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Factions - Tagaziel
There are about a dozen various gangs, governments, caravans and armies vying for various degrees of control over the Mojave and on top of that there are many more smaller groups that just want to be left alone to their own devices. Many old organizations return (most notably the New California Republic and the original Brotherhood of Steel) alongside a host of new ones (Caesar's Legion, Powder Gangers or Mr House).
<table align="left" width="302px" bgcolor="#333333" border="1"><tr><td><center>
</center></tr></td></table>Unlike Fallout 3, the returning factions are provided with logical, comprehensive explanations as to why they are in the Mojave and what they've been doing for the past forty years. For example, the Brotherhood has lost a bloody war over technology with the NCR, and is now dying a slow death, while the Republic grows stronger above. Other returning factions include the Followers of the Apocalypse and Crimson Caravans and, admirably, none feel arbitrarily added to the game for the sake of fan service.
When compared to returning factions, new ones don't feel out of place or insignificant. Even the biggest and most controversial one - the Caesar's Legion - fits right in, thanks to the fact that its leader explains in detail why he chose to emulate ancient Rome and what his motivations are. This is true for others as well. From the Van Graffs to Powder Gangers, new factions are provided with adequate context for their presence in the Mojave and a backstory explaining how they came to be.
Old or new, the factions have an impact on the wasteland and that impact can be seen through quests that affect the player's standing with the faction and opinions of Mojave's inhabitants. Everyone in the wasteland has an opinion and some of them cast new light on what seemed an easy decision.
Atmosphere - 13pm
“New Vegas” can be described as “post-post-apocalyptic cocktail with heavy militaristic aftertaste”.
As you take a first sip, there’s a very good vibe of exploration. You might get that old good feeling which calls you to travel across the wasteland from settlement to settlement, trying to escape the dangers awaiting you everywhere. Obsidian has nailed that feeling and at some point I felt this game get very close to the Fallout atmosphere I love: communities emerging from the ashes, wild west...
But then another taste appears to press this one down with heavy army boots. This is the NCR portion showing itself. Lots of military locations with pompous music in the background... Along with that the presence of Caesar’s Legion might jar. And, to be honest, I can’t say I like the proportions of these ingredients in the New Vegas cocktail. They could’ve been more subtle, not breaking the main flavor, rather adding some nice touches to it, but this is not the case. That's not to say there aren't factions and locations that add to the atmosphere in a positive sense, but - to me - they feel drowned in the dominant NCR-Caesar battle atmosphere.
Obsidian has prepared an interesting drink: sweet-sour at first and quite bitter in the aftertaste. You might not like it entirely, but it is worth trying.
World and quest design - Brother None
There is something very odd about the way Fallout: New Vegas' world is designed. Odd, but easy to explain. Unlike its Oblivion engine predecessors, New Vegas doesn't really try to get away with presenting “large” settlements in disproportionally tiny maps. This is good in that it provides a much more convincing game world, but it is bad in that this is the wrong engine to do it in. With its limitations, noticeably on how many NPCs can be present on the map, New Vegas ends up giving us large but eerily empty towns and areas. It makes some sense for a post-apocalyptic game to do so, but as mentioned, this is more of a post-post-apocalyptic game. Furthermore, it is a deterrent to gameplay.
<table align="right" width="302px" bgcolor="#333333" border="1"><tr><td><center>
</center></tr></td></table>Similarly, the presence of difficult to scale mountains makes sense for this game's setting, but they do not cooperate well with the basic inherited gameplay, which encourages exploration. And indeed I can often scale mountains, but it's hard to tell when the game wants me to and when it'll just throw up a nonsensical invisible wall.
The quests too are a mixed bag. There are some undeniable gems that fully explore the options of different character builds, as mentioned above, but there are also a ton of fetch, deliver and search quests. Not to take away from the excellence of some quests, I can not help but feel there is way too much filler, my personal breaking point coming when I had to carry love-notes across the map. It's not so much gameplay as it is padding out the game's duration. Interestingly enough, some of the worst-designed quests feature some of the best writing, and it's a question of personal preference if that is enough to compensate the lacking design.
And Fallout 3 - Brother None
In a lot of ways it makes more sense to compare this game to Fallout 2 than to Fallout 3, but considering the use of the same engine and the heavy reusage of assets and mechanics, you can't write much on this game without mentioning Fallout 3.
Many reviewers seem to feel this game is a “big expansion”. Superficially, this is true. The graphic asset recycling is massive, and the basic mechanics in dialog, minigames and combat are essentially unchanged, polish around the edges notwithstanding. If you look a bit deeper, you might find it's not that simple.
Fallout 3 is a free-roaming game, holding your hand in quests, with a main quest in the background. Fallout: New Vegas is a free-roaming game that initially hampers your movement much more, makes combat more challenging and decision-making more important and unforgiving, and has a main quest and faction system that is woven throughout the game. They run on the same engine, but their basic goals diverged, and it shows.
As a Fallout fan, you'll mostly notice New Vegas combines a less nonsensical take on Fallout lore with a kind of light-hearted post-post-apocalypse similar to Fallout 2. The writing is miles beyond Fallout 3 and that's a saving grace for many fans, as is its increased dedication to RPG mechanics. I feel the mechanics and engine's shortcomings keep it from being “the Fallout 3 that was supposed to be”, but it's certainly a lot better than Fallout 3, and quite probably the best thing that could happen to the franchise after Bethesda purchased it.
The level of technical polish and bugs have been left undiscussed throughout this impressions piece. It fits in here for one simple reason: this game seems to be about as buggy as Fallout 3. Now that's a guesstimate at best, but like Fallout 3, it is rife with graphic glitches, people getting stuck on terrain, and the like. It seems to suffer from more hard crashes and has a handful of quest-breaking bugs. Like Fallout 3, this is a game where one can recommend waiting for more patches before purchasing.
<table align="right" width="100%" border="0"><tr><td align="left">To page 1</td></tr></table>
Factions - Tagaziel
There are about a dozen various gangs, governments, caravans and armies vying for various degrees of control over the Mojave and on top of that there are many more smaller groups that just want to be left alone to their own devices. Many old organizations return (most notably the New California Republic and the original Brotherhood of Steel) alongside a host of new ones (Caesar's Legion, Powder Gangers or Mr House).
<table align="left" width="302px" bgcolor="#333333" border="1"><tr><td><center>
</center></tr></td></table>Unlike Fallout 3, the returning factions are provided with logical, comprehensive explanations as to why they are in the Mojave and what they've been doing for the past forty years. For example, the Brotherhood has lost a bloody war over technology with the NCR, and is now dying a slow death, while the Republic grows stronger above. Other returning factions include the Followers of the Apocalypse and Crimson Caravans and, admirably, none feel arbitrarily added to the game for the sake of fan service. When compared to returning factions, new ones don't feel out of place or insignificant. Even the biggest and most controversial one - the Caesar's Legion - fits right in, thanks to the fact that its leader explains in detail why he chose to emulate ancient Rome and what his motivations are. This is true for others as well. From the Van Graffs to Powder Gangers, new factions are provided with adequate context for their presence in the Mojave and a backstory explaining how they came to be.
Old or new, the factions have an impact on the wasteland and that impact can be seen through quests that affect the player's standing with the faction and opinions of Mojave's inhabitants. Everyone in the wasteland has an opinion and some of them cast new light on what seemed an easy decision.
Atmosphere - 13pm
“New Vegas” can be described as “post-post-apocalyptic cocktail with heavy militaristic aftertaste”.
As you take a first sip, there’s a very good vibe of exploration. You might get that old good feeling which calls you to travel across the wasteland from settlement to settlement, trying to escape the dangers awaiting you everywhere. Obsidian has nailed that feeling and at some point I felt this game get very close to the Fallout atmosphere I love: communities emerging from the ashes, wild west...
But then another taste appears to press this one down with heavy army boots. This is the NCR portion showing itself. Lots of military locations with pompous music in the background... Along with that the presence of Caesar’s Legion might jar. And, to be honest, I can’t say I like the proportions of these ingredients in the New Vegas cocktail. They could’ve been more subtle, not breaking the main flavor, rather adding some nice touches to it, but this is not the case. That's not to say there aren't factions and locations that add to the atmosphere in a positive sense, but - to me - they feel drowned in the dominant NCR-Caesar battle atmosphere.
Obsidian has prepared an interesting drink: sweet-sour at first and quite bitter in the aftertaste. You might not like it entirely, but it is worth trying.
World and quest design - Brother None
There is something very odd about the way Fallout: New Vegas' world is designed. Odd, but easy to explain. Unlike its Oblivion engine predecessors, New Vegas doesn't really try to get away with presenting “large” settlements in disproportionally tiny maps. This is good in that it provides a much more convincing game world, but it is bad in that this is the wrong engine to do it in. With its limitations, noticeably on how many NPCs can be present on the map, New Vegas ends up giving us large but eerily empty towns and areas. It makes some sense for a post-apocalyptic game to do so, but as mentioned, this is more of a post-post-apocalyptic game. Furthermore, it is a deterrent to gameplay.
<table align="right" width="302px" bgcolor="#333333" border="1"><tr><td><center>
</center></tr></td></table>Similarly, the presence of difficult to scale mountains makes sense for this game's setting, but they do not cooperate well with the basic inherited gameplay, which encourages exploration. And indeed I can often scale mountains, but it's hard to tell when the game wants me to and when it'll just throw up a nonsensical invisible wall.The quests too are a mixed bag. There are some undeniable gems that fully explore the options of different character builds, as mentioned above, but there are also a ton of fetch, deliver and search quests. Not to take away from the excellence of some quests, I can not help but feel there is way too much filler, my personal breaking point coming when I had to carry love-notes across the map. It's not so much gameplay as it is padding out the game's duration. Interestingly enough, some of the worst-designed quests feature some of the best writing, and it's a question of personal preference if that is enough to compensate the lacking design.
And Fallout 3 - Brother None
In a lot of ways it makes more sense to compare this game to Fallout 2 than to Fallout 3, but considering the use of the same engine and the heavy reusage of assets and mechanics, you can't write much on this game without mentioning Fallout 3.
Many reviewers seem to feel this game is a “big expansion”. Superficially, this is true. The graphic asset recycling is massive, and the basic mechanics in dialog, minigames and combat are essentially unchanged, polish around the edges notwithstanding. If you look a bit deeper, you might find it's not that simple.
Fallout 3 is a free-roaming game, holding your hand in quests, with a main quest in the background. Fallout: New Vegas is a free-roaming game that initially hampers your movement much more, makes combat more challenging and decision-making more important and unforgiving, and has a main quest and faction system that is woven throughout the game. They run on the same engine, but their basic goals diverged, and it shows.
As a Fallout fan, you'll mostly notice New Vegas combines a less nonsensical take on Fallout lore with a kind of light-hearted post-post-apocalypse similar to Fallout 2. The writing is miles beyond Fallout 3 and that's a saving grace for many fans, as is its increased dedication to RPG mechanics. I feel the mechanics and engine's shortcomings keep it from being “the Fallout 3 that was supposed to be”, but it's certainly a lot better than Fallout 3, and quite probably the best thing that could happen to the franchise after Bethesda purchased it.
The level of technical polish and bugs have been left undiscussed throughout this impressions piece. It fits in here for one simple reason: this game seems to be about as buggy as Fallout 3. Now that's a guesstimate at best, but like Fallout 3, it is rife with graphic glitches, people getting stuck on terrain, and the like. It seems to suffer from more hard crashes and has a handful of quest-breaking bugs. Like Fallout 3, this is a game where one can recommend waiting for more patches before purchasing.
<table align="right" width="100%" border="0"><tr><td align="left">To page 1</td></tr></table>