WorstUsernameEver
But best title ever!
And here's the second round guys.
Eurogamer, 9/10.<blockquote>The only addition that simply doesn't work is the enhanced use of companion characters. These were present in Fallout 3 (RIP, Dogmeat) but now come with a command wheel that supposedly gives you more control over them.
Trouble is, what they need is better AI, not a rudimentary selection of orders that are inadequate for the game's many obstacles. Companions bestow unique perks (more if you complete their side-quests) and are very handy for carrying additional items and supplying extra fire-power, but their tendency to dash off into battle against any enemy that passes within visual range, even when supposedly set to 'Passive' mode, makes them more trouble than they're worth.
[...]
Your companion's dim-witted nature is perhaps connected to the creaking Gamebryo engine, which still carries a lot of Oblivion's clunkier aspects in its digital genome. Interior maps remain frustratingly vague, character models are still bloated and odd, and both people and objects are prone to random jigging or getting lodged in doors and rocks.
[...]
Fallout: New Vegas is still a fantastic game, only slightly held back by its increasingly outdated tech. Obsidian has created a totally compelling world and its frustrations pale into insignificance compared to the immersive, obsessive experience on offer. Just like the scorched scenery that provides its epic backdrop, New Vegas is huge and sprawling, sometimes gaudy, even downright ugly at times – but always effortlessly, shamelessly entertaining. </blockquote>PCGamer, 84/100.<blockquote>The central story is a big improvement on the dad-quest of Fallout 3. You’re following the trail of the man who shot you, as it snakes across the Mojave through the major urban areas, drip-feeding you tasks that vary from sorting out a town’s escaped prisoner problem to a ghoul infestation with a brilliantly overthe- top ending. Scenarios and characters that I’m loath to go into detail over, as their tricky little problems should be experienced first-hand. Twisty moral conundrums are laid at your feet as you pick and choose who to piss off (and you’ll always piss someone off). When a game asks you to lead someone into a sniper’s line of fire, but doesn’t specify who, you definitely have to confront your id.
[...]
There are things to see, sure, but the rewards aren’t nearly as interesting in New Vegas. I didn’t get as much out of heading for intriguing things on the horizon as I did in the previous game. With some new technology and the ambition to create a full world as compelling as the previous game’s, it could have been wonderful.</blockquote>Official Xbox 360 Magazine UK, 9/10. <blockquote> It's not the prettiest girl at the Xbox 360 ball. Those who demand graphics that fizz with lemon freshness will scowl at the occasional frame-rate drops and performance hiccups that punctuate New Vegas. Yet you'll find yourself in a strangely forgiving mood, as you know that any minor tears in the illusion are due to the fact that Obsidian is trying very hard to pull its taut canvas across such a large landscape.
When the experience is this good, it's a small price to pay. Fallout: New Vegas does betray the age of its engine every now and then, but it also shows why it has aged so well, powering the same tasty mix of great gameplay, endless side-quests and a world to get lost in. And the bit where you send the caravan girl off to get bombed? Awesome. See you at the watercooler.</blockquote>Computer and Videogames, 8.1/10. <blockquote> Have you played Fallout 3? If so, then you've played Fallout: New Vegas.
The writing is better, there's more to do and a lot has been improved, but the actual minute-to-minute experience of playing it is identical - flaws and all.
So while there are more weapons and ways to customise your character, combat is still flimsy and inconsistent. The story and dialogue are better, but the characters remain impossibly ugly and stiffly animated.
Hell, NPCs still occasionally sit beside chairs rather than on them - just one of a hundred dumb (but not game-breaking) glitches that have marred Bethesda's engine since it was first used in Oblivion four years ago. Four years.
But none of this is Obsidian's fault. Considering what they've had to work with - ie. one of the most notoriously buggy game engines in the world - they've done a brilliant job breathing new life into Fallout's heavily stylised, post-apocalyptic America. The gameplay may be the same, but thematically this is a very different beast to Fallout 3.</blockquote>IGN UK, 9.0/10.<blockquote>Fallout: New Vegas' similarities to Fallout 3 are obvious. The setting is different, but the aesthetic is the same – crumbling buildings, settlements comprised of shacks, unending waves of dusty, tortured wasteland dotted with ruins from a happier past. The combat is the same, with the same divisive VATS system that lets you target limbs or gun arms to cripple an enemy's ability to fight back. You still rely on your PIP-boy, a Filofax for the post-apocalyptic future, to organise the weapons, armour, quests, information and salvage that you can scavenge from your hopeless surroundings.
You'll forgive me, then, for focussing on the things that are different. Because in some respects Fallout: New Vegas is a very different game from Fallout 3, and that's largely because it's better written. It understands that sometimes you must do awful things for a greater cause, or choose the best of two bad options. It offers you decisions all the time, but it rarely forces you to make any. It understands that morality is ambiguous, and subjective, and that games shoving obvious choices in your face undermines their emotional maturity. It knows that sometimes there is no right choice.
[...]
Fallout: New Vegas has strong, clever dialogue as well as good writing and quest design. Characters are duplicitous, foul-mouthed, desperate, broken, suave, or all of the above. The voice acting is much better, too, which really helps carry the game's hundreds of interlocking stories. It's a serious game, overall, with moments that are genuinely sobering, but there's also a wicked undercurrent of black humour; in the face of such desolation, the Wasteland's inhabitants have developed an amusingly cynical worldview. Fallout's uncompromising violence, too, is double-edged; seeing crucified Caesar's Legion victims dying in agony isn't funny in any way, but watching a raider's head explode really is. </blockquote>GamesTM, 9/10.<blockquote>New Vegas won’t help Obsidian to shake its reputation as a purveyor of technically flawed but theoretically excellent sequels to other studio’s games – the bugs here are numerous, and occasionally infuriating – but it’s difficult to conceive of anyone who loved Bethesda’s re-imagined universe feeling any differently about this. On the most base level it’s more of the same, but with a generous handful of new features that allow you to carve your own path more convincingly. If we had played Fallout 3 and New Vegas once each and were offered the chance to play one of them for a second time, after much deliberation we’d choose New Vegas. There can be no more telling indicator of a job well done.</blockquote>NowGamer, 9.3/10.<blockquote>Nobody was terribly sure what Obsidian was going to do with the Fallout franchise. While it was comforting to remember that some of the very same people who worked on the classic first two titles would be bringing their services, it was a worry that the developer had gained a reputation (due almost entirely to its treatment of the Knights Of The Old Republic sequel) for inheriting properties begun by others, and dampening them in the process of attempting sequels, not to mention putting out glitchy finished products (Alpha Protocol, we’re looking at you).
Early preview screens didn’t look too promising, either. Even though the whole concept of New Vegas as this glistening, gleaming outpost of the apparently untouched human spirit of vice and nightlife has always been established Fallout lore, it was a jarring image next to Fallout 3’s grimy and murky Washington DC. The bright light of casinos, functioning roulette tables and suited and booted punters lounging around sipping cocktails seemed to undermine Bethesda’s bleak and affecting vision of 2008, and was something we were convinced was going to damage our experience of New Vegas, possibly irrevocably.
We were wrong; we apologise profusely for ever doubting anyone, and we’re going to spend the next few pages explaining exactly why we believe Fallout: New Vegas is one of the most engrossing and well-structured action-RPGs ever crafted.</blockquote>Escapist Magazine, 4/5. <blockquote>The humor was what put me off, to be honest. Fallout 3 was many things - some good, some bad - but it was never hokey. I was afraid New Vegas, by contrast, with the injection of a vibrant sense of dark humor and awash with more colors than brown, would be hokey. I couldn't have been more wrong.
Step after step and encounter after encounter, the Mojave Wasteland astounds with its understated charm. In one corner of the map you may find a regiment of NCR rangers slowly turning to ghouls from overexposure to radiation although they don't know it. In another, a mutant driven to insanity by the thoughts of cows. In still another, the diary of a man who's lost everything, even the will to live. Even your own story, that of a hapless courier shot and left for dead for the trinket he was carrying, is tinged with multiple layers of interpretation. The game is in turns poignant, funny and desperate, and just enough of each so that all can be observed.</blockquote>Destructoid, 9.0/10.<blockquote> The essence of New Vegas is almost perfect. In fact, I want to say that this is the best roleplaying game you'll find all year. Unfortunately, however, it's let itself down with a number of unforgivable glitches that do their best to ruin the overall experience. Since it's using the same crummy engine from Fallout 3, New Vegas has the typical nonsense you expect in a Bethesda game, with AI bugs, scenery clipping, and general graphics issues cropping up from time to time. New Vegas manages to top those with regular crashes that freeze the entire game and require a system reset. Saving regularly is more crucial than ever, since these freezes will appear at any given moment. They're not so regular as to be a constant threat, but they will occur more than once over the course of your adventure.</blockquote>IncGamers, 9.1/10.<blockquote>New Vegas is packed full of bickering groups, each with their own view on how the Mojave Wasteland should operate and who should be in control. From a gang of Elvis impersonators to a religious cult of Ghouls there are plenty of weird and wonderful characters for you to meet on your travels.
You get the feeling that even if you weren’t involved these factions would struggle amongst themselves until one eventually came out on top; such is the depth and authenticity of the various key characters and their motivations. The story here is not so much about you as an individual, but about the choices you make in giving others the tools to achieve their own objectives.</blockquote>FrontTowardsGamer, 9/10. <blockquote>Let’s review. Fallout: New Vegas features a better story in a brand new open world. It includes new factions and settlements, all with a reputation the player must keep up with. The game includes new weapons, items, enemies, and everything else you’d expect. The game’s biggest city features the usual casino games, and they work just as you’d expect. Additions to combat add a new challenge, but weapon mods are an even tradeoff. The new Hardcore Mode paves the way for more bragging rights if you’re willing to take up the challenge. Finally, this otherwise excellent game has few technical issues that need to (and probably will be) ironed out.</blockquote>
Eurogamer, 9/10.<blockquote>The only addition that simply doesn't work is the enhanced use of companion characters. These were present in Fallout 3 (RIP, Dogmeat) but now come with a command wheel that supposedly gives you more control over them.
Trouble is, what they need is better AI, not a rudimentary selection of orders that are inadequate for the game's many obstacles. Companions bestow unique perks (more if you complete their side-quests) and are very handy for carrying additional items and supplying extra fire-power, but their tendency to dash off into battle against any enemy that passes within visual range, even when supposedly set to 'Passive' mode, makes them more trouble than they're worth.
[...]
Your companion's dim-witted nature is perhaps connected to the creaking Gamebryo engine, which still carries a lot of Oblivion's clunkier aspects in its digital genome. Interior maps remain frustratingly vague, character models are still bloated and odd, and both people and objects are prone to random jigging or getting lodged in doors and rocks.
[...]
Fallout: New Vegas is still a fantastic game, only slightly held back by its increasingly outdated tech. Obsidian has created a totally compelling world and its frustrations pale into insignificance compared to the immersive, obsessive experience on offer. Just like the scorched scenery that provides its epic backdrop, New Vegas is huge and sprawling, sometimes gaudy, even downright ugly at times – but always effortlessly, shamelessly entertaining. </blockquote>PCGamer, 84/100.<blockquote>The central story is a big improvement on the dad-quest of Fallout 3. You’re following the trail of the man who shot you, as it snakes across the Mojave through the major urban areas, drip-feeding you tasks that vary from sorting out a town’s escaped prisoner problem to a ghoul infestation with a brilliantly overthe- top ending. Scenarios and characters that I’m loath to go into detail over, as their tricky little problems should be experienced first-hand. Twisty moral conundrums are laid at your feet as you pick and choose who to piss off (and you’ll always piss someone off). When a game asks you to lead someone into a sniper’s line of fire, but doesn’t specify who, you definitely have to confront your id.
[...]
There are things to see, sure, but the rewards aren’t nearly as interesting in New Vegas. I didn’t get as much out of heading for intriguing things on the horizon as I did in the previous game. With some new technology and the ambition to create a full world as compelling as the previous game’s, it could have been wonderful.</blockquote>Official Xbox 360 Magazine UK, 9/10. <blockquote> It's not the prettiest girl at the Xbox 360 ball. Those who demand graphics that fizz with lemon freshness will scowl at the occasional frame-rate drops and performance hiccups that punctuate New Vegas. Yet you'll find yourself in a strangely forgiving mood, as you know that any minor tears in the illusion are due to the fact that Obsidian is trying very hard to pull its taut canvas across such a large landscape.
When the experience is this good, it's a small price to pay. Fallout: New Vegas does betray the age of its engine every now and then, but it also shows why it has aged so well, powering the same tasty mix of great gameplay, endless side-quests and a world to get lost in. And the bit where you send the caravan girl off to get bombed? Awesome. See you at the watercooler.</blockquote>Computer and Videogames, 8.1/10. <blockquote> Have you played Fallout 3? If so, then you've played Fallout: New Vegas.
The writing is better, there's more to do and a lot has been improved, but the actual minute-to-minute experience of playing it is identical - flaws and all.
So while there are more weapons and ways to customise your character, combat is still flimsy and inconsistent. The story and dialogue are better, but the characters remain impossibly ugly and stiffly animated.
Hell, NPCs still occasionally sit beside chairs rather than on them - just one of a hundred dumb (but not game-breaking) glitches that have marred Bethesda's engine since it was first used in Oblivion four years ago. Four years.
But none of this is Obsidian's fault. Considering what they've had to work with - ie. one of the most notoriously buggy game engines in the world - they've done a brilliant job breathing new life into Fallout's heavily stylised, post-apocalyptic America. The gameplay may be the same, but thematically this is a very different beast to Fallout 3.</blockquote>IGN UK, 9.0/10.<blockquote>Fallout: New Vegas' similarities to Fallout 3 are obvious. The setting is different, but the aesthetic is the same – crumbling buildings, settlements comprised of shacks, unending waves of dusty, tortured wasteland dotted with ruins from a happier past. The combat is the same, with the same divisive VATS system that lets you target limbs or gun arms to cripple an enemy's ability to fight back. You still rely on your PIP-boy, a Filofax for the post-apocalyptic future, to organise the weapons, armour, quests, information and salvage that you can scavenge from your hopeless surroundings.
You'll forgive me, then, for focussing on the things that are different. Because in some respects Fallout: New Vegas is a very different game from Fallout 3, and that's largely because it's better written. It understands that sometimes you must do awful things for a greater cause, or choose the best of two bad options. It offers you decisions all the time, but it rarely forces you to make any. It understands that morality is ambiguous, and subjective, and that games shoving obvious choices in your face undermines their emotional maturity. It knows that sometimes there is no right choice.
[...]
Fallout: New Vegas has strong, clever dialogue as well as good writing and quest design. Characters are duplicitous, foul-mouthed, desperate, broken, suave, or all of the above. The voice acting is much better, too, which really helps carry the game's hundreds of interlocking stories. It's a serious game, overall, with moments that are genuinely sobering, but there's also a wicked undercurrent of black humour; in the face of such desolation, the Wasteland's inhabitants have developed an amusingly cynical worldview. Fallout's uncompromising violence, too, is double-edged; seeing crucified Caesar's Legion victims dying in agony isn't funny in any way, but watching a raider's head explode really is. </blockquote>GamesTM, 9/10.<blockquote>New Vegas won’t help Obsidian to shake its reputation as a purveyor of technically flawed but theoretically excellent sequels to other studio’s games – the bugs here are numerous, and occasionally infuriating – but it’s difficult to conceive of anyone who loved Bethesda’s re-imagined universe feeling any differently about this. On the most base level it’s more of the same, but with a generous handful of new features that allow you to carve your own path more convincingly. If we had played Fallout 3 and New Vegas once each and were offered the chance to play one of them for a second time, after much deliberation we’d choose New Vegas. There can be no more telling indicator of a job well done.</blockquote>NowGamer, 9.3/10.<blockquote>Nobody was terribly sure what Obsidian was going to do with the Fallout franchise. While it was comforting to remember that some of the very same people who worked on the classic first two titles would be bringing their services, it was a worry that the developer had gained a reputation (due almost entirely to its treatment of the Knights Of The Old Republic sequel) for inheriting properties begun by others, and dampening them in the process of attempting sequels, not to mention putting out glitchy finished products (Alpha Protocol, we’re looking at you).
Early preview screens didn’t look too promising, either. Even though the whole concept of New Vegas as this glistening, gleaming outpost of the apparently untouched human spirit of vice and nightlife has always been established Fallout lore, it was a jarring image next to Fallout 3’s grimy and murky Washington DC. The bright light of casinos, functioning roulette tables and suited and booted punters lounging around sipping cocktails seemed to undermine Bethesda’s bleak and affecting vision of 2008, and was something we were convinced was going to damage our experience of New Vegas, possibly irrevocably.
We were wrong; we apologise profusely for ever doubting anyone, and we’re going to spend the next few pages explaining exactly why we believe Fallout: New Vegas is one of the most engrossing and well-structured action-RPGs ever crafted.</blockquote>Escapist Magazine, 4/5. <blockquote>The humor was what put me off, to be honest. Fallout 3 was many things - some good, some bad - but it was never hokey. I was afraid New Vegas, by contrast, with the injection of a vibrant sense of dark humor and awash with more colors than brown, would be hokey. I couldn't have been more wrong.
Step after step and encounter after encounter, the Mojave Wasteland astounds with its understated charm. In one corner of the map you may find a regiment of NCR rangers slowly turning to ghouls from overexposure to radiation although they don't know it. In another, a mutant driven to insanity by the thoughts of cows. In still another, the diary of a man who's lost everything, even the will to live. Even your own story, that of a hapless courier shot and left for dead for the trinket he was carrying, is tinged with multiple layers of interpretation. The game is in turns poignant, funny and desperate, and just enough of each so that all can be observed.</blockquote>Destructoid, 9.0/10.<blockquote> The essence of New Vegas is almost perfect. In fact, I want to say that this is the best roleplaying game you'll find all year. Unfortunately, however, it's let itself down with a number of unforgivable glitches that do their best to ruin the overall experience. Since it's using the same crummy engine from Fallout 3, New Vegas has the typical nonsense you expect in a Bethesda game, with AI bugs, scenery clipping, and general graphics issues cropping up from time to time. New Vegas manages to top those with regular crashes that freeze the entire game and require a system reset. Saving regularly is more crucial than ever, since these freezes will appear at any given moment. They're not so regular as to be a constant threat, but they will occur more than once over the course of your adventure.</blockquote>IncGamers, 9.1/10.<blockquote>New Vegas is packed full of bickering groups, each with their own view on how the Mojave Wasteland should operate and who should be in control. From a gang of Elvis impersonators to a religious cult of Ghouls there are plenty of weird and wonderful characters for you to meet on your travels.
You get the feeling that even if you weren’t involved these factions would struggle amongst themselves until one eventually came out on top; such is the depth and authenticity of the various key characters and their motivations. The story here is not so much about you as an individual, but about the choices you make in giving others the tools to achieve their own objectives.</blockquote>FrontTowardsGamer, 9/10. <blockquote>Let’s review. Fallout: New Vegas features a better story in a brand new open world. It includes new factions and settlements, all with a reputation the player must keep up with. The game includes new weapons, items, enemies, and everything else you’d expect. The game’s biggest city features the usual casino games, and they work just as you’d expect. Additions to combat add a new challenge, but weapon mods are an even tradeoff. The new Hardcore Mode paves the way for more bragging rights if you’re willing to take up the challenge. Finally, this otherwise excellent game has few technical issues that need to (and probably will be) ironed out.</blockquote>
