Why Vegas is a sub standard game

[Wish I had a cool name9]

This is not to say its not a good game its to say that its not what it could have been.

1. Lack of a story, an no I don't think allowing the players actions to be the story counts, that's just lazy writing.

2. Introducing new factions and rewriting old ones to the point where they are barely recognizable(NRC and Brotherhood have changed to the point where I barely recognize either of them).

3. Not providing proper context for these changes(how the Brotherhood went insane and paranoid and how the NCR became both corrupt and weak.) I don't like how they skipped over things like the sacking of Navarro and the Brotherhood War with one liners. No explanation of how their could be something like a Vault City pacifist while other things about the NCR's supply problems were explained in painstaking detail.

4. Lack of different types of communities to visit: were only introduced to very few communities and cultures, basically Vegas and different tribal groups unlike previous games where you could interact with different societies. In Vegas our only exposure to both the NCR and the Legion is through military, you never get to visit inside the NCR or Legion and see what things are actually like.

5. The Second Battle of Hoover Dam. It was bad, Fallout was never meant for climactic battles, its why Broken Steel was awefull.

6. Lack of any central theme or message that was meaningful in any way. Yea war never changes is a good catch phrase but really doesn't mean much. As annoying 3 dog was the overall message of Fallout 3 that without sacrifice we would have nothing is better than the constant rehashed theme of letting go, letting go, old world blues, the past, whine so more, move on, people get attached to symbols.

7. Crappy characters.
Vegas had awefull characters, the only ones that had any substance to them were Legion characters and those were horribly neglected by the game. House, for the central character could have been more fleshed out and I expected more from the NCR characters.

8. Whining without me caring. When characters vent their emotions we should feel it. A certain part of us should feel sad when they wail at how unfair the world is. The leader of the Rangers was the worst, this guy is suppose to be the toughest the NCR has and then he cries and eats his gun because he isn't getting his way. Arcade can't shut about morality the Legion, or simply doing whats beneficial at the moment, turning Helios one into a giant weapon could benefit the cause of killing legionaries but he's can't see past helping people in freeside.

9. The whole thing feels rushed.

10. I hate the map, i know kind of petty but I don't like the entire map being a city on top of a giant circular path.

 

[Walpknut]

" Lack of a story, an no I don't think allowing the players actions to be the story counts, that's just lazy writing. "

Just read that, I didn't even bother with the rest.

 

[Akratus]

"Sub standard" implies that there is a standard.

 

[Languorous_Maiar]

Brotherhood have changed

Brotherhood changed?

 

[Hyddan92]

Yes fallout is not meant for large battles in real-time, no matter how they do it always looks like a minor skirmish anyway.

And Yes the legion is so severly neglected it sort of cripples the game a bit.

Well maybe that fallout had a more clear central theme with the sacrifice bit, your own father sacrifices his life for what he thinks is right and then you will do the same, or you could be evil and insert the FEV to kill 99 % of all humanoids. But in NV It's a bit more about that it isn't any right and wrong, in fallout 3 You could only support the Boyscouts of steel, now it's more about what's best for Vegas.

And yeah to actually see how it's like inside the NCR and the Legion would be nice, but you do see a bit of NCR life though and hear a lot about it.

But I don't think it's a bad game, sure the legion part was never finished but the game is way better than Fallout 3.

 

[Walpknut]

Fallout 3 a DEEPER MEANING?

 

[Lexx]

First three points already tell me that it makes no sense to reply here. Just replying now because I am kind of getting annoyed from all that "hardcore fan hurr durr" trolling that happens here lately.

 

[FalloutTroll]

 

[Wish I had a cool name9]

Brotherhood changed?

Well yea in the earlier games they were about saving technology so it could be used by humanity later, they may not have valued every single human being but were at least committed to the long term survival of the human race. In Vegas their just a bunch of techno bandits. I think this is a finger flipped at Beth for what they did with the Brotherhood in Fallout 3.

there is a standard.

It didn't live up to past games, compared to Fallout 1 2 3 it sucked.

Just read that, I didn't even bother with the rest.

Then troll somewhere else.

Fallout 3 a DEEPER MEANING?

Yes the meaning was sacrifice, even if you can't live the life you deserve you can or at least should try to make the world into a better place even if it means dying in a giant water purifier.

 

[Censor]

Boring.

 

[woo1108]

recently I replyed a troll so not this time.
and for those ten, nothing makes sense.
did you played Fo1 or 2?
I guess you just played only fo3 and fanboying with it.
and message of fo3? it was already used in oblivion and it's quite stupid.

 

[Yamu]

I'll bite. I've got a thing for discussion and a bit of a contrarian streak, not to mention more than a little time to kill. I did want to say at the outset that if I'm known for anything it's not for my brevity, but I'm going to try to keep this short(ish) since point-by-point quote responses all end up being a mile long to begin with. If any of this seems curt or dismissive, it wasn't my intent.

1. Lack of a story, an no I don't think allowing the players actions to be the story counts, that's just lazy writing.

There's just as much story as any other Fallout game, if not more. "Lazy writing" would indicate that there weren't literally about an order of magnitude more coherent multi-part quests and lines of dialogue in NV than there were in Fallout 3. New Vegas probably had nearly as much content as Fallout 1, more by some rubrics. What it lacked was a single quest the player was straight-jacketed into and an Overseer/Hakunin/Liam Neeson figure to spoon feed you your one-and-only inescapable Next Objective.

2. Introducing new factions and rewriting old ones to the point where they are barely recognizable(NRC and Brotherhood have changed to the point where I barely recognize either of them).

The game is set in a different geopolitical sphere than the second one, and an entire generation later. It would have been a sign of both lazy writing and franchise stagnation to not introduce new factions and show new development in the old ones.

3. Not providing proper context for these changes(how the Brotherhood went insane and paranoid and how the NCR became both corrupt and weak.) I don't like how they skipped over things like the sacking of Navarro and the Brotherhood War with one liners. No explanation of how their could be something like a Vault City pacifist while other things about the NCR's supply problems were explained in painstaking detail.

The Brotherhood hasn't changed one bit. They were always xenophobic tech hoarders hiding away from the world, waiting for some unspecified point in the future while their numbers and technological edge dwindled away through the decades. The NCR was always corrupt, too-- recall that Vault City (NCR enemies at the time), The Khans, and the Bishop family all had agents or sympathetic ears working within the bureaucracy, that Westin's people were apparently exempt from the city's weapons laws even though they were living and working within the city limits, that defending yourself against Tandi's son could get you shot dead by the town guards, and that when you meet the NCR they're getting ready to strong-arm the V15 squatters out of their home and property.

"Vault City Pacifist" was a throwaway nod to the previous games that makes perfect sense given VC citizens' isolationist attitudes. The painstaking details about NCR's supply problems are that explanation you were looking for earlier about why they're in such a weak position in Nevada. It would have been nice to have some more info on the Brotherhood War, but they were obviously trying to minimize the Brotherhood's footprint on this game, and aside from the fact that there was a war, the info wasn't all that crucial to the current place and time, especially considering that as far as the civilians of the Mojave and much of the military are concerned, the Brotherhood was routed from the area. Aside from campaign and battle specifics, it can mostly be inferred or extrapolated with ease from what's already said and known.

4. Lack of different types of communities to visit: were only introduced to very few communities and cultures, basically Vegas and different tribal groups unlike previous games where you could interact with different societies. In Vegas our only exposure to both the NCR and the Legion is through military, you never get to visit inside the NCR or Legion and see what things are actually like.

Our only exposure to the Legion is military, which is an acknowledged weakness of the game. On the other hand, NCR's got a strong emergent civilian and mercantile infrastructure in the area as well, and while they're not overt about it, you even start in an NCR-established town.

Aside from those two, though, you interact with about as many different groups, in as many (if not more) different types of locations, as you did in the previous games. That is what the series has always had, by and large-- not capital-S societies, but different groups (often, towns or villages) with different ideologies and "feels." New Vegas isn't lacking there. It just might not feel as much like it sometimes because it takes place in a far smaller area (and in a more "globalized" era) so Obsidian had to do a more thorough job of fleshing out the connections between them.

5. The Second Battle of Hoover Dam. It was bad, Fallout was never meant for climactic battles, its why Broken Steel was awefull.

Agreed, in part. The engine they had to work with wasn't suited to what they wanted to do with it, but they did what they could. It was underwhelming, but not unenjoyable. And there were some nice touches.

"Never meant for climactic battles" is kind of a headscratcher, though. F1 and F2 were full of huge, pitched battles, some of which could only be avoided by going to very great pains (and in Fallout 2's case, at least one of which couldn't be dodged at all).

6. Lack of any central theme or message that was meaningful in any way. Yea war never changes is a good catch phrase but really doesn't mean much. As annoying 3 dog was the overall message of Fallout 3 that without sacrifice we would have nothing is better than the constant rehashed theme of letting go, letting go, old world blues, the past, whine so more, move on, people get attached to symbols.

Like many of these points, wholly subjective. Fallout 3 was arguably the first Fallout to even have a central theme, at least one not open to interpretation. The other two were open explorations of human nature in dire straits with a McGuffin quest as a tentpole. I'd sooner connect the dots myself and not know or care whether the devs thought I was right than have out-of-place, logic-defying moralizing rammed down my throat.

7. Crappy characters.
Vegas had awefull characters, the only ones that had any substance to them were Legion characters and those were horribly neglected by the game. House, for the central character could have been more fleshed out and I expected more from the NCR characters.

Substance in the Legion? Apart from Caesar, I can only think of one Legion character that was anything more than a caricature. Concerning everyone else, I literally cannot comprehend where you're coming from, unless you're using highly subjective definitions of the words "character," "substance," and "fleshed out." It's not like you got to know everything about everyone, but you don't get that in any game (or in real life, for that matter, which is what the devs were shooting for here). If you're paying attention, a lot of the characters stand up admirably to anyone the series has put before us since Richard Grey. I can sort of get how you'd want more from the NCR characters, but a lot of them are officers and bureaucrats. They're not exactly going to take you out for beers and tell you their life stories. The human traits and motivations are there to see, though.

8. Whining without me caring. When characters vent their emotions we should feel it. A certain part of us should feel sad when they wail at how unfair the world is. The leader of the Rangers was the worst, this guy is suppose to be the toughest the NCR has and then he cries and eats his gun because he isn't getting his way. Arcade can't shut about morality the Legion, or simply doing whats beneficial at the moment, turning Helios one into a giant weapon could benefit the cause of killing legionaries but he's can't see past helping people in freeside.

Again, subjective, but almost everyone I know would see it differently. The scene with Hanlon was so rough on my girlfriend that she wouldn't watch me play New Vegas for close to a year afterwards. Obsidian tried to make these people humans, not walking archetypes. If you've never known an old soldier that might get as torn-up and desperate as Chief Hanlon did when put in his situation, I'm going to wager you don't known many soldiers. Arcade is a perfectly relatable character, as well: turning Helios One into a weapon could help rout the bad guys (except it doesn't; it's a less efficient weapon than a varmint rifle, all things considered), but on a societal level a functioning civil infrastructure tends to do more good for people than a superweapon. And he's all about building rather than tearing down, looking forward instead of back, which is why he'll hear you out as long as you're dressed as anyone but a proudly totalitarian, science-despising, knowledge destroying mass-murderer. With respect, I think the issue here might be one of empathy and personal morality more than any inherent flaw in the game's NPCs.

9. The whole thing feels rushed.

Truth, sir or madam. It's the other major problem with the game, aside from the engine/format, and the devs would agree. At the very least, we know they intended for the Legion to be less cartoonish and more well-explored.

10. I hate the map, i know kind of petty but I don't like the entire map being a city on top of a giant circular path.

As you say, subjective, though I wouldn't call it petty. I don't mind it, myself-- it makes sense and it's fairly realistic, as these things go.



tl;dr: Despite my disagreeing on nearly every single point, you're actually kind of right as far as your original statement is concerned, but the game's limitations are mostly because of the engine and the tight production schedule. There is hardly a game that exists (or anything wrought by human beings, for that matter) that a statistically significant minority of people isn't going to think could have been done better, and there's room for improvement in everything. This is true of New Vegas, just as it is of every other game in the series. Personally, I think they did a fine job, and that NV is perhaps the most plausible and well fleshed-out entry in the series, arguably as good as Fallout 2 on the whole.

 

[Tagaziel]

snip

 

[BarackSays]

I'll say this much. The Ulysses storyline was probably my favorite part of the entire series. Loved that expansion and arc.

 

[Kalasanty11]

Well yea in the earlier games they were about saving technology so it could be used by humanity later, they may not have valued every single human being but were at least committed to the long term survival of the human race. In Vegas their just a bunch of techno bandits. I think this is a finger flipped at Beth for what they did with the Brotherhood in Fallout 3.

And when they did actually help wastelanders?
Even in Fallout 1 there is a scribe (Vree?) that complains about focus on military tech. So, they have been "techno bandits" since the very beginning.

Yes the meaning was sacrifice.

You were talking about lazy writing, right? You had 3 companions that could enter chamber without any harm to them. To pull of this "sacrifice" thing these guys were given bs excuses not to do so ("it's your destiny!). Broken Steel fixes that, in the same time rendering "sacrifice" theme pointless.

Lack of any central theme or message that was meaningful in any way. Yea war never changes is a good catch phrase but really doesn't mean much. As annoying 3 dog was the overall message of Fallout 3 that without sacrifice we would have nothing is better than the constant rehashed theme of letting go, letting go, old world blues, the past, whine so more, move on, people get attached to symbols.

Yeah, because "sacrifice" theme is soooo original and completely not rehashed.
What do you mean by "Lack of any central theme or message that was meaningful in any way"? My friend, who never even heard about Fallout, told me that she read a great philosophical book, that entire message revolved around letting go being key to the very fucking happiness itself. And Dead Money actually helps me. Everytime that my mind focuses on something too much I remember how terribly scarred Christine became, because she couldn't let go. So, the fact that game doesn't have meaningful message for you doesn't mean that it's like that for everyone. Don't be such an egocentric.

 

[Oppen]

This is not to say its not a good game its to say that its not what it could have been.

Games are never quite what they could have been, though, and nowadays they are further from that. For today standards, New Vegas is a hell of a game. For some years ago standards, yeah, it's somewhat around standard and sub standard.

1. Lack of a story, an no I don't think allowing the players actions to be the story counts, that's just lazy writing.

I don't agree, I think that's great for role playing. It is a valid opinion, though.

2. Introducing new factions and rewriting old ones to the point where they are barely recognizable(NRC and Brotherhood have changed to the point where I barely recognize either of them).

First, I don't see anything wrong in introducing new factions. On the NCR and the Brotherhood, I don't really see huge differences. I mean, we know the NCR only from Fallout 2, and it was in a delicate balance between forces, quite the same it is in New Vegas, although a bit more shifted to the opposite side it was inclined in Fallout 2. The BoS looks the same to me as it was in Fallout 1 and 2.

3. Not providing proper context for these changes(how the Brotherhood went insane and paranoid and how the NCR became both corrupt and weak.) I don't like how they skipped over things like the sacking of Navarro and the Brotherhood War with one liners. No explanation of how their could be something like a Vault City pacifist while other things about the NCR's supply problems were explained in painstaking detail.

The BoS was always an isolationist group. That usually leads to insanity and paranoia, and their worship of technology was obviously going to lead them into war with an expansionist group as the NCR, as they would eventually want to use tech "the wrong way". The NCR, again, was already corrupt in Fallout 2. Remember the deals with Bishop, for example, a capo mafia. Their weakness is caused by their greed of expansion (which is not only greed, I believe, but also ideals: some of them actually try to make life better for all of the wasteland)

4. Lack of different types of communities to visit: were only introduced to very few communities and cultures, basically Vegas and different tribal groups unlike previous games where you could interact with different societies. In Vegas our only exposure to both the NCR and the Legion is through military, you never get to visit inside the NCR or Legion and see what things are actually like.

That I somewhat agree. New Vegas is at some extent underdeveloped. However, the first game haven't had such a big array of communities either. It feels more full of content than Vegas, but it isn't as huge as Fallout 2 is.
On the "visit NCR or the Legion" point, I think the thing is you are on Vegas. There is no way to include the almost the whole Fallout world into the game. You get to know what your character gets to know. There aren't even likely reasons for your character to visit those places in game. You get to make an opinion on the factions based on chatting and what you see on Vegas.

5. The Second Battle of Hoover Dam. It was bad, Fallout was never meant for climactic battles, its why Broken Steel was awefull.

I disliked the fact there was no way to avoid the fight, but I can't really think of a way to avoid it consistent with the world, anyway. At least there could have been a way to avoid or ease the combat, making use of your character's skills, as you can do in Fallout 2.

6. Lack of any central theme or message that was meaningful in any way. Yea war never changes is a good catch phrase but really doesn't mean much. As annoying 3 dog was the overall message of Fallout 3 that without sacrifice we would have nothing is better than the constant rehashed theme of letting go, letting go, old world blues, the past, whine so more, move on, people get attached to symbols.

It is an RPG, not a theme park. The only message you get from any Fallout is: survival is hard, societies are bitches, human nature ties us to die and reborn from our ashes again and again, nothing is black and white, etc.

7. Crappy characters.
Vegas had awefull characters, the only ones that had any substance to them were Legion characters and those were horribly neglected by the game. House, for the central character could have been more fleshed out and I expected more from the NCR characters.

8. Whining without me caring. When characters vent their emotions we should feel it. A certain part of us should feel sad when they wail at how unfair the world is. The leader of the Rangers was the worst, this guy is suppose to be the toughest the NCR has and then he cries and eats his gun because he isn't getting his way. Arcade can't shut about morality the Legion, or simply doing whats beneficial at the moment, turning Helios one into a giant weapon could benefit the cause of killing legionaries but he's can't see past helping people in freeside.

Yamu gave you a great answer to this ones, so I will skip them.

9. The whole thing feels rushed.

I think I agree here.

10. I hate the map, i know kind of petty but I don't like the entire map being a city on top of a giant circular path.

I haven't paid attention to the map, actually.

Well yea in the earlier games they were about saving technology so it could be used by humanity later, they may not have valued every single human being but were at least committed to the long term survival of the human race.

No, it never was about saving it so it could be used later, but about saving it so they could be the gendarme that saves them from using the technology to harm themselves.

It didn't live up to past games, compared to Fallout 1 2 3 it sucked.

Compared to Fallout 1 and 2, I agree. Compared to Fallout 3, it's a master piece.

Yes the meaning was sacrifice, even if you can't live the life you deserve you can or at least should try to make the world into a better place even if it means dying in a giant water purifier.

And that kind of meaning has anything to do with Fallout? That's great for fantasy RPGs, but it's completely unrelated to what Fallout historically depicts.

 

[2house2fly]

Yes, it lacked a theme that was meaningful in any way. That's why just about every faction was connected, to varying degrees of intimacy, with the past, and why almost every companion quest culminates in a choice between the past and the future, represented in no less than three such quests by the Followers Of The Apocalypse. Why the two major centrepieces of the gameworld are intact pre-War structures. Because there was no theme.

Even though there is no theme, parallels are drawn between the fascist regime of the legion and the NCR's resemblance to modern American capitalist democracy- for example, both take slaves, though the NCR calls their slaves "prisoners". The expansionism of the NCR stands in stark contrast to the Great Khans, a tribe modelled after the ancient Mongols and who nowadays hide out in a cul-de-sac canyon. If the game had a theme there might be something to the fact that the military entity which most closely resembles the modern American army is both mighty enough to dwarf the power of the metaphorical Mongols and belligerent enough to outright massacre them.
Edward Sallow suppresses historical knowledge and brainwashes his followers into carrying out atrocities based on some idiotic notion that he is special and that they are special for following him- some might all that notion "exceptionalism". Note that Edward Sallow came out of the NCR, and therefore so did the Legion, which is now expanding in that direction. The Legion represents the NCR's future, or would, if the game had any themes. It doesn't though.

A Western superpower battles a low-tech but brutal guerrilla army in a politically disastrous quagmire while occupying a desert nation whose natural resources they hope to take for themselves. Vegas is run by an Ayn Rand libertarian, its capitalist paradise is based on lies and sustains itself with the help of an unthinking, emotionless, unaccountable police force which serves the will of the rich rather than the safety of the people. The Boomers cite the Second Amendment to explain why they won't take your weapon away even though they don't trust you, literally placing the value of your weapon over the lives of their own people. The Brotherhood Of Steel adheres fanatically to the words of an ancient document penned by people who were in a completely different situation, two hundred years previously. A dangerously disturbed individual uses a broadcast medium to seem like a more enticing option than a more moderate and measured counterpart who lacks the same exposure. The casinos are literally staffed by tribal natives whose cultural histories have been basically erased. Nothing to take away from any of this, they just slapped a bunch of stuff together at random, the story has no theme. This is obvious because if it had a theme then there would be Bible quotes and you would die at the end.

 

[Walpknut]

Didn't you know? to be deep you don't need a well constructed world, narrative and writting, you need speeches and BIG ACTS even when they have no reason to happen.

 

[yarga]

snip

1. Lack of a story, compared to FO3? Just no. There are essentially 3 stories completely fleshed out here, and one not so much (legion path), with enough variables and random stuff in between to virtually guarantee that no playthrough is the same.

2. On factions, yeah time has passed, stuff has happened, some factions have risen, some fallen, and some new players have appeared in the wastes, that struck me as a true depiction of an evolving bunch of micro societies, so I don't agree with you at all.

3. You wanted more exposition in a game that already had like 100k+ lines of dialgue? Wow. I think the past is past and you can't have a story that involves retelling too much of the previous titles, just too much work for folks who are trying to deliver something new. Replay the older titles if your memories are getting hazy.

4. FO 3 had the worst thought out communities and varieties (how do these people eat?!? lol), FO NV had enough to establish the community you were currently in. I could have used more of em sure, but in terms of time I spent exploring them I thought they created a solid world for the time/money investment. I just wish some areas like NVegas itself were scripted better so that they felt more continuous and alive, but that was an engine/console limitation. Games' gotta end sometime dude.

5. I don't like scripted fights either, espeically the long ones, and the last fight at hoover had as many bugs as I expected. Plus when it ended so did the game, this time I agree with you.

6. I hate "message" games, and I appreciate that you have the choice in this RPG to decide the message: Strong survive, middlemen thrive, meek inherit... take your pick it's up to you. That is central to a good RPG, no predetermined result, player choice.

7. Chars... better written than almost any others I've seen in an RPG, not just with backstory, but voice acting and individual quirks. Strongly disagree.

8. I like backstory and plot motivations in my RPGs, so yeah, again, strongly disagree.

9. I don't it seems rushed, but I do wish for more. I ALWAYS wish for more of something I love, but you can only get so much into a game before it goes out the door. I still feel like FONV delivered more plot than almost any other game of its kind, and branching plot at that. Hell, I would have liked another 2000000 hours in the wasteland, but for what I paid for, I was happy.

10. Never bugged me, I don't like quest markers though, so I'd agree that I didn't like the map in general, for diff reasons.

 

[mobucks]