer testing games in their natural state since this truly is the purpose of the review: to see if the game after all this time still works well and whether it is still worth playing.
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| You'll encounter the enigmatic Victor in the most random of locations |
But what made me finally quit playing New Vegas weren't the framerate drops or the CTDs, but game-breaking quest bugs. At first, I tolerated them. "Oh, that minor quest disappeared from my quest log, oh well I'm sure it wasn't important anyway." Then there were times I didn't talk to the correct person at the correct time in order to close off quests, which meant they forever entered an incomplete state. "Oh well, it would've been nice to see what happened to that NPC in terms of their backstory, but I guess I could just ignore it and focus on the main quest". Then there are bugs where NPCs forget to return weapons when you leave the casinos (you're meant to surrender them or else you can't enter) and worst of all, I encountered bugs in the main quests. For example, one quest involves killing mob bosses in a room and yet they never make their way there so you're unable to complete it. I had to resort to using console commands in order to cheat my way to closing off the quest. Ultimately, I would have to repeat using console commands a couple more times in order to bypass bugged quests and in the end I came to one I couldn't find a way to complete, despite spending two hours trying multiple solutions. It wouldn't let me progress anymore and my only option left was to write off the 36 hours of progress I made and start again.
I decided I had enough with the game. And it's a pity, I can see glimmers of what makes New Vegas great but in its vanilla state, it's nigh on unplayable nowadays if you choose to explore the Wasteland in a certain way. Obviously, as it's an RPG, not everyone will share the same experience: there may be some of you that pick the least buggiest of routes meaning you could have a very enjoyable experience when you play this game. But my playthrough was ultimately mired by a megaton of bugs that brought my foray into New Vegas to a screeching halt. The game is sorely in need of a remake.
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6
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Obsidian Entertainment really made the most of the Fallout 3 engine and created a game rich in story that original Fallout fans can appreciate thanks to its West Coast setting. It's no surprise that they used New Vegas as the setting for Season 2 of the "Fallout" TV series. However, the game in its current state has many issues, and I'm not talking about the usual tropes of CRPGs such as random difficulty spikes and scarcity of supplies. New Vegas is in desperate need of a remake as framerate issues, Crashes to Desktop and showstopper bugs means the game is a hard slog to get through and, depending on the choices you make, impossible to complete. |
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Special thanks to my wife for gifting this game as a 2024 anniversary present!
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