Ragemage
Wept for Zion
New Vegas is far and beyond one of my favorite games of all time. I'd say it's probably tied for number 1 in my mind next to Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker. Before we get started with this review, I need to note a few things:
1. I will not be comparing New Vegas to Fallout 1, 2, or 4. I will be comparing it to 3 at some points given how they are made with the same engine, so you can get a better idea of what Obsidian did right with it.
2. DLCs will not be counting towards this review. This will be about the base game only. HOWEVER:
3. I will be counting cut content mods. Every bit of cut content for this game was going to be in the base game but had to be cut because of time constraints or console limitations thanks to Obsidian's shitty deal with Bethesda. It is all fully voiced, scripted, etc, and thus I will be counting it for the purpose of this review as in-game material, such as Freeside-Open.
4. I used @DirtyOldShoe 's 22 point format again for this review because it's very neat, tidy, and gets all the points across.
Final Score: 21.5/22
Interior/Clutter Design: 1
Let's compare the interior clutter of Fallout 3 to New Vegas. In Fallout 3, despite it being 200 years after the war, pretty much every part of civilization is covered in trash, dirt, holes in the wall, etc. Even in places like Rivet City where they have people sweeping the floors, it's still filthy in there. New Vegas, comparatively, looks more like the world should after 200 years. For the most part you're only going to find dirt and trash everywhere in poor/raider areas, such as the Powder Gangers' camps, Freeside, and Fiend camps. Places like the owned homes of Goodspring, the Strip, Novac, and so forth are actually quite spick and span minus a few stains and wear+tear. It really makes it seem like the world is slowly recovering and isn't just one giant trash heap. The only truly clean building I can recall in FO3 is Tenpenny Towers.
World Design: 1
Mm, the world design is positively perfect. It really seems like they designed the game with Alternate Start mods in mind. As an example, by the time most players hit Vegas, 2000 caps is going to be pocket change after all the exploring and looting we've done, thus the check to enter Vegas means nothing for us. However, if you're starting near the Strip, that check is going to be a real problem and you'll probably have to run around doing odd jobs for the Kings or the residents of North Vegas, or go fight in the Thorn until you've saved up enough prize money to get in. Another example would be there's dialogue for almost every situation. Normally you'd come to Sloan from the south, and a man will stop you and warn you not to go north because of the deathclaws, but if you come from the north he'll be amazed and call you insane for getting through the deathclaws. The game's really built around you and your actions, not the other way around. I've heard people complain about the game railroading you into going only 1 way into the beginning but honestly I find this laughable. To get past the deathclaw horde past Sloan all you need to do is go as far down as Primm, and you'll find Stealth Boys at the Steve Bison Hotel you can use to sneak past. Or you could go work for the Powder Gangers for a while, and then betray them to the NCR on their last mission. Their leader's safe has stealth boys in it. That's what I love about the world design. There may be a clear obstacle in front of you but there are almost always ways around it. The only problem I have with it are the invisible walls placed on top of some of the cliffs and mountain regions but honestly I never ran into that many of them except around Vault 22.
Atmosphere: 1
Oh, New Vegas's atmosphere is lovely. My favorite time to be outside during the game is at sunset, the sunsets are very nice. Unlike FO3 where the sky's pretty much always smoggy/cloudy, in New Vegas you can usually see clear blue skies and starry nights. It makes exploring around much more.. nice to look at. The game is also very good at knowing how to set the mood of places. You'll have just made it to what looks like a robot facility, and once you step inside, the eerie music will start up. As you walk around and read terminals in this falling-apart building, you'll find things aren't quite as normal as they seem. For example in one of these buildings I found terminal entries from different workers around the building and wondered why I didn't see any skeletons or anything lying around. The whole place was empty save for some deranged Mr. Handies. Then I found out why. A Mr. Handy bot had trapped the survivors of the place behind a locked closet door, where they ended up suffocating. And that's just in one building. There's so many dark atmospheric places and areas to discover.
Suspension of Disbelief/Balance: 1
Unlike FO3, you're never left wondering what anyone has to eat or drink. Many of the communities have farms, and those that don't have explanations as to why, such as brahmin traders delivering food from farming communities to feed them. Water is steadily pumped to a lot of farms either from a source spring or from Lake Mead through a functioning pipe system (which can be seen very clearly at Camp Golf). There's nothing really "silly" per say unless you have Wild Wasteland selected as a trait. There's no skeletons in a 69 position or a teddy bear on the toilet, or at the very least, not often enough to be noticeable. The tone of the game is quite serious and everything just sucks you deeper into the game.
Main Story Writing: 1
There are so many ways to affect the main story of the game. There are 3 major factions in the Mojave, yourself + Yes Man, and a bunch of smaller factions scattered throughout the wastes. Every single faction, even small ones like Goodsprings, have no less than 6 endings and at most, up to an astonishing 13. Just look at all these endings! http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Fallout:_New_Vegas_endings Every faction you meet and befriend will end up helping you in some way on the Dam so long as you convince them to fight for you. And if not on the dam, then they'll help in subtler ways, like providing medicine to your faction choice. Once again, it really is all about you! When it comes to the main story you can befriend everyone and give everyone the best ending possible, or you can kill literally everyone and rule over a city of graves and bones. There are no "essential" npcs in this game, anyone is a potential target, and the story works around this amazingly well.
Side Story Writing: 1
Unlike in FO3 where quite a few sidequests were fairly linear with only 1 or 2 choices thrown in, New Vegas's sidequests have a plethora of choices you can make, leading to different quest endings. Beyond the Beef, for example, has at minimum 6 different ways to complete it. Companions all have their own sidequests unlike in FO3 where your companions were just pack mules. Some companions even have 2 quests, such as Veronica and Rex. (though Rex's 2nd quest only activates if you have the Wild Wasteland trait). And even the companion quests usually have 2 endings that can drastically change how your partner views the world. For instance, you can turn Boone, an ex-NCR sniper, from a distant but calm and collected man into a vengeful, cold-blooded killer who will take any job as long as the pay is good. It really is astounding just how many choices there are when it comes to quests.
Faction Story Writing: 1
The 3 main factions in the game, not including yourself, are the NCR, the Legion, and Mr. House. All 3 of these factions vie for the control of Vegas and want to rule it. Every faction in New Vegas is morally grey, and it's honestly very hard deciding who is right in the end. Do you go with the NCR, who essentially wants to recreate old world America, but is also rife with corruption in its upper staff and stretching themselves too thin to where it doesn't seem like they can reasonably hold the Mojave without some major reforms? Do you help the Legion, a faction that wants to turn America into a new Rome, complete with slavery and crucifixion, but who also seem to bring order and quell anarchy wherever they're in charge? Or do you go with Mr. House, someone who's been around since pre-war, is an absolute genius, seems to have a very well-put together plan, but is extremely cold and can be comparable to an autocratic dictator if put in power? Each factions have their own points, goals, strategies, and ideas of what to do with the Mojave, and it's hard to say who's absolutely right. That's not even including all the smaller factions throughout the Mojave who you can also help, such as the Boomers or the Powder Gangers. On top of all that, if you so wish it, you don't need to side with the NCR, Legion, or Mr. House. You can just take Vegas for yourself with a giant robot army and rule it as you see fit! Sorry for the repetition, but once again, it's all about your choices, and how you go about the game. It's all up to you as to who wins the Mojave.
Dialogue: 1
The dialogue is so rich in this world! Pretty much anyone you talk to has at minimum 3 or 4 different questions/dialogue paths you can take with them. Your SPECIAL and skills affect dialogue with certain people quite a bit (for example, if you want to get the most out of Mr. House, you're going to need a high barter and speech check since the man is very smart). Fallout 3 had this, but not to the same degree as New Vegas. You really can take a pacifist route through every single mission. There is ALWAYS a nonviolent solution to every single quest, including the final bosses of the game. It really is incredible how much choice (there's that word again) you have when it comes to the dialogue, and how much your build path affects it. The faction leaders are especially talkative as to why you should join them.
NPC Design: 1
Given that Obsidian had to work with the Gamebryo Engine, I'm very surprised with the amount of unique faces they managed to pump out. Unlike in FO3, where every 1 out of 5 NPCs look exactly the same (For example, Old Lady Palmer and Old Lady Dithers have the exact same face, as do Herbert Dashwood and Walter), almost all NPCs have a different face. The ones that have a copy-pasted face are ingeniously covered up, such as with NCR Facemask armor or Legion Decanus helmets. The most copy and paste you'll see is amongst Fiends, and that's just because they're a huge raider group that takes up a big swathe of the map. And even then they're pretty diverse facial-wise. It's amazing how they managed to make so many different faces given how clunky the engine they were working with is when it comes to character creation.
Combat: 1
Iron sights improve the combat from FO3 so much. I'm not constantly having to go into VATS just to make sure my aim is alright. Guns are very responsive, and enemies are intelligent. They won't just run at you (well, the Fiends will, but they're super druggies so that's to be expected), they'll usually try to circle around you and flank you from different angles or come at you from behind, such as the Legion Raiding Parties you'll encounter if you piss off the Legion.
AI: 1
Honestly I never had many AI problems in FO3, and I certainly didn't in New Vegas. The only real AI problems I've had in New Vegas are that sometimes your companions will shoot at enemies really far off and alert them to your presence from a mile away, but this is usually just with Boone and ED-E, which I attribute to their perks increasing perception and enemy visibility, so it makes sense they'd be aggro'd to much further away enemies.
Weapon/Armor Design: 1
Unlike in FO3, where unique weapons looked exactly the same as their normal counterparts, New Vegas weapons are actually unique. They went all out with unique weapon designs, such as Maria, the Ranger Sequoia, Vance's 9MM, and That Gun. Some designs are taken from FO3, sure, but it doesn't detract from all the different designs of unique weapons. The artwork on them really makes them stand out. (For instance, have you seen Maria's handle? It actually has the Virgin Mary painted on it! Also Pew Pew, the laser gun you get from the bottle cap quest, actually has a sunset sarsaparilla star bottle cap glued to its side) They went into such painstaking detail on things we probably wouldn't even see in normal gameplay, and I love it.
Crafting: 1
Once again, so much detail into something I doubt that many players even used or noticed. There's so many hidden recipes to find for medicines, tonics, and foods. If you can find something in game that has an effect on your character, there's pretty much a guarantee you can craft it. From soups to stimpaks, everything is craftable so long as you have a high Survival count. It's great, and I personally love scavenging the wastes looking for rare ingredients so I can make a fine dining experience for myself. And that's just with crafting items, you can also find weapon mods that you can attach to your weapons and make them a lot better. I promised I wouldn't bring up any other Fallout games besides FO3, but I do need to take a jab at FO4 here. New Vegas, despite coming out nearly 6 years prior, has way more useful gun mods and recipes than FO4 has.
Player Character: 1
Unlike in FO3 where your backstory is pretty much 100% predetermined outside of your character's personality, in New Vegas you're just a courier who gets shot in the head. A clean slate and a clean start. Your character can be the most charismatic charming NCR soldier the world has ever known, or a complete psychopath who butchers the entire town that just saved his life and goes on to kill everyone else he meets. It's completely up to you, and the game's dialogue system and gameplay allow you to pretty much mold your character however you wish. You can even decide your character's sexual orientation with certain perks (unlike in FO3 where you're railroaded into being straight and the only hooker in game is female and sleeps only with males).
Player Creation: 0.5
I like sculpting a character in New Vegas, and I feel like you can really make someone who looks completely different than everyone else in the game. The problem is that it's basically just the character creator from FO3 with no changes whatsoever. I'm not giving this the full point because I feel like they should've added on to FO3's player creation and gave us some more options, at least when it came to hair and beard styles.
Attributes/Skills/Perks: 1
The perk system really lends itself to the whole "be whoever you want to be" aspect of the game. You can be a nerdy guy who gets bonus perception from glasses and is really proficient with laser weapons and dealing with robots, or you can be a big hulking stupid goliath who can carry over 400 pounds of stuff and is able to eat everything, (complete with animation) from humans to cazadors who calls Caesar's Legion Seizure's Luncheon. There's so many different perks based on how you build your character. In FO3 the first few levels pretty much force you to pick perks that only increase your skill count (such as Scoundrel or Daddy's Boy), but in New Vegas you can go ahead and decide who your character is from the get-go. (the gay/lesbian/straight perks are there right off the bat, and cannibal comes in at level 4, as examples).
Loot: 1
Who doesn't like loot? Everyone loves finding unique stuff, and there is where New Vegas delivers. Almost every place in the game has some sort of secret weapon to find, or a mod to grab, or a new recipe to learn. Some places like the caves are a little empty, but there's usually a quest associated with it that makes going in there worth it. (for example, some of the more sparce loot spots in the game are involved with Red Lucy's quest, wherein you find monster eggs for her arena, which nets you a lot of caps and eventually her love) So usually if a place seems empty, you'll usually end up coming back there due to a quest and THEN you'll be able to find the special loot. (another example I can think of is Veronica's personal quest, wherein you look for special weapons/items that could benefit the Brotherhood and convince them to end the Lockdown. This ends up taking you to at least 2 places that didn't seem to have anything special inside before the quest)
Voice Acting: 1
Unlike in FO3, pretty much every named character has a unique voice. From NCR Lieutenant Boyd to Fantastic, almost all named characters have a voice unique to them. They all do a very good job, from sounding giddy to drunk to menacing, everyone does a really good job at immersing the player into the world. Which is impressive given how much dialogue there is in the game. Some of those men and women must have been in the recording booth for days!
Player/NPC interaction: 1
As mentioned numerous times throughout this review, the world reacts to you and your deeds. This is nowhere better shown than player and NPC interaction. While in FO3 you could nuke Megaton and pretty much no one would react or give a shit, in New Vegas every action you do ends up being talked about by someone. I'll give an example. Let's say you ended up killing Benny on the Strip. Everyone will be talking about it all over the Mojave. They'll say things like "I heard one of the casino heads got murdered in his own joint" or "I heard there was a shootout at the Tops. Glad I wasn't there". This happens with many many quests you do, and thus, if you do a lot of quests, the NPCs are going to have a lot to say about it. You'll constantly hear people chattering about your deeds, although most of the time they won't know who exactly committed the deed. (though in specific missions people will congratulate you over your deeds or ask if you were the one who did such and such)
Replayability: 1
As of the last time I played New Vegas, I have clocked in exactly 505 hours of gameplay. There's so much replaybility with this game! Considering there's over 50 ending slides for the game and so many quests have more than 2 outcomes, you're going to want to play back through it just to see what could've happened if you'd taken a quest a certain way. I've replayed through the game fully 5 times, and replayed it partially at minimum 10 times. Playing through the entire game with a specific build and path in mind takes a while (my last full run took nearly 60 hours to completely beat) but it's definitely a fun experience every time. And it'll always be different because there's so many different ways to come at the game's main quest, side quests, and factions.
Exploration: 1
Even with over 500 hours of my life dedicated to this game, there's STILL things I've only found very recently. Because of how many different ways there are to build your character, and how a lot of places and quests have different outcomes depending on how you built him or her, there's a lot of places you may not see in a single playthrough or events you may not encounter. For example, this little gem only occurs if the following conditions are met. 1, you must not have completed That Lucky Old Sun. 2, you must not have grabbed the Euclid's C-Finder from the child who owns it in Freeside. 3, You must be doing Veronica's personal quest in order for this to work. And 4, you must have an intelligence of 3 or lower. That's a loooot of requirements just for one little easter egg, and there's multiple instances of very hidden secrets like this that you may never even see in all your time playing! (for the record this particular secret I'm about to show you appears to be a callback to Torr from Fallout 2)
Sound/Music: 1
The music in this game is just sublime. Once you get a patch that fixes Johnny Guitar playing every 5 minutes, it gets even better. The atmospheric music in this game fits for pretty much any situation the game throws at you, and it uses a lot of nostalgic tunes from FO1 and FO2 that fans are sure to recognize. There's even tracks you have to "unlock" so to speak, such as doing the quest "Talent Pool" at the Tops or by being in a very specific area of the map. Also the radio's music aren't all about the end of the world like FO3. In fact, not a single song in FNV's soundtrack has to do with the end of the world. I think it really brings back home the point that New Vegas isn't a post apocalyptic game, but a post-post apocalyptic game, and it shows the world being rebuilt slowly but surely instead of staying a dilapidated wreck like FO3's Capital Wasteland.
1. I will not be comparing New Vegas to Fallout 1, 2, or 4. I will be comparing it to 3 at some points given how they are made with the same engine, so you can get a better idea of what Obsidian did right with it.
2. DLCs will not be counting towards this review. This will be about the base game only. HOWEVER:
3. I will be counting cut content mods. Every bit of cut content for this game was going to be in the base game but had to be cut because of time constraints or console limitations thanks to Obsidian's shitty deal with Bethesda. It is all fully voiced, scripted, etc, and thus I will be counting it for the purpose of this review as in-game material, such as Freeside-Open.
4. I used @DirtyOldShoe 's 22 point format again for this review because it's very neat, tidy, and gets all the points across.
Final Score: 21.5/22
Interior/Clutter Design: 1
Let's compare the interior clutter of Fallout 3 to New Vegas. In Fallout 3, despite it being 200 years after the war, pretty much every part of civilization is covered in trash, dirt, holes in the wall, etc. Even in places like Rivet City where they have people sweeping the floors, it's still filthy in there. New Vegas, comparatively, looks more like the world should after 200 years. For the most part you're only going to find dirt and trash everywhere in poor/raider areas, such as the Powder Gangers' camps, Freeside, and Fiend camps. Places like the owned homes of Goodspring, the Strip, Novac, and so forth are actually quite spick and span minus a few stains and wear+tear. It really makes it seem like the world is slowly recovering and isn't just one giant trash heap. The only truly clean building I can recall in FO3 is Tenpenny Towers.
World Design: 1
Mm, the world design is positively perfect. It really seems like they designed the game with Alternate Start mods in mind. As an example, by the time most players hit Vegas, 2000 caps is going to be pocket change after all the exploring and looting we've done, thus the check to enter Vegas means nothing for us. However, if you're starting near the Strip, that check is going to be a real problem and you'll probably have to run around doing odd jobs for the Kings or the residents of North Vegas, or go fight in the Thorn until you've saved up enough prize money to get in. Another example would be there's dialogue for almost every situation. Normally you'd come to Sloan from the south, and a man will stop you and warn you not to go north because of the deathclaws, but if you come from the north he'll be amazed and call you insane for getting through the deathclaws. The game's really built around you and your actions, not the other way around. I've heard people complain about the game railroading you into going only 1 way into the beginning but honestly I find this laughable. To get past the deathclaw horde past Sloan all you need to do is go as far down as Primm, and you'll find Stealth Boys at the Steve Bison Hotel you can use to sneak past. Or you could go work for the Powder Gangers for a while, and then betray them to the NCR on their last mission. Their leader's safe has stealth boys in it. That's what I love about the world design. There may be a clear obstacle in front of you but there are almost always ways around it. The only problem I have with it are the invisible walls placed on top of some of the cliffs and mountain regions but honestly I never ran into that many of them except around Vault 22.
Atmosphere: 1
Oh, New Vegas's atmosphere is lovely. My favorite time to be outside during the game is at sunset, the sunsets are very nice. Unlike FO3 where the sky's pretty much always smoggy/cloudy, in New Vegas you can usually see clear blue skies and starry nights. It makes exploring around much more.. nice to look at. The game is also very good at knowing how to set the mood of places. You'll have just made it to what looks like a robot facility, and once you step inside, the eerie music will start up. As you walk around and read terminals in this falling-apart building, you'll find things aren't quite as normal as they seem. For example in one of these buildings I found terminal entries from different workers around the building and wondered why I didn't see any skeletons or anything lying around. The whole place was empty save for some deranged Mr. Handies. Then I found out why. A Mr. Handy bot had trapped the survivors of the place behind a locked closet door, where they ended up suffocating. And that's just in one building. There's so many dark atmospheric places and areas to discover.
Suspension of Disbelief/Balance: 1
Unlike FO3, you're never left wondering what anyone has to eat or drink. Many of the communities have farms, and those that don't have explanations as to why, such as brahmin traders delivering food from farming communities to feed them. Water is steadily pumped to a lot of farms either from a source spring or from Lake Mead through a functioning pipe system (which can be seen very clearly at Camp Golf). There's nothing really "silly" per say unless you have Wild Wasteland selected as a trait. There's no skeletons in a 69 position or a teddy bear on the toilet, or at the very least, not often enough to be noticeable. The tone of the game is quite serious and everything just sucks you deeper into the game.
Main Story Writing: 1
There are so many ways to affect the main story of the game. There are 3 major factions in the Mojave, yourself + Yes Man, and a bunch of smaller factions scattered throughout the wastes. Every single faction, even small ones like Goodsprings, have no less than 6 endings and at most, up to an astonishing 13. Just look at all these endings! http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Fallout:_New_Vegas_endings Every faction you meet and befriend will end up helping you in some way on the Dam so long as you convince them to fight for you. And if not on the dam, then they'll help in subtler ways, like providing medicine to your faction choice. Once again, it really is all about you! When it comes to the main story you can befriend everyone and give everyone the best ending possible, or you can kill literally everyone and rule over a city of graves and bones. There are no "essential" npcs in this game, anyone is a potential target, and the story works around this amazingly well.
Side Story Writing: 1
Unlike in FO3 where quite a few sidequests were fairly linear with only 1 or 2 choices thrown in, New Vegas's sidequests have a plethora of choices you can make, leading to different quest endings. Beyond the Beef, for example, has at minimum 6 different ways to complete it. Companions all have their own sidequests unlike in FO3 where your companions were just pack mules. Some companions even have 2 quests, such as Veronica and Rex. (though Rex's 2nd quest only activates if you have the Wild Wasteland trait). And even the companion quests usually have 2 endings that can drastically change how your partner views the world. For instance, you can turn Boone, an ex-NCR sniper, from a distant but calm and collected man into a vengeful, cold-blooded killer who will take any job as long as the pay is good. It really is astounding just how many choices there are when it comes to quests.
Faction Story Writing: 1
The 3 main factions in the game, not including yourself, are the NCR, the Legion, and Mr. House. All 3 of these factions vie for the control of Vegas and want to rule it. Every faction in New Vegas is morally grey, and it's honestly very hard deciding who is right in the end. Do you go with the NCR, who essentially wants to recreate old world America, but is also rife with corruption in its upper staff and stretching themselves too thin to where it doesn't seem like they can reasonably hold the Mojave without some major reforms? Do you help the Legion, a faction that wants to turn America into a new Rome, complete with slavery and crucifixion, but who also seem to bring order and quell anarchy wherever they're in charge? Or do you go with Mr. House, someone who's been around since pre-war, is an absolute genius, seems to have a very well-put together plan, but is extremely cold and can be comparable to an autocratic dictator if put in power? Each factions have their own points, goals, strategies, and ideas of what to do with the Mojave, and it's hard to say who's absolutely right. That's not even including all the smaller factions throughout the Mojave who you can also help, such as the Boomers or the Powder Gangers. On top of all that, if you so wish it, you don't need to side with the NCR, Legion, or Mr. House. You can just take Vegas for yourself with a giant robot army and rule it as you see fit! Sorry for the repetition, but once again, it's all about your choices, and how you go about the game. It's all up to you as to who wins the Mojave.
Dialogue: 1
The dialogue is so rich in this world! Pretty much anyone you talk to has at minimum 3 or 4 different questions/dialogue paths you can take with them. Your SPECIAL and skills affect dialogue with certain people quite a bit (for example, if you want to get the most out of Mr. House, you're going to need a high barter and speech check since the man is very smart). Fallout 3 had this, but not to the same degree as New Vegas. You really can take a pacifist route through every single mission. There is ALWAYS a nonviolent solution to every single quest, including the final bosses of the game. It really is incredible how much choice (there's that word again) you have when it comes to the dialogue, and how much your build path affects it. The faction leaders are especially talkative as to why you should join them.
NPC Design: 1
Given that Obsidian had to work with the Gamebryo Engine, I'm very surprised with the amount of unique faces they managed to pump out. Unlike in FO3, where every 1 out of 5 NPCs look exactly the same (For example, Old Lady Palmer and Old Lady Dithers have the exact same face, as do Herbert Dashwood and Walter), almost all NPCs have a different face. The ones that have a copy-pasted face are ingeniously covered up, such as with NCR Facemask armor or Legion Decanus helmets. The most copy and paste you'll see is amongst Fiends, and that's just because they're a huge raider group that takes up a big swathe of the map. And even then they're pretty diverse facial-wise. It's amazing how they managed to make so many different faces given how clunky the engine they were working with is when it comes to character creation.
Combat: 1
Iron sights improve the combat from FO3 so much. I'm not constantly having to go into VATS just to make sure my aim is alright. Guns are very responsive, and enemies are intelligent. They won't just run at you (well, the Fiends will, but they're super druggies so that's to be expected), they'll usually try to circle around you and flank you from different angles or come at you from behind, such as the Legion Raiding Parties you'll encounter if you piss off the Legion.
AI: 1
Honestly I never had many AI problems in FO3, and I certainly didn't in New Vegas. The only real AI problems I've had in New Vegas are that sometimes your companions will shoot at enemies really far off and alert them to your presence from a mile away, but this is usually just with Boone and ED-E, which I attribute to their perks increasing perception and enemy visibility, so it makes sense they'd be aggro'd to much further away enemies.
Weapon/Armor Design: 1
Unlike in FO3, where unique weapons looked exactly the same as their normal counterparts, New Vegas weapons are actually unique. They went all out with unique weapon designs, such as Maria, the Ranger Sequoia, Vance's 9MM, and That Gun. Some designs are taken from FO3, sure, but it doesn't detract from all the different designs of unique weapons. The artwork on them really makes them stand out. (For instance, have you seen Maria's handle? It actually has the Virgin Mary painted on it! Also Pew Pew, the laser gun you get from the bottle cap quest, actually has a sunset sarsaparilla star bottle cap glued to its side) They went into such painstaking detail on things we probably wouldn't even see in normal gameplay, and I love it.
Crafting: 1
Once again, so much detail into something I doubt that many players even used or noticed. There's so many hidden recipes to find for medicines, tonics, and foods. If you can find something in game that has an effect on your character, there's pretty much a guarantee you can craft it. From soups to stimpaks, everything is craftable so long as you have a high Survival count. It's great, and I personally love scavenging the wastes looking for rare ingredients so I can make a fine dining experience for myself. And that's just with crafting items, you can also find weapon mods that you can attach to your weapons and make them a lot better. I promised I wouldn't bring up any other Fallout games besides FO3, but I do need to take a jab at FO4 here. New Vegas, despite coming out nearly 6 years prior, has way more useful gun mods and recipes than FO4 has.
Player Character: 1
Unlike in FO3 where your backstory is pretty much 100% predetermined outside of your character's personality, in New Vegas you're just a courier who gets shot in the head. A clean slate and a clean start. Your character can be the most charismatic charming NCR soldier the world has ever known, or a complete psychopath who butchers the entire town that just saved his life and goes on to kill everyone else he meets. It's completely up to you, and the game's dialogue system and gameplay allow you to pretty much mold your character however you wish. You can even decide your character's sexual orientation with certain perks (unlike in FO3 where you're railroaded into being straight and the only hooker in game is female and sleeps only with males).
Player Creation: 0.5
I like sculpting a character in New Vegas, and I feel like you can really make someone who looks completely different than everyone else in the game. The problem is that it's basically just the character creator from FO3 with no changes whatsoever. I'm not giving this the full point because I feel like they should've added on to FO3's player creation and gave us some more options, at least when it came to hair and beard styles.
Attributes/Skills/Perks: 1
The perk system really lends itself to the whole "be whoever you want to be" aspect of the game. You can be a nerdy guy who gets bonus perception from glasses and is really proficient with laser weapons and dealing with robots, or you can be a big hulking stupid goliath who can carry over 400 pounds of stuff and is able to eat everything, (complete with animation) from humans to cazadors who calls Caesar's Legion Seizure's Luncheon. There's so many different perks based on how you build your character. In FO3 the first few levels pretty much force you to pick perks that only increase your skill count (such as Scoundrel or Daddy's Boy), but in New Vegas you can go ahead and decide who your character is from the get-go. (the gay/lesbian/straight perks are there right off the bat, and cannibal comes in at level 4, as examples).
Loot: 1
Who doesn't like loot? Everyone loves finding unique stuff, and there is where New Vegas delivers. Almost every place in the game has some sort of secret weapon to find, or a mod to grab, or a new recipe to learn. Some places like the caves are a little empty, but there's usually a quest associated with it that makes going in there worth it. (for example, some of the more sparce loot spots in the game are involved with Red Lucy's quest, wherein you find monster eggs for her arena, which nets you a lot of caps and eventually her love) So usually if a place seems empty, you'll usually end up coming back there due to a quest and THEN you'll be able to find the special loot. (another example I can think of is Veronica's personal quest, wherein you look for special weapons/items that could benefit the Brotherhood and convince them to end the Lockdown. This ends up taking you to at least 2 places that didn't seem to have anything special inside before the quest)
Voice Acting: 1
Unlike in FO3, pretty much every named character has a unique voice. From NCR Lieutenant Boyd to Fantastic, almost all named characters have a voice unique to them. They all do a very good job, from sounding giddy to drunk to menacing, everyone does a really good job at immersing the player into the world. Which is impressive given how much dialogue there is in the game. Some of those men and women must have been in the recording booth for days!
Player/NPC interaction: 1
As mentioned numerous times throughout this review, the world reacts to you and your deeds. This is nowhere better shown than player and NPC interaction. While in FO3 you could nuke Megaton and pretty much no one would react or give a shit, in New Vegas every action you do ends up being talked about by someone. I'll give an example. Let's say you ended up killing Benny on the Strip. Everyone will be talking about it all over the Mojave. They'll say things like "I heard one of the casino heads got murdered in his own joint" or "I heard there was a shootout at the Tops. Glad I wasn't there". This happens with many many quests you do, and thus, if you do a lot of quests, the NPCs are going to have a lot to say about it. You'll constantly hear people chattering about your deeds, although most of the time they won't know who exactly committed the deed. (though in specific missions people will congratulate you over your deeds or ask if you were the one who did such and such)
Replayability: 1
As of the last time I played New Vegas, I have clocked in exactly 505 hours of gameplay. There's so much replaybility with this game! Considering there's over 50 ending slides for the game and so many quests have more than 2 outcomes, you're going to want to play back through it just to see what could've happened if you'd taken a quest a certain way. I've replayed through the game fully 5 times, and replayed it partially at minimum 10 times. Playing through the entire game with a specific build and path in mind takes a while (my last full run took nearly 60 hours to completely beat) but it's definitely a fun experience every time. And it'll always be different because there's so many different ways to come at the game's main quest, side quests, and factions.
Exploration: 1
Even with over 500 hours of my life dedicated to this game, there's STILL things I've only found very recently. Because of how many different ways there are to build your character, and how a lot of places and quests have different outcomes depending on how you built him or her, there's a lot of places you may not see in a single playthrough or events you may not encounter. For example, this little gem only occurs if the following conditions are met. 1, you must not have completed That Lucky Old Sun. 2, you must not have grabbed the Euclid's C-Finder from the child who owns it in Freeside. 3, You must be doing Veronica's personal quest in order for this to work. And 4, you must have an intelligence of 3 or lower. That's a loooot of requirements just for one little easter egg, and there's multiple instances of very hidden secrets like this that you may never even see in all your time playing! (for the record this particular secret I'm about to show you appears to be a callback to Torr from Fallout 2)
Sound/Music: 1
The music in this game is just sublime. Once you get a patch that fixes Johnny Guitar playing every 5 minutes, it gets even better. The atmospheric music in this game fits for pretty much any situation the game throws at you, and it uses a lot of nostalgic tunes from FO1 and FO2 that fans are sure to recognize. There's even tracks you have to "unlock" so to speak, such as doing the quest "Talent Pool" at the Tops or by being in a very specific area of the map. Also the radio's music aren't all about the end of the world like FO3. In fact, not a single song in FNV's soundtrack has to do with the end of the world. I think it really brings back home the point that New Vegas isn't a post apocalyptic game, but a post-post apocalyptic game, and it shows the world being rebuilt slowly but surely instead of staying a dilapidated wreck like FO3's Capital Wasteland.
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