Fallout: New Vegas reviews roundup #5

WorstUsernameEver

But best title ever!
I hereby dub this the international edition.

Gamespot, 7.5/10.<blockquote>Fallout: New Vegas is all about more. There's more to do in New Vegas than in Fallout 3, its superb predecessor; there's more complexity to its gameplay mechanics; and sadly, there are far more bugs than you should expect from a modern role-playing game.

[...]

This latest trip into the desolate American landscape possesses many of the same elements that made Fallout 3 such a successful role-playing game, but its story doesn't boast as many memorable moments. The large-scale combat scenarios are less epic, and the surprises are less dramatic than Fallout 3's mid-game reverie. </blockquote>PAL Gaming Network, 8.5/10. <blockquote>Is Fallout: New Vegas a good game? Unquestionably. Is it better than Fallout 3? That's a little harder to answer. Fallout 3 was a bit of a revolution for its time, providing immersion par excellence, and a world that was actively changed by your decisions (see: Megaton). New Vegas builds upon all of this, providing a deeper world with harsher repercussions for your actions, but somehow missing the immersion of its predecessor. And unfortunately, it inherits all of the problems of its forefather as well. Two years is a long time in the video game industry, and at times New Vegas' technical limitations hold back the experience. If you liked Fallout 3, you will like this game. If you liked Fallout 1 or 2, you might find more to attract you with this title as it re-introduces some of the deeper aspects of the role playing genre. If you like great RPG games, you will like this game. Just prepare to stick with it for the long haul, and explore everything you can. In New Vegas, it's worth it. </blockquote>Cheat Code Central, 4/5. <blockquote>We do have a few complaints about New Vegas. We encountered some significant glitches, including everything from ridiculous physics errors to full-on crashes; we imagine these will be fixed with an update, so those who plan to play on a machine that’s connected to the Internet might want to wait a bit before diving in. The enemy AI seems to have gotten worse, with your foes frequently moving in odd patterns and making themselves easy to kill. And overall, we wouldn’t have minded a little bit more of a departure from the Fallout 3 formula. Even with all the aforementioned tweaks, New Vegas still feels a lot like an expansion pack.

But is that such a bad thing? Fallout 3 is one of the best games of this generation, and fans should be thrilled to see a new story told in a similar fashion. We’re looking forward to spending more time in New Vegas, and checking out the DLC when it comes out.</blockquote>CNN provides no score. <blockquote>"Fallout New Vegas" has a good storyline and a familiar feel if you've played "Fallout 3" before. There are only a few new things to the game-play, but it still works well.

There is a lot to see and do throughout the game and you can spend many hours just exploring all the different regions and locations.

Bugs and graphical issues plague the game in spots, but if you can overlook those instances, you will be rewarded with an exciting time as you make your way to New Vegas and through the adventures that lie within.</blockquote>Rock Paper Shotgun provides no score, but the tone is clearly disappointed. <blockquote>Bethesda went to great lengths to infuse their D.C. wasteland with colour. It was populated by kooky, occasionally even cartoonish characters- it’s no accident that super mutants and the Brotherhood of Steel featured so prominently. Then you had the independant towns, which were all built in or around visually striking setpieces, and Bethesda even built a labyrinth out of the subway system. Whatever direction you walked in Fallout 3, you felt confident you’d find something interesting.

Whatever direction you walk in New Vegas, you might find something interesting, but it’s much more likely you’ll find something pretty uninteresting, like an empty shack or an NCR army outpost where you’ll hear two different potato-faced soldiers voiced by two different actors say the same line of dialogue about the Mojave being hot. There’s also a slim chance you’ll find nothing at all but a few irradiated creatures, since the game has entire acres of barren scrub and desert that you absolutely would not see in Fallout 3. In my whole time with New Vegas, I found nothing as architecturally entertaining as Megaton, and nothing as eerie or inventive as Little Lamplight. Hiking long distances felt like a chore.</blockquote>Gram.pl, 9/10. <blockquote>I'll warn everyone looking for "cinematic" narration and linear plot - this is not a game for you. You'll be bored to death within the first three hours of play.
The rest - including myself - will be in heaven. Both the game itself and the main plot are very open. Almost every minute we have to take decisions that influence not only our fate, but also the balance of power in the area, the disposition of the local residents towards us and to the factions, relations between the factions, and even such things as store prices. Example? We help a local community maintain order, we choose one of the options, people are happy, they thank us, and then... the store owner raises all the prices by 50%. Well, the new authorities have him pay high taxes. And who will be affected in the end?

[...]

Our decisions are the essence of New Vegas. We really feel their weight and meaning here. It is very important to know the situation before taking them, and sometimes even guess what the consequences might be. The creators should be praised for not including any hints like "doing this quest will make group X hate you". We simply have to know the game's world. Without that, we can regret our choices quite often; especially that the interests of most factions (even the minor ones) most often clash. One of the things I love is that, keeping up with the Fallout tradition, there are no factions designated as clearly good or bad. They're grey, sometimes a darker or lighter shade, but never purely black or white.</blockquote>CDAction, 9/10. <blockquote>New Vegas should not be treated as a Fallout 3 add-on - it's more of a replacement. It is not fantasy with swords and forests remade in a post-nuclear world, where we need to chase our dad and make his altruistic dreams come true. It is not a sweet story about the savior of the wastes who doesn't want anything for himself. New Vegas finally brings the real Fallout world into the 21st century and boldly adds new elements to it.</blockquote>Gamezilla, 8/10. <blockquote>Fallout: New Vegas initially made a very bad impression on me, as before I really immersed in the plot and the world, I encountered annoying bugs that should not have made their way to the final game everywhere. In the later part of the game, they became less important, and I was taken in by the great atmosphere and a surprising number of decisions with serious consequences. Trying to find out all the ways of finishing the game is a satisfying and time-consuming task, as well as the exploration and side quests. Unfortunately, this is still not enough to convince people who did not like Fallout 3. The gameplay and graphics are identical, and minor enhancements and choices will definitely not convince those who see New Vegas as yet another "Oblivion with guns". However, those who liked Fallout 3 even a little, will enjoy the Mojave Wasteland even more, despite a large number of bugs.</blockquote>Games.cz, 9/10.<blockquote>Verdict: Fallout in its third incarnation was inconsistent but now it comes back to its roots and brings big portion of great atmosphere, outstanding story, huge world to explore and foremost almost infinte number of ways you can play the game. Sadly the game suffers from obsolete graphics, yet still this is a hot candidate for game of the year. </blockquote>GameZone (which awarded New Vegas with a 6.5 lamenting a large number of bugs) pulled its rating from the review. Here's their motivation:<blockquote>This review is an accurate portrayal of my experience, which was less than ideal, and at times disastrous - too disastrous not to arouse suspicion. Bothered by discrepancies among the accounts of other reviewers, GameZone’s visitors, and myself, I purchased a second copy for Xbox 360. Although still early in the game, I have yet to experience any of the issues that plagued my previous playthrough. Perhaps the bugs I encountered were the result of a bad installation, or an early error that toppled a line of dominoes, or perhaps the bugs simply aren’t present in the 360 version. As a result of these uncertainties, the score for Fallout: New Vegas is being temporarily removed until I have completed the 360 version, and the PS3 and PC versions are given fresh installations and assessed a second time. This is a self-imposed decision. As a devoted fan of Fallout since the beginning, I would not want to discredit New Vegas without absolute certainty.</blockquote>Also, the guys at Duck and Cover have a brief interview with All Roads editor David Marshall.

Thanks Ausir and Smejki.
 
The large-scale combat scenarios are less epic, and the surprises are less dramatic than Fallout 3's mid-game reverie.

Epic in this case means "giant robot". Yes, it certainly was epic having friendly AI easily mow down Enclave soldiers with virtually no participation required from the player.
 
http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2010/10/21/wot-i-think-fallout-new-vegas/#more-42293

Holy cow.


Then you had the independant towns, which were all built in or around visually striking setpieces, and Bethesda even built a labyrinth out of the subway system. Whatever direction you walked in Fallout 3, you felt confident you’d find something interesting.

That's funny considering every single location in Fallout 3 looked essentially the same inside. Grayish green, metal, and dirty + cluttered as fuck. They have nothing on Camp McCarran.

And, this reviewer is commending the SUBWAY? The single worst design decision Bethesda made for Fallout 3? The monolithic, everything-looks-exactly-the-same, holy-shit-where-am-I, I-am-at-the-top-of-this-DC-rubble-pile why-can't-I-jump-over freaking subway system?

There’s also a slim chance you’ll find nothing at all but a few irradiated creatures, since the game has entire acres of barren scrub and desert that you absolutely would not see in Fallout 3.

Nope, in Fallout 3 you'll just find another power substation containing another tool cabinet containing more scrap metal.

Fallout 3 had A LOT of locations. Most of them were empty of anything unique. They were just there to be there. In other words, Fallout 3 suffered the problem that all Bethesda games have suffered since all the way back to Daggerfall - too many locations, not enough content.

In my whole time with New Vegas, I found nothing as architecturally entertaining as Megaton, and nothing as eerie or inventive as Little Lamplight. Hiking long distances felt like a chore.

Little Lamplight sure was....interesting.

I'm sure that piling a town on top of rusted, 200-year-old platforms and supports, not to mentioning centering it around an atomic bomb, is a VERY good idea.


Maybe you’re reading this and thinking that a more bleak and empty and therefore a more “realistic” vision of the wasteland would suit you just fine.

The reviewer's got it wrong here, and I don't know whether it's to New Vegas' credit or not, but Fallout 3 was more bleak. It was a vision of a world, 200 years after a nuclear war, that was totally incapable of making anything of itself. The landscape was full of raiders (raiding what?) and slavers (slaves for where?), with no agriculture, no mining, no production of ANYTHING.

New Vegas isn't really BLEAK. It's realistic.

Later, I encountered a man tied to a pole, begging to be cut down, but there was no way to do so.

This is a Caesar's Legion thing. The game makes it clear that you can't untie them because they've been tortured and will die anyway.

Caesar’s Legion are New Vegas’ big addition to the Fallout lore.

Yeah, New Vegas invented Caesar's Legion. To be honest, I don't really like the Legion either (although since I'm now deep into the game, I find them to be convincingly ruthless, as opposed to cartoonishly ruthless, so that's good...) but at least I'm aware of the actual lore behind them.

It’s just that this is absolutely not the classic that Fallout 1 and 2 unquestionably were, and it’s also not the bold, bright reinvention that Fallout 3 was.

It isn't the masterpieces that Fallout 1 and 2 were. But I think we could use fewer "bold, bright reinventions" like Fallout 3. Thank goodness New Vegas is nothing like it.
 
Funny read. As somebody still on the fence (and a despiser of the hollow tropes of Bethesda games) I'm happy to see people finally addressing his criticisms.

One minor contribution, however:

lmao said:
slavers (slaves for where?)

I can't remember exactly when (perhaps in the DLC itself) but it's established in the lore that the slaves were being sent to the Pitt.
 
Fallout 3 was a bit of a revolution for its time, providing immersion par excellence, and a world that was actively changed by your decisions (see: Megaton).

Anyone else laughing?
 
Fallout 3 was a bit of a revolution for its time, providing immersion par excellence, and a world that was actively changed by your decisions (see: Megaton).

Hahahaha. Wait, their serious aren't they?

It's a shame that the reviews are a bit lower, even though from my experience with the game, it's vastly more fun and engaging that FO3 ever was.
 
and nothing as eerie or inventive as Little Lamplight

I bet this guy loved Transformers 2 and secretly loves the Twilight series.

Removed Rock-Paper-Shotgun from my bookmarks.

Seriously, Lamplight? That idiotic place that makes no sense, has no reason to be in the main quest at all and you can't kill any of the children, even if you are playing a genocidal slaver?!!?!

This guy is an absolute MORON!
 
Not immediately questioning journalists' intelligence yet, classifying it with ranks from 'moron' to ' brain-dead', but honestly, a lot of those 'memorable' locations that are brought up are terrible.
If not in concept than in design.

Have none of these people even taken the time to look how the locations in Fallout 1, 2 or Tactics (the towns) were like?
Even 'specialized' communities/settlements in general had a working principle behind them other than that it sounded interesting in thought.

And as so many of my fellow NMA'ers bring up, a lot of locations were just plain pointless like the various abandoned shack towns, office buildings and caverns that only existed as loot gathering locations.

A few aren't bad but Bethesda's level designers went way overboard with these locations.

Places like Old Olney did not even have a reason to exist until it was used in a DLC, just some random place with loads of Deathclaws, no background or personal stories whatsoever.

Places that could have had a real purpose like Fort Constantine or Fort Bannister were plain underused while the designers saw a need for locations like Girdershade or the Cannibal family town.

No I see the lack for senseless or pointless locations not as a good complaint.
 
I've been playing 9 hours so far and i've to say the game is fantastic. Excellent inmersion mostly thanks to voice-casting and ambiance music (and good writting), makes you forget about the ugly character modelling .

Seriously dudes, it's awesome. Also, it's even better (to me) with the gameplay revised mod, which makes the game harder and more realistic, the realistic death mod and one for the shaders.

No bugs, no glitches at all for me so far. PC.
 
@Vegas_Wanderer

Are you playing on Ultra High? And with Steam Cloud and all that? Until my debit card starts working again, I'm playing through Fallout 3 at a pcbang and it's disturbing how many crashes and freezes I'm getting, even with a beefy computer. Still not entirely sure what Steam Cloud is, and if I have it or not.

Edit: And the random framerate drops around critters. My god, the slowdown.
 
Ausdoerrt said:
Fallout 3 was a bit of a revolution for its time, providing immersion par excellence, and a world that was actively changed by your decisions (see: Megaton).

Anyone else laughing?

Well that happens when you grow up with RPGs like Oblivion or Mass effect. People forget very easily that such kind of things have been once a standart in good RPGs not an exception. Talkling about Choices and Concequences.
 
I am surprised at reviews who trash the game for bugs and similitude to FO3, but still give it at least 8/10. Either they don't want to anger the Zenimax critic-death squad, or they really feel that the better writing, voice acting, gameplay, and atmosphere makes up for it.

Also (spreading the word here), for any framerate problems I highly recommend this mod http://www.newvegasnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=34778 (the file is called d3d9 awesome perf fix at the New Vegas Nexus in case I suck and the link doesn't work). NPCs no longer slow down the framerate (nothing I noticed, at least) and my general framerate jumped from 20is to 60 :clap:. Seriously its a barely 5 seconds download that fixes more framerate issues than Beth's zillion MB patch.
 
Crni Vuk said:
Ausdoerrt said:
Fallout 3 was a bit of a revolution for its time, providing immersion par excellence, and a world that was actively changed by your decisions (see: Megaton).

Anyone else laughing?

Well that happens when you grow up with RPGs like Oblivion or Mass effect. People forget very easily that such kind of things have been once a standart in good RPGs not an exception. Talkling about Choices and Concequences.

As much as I liked playing Mass effect, it felt a lot more like an action game than an RPG. Limited leveling system, limited choice options, linear storyline...It sounds like an action game with RPG elements to me...Still a great game...but RPG? Not in my eyes.
 
terebikun said:
@Vegas_Wanderer

Are you playing on Ultra High? And with Steam Cloud and all that? Until my debit card starts working again, I'm playing through Fallout 3 at a pcbang and it's disturbing how many crashes and freezes I'm getting, even with a beefy computer. Still not entirely sure what Steam Cloud is, and if I have it or not.

Edit: And the random framerate drops around critters. My god, the slowdown.

Yes, UltraHigh, and No, i disabled Steam Cloud, just in case. No framerate drops either ( i was worried about that but nothing seemed to happen), maybe i just got lucky.

My specs are:

Intel Core i7 2.80 ghz

8gb ram (but i don't think Vegas is fully taking advantage of that)

Radeon 5850 1gb

Win 7 Ultimate 64 bits

I hope this turns out useful to you or someone else!
 
The Dutch Ghost said:
Not immediately questioning journalists' intelligence yet, classifying it with ranks from 'moron' to ' brain-dead', but honestly, a lot of those 'memorable' locations that are brought up are terrible.
If not in concept than in design.

Have none of these people even taken the time to look how the locations in Fallout 1, 2 or Tactics (the towns) were like?
Even 'specialized' communities/settlements in general had a working principle behind them other than that it sounded interesting in thought.

And as so many of my fellow NMA'ers bring up, a lot of locations were just plain pointless like the various abandoned shack towns, office buildings and caverns that only existed as loot gathering locations.

A few aren't bad but Bethesda's level designers went way overboard with these locations.

Places like Old Olney did not even have a reason to exist until it was used in a DLC, just some random place with loads of Deathclaws, no background or personal stories whatsoever.

Places that could have had a real purpose like Fort Constantine or Fort Bannister were plain underused while the designers saw a need for locations like Girdershade or the Cannibal family town.

No I see the lack for senseless or pointless locations not as a good complaint.

You people really need to stop with the hole "Have they not played Fallout1/2/Tactics" thing.

YOU DONT NEED TO HAVE PLAYED THE PREVIOUS GAMES TO SEE HOW DUMB FALLOUT 3 WAS.

I don't need to have watched any of the old Transformers shows to see how dumb the movies are. I don't need to have read any of the classical vampire books to see how moronic the Twilight series is.

People building tows around nuclear bombs and underground caves filled with children, carrying machine guns around, is just plain stupid, no matter what you've played before.

Ilosar said:
Also (spreading the word here), for any framerate problems I highly recommend this mod http://www.newvegasnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=34778 (the file is called d3d9 awesome perf fix at the New Vegas Nexus in case I suck and the link doesn't work). NPCs no longer slow down the framerate (nothing I noticed, at least) and my general framerate jumped from 20is to 60 :clap:. Seriously its a barely 5 seconds download that fixes more framerate issues than Beth's zillion MB patch.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DbYtqAWDF2U
 
I would have to agree with most of RPS's review and a lot of it may just depend on how much you liked/enjoyed Fallout 3. I don't think he missed the mark. While the dialogue, voice acting and main quest seem to be a grand improvement, the world and atmosphere on which it must ride seems vacuous and poorly implemented.

For all their flaws, I've always found Bethesda to make a world that is both flavoured and inviting. I haven't been having the same experience in New Vegas, so it's been difficult to pursue additional dialogue and side quests due to a feeling of tedium and blandness.
 
This is a Caesar's Legion thing. The game makes it clear that you can't untie them because they've been tortured and will die anyway.

Haha I usually bring them out of misery haha. Although, if the folks on the crosses are "prisoners" for a sub-quest, you can actually free them. I had that happen in one of pro-NCR quests.

You people really need to stop with the hole "Have they not played Fallout1/2/Tactics" thing.

YOU DONT NEED TO HAVE PLAYED THE PREVIOUS GAMES TO SEE HOW DUMB FALLOUT 3 WAS.

I think Dutch was arguing more for consistency and less against stupidity of writing. Being aware of what the earlier titles were like changes perspective about what you consider "normal" and "right" for fallout universe.
 
Retarded Reviews

I love the game so far, and all the references to FO1 and FO2 is fantastic.

[spoiler:7d54f69fe4]The pilot of the crashed Vertibird in Klamath (Novac), The Hub (Some traders), New Reno (singer in Novac), etc.[/spoiler:7d54f69fe4]
 
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